Emily Feather and the Enchanted Door

by Holly Webb

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Look Out for More Books by Holly Webb

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  Emily leaned over her mum’s shoulder, hugging her carefully so as not to dribble the open tin of golden syrup that Emily was about to put in her flapjack mixture. “I like that one,” she said thoughtfully, pointing at the fabric sample her mum was holding out, a soft strip of blue scattered with flowers and tiny birds.

  “Not the red?” Her mum wafted it at her enticingly, so that the fierce bright-orange butterflies fluttered over the fabric. The red silk glittered, only a shade brighter than her mum’s hair.

  Emily blinked. For a second it had looked like one of the butterflies had lifted out of the fabric and floated idly across the kitchen to the window. She wrinkled her nose and squeezed her eyelids shut for a second. It was the bright sunshine getting in her eyes. “No, I really like the blue one. It’s prettier. Is it for a dress? Is this a new collection for the shop?”

  “Yes, we’re thinking about next summer’s clothes already. I think it’s going to be a skirt, this one,” her mum said thoughtfully. “A maxi-skirt, with jewels scattered through the flowers. They’ll have to be hand-sewn; it’ll be expensive.” She padded out of the kitchen, trailing wings of soft, sheer fabric behind her, so that she looked like a butterfly too.

  Emily giggled. When her mum was designing clothes, she sometimes forgot about everything else. Even meals. But then, she did make the most beautiful things, and not just for the shop; she made them for Emily and her sisters too. So it made up for having to make their own lunch, and dinner, a lot of the time.

  For Emily’s last birthday, her mum had made her a hat that looked like a cupcake, with pink icing and little sugar flowers on it. The kind of cake that Emily really loved making. The hat was one of her favourite things, and she wore it loads. It was much too hot for hats now, though. Emily leaned out of the window to breathe a bit. It was roasting in the kitchen, with the oven on. Still, it would be worth it. Flapjacks were one of her best recipes. She loved the way you just had to melt the buttery gooey mess together and stir a bit, and then it magically turned into cakey stuff when you cooked it.

  “Emily!” Lark was yelling at her from down the garden. “Ems! Are you coming out? You’ll melt if you stay inside all day!”

  “I’m coming in a minute,” Emily called back. “I just want to put these flapjacks in.”

  “It’s too hot for cooking! You’re mad! Honestly, Ems, I worry about you sometimes!” Lory joined in. “Come and sunbathe.”

  “I’m nearly done,” Emily shouted out of the window. “And it won’t stop you eating them, anyway, will it?”

  She scooped the mixture into the tin, and then made a face at the washing up. She’d pile it into the sink and leave it till later. No one would mind. Her mum looked like she was going to be shut up in her studio for hours anyway, and her dad was in the tiny room under the stairs where he wrote his books. He wrote scary fantasy novels, and he was quite famous. He used his full name for the books, though – Ashcroft Feather, instead of just Ash, which was what most people called him. He hadn’t even bothered coming out for lunch. He was stuck, he’d told everybody grumpily at breakfast, and he’d made Emily suggest ideas for really scary monsters while she was trying to eat her toast. It had slightly put her off her jam.

  Emily peered out of the window at the blazing sun and decided to tie her hair back. It was too hot hanging round her neck. She wandered over to the wooden dresser that took up one wall of the kitchen. There was a mug full of hairbands and bits of ribbon on there somewhere, she was sure. It was while she was picking out a band that she found the photo, tucked under one of Lark and Lory’s magazines. Emily pulled it out and stood it up on a shelf. She loved this photo. It was a rare one of all the children, sitting on the big old sofa in the living room. It had been taken when Robin was little – just turning from a baby into a boy, and losing his round, chubby face and the wispy, fair baby curls. His hair was darkening to red, and that pointed chin was starting to show. It was an odd photo, not much like other people’s family portraits. Lark and Lory looked serious, and Robin was staring wide-eyed at the camera. Only Emily was smiling, in the middle of Lark and Lory, a dark-eyed, dark-haired, golden-tanned five-year-old, with Robin clutched on her lap.

