The Crystal Mirror (3 page)

Laney stared into the mirror for a long time. Wings? That was impossible!

And she realised that she wasn’t standing any more; she was hovering just above the carpet. Her start of surprise launched her upwards, and she bumped her head on the ceiling. Trying not to laugh, she flew back down and landed clumsily on the bed. Flying was obviously harder than it looked.

She stood in front of the mirror again, this time willing her feet to stay on the floor. Even her skin looked different – almost glowing. But it was the wings that she couldn’t stop gazing at. They reached far above her head and curved down in a graceful arc to meet her back. She reached round to touch them. They were silky smooth. These weren’t eagle wings. Eagle wings were feathery. These weren’t like bird’s wings at all. She wasn’t sure exactly what they were, except that they were like the shape of a butterfly.

Her heart raced. Almost as if they were connected to her rising excitement, the wings began to beat and she found herself lifting off the ground again. She darted a look at her bedroom window, which was open just a little. Did she dare go out? After all, wings were for flying and she couldn’t do that properly in here.

She heard a snuffling cry from Toby’s room next door. He was probably making noises in his sleep
again. There were footsteps on the stairs and a door opened. It would be Kim going in to check on Toby.

Laney panicked. She didn’t want Kim to find her like this. She switched off the light and climbed under her duvet. She could pretend she was asleep if anyone came in.

She heard Toby’s door close and the footsteps paused outside her room. Then they went away, back down the stairs.

Laney let out a long breath and sat up in bed. In her haste, she hadn’t closed the curtains. The clouds had cleared, revealing the red full moon, now risen even higher in the sky. It cast an eerie glow over the houses and trees.

Laney thought she saw figures moving near the end of the lane, but when she opened the window wider and leaned out to look she couldn’t see anyone. She put a hand over her shoulder to touch her wings again, but they’d disappeared and she was back in her school clothes. Exhausted, she took them off and pulled on pyjamas before falling asleep. Dreams came to her, of rippling red water and a figure wearing a long black hood.

Laney woke up with a sense of purpose the next morning. Yesterday had been scary, but now she knew a bit more. She’d had some kind of transformation and now she had wings! At least,
she’d had wings for a few minutes last night.

She checked her back. Nothing. She tried closing her eyes and wishing for them to appear, but they didn’t.

Clearly her wings were a little random.

She stared at her gold-ringed eyes in the mirror. Maybe her new eyes and the wings were all connected with the disaster at the water fountain yesterday. She was sure she’d made that happen somehow. She just didn’t know exactly how.

Maybe she had some kind of powers and she should start by working out exactly what they were. She would begin by going back to the river. When she’d stumbled into it last night she had felt different – stronger somehow. She needed to work out why.

But if that dark figure was there… Laney shivered. She didn’t want to see
that
again, but maybe it had just been a joke – someone playing a trick in the dark. She hesitated. She had to go and find out more, and it was daylight now so there was nothing to be scared of.

Slipping out of the back door, she made her way down Oldwing Rise and cut through a field at the bottom of the lane. She wasn’t likely to meet anyone this way and she didn’t want people to see her
gold-ringed
eyes.

The footpath to the river felt different in daytime – safe and familiar. She’d come down here a hundred
times. She skirted along the back by the fences and approached the cluster of trees where she’d seen the fog the night before.

A figure crouched on the riverbank nearby. Laney stopped, panic tightening her chest.

The figure stood up and flicked long dark hair over her shoulders. She was staring intently into the river.

Laney’s heart rate slowed again. What was Claudia doing here? She couldn’t have been the person who was standing in the fog last night. She wasn’t tall enough.

Claudia swung round as if she could hear Laney’s thoughts. Wanting to hide her eyes, Laney pulled her sunglasses out of her jeans pocket and put them on before she walked down the slope towards the river.

“Laney. What are you doing here?” said Claudia.

Laney was surprised at the grim note in her voice. Claudia usually sounded so cool. “I just came for a walk.”

“Really? Is that the only reason you’re here?” Claudia turned back to the water.

Laney ducked past a hawthorn bush and hurried down the slope. Once she got closer she could see what Claudia was staring at. A large patch of river water was bright red. The colour stretched across to the opposite bank and several metres downstream.

