I laughed with pleasure, smiling to myself. She was definitely the best, most amazing friend anyone could ever have!
I watched her disappear into the night, the feathered charm trailing behind her — almost twice her size, blowing gently on the breeze as she flew farther and farther away. The moonlight caught the charm, its colors sparkling in the night sky, tiny flickers of light flashing and glinting.
And then I realized something. The smile drained from my face. No! It couldn’t be! I must be wrong!
I leaned out the window, peering into the night, straining to see clearly.
I watched carefully, holding my breath. Yes. I was sure. The material on the charm and Daisy’s butterfly wings!
They were exactly the same.
“Can you see her?”
“I’m just checking now. Yes, I’ve got her here on my radar. She’s on her way back.”
“Has she got it?”
“It looks like it. There’s a very strong indication of something coming with her, and it’s showing a perfect match for us. I don’t know what it is, but my SuperCell says it’s one hundred percent linked with this mission.”
“And she’s bringing it back?”
“Yes, she’s coming through the village now. She’s heading for the river, coming past the shops. Hold on, she’s stopped. Wait — what’s happening?”
“What? What is it?”
“No, it’s OK. I think she’s just stopped for a rest. She’s moving again.”
“Good. We need her here as soon as possible.”
“Hold on. Something’s not right. She’s moving again — but in the opposite direction. And there’s a voice. Can’t pick up the words, but my SuperCell is showing strong recognition — and a warning light!”
“What is it? What’s happening?”
“She — she’s gone off the radar.”
“What do you mean, gone off the radar? How can that happen?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just stopped working. Let’s not panic just yet.”
“She might be in trouble.”
“We’ll give it a few moments. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“And if she’s not?”
“If she’s not? We — we have no contingency plan.”
“No contingency? With a top-level mission like this?”
“I know, I know. It looked like a straightforward maneuver.”
“So what happens if it fails? If she’s gone missing for good?”
“Look, calm down. We’ll cross that rainbow when we get to it. We don’t need to panic just yet.”
“You’d better hope you’re right — for everyone’s sake.”
“Daisy!” I called out into the night. “Wait!”
She flew on, farther and farther away. “Daisy, wait! Come back!” I shouted, leaning as far out of the window as I could. But she hadn’t heard me. She flew on and on, a tiny bright light in the sky, smaller and smaller. First a dot, and then she was gone.
I slumped on the floor beside the window.
“Philippa?” Mom’s face appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She climbed up a couple of steps and poked her head through the trapdoor. Glancing first at the bed, she looked around the room and saw me sitting on the floor. “Darling, are you all right?” She hoisted herself up into the bedroom and came to sit down beside me.
“I’m fine,” I said, suddenly realizing I’d better think of a good reason to have been shouting in the middle of the night. “Sorry,” I said. “I was having a bad dream and thought I’d get some fresh air. Did I wake you?”
“It’s OK, darling,” she said, putting an arm around me and stroking my hair. “Poor you. You haven’t been sleeping well, have you? First you sleep half the day away and then you have another nightmare.” She cuddled me closer. “I know!” she said. “I’ve got some lavender oil in our room. Shall I put some on your pillow? It might help soothe you.”
I shook my head. The last thing I wanted right now was something that would supposedly help me sleep. The lucky charm was supposed to help me sleep, and look how that had worked out!
“I think I just need to go back to bed,” I said, getting up.
Mom tucked me into bed and kissed my cheek. “I used to tuck you in like this every night when you were little,” she said, smiling down at me. “You slept as soundly as a baby. Now, just shut your eyes and sleep like a baby tonight, OK?” She kissed my forehead.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. I turned over, and she went back down the ladder.
But sleep was the last thing on my mind. There were too many thoughts getting in the way. Why had Daisy taken the charm away? What was so special about it? And was it really made of the same thing as her wings? Had I imagined that? Had my sleepy, dreamy mind connected them by mistake? Maybe I thought I’d seen Daisy’s wings in the sky, but really it had been the feathered charm all along. It was so dark at night, I couldn’t be sure.
By the time my eyes finally flickered closed and my mind stopped whirring like an out-of-control machine, I’d managed to convince myself I’d made a mistake. It must have been the charm I’d seen in the sky, not Daisy’s wings.
Before long, all the thoughts and questions melted away, and I sank into a dreamless sleep.
“We’ll come back for her at three o’clock,” Dad said to Mr. Fairweather. He turned to me. “Have a lovely day, sausage.”
“You, too,” I said, before Robyn dragged me inside the shop. We went over to her corner and slouched down into the beanbags.
“So, what d’you want to do?” she asked.
I’d half wondered about asking Robyn to show me Annie’s house, but it was pouring rain again today, so a walk in the woods wasn’t a great idea.
Even though the house had spooked me when I came across it on my own, now that I knew it was her house, it didn’t feel strange. Someone as friendly and lovely as Annie could never have anything scary going on in her home!
Except — what was it Robyn told me her dad had said? She wasn’t what she seemed. What did he mean by that?