  The photo was in a little seashell frame, and it always lived on the dresser. But most of the time it was hard to see, because there was so much other stuff on there too. Fabric samples, and a scattering of beads. Homework. The dog’s comb. Sheets of manuscript from their dad’s latest novel, covered in scribble, and possibly torn into pieces. Vases of drooping flowers that Lark and Lory had brought in from the garden. But just occasionally, when it was tidy – which was usually only when her mum was lost for inspiration, and drifting around looking for something to do – the picture could be seen.

  “Why does Robin look like Lark and Lory, and not like me?” Emily had asked her mum once, picking up the frame and running her fingers over the dusty shells.

  Her mother had stopped on her way through to her studio, and stared at Emily for a second, her grey-blue eyes wide, before she smiled. “It just happens that way sometimes, Emily, flower. You got your looks passed on from another relative, I should think. It’s just like Lory’s yellow hair,” she added. “No one else in the family has hair like that. We’re all different.”

  Except that, actually, they weren’t. Lory had yellow hair, it was true, but her features were just like their dad’s. Her mum and dad actually looked quite alike too, Emily realized, sweeping a golden syrup drip off the side of the tin with her finger and sucking it as she went out into the garden. It was only her. She wished she knew whichever relative it was that she looked like.

  Emily’s house had a strange garden – it was the same size as all the other gardens on the street, but it seemed bigger somehow, and more private, because it was surrounded by trees. It was a useless sort of garden for football, or anything that needed a lawn, because there wasn’t one – but it was full of tunnels, and holes, and twisted old trees, and it was perfect for playing hide-and-seek. Lark and Lory were out there somewhere, but as Emily let herself out by the back door and stood hesitating on the step, she couldn’t see them at all. She could hear them, though: sharp, sweet giggling, and then a muttered comment and a riffle of pages, and another burst of laughter.

  “Lark! Lory!” She set off down one of the little brick paths, calling for them. The sun was blinding, and she held her arm up across her eyes, pulling her hot hair back into the band and making for the shade under a clump of thorn trees at the edge of the garden. Where were Lark and Lory hiding?

  Suddenly, Lark and Lory’s voices came to her, as clear as little ringing bells, or the sharp twittering of the birds gathered above her in the thorn tree.

  Emily stumbled on up the path. The sun was so bright that she was half-blinded, and she blinked as the light flickered, filtering down through the trees above her in dark bars of shadow and sunlight.

  “Emily, what are you doing?” one of her sisters giggled. A thin-fingered hand caught hers and pulled her down on to a rug laid over the mossy grass. Gruff, their huge black dog, opened one eye to see who’d turned up, grunted, and went back to sleep again.

  “Yo
u looked like you were about to fall over,” Lark said, wrapping an arm round her shoulders and staring worriedly into her eyes. “Are you OK? You look wobbly.”

  “I’m fine.” Emily stretched out on the rug next to her and peered at their magazine. “I guess you were right; I was melting indoors. It’s much nicer out here.”

  “You could have brought us a drink, Ems,” Lory complained.

  Emily rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. Lory was so bossy sometimes. Lark was a bit more easy-going, but now that her sisters had turned thirteen, they seemed an awful lot older than they had only a few weeks ago. Too old to hang around with their little ten-year-old sister, a lot of the time.

  Arguing with Lory and Lark was pointless. They always worked as a double act, and it was impossible to get the better of them. They were both staring at her now, and smiling, their heads together. The same smile, even though they weren’t identical twins, and didn’t, at first glance, look that much alike. Lark’s streaky brown hair was nothing like Lory’s golden blonde, and their eyes were different too; Lark’s were much darker. But now they couldn’t be anything but sisters.

  Emily twirled a strand of her own dark curly hair around one finger and peered down at the magazine. The girl in the photo had dark hair like hers, with a pretty scarf tied round it. She’d like something like that.

