by Holly Webb
“Can’t you smell it?” she asked sweetly.
“No,” Rachel snapped back. Then she glanced at Emily, looking shocked at herself. She never, ever talked back to Katie.
Katie seemed surprised too. A reddish flush darkened across the tops of her cheeks, and she stopped smiling. “Only someone as sad as you would be friends with her.”
Rachel closed her eyes for a moment, as though she was nerving herself to do something crazy and dangerous, like jumping off a cliff. “I could say the same to you,” she said, gabbling it quite fast.
“What did she say?” Ellie-Mae asked indignantly after a moment. “Does she mean me?”
“Yes.” Rachel actually crossed her fingers this time, Emily noticed. “You’re welcome to each other. No one else likes you. Oh, except Lara, and that says a lot, doesn’t it?”
“Rachel!” Emily whispered, forgetting about the river-girl in the gallery she was so shocked. She wrapped her hand round her friend’s crossed fingers. Rachel had talked brave that morning, but Emily had never expected her to actually stand up to Katie and her friends.
“No one likes you either,” Katie said furiously.
“Brilliant comeback…” Rachel said in a scornful voice, gripping Emily’s hand. She’d actually gone white, and Emily really hoped she wasn’t going to be sick.
Some of the other girls in their class were watching now, the ones sitting on the other side of the aisle and in front of Rachel and Emily. Their little bit of the coach had gone very, very quiet.
Emily was sure that Katie had noticed this too. She moved so that she was looking over the back of her seat instead, and she stared down at Rachel. They looked just as pale as each other.
“I could spit on you from here.” Katie hissed.
“Only stupid people who can’t think what to say spit,” Rachel said disgustedly, but she twitched as though she was scared that Katie would do it.
“You spit at her and I’ll tell,” Emily hissed, deciding that now was the time to join in.
“Oh, little smelly Emily’s going to tell,” sing-songed Katie. “Would that be Mrs Daunt you were telling, Emily? Because I don’t think you’re her favourite person right now, you know. Not since you starting vandalizing valuable paintings.”
“I didn’t.” Emily rolled her eyes.
Katie shrugged. “Maybe. It looked like you did. And if you tell Mrs Daunt anything, I’ll tell her I saw you get out a pen, and you were just about to write on that painting, except you got caught first. Who’s she going to believe?”
“Emily,” Rachel said flatly. “You’ve been caught bullying people before. Mrs Daunt knows what you’re like. Stupid, and mean.”
There was a sharp indrawn breath from the girls sitting around them, and even people sitting further away were leaning round to see what was going on now. Emily swallowed worriedly. Katie had a reputation to keep up. If Rachel kept taunting her, Katie would have to do something incredibly horrible to keep everyone scared of her.
Katie obviously decided exactly the same thing. Her dark eyes hardened, and developed a glassy sheen like black marbles. Then she darted out one plump white hand and wound it swiftly into Emily’s hair – Emily’s, not Rachel’s, as though she knew who was to blame for this strange rebellion. She jerked her hand back, yanking at Emily’s hair so hard that she yelped and her eyes filled with tears.
Everyone gasped, and most of the girls around them pretended not to be looking. Katie sat back with a hank of Emily’s hair still wrapped round her hand. She smiled triumphantly at Emily, who was clutching the side of her head and still gasping.
“She pulled your hair out!” Rachel whispered, horrified.
“I know,” Emily agreed, grimacing as she rubbed her hand across her eyes. “I can feel it.”
“Still want to tell?” Katie murmured through the gap between the seats.
Emily didn’t say anything – for once, she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“What’s the matter?” Robin stared at Emily, frowning.
“Nothing.” Emily walked on down the road.
“No, there is; you look funny.”
Emily glanced round at him in surprise. Rachel had lent her a hair band and she’d pulled her hair back in a loose sort of knot. She’d checked in the loos before they left school – she definitely couldn’t see the tiny bare patch. She was sure Robin couldn’t either. “I don’t…” she said doubtfully.
Robin flicked a glance under his eyelashes at Rachel and muttered, “I’ll talk to you at home.”
He couldn’t say what he wanted to say in front of Rachel, Emily realized. It probably meant that he wasn’t looking at her in the way anyone else would. Perhaps it was the same sort of thing as the miserable fog feeling he’d sensed around the girls the day before. He could sense what had happened to her. Or at least that something had.
“You don’t want to tell him?” Rachel whispered as Robin stalked away in front of them.
“He’d probably tell my mum.” Emily shrugged. “I just don’t feel like turning it into a big drama. She’d be up at the school in minutes, having a go at Mrs Daunt. My life wouldn’t be worth living.”
“I suppose,” Rachel said doubtfully. “But maybe someone should tell the school. She pulled out a chunk of your hair!”
“I’ll make her stop somehow,” Emily said wearily. “I don’t want to bring my parents into it, that’s all.” She frowned, imagining what her mum could do to Katie if she felt like it. She wouldn’t use magic, of course, she was far too sensible. But she might be tempted to. And Emily didn’t want her to be upset.
Emily shook her head firmly. It didn’t hurt that much now. No real harm done, she told herself.
