One Wish (26 page)

‘No, but I can feel it,’ Tanya answered. And she could. The bizarre stillness in the air surrounding the cottage remained. She followed Turpin to the door and opened it tentatively.

A peculiar sight awaited them. Tanya entered the cottage, unable to tear her eyes away from the four figures – plus the Mizhog. She had expected to find them slumped in the chairs or even on the floor, but instead they were frozen almost in the positions she had left them in; Gredin, Raven and Feathercap huddled together, the Mizhog-dog halfway through scratching its fleas, and her mother almost at the door, her hand outstretched. Yet every one of them was in a deep slumber where they stood, eyes closed and breathing deeply and peacefully.

‘Who are these people?’ Don asked, hopping into the cottage.

‘Fairies,’ said Tanya. ‘Though they’re not usually as big as this. They must be using glamour. They’ve visited me since I was young.’

‘Guardians then,’ said Don.

She nodded. ‘That’s what Ratty said. They came to me before, a few days ago, warning me not to talk to Ratty – about fairies anyway.’

‘Given what’s happened, I suppose you wish you’d listened,’ Don said dryly.

Tanya didn’t answer. It was too late for regrets now; besides, Ratty needed her. She walked round the sleeping figures. She had never imagined that she might be the one to cast a spell over the fairies, or her mother for that matter. It didn’t seem real to see them like this, so vulnerable and helpless.

‘Should we . . . move them?’ she asked. ‘What if they topple over?’

‘Even then they wouldn’t wake up.’ Turpin leaped on to the table and began picking over the contents of the fruit bowl. ‘They’ll only wake up when you tell them to.’

‘Then let’s get on with the spell,’ said Don.

‘Right.’ Tanya finally managed to drag her eyes away from the sleeping statues and forced herself to concentrate. ‘Those playing cards must be around here somewhere.’ She poked around in her mother’s handbag and checked the chair on the porch where her mother had been sitting, eventually finding them on a pile of board games at the side of the sofa. She pulled a joker from the pack and put the rest back in the box. Next, she took a smooth, brown egg from the fridge.

‘That’s everything,’ she said, suddenly nervous. ‘We’re ready to start.’ She gathered the rest of the ingredients and the page with the spell, and set them out on the table. ‘Lay the mirror flat,’ she read. ‘Release the caterpillar and allow to crawl over the mirror.’ She shook a caterpillar out on to the mirror, then lifted Don on to the table. ‘Don, make sure it doesn’t wriggle off. And don’t you dare eat it – I can see you licking your lips.’

She turned back to the spell. ‘Crack the egg into two halves, keeping the yolk in one and discarding the white.’ She took the egg to the sink and cracked it. Luckily, she’d baked enough cakes with her mother to be able to keep the yolk successfully and allow the slimy white to slide down the plughole. Once accomplished, she returned to the table, where Don was gazing at the caterpillar longingly.

‘Pierce the yolk with the fox’s whisker. Add a shake of moon dust and a pinch of powdered chameleon. Stir well and leave to brew in the shell.’ She found an egg cup in the kitchen cupboard and rested the shell in it. ‘Oh,’ she said, shuddering. ‘I’m not looking forward to the next bit.’

Turpin peered at the spell and sniggered.

‘Take the liar’s tongue (take heed not to listen to its protestations or promises, for they are all untrue) and silence it by tying a knot around it with a thread of hangman’s rope.’ Tanya stared at the tongue in the jar. There was a smear of blood where it had been cut out, but it still looked fresh and pink. ‘I don’t suppose you want to do this bit, Turps?’ she pleaded.

‘Yikes!’ Turpin shook her head. ‘Turpin does not want to! Things like this make her glad she can no longer do magic.’

‘Oh.’ Tanya willed her churning stomach to be still and prised the lid off the jar. She paused. ‘How exactly did you lose your magic anyway?’

Turpin stared at the caterpillar, her face solemn all of a sudden. ‘Can’t remember,’ she muttered. Tanya watched her for a moment, certain that the fairy was not being truthful. The tip of her wing appeared to be trembling slightly and her eyes were far away, as though she were lost in some distant and troubling memory. It was clear she was not going to answer further and so, uncomfortable, Tanya continued with the spell.

‘Wrap the tongue in the playing card and place on the mirror, then burn.’ Grimacing, she reached into the jar and took the tongue between her thumb and forefinger. It was warm and wet and, as soon as she touched it, it began to wriggle.