  “Are you going shopping in town later?” she asked Lark hopefully. “Can I come too?”

  Lark and Lory looked at each other thoughtfully, and then Lark said, “Maybe…”

  “She means no,” someone called from above their heads, and all three girls yelped in surprise. Lory threw the magazine at the red-haired boy leaning out of the tree above them.

  “Were you spying on us?”

  “Only a little bit,” Robin said, laughing. He flipped round so that he was hanging off the branch by his knees, and Emily shuddered.

  “Don’t do that! You’ll fall!”

  “No, I won’t…” Robin pushed against the tree trunk, so he was swinging. “I never fall,” he added smugly. “Unless I want to.” He swung his hands back up again, to grab one of the thinner branches, and then dangled himself down, kicking at Lory’s magazine, which was stuck halfway up the trunk. “There! Got it!” It fluttered to the ground, and Robin dropped after it, landing sprawled across Lark and Lory’s knees, and giggling as though it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

  Emily stared down at him. She didn’t look a bit like Robin either. He had blazing red hair like Eva, their mother, and light blue-grey eyes, and the same sharp chin and pale colouring as Lark and Lory. As he lay there giggling and wriggling away from Lark, who was tickling him, Emily could see his perfect white teeth.

  She curled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, half-watching her sisters teasing him. Then something landed in her hair, and she squealed, and Robin rolled away, hooting with laughter. “Serves you right for daydreaming!” he spluttered.

  “What is it? What is it?” Emily shook her ponytail frantically, batting at it with her hands. “Did you drop a spider on me? I’m going to strangle you, Robin Feather!”

  “It’s only a caterpillar…” Lark said soothingly, picking something out of Emily’s curls. She knew how much Emily hated spiders.

  “No, it isn’t.” Robin rolled his eyes. “She’s so scared of crawly things, I wouldn’t even drop a caterpillar on her. It’s just a catkin.”

  “So it is,” Lark agreed. “See, Emily? Nothing to be scared of.”

  Emily growled, still running her fingers through her hair, just in case. But she felt better, a bit now that Robin had teased her. It was such a little brother thing to do. She was just being silly.

  Of course she belonged.

  Emily and her best friend Rachel wandered home from school in the sun. Emily’s house wasn’t far, and Rachel and her mum only lived in the next road. Now they were in Year Five, they were allowed to walk by themselves, although of course they had to bring Robin too. He was ahead of them somewhere, so he could jump out and roar. He was having that sort of a day. Depending on how slowly they walked, they sometimes met Lark and Lory on the way back, as the secondary school was closer to home than Emily and Robin’s school.

  “I’m glad you’re coming back to ours for a bit,” Emily said happily. “It seems like we haven’t hung around together properly for ages.”

  Rachel sighed. “I know. I can’t believe I had to spend the whole weekend doing dance exams. My hair still aches, you know. It’s been up in a bun for days.”

  “Awww. It’s OK. We’ve got cake, that’ll help. I made flapjacks yesterday. I warn you, though, the house is a tip. Mum and Dad were both working all weekend and no one did any tidying up. Me and Lark and Lory and Robin watched two DVDs last night, and I don’t think any of us cleared up the popcorn Robin tipped all over the floor. Dad might have got rid of it, if he’s finished the bit of book he was stuck on.”

  “You’re so lucky,” Rachel sighed, and Emily looked round at her in surprise. Rachel’s mum and dad were divorced, and she was their only child. Rachel had a gorgeous, huge bedroom at her mum’s flat, and her dad was always taking her away with him on work trips to cool places. Her mum and dad gave her pretty much anything she asked for. Just occasionally, Emily thought how nice it would be to have her parents all to herself, like Rachel did. Not all that often though. She loved her mad, loud sisters, and Robin made her laugh.