Providing Katie wasn’t actually a witch. If she was, what might she do with a lock of Emily’s hair?
Emily shuddered, imagining cruel spells – perhaps one of those wax dolls with pins stuck in. She fluttered her fingers cautiously and glanced down at her feet as she walked on. No bits of her hurt yet… Then she shrugged crossly. She was worrying herself for nothing. Katie was truly horrible, but being able to spot people’s weaknesses didn’t make her a witch. There was no magical excuse for any of this. Katie was only normally nasty. Emily and Rachel had to not let her get to them, that was all.
And I won’t, Emily said to herself firmly, snatching back the hand that was fingering the torn spot on her scalp. I just need to work out how.
“You’ll be all right?” Rachel said to her anxiously as they came up to the house gate, where Robin was waiting, hopping from foot to foot impatiently.
“Fine,” Emily gave her a tiny smile.
Rachel nodded. She looked very determined, though still a bit white around the mouth. “We won’t let her keep doing this sort of stuff, I promise.”
“Come on.” Robin glared at Emily, and she shifted her school bag on her shoulder uneasily. He could tell she was hiding something, and he wanted to know.
“Bye!” she called to Rachel, and hurried up the path, hunting for her key, with Robin trotting behind her. The mermaid door knocker on the front door flicked its tail, and then the brassy little face twisted and peered down at her curiously. Maybe it wasn’t only Robin who could sense what had been happening. Her parents had strengthened the door spells after Emily accidentally blundered through, so she supposed it was like an extra-sensitive burglar alarm now. The whole house was guarding her. Emily wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.
“Ssshhh!” Robin hissed at her, shutting the front door very quietly.
“What?” Emily blinked at him, surprised, and he pulled her up the stairs after him. He stopped when they were round the turn in the stairs, and sat down, staring at her determinedly.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Emily murmured, but she glanced away from him. His dark blue eyes we
re suddenly so water-like that they seemed to swirl and ripple, and she would have told him anything if she had looked at him much longer.
“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” Robin said crossly. “I was trying to spell you, and you broke away! You’ve lived with us for too long, that’s what it is. You’re too used to magic.”
“Really?” Emily asked him, feeling rather pleased. When she’d first begun to see the odd things in the house, she’d wondered if maybe she had some strange sort of powers. It had been a terrible disappointment when she found out that actually, she was the only one of them who didn’t. So it was good to know that at least the little scrap of magic that had grown inside her was useful for something.
“Really. It must be because you’ve been around me and Lark and Lory so much. You’ve got an immunity. Because when I looked at you like that you should have been completely hypnotized, and told me exactly what’s been going on!”
Emily sighed, and decided that Robin wasn’t going to leave her alone. She’d have to tell him – after all, if she didn’t, he’d just go and find out about it from someone at school.
“Katie Meadows was teasing me, that’s all. You know what she’s like.”
Robin blinked thoughtfully. “Oh. That girl who looks a bit like a slug?”
“Does she?” Emily frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“To me she does. She’s slimy. What did she do?”
Emily was silent for two seconds too long. “She was just mean,” she said unconvincingly.
“And?” Robin hugged her, and then he whispered sweetly in her ear, much more sweetly than he ever usually spoke to her. “I can make you tell me, you know.”
“Oh, all right!” Emily snapped. “If you must know, she pulled my hair.”
Robin didn’t look convinced. “I pull your hair, Emily, all the time. What did she really do?”
“You don’t pull chunks of it out.”
Robin sucked in a breath through his teeth and stroked his thin fingers across the side of her hair. Emily could feel each separate hair tingling with his magic, and she was sure that when she next looked in a mirror, her hair would be about three times more curly than usual. But probably nice and shiny too.
“I’ll make all her hair fall out,” Robin snarled as he came across the raw patch, and Emily flinched. “How dare she?” There was a sudden warmth all through the roots of Emily’s hair, and the dull ache of the torn patch disappeared.
“Thanks!” Emily explored it carefully with her fingertips, but now it was just a patch of soft new skin.
“I can’t make the hair grow back all at once,” Robin said. He sounded rather annoyed about it. “Mum could, but I’m not strong enough.”
“Don’t tell her!”
Robin rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to.” Then he smiled. The smile made his eyes sparkle, but Emily shivered. It was an icy sort of glint, and he looked furious, even with the smile. “I may not be able to make your hair grow, but I can deal with the rest of it quite well by myself.”
“What do you mean?” Emily asked suspiciously. “You don’t need to deal with anything. It’s nothing to do with you!”
Robin shook his hair back, and Emily could see the pointed tips of his ears, and the unnatural whiteness of his teeth. “You’re my sister. It’s up to me to protect you.”
Emily gave a little snort of laughter at the thought of her eight-year-old brother protecting her. But the tightness that had been knotting up inside her chest seemed to ease a little more every time Robin said something like this. “Since when do you need to protect me?” she demanded. “You don’t go round protecting Lark and Lory, do you?”
Robin shrugged. “You can’t fly away. No slug gets to hurt my sister.” He frowned and ran a finger round one of Emily’s curls. “What shall we do to the slug?” Then he looked round at her excitedly. “Oh, we could turn her into one for real!”