Laney swallowed. With all the other things that had happened last night, she’d forgotten that she’d stumbled into the river and seen a weird colour spread into the water. But why wasn’t it washing away?

She pushed back her hair. “I wonder what happened to the river – it looks weird.” She tried to sound like she didn’t care.

Claudia swung round and frowned. Her eyes had bright golden rings circling the black pupils.

“Your eyes are the same!” gasped Laney. “They’re gold like mine.”

“What? Show me your eyes!” said Claudia.

Laney slowly took off her sunglasses.

“You’ve changed,” said Claudia. “Wow! I didn’t think that was possible. I thought you were stuck halfway somehow. These last few weeks I couldn’t work out if you even knew that you were making things happen. Then you busted the water fountain yesterday and I bet you did this too.” She jerked her head at the stained river.

Laney opened her mouth to speak but didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded.

“Did you change last night?” Claudia carried on. “You must have done. You weren’t Awake when I saw you on the bus yesterday.”

“What do you mean, awake?” Laney struggled for words. “I don’t get it. I know I must have powers
– all the things that happened yesterday…”

“You’ve put us in serious danger of being discovered. Talk about drawing attention to yourself! Why can’t you be more careful? Just look at this water.”

“I’m not
trying
to do anything!” Laney was stung by her words. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Haven’t you guessed it yet?” Claudia’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

Laney swallowed again. “If you know what’s happening to me – just tell me, please!”

“I’m surprised you haven’t worked it out.” Claudia looked at her pityingly. “You’re a faerie.”

“What? A
faerie
!” The world seemed to tilt sideways for a moment. “Are you joking?”

Claudia gave a half-smile. “I’m totally serious. You’ve just Awoken into your full powers. That’s why your eyes have turned gold. You’re a faerie. Just like me.”

The air around her trembled for a moment and then a dark girl with an amber dress stood in her place. It was Claudia. Except it wasn’t quite Claudia. Her skirt shimmered at the edges and behind her curved a pair of long, pale wings. Her skin looked luminous, as if it was lit from inside.

“Wow!” said Laney. “That’s so… Can you make yourself change like that just by deciding to?”

“Yes. We have a human form and a faerie form.
See?” The air shimmered around her and suddenly there was the everyday Claudia.

“I had wings last night, but then they vanished,” said Laney.

“You’ll get used to changing into faerie form when you want to. It just takes a little practice.”

“But aren’t faeries…smaller?”

“No, we’re not,” snapped Claudia. “And even if no one else told you, you must have realised that something was going on around here. Some days I’m surprised all the humans don’t notice. Of course, if you turn the river red, that doesn’t
exactly
help.” She turned back to look at the weird stretch of crimson water. “The cats told me about it and I thought straight away it might be you.”

“The cats told you?”

Claudia nodded. “Dizzy tells me everything.”

This was another confusing thought to add to the swarm in Laney’s head. Claudia talked to cats and they were both faeries…

The relief was huge – she wasn’t the only one who was different. But at the same time, she’d imagined having powers that no one else had and that had been pretty exciting.

And who else was in on this secret? A picture of Jessie Weir’s face popped into her head. No. She couldn’t be. Surely a faerie would be nicer.

“Are there other people who are faeries in
Skellmore?” she asked Claudia. “And how did I change into one anyway? And—”

“You really didn’t notice anything all these years, did you?” said Claudia, half amused and half exasperated. “We’d better—” She broke off as a loud mew interrupted her. A black cat wound itself round her ankles. “All right! Calm down, Dizzy!”

The cat carried on mewing then it ran off into the undergrowth.

“Dizzy says there’s trouble on the way,” said Claudia. “The tribes are anxious. Cats know these things because they’re very sensitive. Also they love listening in on everyone else’s conversations.”

Laney opened her mouth and closed it again. Tribes? What tribes?

“You need to talk to an Elder. I’d better take you to see Gwen,” said Claudia. “She’s probably the best person to tell you everything.”

“Who’s Gwen?”

“You know, Mrs Whitefern.”