Either way, something about the house intrigued me. It seemed that everything and everyone I met here had a hundred question marks following behind them.
I wanted to talk about fairies with her, ask her what she’d seen, but I decided I’d wait for her to bring up the subject. And I wanted to talk about the house, ask her if her room was the one in the attic — but this felt too sensitive, too. I got the feeling she’d clam up on me again if I was too direct. I already knew her well enough to know she’d open up about things when she was ready to, not when she was pushed into it.
“You choose,” I said.
Robyn jumped out of the beanbag and reached down to pull me out of mine. “Come on — let’s hang out upstairs,” she said. “I’ll show you our apartment.”
We were heading for the door that led out of the back of the shop when her dad called her over. “I have to duck into the post office,” he said. “Promised Mrs. Metherson I’d get this book to her by tomorrow. Will you girls keep an eye on things for me for a few minutes?”
“Sure, Dad,” Robyn said.
The doorbell tinkled behind him as he scuttled out with the package under his arm. Robyn took up her place on a high stool behind the counter. “How can I help you?” she asked in a funny voice.
I laughed. “I’m looking for a rare book,” I said, playing along.
“Absolutely,” Robyn trilled. “Rare books are our specialty. What is it you’re looking for?”
I thought for a moment. What could it be? I wanted to think of something crazy and outlandish. But then I had another thought. Maybe I could find out more about something I really, actually wanted to know about.
“Butterflies!” I said. “I want to know all about butterflies.”
As soon as I’d spoken, a shadow fell across Robyn’s face. She stopped smiling, stopped playing along.
“What? What is it?” I asked. “What have I said?”
Robyn tried to
wave it off. “No, nothing. Sorry,” she said. She forced her mouth into a smile, but I wasn’t convinced.
“Robyn, you can talk to me, remember? What is it? You can tell me anything.”
She slumped on her chair, suddenly looking small and frail. “It’s just — well, Mom used to love butterflies. We even had a butterfly house in a shed in the back.”
I pictured the backyard. I couldn’t remember having seen a shed.
“Dad tore it down after she died,” Robyn said, reading my mind. “It was the same day he had the argument with Annie. It was so awful. He came home and went out into the garden. I’d never seen him in a mood like that. It was as though he had a black cloud over his head, following him around. He got an ax from the back porch and went straight outside with it.” Robyn looked up, her eyes faraway and sad. “He went over to the shed and smashed it to pieces,” she said.
“What about the butterflies?”
She shook her head. “They’d already gone, anyway. When Mom got sick, Annie used to come over and look after her while Dad was at the shop. A few days before — before the end, Mom said she couldn’t look after the butterflies anymore, so Annie took them away. She said she’d look after them.”
That explained one of the things I’d seen at Annie’s. All the butterflies flitting around the house.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“The shed collapsed after about three swings of his ax — but he kept going. I tried to make him stop. I was yelling and screaming at him, but it was as if he didn’t even hear me or see me. It was as if I wasn’t there. He just kept going. Smashing it into smithereens. When he’d finished, he was filthy and sweating. He stood looking at the smashed-up bits of wood all over the garden. Just stood there.”
“What did you do?”
“I was scared. I’d never known my dad to do anything like that in his life. Eventually, he turned to me — but it was weird. It was as though he was looking through me, past me to something else. His eyes were a million miles away.” Robyn shivered. “Then something changed. Like he came back to the present or something. He looked down at his hands, at the ax. Then he looked back at me. He said he was sorry. Then he took the ax inside and came back out with some trash bags and started cleaning up. He said, ‘We’ll burn this in the fireplace. It’ll keep us warm,’ and I just nodded and helped him clean it up. We burned it that night.”
Robyn fell silent. I didn’t know what to say. I wished I hadn’t mentioned butterflies and brought it all up. I loved it that she could talk to me like this; it made me feel special and made me want to tell her all sorts of things about myself as well. She looked so sad, though, and I wished we could get back to how it had been earlier, having fun and laughing. But now that she was talking about the house, it made me think of something else, too.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Of course,” she said vaguely.
It didn’t feel like the right time, but then there probably wasn’t a right time, and I really wanted to know. “Did you have the upstairs room?” I asked.
Robyn looked at me blankly.
“At your old house,” I said, my face flushing with awkwardness. “Was your bedroom the one in the attic?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”
I smiled. “I thought so. That’s where I’m staying.”
Robyn smiled back. “Cool,” she said. “I’m glad.”
She hadn’t lost that faraway look in her eyes, and I was still trying to work out how to lighten things up again when the doorbell tinkled and a woman came in.
“Hello, dear,” she said to Robyn with a smile. “Are you running the shop today?”
“Only for a bit,” Robyn said. “Can I help you?”
“I wondered if I could order a book. It’s for my niece. She’s living abroad and has asked me if I could get hold of it for her. Now, what was it called? Hang on — I’ve got it written down in here somewhere.” While the woman rummaged in her bag, I wandered around the shop. There were so many books crammed onto every shelf, and piles of them were on the floor, too.