  “You are! I’d love to have sisters like Lark and Lory to watch films with.” Rachel leaned close and whispered, “I wouldn’t even mind Robin sometimes.” She laughed at Emily’s disbelieving face. “At least there’d be someone else around! I just always end up watching TV on my own at home. Mum works so much.”

  “I suppose,” Emily said doubtfully. She didn’t want to agree too hard, in case she upset Rachel. She hadn’t thought about it before, but even though Rachel’s bedroom was gorgeous, she’d hate being mostly alone in that perfect, tidy flat. (Rachel’s mum had a cleaner in twice a week, and she even tidied Rachel’s room for her.) It was lovely there, but when Emily had sleepovers with Rachel, she worried about making a mess – sweet wrappers looked a lot worse on Rachel’s immaculate cream carpet than they did on her own creaky wooden bedroom floor. She put one arm round Rachel’s shoulders. “At least you don’t have big sisters teasing you all the time. And Robin pretended to drop a spider on me at the weekend. I was really cross with him.”

  “Uuugh…” Rachel shuddered. Then she said suddenly, “Is there a sort of bird called an Emily?”

  Emily stared at her – it was such a weird question, totally out of the blue. “No … I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Well, because I wondered if you all had bird names. Lark and Robin are definitely birds, and I’m pretty sure Lory is too. An exotic one. A bit like a parrot. My granddad used to have one, I think.”

  “Oh…” Emily frowned. It was an odd thought. “I don’t think Emily means all that much. I asked Mum once and she said it was just a Latin name.”

  “Huh.” Rachel sighed. “That’s good, though. If your name means something, you have to live up to it, don’t you? Do you know what Rachel means?”

  Emily shook her head. “Someone in the Bible?”

  “Sheep. Honestly, I’m named after a sheep.”

  “It doesn’t mean that,” Emily sniggered.

  “It does, I looked it up.” Rachel shook her head disgustedly. “Actually, I don’t think my mum knew that, she just called me it after my grandma, but I think she should have made an effort, don’t you? And don’t tell anyone!”

  Emily shook her head, still giggling. “I promise.”

  “Are you two coming?” Robin stomped up to them, looking impatient. “I can’t cross the road without you, remember? I want to get home.”

  Emily looked at Rachel and raised her eyebrows, and Rachel shrugged.

  “Mmm. OK
. Maybe I’m only jealous of your sisters.”

  After the things she and Rachel had talked about on the way home, Emily looked carefully at her house as they went through the front gate. She didn’t usually; it was just her house, the house on the corner. Messy, a little bit shabby, and surrounded by garden. She was used to it.

  The front gate creaked as they pushed it open, she noticed. Did it always? It was a nice noise, sort of friendly. The front garden was tiny, more like a bit of the big back garden that had squeezed round to the front to cover up the wheelie bins. The house itself was tall and thin – even taller because of the odd little turret that jutted out of the attic in one corner, like someone had borrowed a bit of a castle and randomly stuck it on to an oldish but otherwise normal-looking house.

  Everyone always assumed that the attic was Emily’s dad’s writing room, because of the turret – the little pointy witch’s hat of a tower looked exactly right for her dad’s sort of books. They were all about warriors and dragons and orcs and that sort of thing. But actually, it was Emily’s room, and there was a window seat running round the inside of the turret that Emily kept all her bears on. Which wasn’t quite so dramatic.

  The green front door had a brass mermaid door knocker that sent a hollow thumping through the house when anyone banged it. The mermaid generally looked bad-tempered, Emily thought, but then people hit her against the door all the time, so it was only to be expected.

  The stained-glass panels sent jewel-coloured streaks up and down the walls of the hallway as Robin flung the door open. He was gone, dropping his bag and kicking off his shoes before he made for the kitchen. Emily and Rachel followed him.

  “Are there any of those flapjacks you made yesterday left?” Robin asked hopefully, looking round the kitchen and sniffing like a questing hound.

  Emily pulled the tin out of one of the cupboards and handed it to him. “Leave some for us,” she said quickly, as he started to pile flapjacks on to one hand.