“Oh.” Laney knew Mrs Whitefern well. Or she thought she did. She’d been living in Skellmore for years and always let children come and have milk and cookies in her sitting room. Mrs Whitefern was just about the most ordinary little old lady Laney could think of, apart from all the funny hats she had. It was a Skellmore joke that Mrs Whitefern owned more hats than the rest of the village put
together.

“What did you do to your hand?” said Claudia.

Laney looked at her finger. The red mark had faded but was still clearly visible. “I burned it yesterday on a candle.”

“You’re a right disaster area,” said Claudia. “Let’s go before you do any more damage. Gwen will know what should be done about the river.”

Laney took another look at the water and then followed Claudia up the slope. They drew nearer to the clump of trees where she’d seen the crouching shadow the night before. She pictured the shape of the figure as it had turned its face towards her, and shivered. At once she began to hear the faint sound of singing, but this time it wasn’t a comforting sound. It sounded bleak and cold, and made her think of stars and comets and endless black Space.

“Can you hear that singing?” Laney walked towards the sound, not really knowing what her feet were doing.

Claudia grabbed her arm and pulled her backwards. “Don’t go over there!” she said crossly. “You’re getting too close to the faerie ring. Don’t go near them, OK? They’re dangerous.” She let go of Laney and turned away.

Laney stared at the faerie ring. The dark circle of grass looked normal enough and she couldn’t hear the singing any more. Curious, she took a step
towards the ring. Instantly the voices resumed their high, piercing song that made goose bumps rise on her arms.

To one side of the ring, on a section of flattened grass, lay a tiny mound of greyish dust. As the voices sang, a pinch of the dust floated into the air and swirled round until it was sucked down into the centre of the faerie ring and vanished completely.

Laney backed away. She must have walked over that circle of grass millions of times before and hardly even noticed it was there. Claudia said that the ring was dangerous; weird then that it should seem so enchanting at the same time.

Laney followed Claudia, but hung back when they reached the first houses in the village. “I don’t want everyone to see my eyes,” she said, putting her sunglasses back on.

“Humans can’t see the change. Only other faeries can see it. Remember, you never saw the gold in my eyes before you Awoke,” said Claudia.

“I guess so.” Laney glanced around. She was still expecting someone to jump out and yell, “
Fooled
you!
” But nobody did.

“Are you ready?” A mischievous smile curved on Claudia’s face.

“Sure.” Laney felt pretty nervous, but there was no way she was going to admit it.

They passed a row of houses, followed a bend in the road and Skellmore High Street came into view. The pavement seemed washed clean by yesterday’s storm, and the dust and dirt had gone.

Laney had always thought it was silly calling the place a High Street when it was only two shops and a hairdresser’s opposite a park. Hardly anyone shopped there because there was so little to buy. But today the place looked quite busy. There were two cars parked by the minimart and a group of people standing outside the Lionhart Pet Shop.

Laney lifted up her sunglasses to look more carefully. Something else was different too. What was it?

A swarm of white petals came swooping down the road. She ducked instinctively and then watched them fly away behind her. She thought she heard a tiny laugh.

“Did you see that? What was—” Laney turned and saw another cloud of white things zooming round the big oak tree in the park. “Look! There’s more!” She pointed at the oak tree and froze.

A wave of light rolled up the tree trunk from the ground. It turned branch after branch and leaf after leaf to gold, until the whole tree gleamed for an instant. The branches reached higher into the sky, as if the tree was stretching. The next moment the flush of gold vanished and the branches and leaves returned to normal.

Claudia grinned. “Now that you have faerie eyes, things might look a tiny bit different.”

Laney took a few steps forwards. The branches of the oak tree waved like there was an invisible breeze and the ground in the park seemed to ripple. On the corner by the churchyard gate, a bunch of cats clustered together as if they were having a conversation. They stopped all at once to look at Laney. There was a buzzing in the air and it made Laney’s skin tingle.

“What’s happening?” she breathed.

“Nothing new. It’s like this every day. You’ve just never been able to see it before,” said Claudia. “It’s
because there’s a faerie ring here in the village in the middle of the park and power seeps out of it. Not many places are as faerie-like as Skellmore.”

“Why did the oak tree turn gold?”

“It’s so close to the faerie ring that it sucks up a lot of power.”

“It’s so weird that most people can’t see it happening.”

Claudia shrugged. “That’s just the way it works, I guess.”