Robyn caught my eye. “Just a minute,” she said.
“I’ll just use the bathroom,” I said. “Where is it?”
“Through there, second door on the right. Go through the stockroom, and it’s at the back.”
I turned to go.
“Wait. You’ll need this.” Robyn reached under the counter and brought out a set of keys. “It’s the long one with the yellow tab.”
I took the keys.
“Ah, found it!” The woman pulled a torn piece of paper out of her bag and handed it to Robyn as I let myself out through the back of the shop.
Second door on the right, through the stockroom. I fumbled for the key and pushed the door open. Wow! It was crammed virtually from floor to ceiling with books of every shape and size. Boxes and boxes were stacked on top of one another, no doubt containing more books. There were probably almost as many books in here as there were in the shop!
I took a step toward the back of the room, tripping over a single wide box in the middle of the floor. I pulled myself up — and that was when I saw it! Hanging from a hook on the wall, just inside the door.
No! It couldn’t be. I must be mistaken!
I took another step toward it. I needed to see it more clearly. I stepped over a box on the floor and leaned across. It was! I was sure of it! A feathered charm just like the one in my room, the one Daisy had taken. In fact it was so similar, I could almost have sworn it was the exact same one — if that hadn’t been impossible!
Surely it wasn’t possible. I took another step toward the charm and leaned across a stack of boxes. It was just out of reach. I stretched across to grab it, then suddenly a shadow fell over the room.
I looked up, snatching the charm and grasping it in my hand behind my back.
Mr. Fairweather was in the doorway. His face was dark and full of shadows, and his small black eyes trained on me as he said in a voice like a knife cutting across my skin, “What do you think you’re doing in here?”
“I — I — I needed to use the bathroom,” I stammered. I clutched the charm in my sweaty palm.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing behind me.
“What?” I tried to look behind me without turning my body.
“In. Your. Hand,” he said, slowly and deliberately, as though he were talking to someone really stupid. Maybe he was. Maybe I was a complete idiot. I certainly couldn’t make sense of anything that was going on right now.
“I — it’s nothing,” I said nervously. My voice quivered and shook. That’s one way to make sure you sound guilty.
“Show me,” he said. He held out a hand and took a step closer toward me.
“I just thought it looked nice,” I said, my words tumbling out of me. If I could get the whole explanation out before he took it, maybe I could get out of this without being hurt. “I was on my way to the bathroom and had to climb over these boxes, and I just thought, ooh, that looks pretty, maybe I could take a closer look. That’s all.”
Mr. Fairweather was standing in front of me. His left eye twitched as he glared at me. “Give it to me.”
I figured I’d run out of options. I gave him the charm.
Mr. Fairweather took it from me, smoothing it out in his palm. “You’ve squashed it,” was all he said.
“Sorry — I didn’t mean to. I —” I wanted to ask what it was doing here. Up until last night, it had been in my room. At least, I was pretty sure it had. Maybe I’d gotten it wrong, and this was a different one altogether. That would make much more sense. I hadn’t really had a chance to look at it before he’d come in.
I gathered all the nerve I could and took a deep breath. I could feel the words clogging up my throat. Come on, just ask. What’s the worst thing that could happen? I didn’t want to think about that.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“Where did I get it?” he repeated, his eyes lost and far
away. Then he shook himself. “I bought it,” he said. “I buy and sell. I run a secondhand shop, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
It didn’t seem like the right time to point out that it was a secondhand bookshop, and that this wasn’t a book! I kept quiet.
“Now, hurry up and do whatever you came in here to do,” he went on as he turned to walk away. Pausing in the doorway, he added, “And then I think you should leave.”
“But I — I only just got here,” I said.
“Robyn has to help me in the shop. We’re busy this week. I shouldn’t have said she could see you. You need to go,” he repeated.
“But I wanted —” I stopped myself. I wanted to talk to Robyn, I was going to say. I was desperate to carry on our conversation from yesterday, find out what she knew about fairies, tell her what had happened to me. Tell her about Daisy — if it wasn’t disloyal of me to do that.
I went to the bathroom and tried to figure out what I was going to say — not just to Robyn but to my parents, too. I looked at myself in the mirror, feeling like a thief caught in the act, creeping around someone else’s belongings.
But, hold on a second! What exactly had I done wrong? I’d picked something up that I was pretty sure had until last night been mine. Well, OK, not exactly mine — but it wasn’t as if anyone else was coming to claim it. An abandoned old feathery charm stuck in the ivy on the side of the house. I’d found it. And now I’d seen it again — if it was the same one. I wasn’t even doing anything. I was just looking at it!
Would Robyn see it that way? Would she still want to be my friend, or would my curiosity have ruined her trust in me? One thing was for sure: I wouldn’t find out by standing in here!
I slunk back into the shop. Robyn came running over. “Dad told me about bumping into your parents at the post office,” she said.