“No!” Emily squeaked. “We can’t! Not even Katie Meadows deserves to be a slug.”
“Not for ever…” Robin suggested pleadingly. “Only for a day, maybe.”
“How are we supposed to explain that she’s disappeared?” Emily shook her head violently. “Honestly, Robin, you can’t.”
Robin looked at her suspiciously. “Are you just going to let her get away with it? You do that with me and Lark and Lory all the time, you know. You’re such a wuss.”
Emily stood up. “You put spells on me!” she snapped. “I can hardly do that back, can I? What do you expect?”
Robin shrugged. “You’re just too nice. Look, can I at least put a slug in Katie’s sandwiches? Not even by magic? I’ll just catch one in the garden.”
“No,” Emily snapped, although the thought of Katie Meadows chewing a slug was very, very tempting. “You can’t. I’ll sort it out! I’ll do something. I just haven’t worked out what yet.”
But as she hurried upstairs, she glanced back and caught Robin smiling to himself – a thoughtful, planning sort of smile.
Emily was curled up on her window seat with her chin on her arms, scowling at the misty glass. Everything around her reminded her of the fairy world. She couldn’t even walk past the mirror on the landing without feeling guilty.
What was she going to do about the fairy girl from the riverbank?
Emily shook her head, trying to clear it a little. There were far too many things to worry about, what with Robin obviously planning to take some sort of revenge on Katie. But the girl was the most important. Emily could still see her white, frightened face, and the way her fingers had clung to the rock.
If she hadn’t promised her parents, she would have gone down to the landing right now and tried to open the door inside the mirror. Emily had almost gone through it once, when that same river-fairy girl had beckoned her in. Except that now, of course, the guard spells on all the doors had been strengthened. Emily wasn’t sure that she’d be able to open it but she had to go back somehow, and help. She would have wanted to, even if it didn’t feel like paying back a debt. There had been such fear in the girl’s silvery-green eyes. She couldn’t leave her there, being hunted.
But her dad had said she wasn’t to go. The worlds don’t mix, he’d said. In other words, stay out and don’t interfere. It was no good asking him or Mum for help.
She glanced round. There were light footsteps on the stairs. Her mother, at a guess. And the tappity-tap of claws, so she had Gruff with her. Emily smoothed the hair over the tiny bare patch on her scalp and tried to look not in the slightest bit like she was planning a trip through a forbidden door.
Her mother opened her purple bedroom door and smiled at her. “Emily! You and Robin should have come and told me you were back. I was working on a design for a scarf and I didn’t see the time. I only knew you were home because Robin came and told me he wanted toast and he’d already eaten all the bread at breakfast.”
“Oh, there are some chocolate muffins left, in the tin in the cupboard.” Emily started to get up, but her mother sat down next to her on the window seat and pulled her back with an arm around her shoulders. Gruff sat down next to them and leaned lovingly on Eva. He adored her, and she loved him dearly, despite the dark hairs he left on all her fabric samples.
“Robin can find them himself. You know him, Emily, he’s probably on his second muffin already. Just because Robin’s hungry, it doesn’t mean you have to go running to feed him! You let him push you around too much. They all do.”
Emily gave a tiny shrug. It was true – but then, they were special, and she wasn’t.
Her mother leaned down and grabbed her shoulders. “I saw you think that! Don’t you dare!”
“I like cooking for all of you,” Emily murmured.
“I know. But you need to stand up for yourself sometimes.”
“I’m trying,” Emily said, with a sigh. First Rachel, then Robin, now Eva. Every
one seemed to be ordering her to stand up, be strong, and not let people push her around…
“Good. Now, we have to ward your room, remember? To stop you travelling in your sleep.”
“Oh…” Emily stared up at her mother in dismay. She had completely forgotten what Eva had said at breakfast. She had been depending on her dreams to help her rescue the river fairy from the painting. She had travelled before, after all. And now she needed to. Surely it would happen again?
“Don’t worry!” Eva stroked her cheek. “Oh, Emily, don’t look like that. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sure you’re not likely to travel, not now we’ve strengthened the guard spells. But just in case, we should make sure.”
Emily nodded slowly. “What do we have to do?”
Her mother looked around the room. “All you have to do is sit on your bed. And stop looking so worried!”
Emily managed a small smile, but she was thinking furiously. Was there any way she could defeat the spell? To leave a chink in its armour somehow? Even without the river girl’s desperate need, Emily hated the thought of shutting herself away from that amazing, magical place. She couldn’t help feeling that she belonged there too, just a little.
But there was nothing she could do. She settled herself on her bed, watching her mother cautiously. Gruff lay down on the floor with his huge chin on his paws. Emily eyed him. She knew he was watching her. He was a guard dog of some sort. Emily never dreamed her way to anywhere else when Gruff slept on her bed, she was almost sure.
“Not there, Gruff,” her mother said gently, snapping her fingers and beckoning the dog away from the bed. “I don’t want you mixed up in the spell.”
Gruff dipped his massive head in what looked like a nod, and moved back to stare at Emily from by the table.