‘It’s not going to work, you know!’ the tongue said in a whiny voice. ‘It’s all nonsense, a waste of a perfectly good tongue! If you take me back to my owner, I’ll make you rich, I swear!’

‘Quiet,’ Tanya told it, giving it a shake. ‘I’m trying to concentrate. Turpin, fetch me the matches from the kitchen.’

‘No! No matches,’ the tongue hissed. ‘Come on, I’m telling the truth! Honest I am! I can take you to a stash of fairy silver . . .’

With her other hand, Tanya hooked out a thread of hangman’s rope and looped it round the squirming tongue. With a flick of her fingers, she knotted the rope and, to her relief, the tongue fell still. She placed it in the playing card and rolled it tightly, then struck one of the matches. It seemed unlikely that the tongue would burn as it was wet, but as she held the match to the playing card the entire thing went up in a fierce, orange flame. Within seconds, it had burned away to thick, grey ash.

‘When it is reduced to ash, add this to the egg mixture and stir again. Carefully transfer the mix into a clean glass vessel and drop the caterpillar into it.’ Using one of the empty jars, Tanya carried out the instructions and picked up the caterpillar. ‘Sorry about this,’ she told it, dropping it into the eggy-ashy gunk. ‘Secure and wait until the moon is visible in the sky. By this time, the caterpillar should have drunk the entire mixture. By the light of the moon, the afflicted should swallow the caterpillar without chewing. Transformation will occur when the first star appears in the night sky.’ The three of them observed in silence as the caterpillar floundered in the nasty-looking mixture.

‘It’ll drown surely,’ Tanya murmured, but the caterpillar bobbed happily on the surface, wriggling like a tiny eel. Tanya replaced the lid on the jar. ‘Now we just have to wait until the moon is out.’

‘Which gives us time to gather what we need for what’s to come,’ Don said gravely, ‘and to collect the memory from its hiding place.’

‘And when the memory is given back?’ Tanya asked. ‘You said . . . you said something terrible could happen.’

Don nodded. ‘Yes. It could. But I don’t plan on giving the memory back, or at least I won’t allow it to be used. It’s simply to be used as bait to get Henry returned to us.’

‘But how do you plan on not letting it be used?’ Tanya persisted.

‘I’m still working on that.’ Don looked up at her, then at Turpin. His blue eyes were watery. ‘The important thing is that, when the time comes, the two of you must do what I tell you.
Exactly
what I tell you. Do you understand? Do you promise?’

‘Turpin does not like promising,’ said Turpin.

‘But you will if it means getting Henry back,’ Don said sternly.

‘For Ratty, yes,’ Turpin agreed.

‘Good,’ said Don. ‘That’s settled then.’ He looked to Tanya. ‘And you?’

She hesitated, uneasy, but there did not seem to be any other choice. ‘I promise I’ll do as you say,’ she said at last. ‘What do we need to take with us?’

‘Protection,’ Don replied. ‘Everything you have that will defend yourself against fairies. Fetch whatever you can now.’

Tanya went into her room and collected the iron nail Ratty had given her. She slipped it into her pocket. In her mother’s room, she found a red shawl which she stuffed into the rucksack along with a tub of salt from the kitchen cupboards.

‘I think that’s it,’ she said, poking around in the rucksack. ‘But I’ve still got the torch, too.’

‘Keep it,’ Don instructed. ‘The torch could come in useful.’ He went silent.

‘What is it?’ Tanya asked.

Don glanced at Turpin and sighed. ‘I have reason to believe that we have another enemy. Someone, or rather something, that is also searching for the memory. Something that isn’t fey.’

‘Then what is it?’ Tanya asked. ‘Human?’

‘Not exactly.’ Don’s voice was soft. ‘Though it was created by one. By Henry, to be precise.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Tanya. ‘If it’s not human, and not fey, then what is it? And how . . . how could Ratty have created it?’

Don sighed again. ‘I suggest you take a seat. It’s time you knew the truth about the memory Henry stole.’

Silently, Tanya perched on a chair at the table, waiting for Don to collect his thoughts.

‘Tell me,’ Don said eventually. ‘Were you especially imaginative as a young child?’

Tanya frowned, wondering where this was leading. ‘My parents always thought so. They said I had an extraordinary imagination.’ She cast a look at her mother, frozen in sleep by the cottage door. ‘When I used to try to tell them about the fairies, that is. I haven’t done that for a long time.’

‘And did you have an outlet for your imagination?’ Don asked. ‘What I mean by that is did you tell a lot of lies or create especially inventive games?’