“What are those white things in the air?”

“They’re sprites – they’re OK.”

Laney’s eyes grew rounder as she followed Claudia down the High Street. The puddles on the pavement seemed to shimmer as she passed. She stopped to gaze into one and in the watery reflection she saw the air glittering around her.

“Keep going.” Claudia tugged her arm. “You’re making it too obvious.”

But Laney hardly noticed what Claudia was saying. She goggled at the house on the corner of Gnarlwood Lane where Mr and Mrs Willowby lived. She passed the house every day on the bus to school. She’d never really looked closely at it before, but she was sure it had been made of bricks just the same as any other building. Not any more.

The outside of the house looked like a rough tree trunk and several leafy struts joined together to
form a tree-like roof.

“Laney!” hissed Claudia.

Laney jumped, realising she’d stepped into the road in her eagerness to look closer.

“I’ll show you round the place afterwards, OK?” muttered Claudia. “Let’s just get to Gwen’s house first.”

They passed several people with normal faces. Then Claudia’s brother, Tom, sauntered past and Laney drew in her breath sharply as she saw the gold rings in his eyes. She was glad she was wearing her sunglasses so that he couldn’t see hers.

“Mum wants you in the shop, little sis,” he told Claudia.

“OK, I’m going.” Claudia let him pass and then whispered to Laney. “Go to Gwen’s. You know where she lives, don’t you? I’ll catch you up in a bit.”

Laney nodded and the two girls separated.

Laney sped up. There was something strange about the group of adults standing outside the pet shop. Fletcher’s parents, the Thornbeams, were among them. The group fell silent as she passed. Someone opened the shop door. Underneath the sound of kittens mewing and guinea pigs squeaking, the buzzing in the air became stronger.

She darted a look at the pet shop and nearly fell over. She was expecting a red-brick building with rainbow letters over the door that spelled “Lionhart
Pet Shop”. But instead there was a furry-looking dark-brown wall. The shop name was the same, but set into the wall just above it was a gigantic pair of cat’s eyes staring out at everyone. As Laney looked, the vivid-green eyes turned in her direction. A huge mouth filled with sharp teeth opened in the wall and hissed.

Stumbling over her feet, Laney fixed her eyes on the pavement and hurried on. The adults resumed their conversation and she caught a sentence as she went by.

“The red moon – this is the first one for years – it could be a catastrophe…”

Laney’s heart pounded. They were talking about the red moon from last night. The mention of it reminded her how scared she’d been and she was relieved when she reached the end of the High Street.

She crossed the road and turned into Gnarlwood Lane. Now that she was closer, she couldn’t help staring at the tree-like house all over again. The walls seemed exactly like a rough tree trunk, and she longed to go right up and touch them. Mr Willowby was out in his front garden, sweeping the path.

Laney carried on to the house next door, which looked even stranger. This was Mrs Whitefern’s house and she knew it very well, having been
inside so many times when she was younger. But she had never seen it like this. The walls were completely covered by ivy, and the roof was made from five gigantic trumpet-shaped white flowers all clustered together. As she gazed, one of the trumpet flowers swayed and a cloud of green smoke drifted out and got carried away by the breeze.

Laney took off her sunglasses to get a better look before walking over to the gate at the bottom of the front path. There was a noise behind her and Sara Thornbeam, Fletcher’s little sister, stood there with a group of her friends. Laney wondered how they’d sneaked up on her so easily.

“You’ve changed,” said Sara. “I thought you were human.”

Laney’s cheeks flushed. “Um, yeah. So did I.” Sara looked so strange with gold-ringed eyes. Laney couldn’t believe that she was a part of all this too.

Sara ran off calling, “Fletcher, guess what?”

The other children carried on staring at Laney.

Laney’s insides felt shaky. She didn’t think she could stand being stared at by anyone else right now. She hurried up the path, but before she reached the ivy-covered front door, it opened and Mrs Whitefern stood in the doorway. She wore a green dress, which wrinkled over her short, round figure. On her head was a velvety purple hat with a sprig of lavender on the brim.

“Off you go, children. Go and play,” she called in her high voice.

The children scattered.

Mrs Whitefern smiled warmly. “I’ve been expecting you, Laney.”