Emily Feather and the Secret Mirror (5 page)

It was the girl from the mirror.

Emily watched, her heart thudding in her chest as she wondered what was chasing the girl. She stared at the grasses waving gently along the rocky edge where the girl had climbed into view, waiting for huge claws to gouge their way up the stone. Or if not a monster, then a gang of huntsmen, like those who had chased her and her sisters. It was the thought of those huntsmen that made her try to reach into the painting. She had promised not to, but this was different. How could she watch the green-haired girl run, scared as she was, and
not
help her?

She stretched out her hand, brushing her fingertips against the canvas. It was the strangest feeling – there was paint there under her fingers, but at the same time she could feel that she was reaching out beyond the painting and into something far away.

Until someone caught her arm and pulled her sharply back. The figures in the painting were suddenly dull and grey and still, and she looked up to see an angry man in a dark uniform glaring down at her.

The security guard pulled her away from the painting, glowering at her. “Where's your teacher?” he snapped.

“I – I don't know,” Emily stammered. She felt dizzy, and not anchored to the ground. She wondered vaguely if she'd left part of herself inside the strange world of the painting when she was dragged back so suddenly. She certainly didn't feel all there. She noticed Rachel hovering worriedly at the security guard's elbow, and a couple of other people from their class whispering to each other in the doorway. As her vision cleared, she saw that it was Katie and Ellie-Mae – of course it was. Emily gave a tiny sigh, and then stared down at her feet as Mrs Daunt hurried into the gallery. She seemed to arrive out of nowhere, as though she'd suddenly sensed that one of her group was causing trouble.

“There are strict guidelines,” the security guard was telling her, and Mrs Daunt alternated between nodding apologetically to him and glaring at Emily.

Emily decided she'd better start thinking of an excuse quite quickly. No one was going to believe that she was trying to rescue a fairy girl in a painting. She glanced back at it, hoping that the river fairy was still there, and hadn't been eaten, or shot down with arrows.

The painting wasn't even moving for Emily now. It was greyly, eerily still. All the little figures were fixed, their faces frozen. Emily longed to reach out and touch the paint again – they looked so wrong, so
silly
like that. She knew that they were real, and it hurt to see them reduced to a strange, rather pretty picture. And then she saw, with a lurch deep in her stomach, that there were figures, now, at the bottom of the cliff, staring up at the girl.

“Well? What on earth were you doing, Emily? You know not to touch the paintings!” Mrs Daunt snapped. “Look at me!”

Emily swallowed, and dragged herself away from the girl's frightened face. “I'm really sorry! I was looking at it, and then I saw a fly land on the painting –” there were several small black flies in the gallery, lazily circling in the warmer air under the skylight “ – so I brushed it off. It's such a beautiful painting, I didn't think properly. I just didn't want it to have a fly on it…”

Not a brilliant excuse, she realized, crossing her fingers behind her back, but the best she could manage right now.

“You didn't think properly. Exactly,” Mrs Daunt told her. But she seemed slightly less furious than she'd been before. “I'm so sorry,” she said again to the guard. “I think it
was
a silly mistake. I'm sure she didn't intend to damage the painting.” Mrs Daunt turned to look at it properly for the first time, and frowned. “Are you using this one for your project, Emily?”

“Um, yes…” Emily answered. She hadn't found another painting, so she supposed she'd have to. She could write something about how horrible those girls who reminded her of Lara and Ellie-Mae were, she supposed. There was no way she was going to turn the hunt into a story. She looked back at the painting worriedly, but it still hadn't moved. The girl was stretched spider-like across the top of the rock, staring down behind her with terrified eyes. It was as if time had stopped there, inside the painting. Crossing her fingers behind her, Emily hoped desperately that it had. Perhaps the fairy girl would be safe until someone else looked at the painting,
really
looked at it? Someone who understood what it was.

How many people like that could there be? Emily wondered, as Mrs Daunt marched her away towards the room where they were having lunch. As they disappeared through the doorway, she glanced back one more time, but the painting was faded and muddy again, in the corner of the gallery.

 

“A fly? Really?” Rachel whispered, as Mrs Daunt turned away to talk to one of the other teachers.

Emily nodded. “I just didn't think…” she repeated.

Rachel looked at her doubtfully. “Why were you staring at that painting for such a long time, anyway? It was nothing special.”

“I liked it,” Emily said vaguely, shrugging. “It was interesting.”

“Have you worked out what you're going to write? I've got some of mine done already,” Rachel added, patting the cover of her notebook. “And Miss Gray says there are postcards of that painting in the shop, so I'll buy one. Maybe even a poster.”

Emily smiled, trying to put the girl's frightened face out of her mind. She was almost sure there would be no postcards of her painting. “You really love it, don't you?”

Rachel nodded. “There's something odd about it – I almost feel like I can still see the blue
behind
my eyes. I know that sounds stupid,” she added hurriedly.

“It doesn't,” Emily told her. In the fuss with the security guard, she had forgotten the butterflies that had called them into that particular room. They had been sent on purpose to fetch her, she suspected. The river fairy had felt her coming, and known her, and called to her for help. The way she had helped Emily and her sisters only a few days before.

Emily pushed her half-eaten sandwich back into her bag and sighed.

She would just have to go back and get her.

 

“There's a horrible smell on this coach.” The voice came floating over the back of the seat, quiet but clear, and Emily flinched, staring wide-eyed at Rachel. She hadn't noticed Katie sitting down behind them. But now she could hear Ellie-Mae laughing, and she could see her peeping between the two coach seats. Then Katie leaned round the side of the seat and smiled at Rachel.

“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.