‘I lied a lot to cover up for the fairies,’ said Tanya, puzzled. ‘But only because I had to, not because I wanted to.’

‘No,’ said Don. ‘That’s not quite what I meant. How about pictures? Did you draw much, or did you tell stories perhaps?’

‘I made up stories,’ said Tanya. ‘Lots of stories. My parents encouraged me to write them down. At first, it was an easy way of describing the fairies and the things they did, but when the fairies found out they didn’t like it. So I started to hide those stories and not show them to anyone, and I started writing different stories instead.’ She paused. ‘I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Ratty.’

Don gave a sad little smile. ‘Rather a lot actually. You see, what I’m getting at is this: children with the second sight tend to be creative and have very powerful imaginations, often much more powerful than the average child who is unable to see fairies. Can you think of why that might be?’

‘Well,’ said Tanya, ‘I suppose because we don’t just want to believe in magic, like other children do. We know it exists because we see it all around us when others don’t. And if we know fairies can exist then it makes it easier to believe in other sorts of magic . . . and to imagine it, too.’

‘Precisely,’ said Don. ‘Well, like you, Henry was an imaginative child. Perhaps even more so. Though he had Turpin, his ability made it difficult to be friends with other children, as I’m sure you understand. Having the second sight can often be very lonely, and the thing Henry longed for more than anything was a little brother or sister. But, after his mother died, I never met anyone else. And so Henry invented one.’

‘Invented one? You mean like an imaginary friend?’

‘Yes,’ Don replied. ‘An imaginary friend. Lots of children have them. He named this friend . . .’ He paused and took a shaky, almost fearful breath. ‘Morghul.’

As he uttered the word, Turpin let out a little moan.

‘Morghul,’ Tanya repeated. It was the name the fairy had whispered when the shape-shifting creature had attacked them on the bridge, and again in the castle dungeons.

‘It all began well enough,’ Don continued. ‘Whatever Henry did, Morghul did, too. I became so used to it that Morghul was talked about like it – he – was a real person. Henry even insisted on having a place set for him at every meal. It seemed to keep Henry happy, for a while, and so I was happy, too. Well, Turpin was jealous, of course.’

Turpin sniffed, but said nothing.

‘Anyway, we both thought it was something Henry would grow out of, in time,’ said Don. ‘And perhaps he would have, had it not gone on for so long, and if Henry were an ordinary boy. But . . . but because we had allowed it and encouraged it, this, mixed with his belief, well . . . it had unlocked something in his imagination. And, with Henry’s imagination being so powerful, Morghul, too, took on some of that power.’ Don’s voice lowered to a whisper. ‘And he became real.’

‘Real?’ Tanya repeated. ‘Real enough for others to see, too?’

‘Not at first.’ Don’s eyes were filled with guilt. ‘Only Henry was able to see him. But, with the power of Henry’s imagination, slowly but surely, he grew stronger. It was only when the time came that Henry outgrew Morghul and decided he didn’t want him around any longer that everyone, including Henry, discovered just how strong Morghul had grown. Because he wouldn’t go away, and Henry didn’t know how to make him.’

‘So Ratty’s imagination not only created Morghul, but brought him to life,’ said Tanya.

‘Yes,’ said Don. ‘And now that Morghul was outgrown and unneeded, he grew angry and resentful. Instead of Henry being the one in control, things began to change. Morghul’s anger not only fed his power, it also made him cruel. He began to do things, things that got Henry into trouble. At first, it was put down to mischief on Henry’s part, but, as the incidents grew more unpleasant, it was plain that Henry was afraid. And, in turn, that fear of Morghul lent him further strength still.’

‘Like the fear of a bully,’ Tanya murmured.

‘I only realised the truth one day when Morghul turned his anger towards Turpin. Henry was now about six years old, and he and Turpin had been playing in the garden. One minute there was laughter and the next a terrible scream.’ Don cast an apologetic look at Turpin.

‘When I arrived outside, Henry was crying and Turpin was simply shaking. There was a horrid smell of . . . burnt flesh. Somehow or other, they had managed to unearth an old key in the garden. It was made of iron. At first, I thought that Turpin had accidentally dug it up, but then I saw the impression on the back of her hand. It had been pressed into her skin. Henry was hysterical by now. He said that Morghul had made him do it, and that, if he refused, Morghul would feed the key to Turpin in her sleep.’ Don paused. ‘If a fairy swallows iron, it will kill them.