Starfell Willow Moss and the Lost Day (Starfell #1) - Dominique Valente Page 0,15
long moment as if considering her. Then she nodded. ‘We can help you with this,’ she said, snapping a small twig from a sapling that gleamed with a blue haze and handing it to Willow. ‘This is a stealth sprig, it will help you to become invisible. As it has been taken from its source it will only work the once. Use it wisely when the time comes. You will know when that is.’
Willow blinked. ‘You want me to have it?’ she asked. ‘Not … Moreg?’
The Mementon nodded. ‘Only a child can use it.’
Willow looked at Moreg, who seemed unsurprised; in fact, she looked rather pleased – as if it were only natural that she’d been given a strange magical twig to help her become invisible. Willow stuttered her thanks and put the twig inside a small pocket inside her carpetbag, sharing a puzzled look with Oswin as she did.
Ybaer smiled. ‘Come, follow me – we’ll get you matched to a broom.’
Willow blinked and a furl of sudden excitement sprang inside her.
They followed Ybaer and Chopak to a small wooden workshop where several of the new brooms were suspended above the floor of the workshop. He rubbed his beard while he eyed Moreg, a shrewd look on his face. Finally he nodded. ‘Perhaps something modern … something that doesn’t play around? It doesn’t happen often, but, like I said, every now and then you get a broom that is open to a little bit of experimentation. A bit of modification.’
Eyes shining, he raced off to the back of the showroom, coming back with a monster of a broom, a wide grin spreading across his face.
Willow had never seen anything like it: it had a low-slung broom handle, spikes for footrests and on either side was an engine, which roared to life when Chopak pulled a cord from each. Bright orange flames shot out behind as the broom streaked off, doing a thunderous loop around them and making them all duck for safety. It came to a halt right in front of Moreg.
Chopak handed her a pair of flying goggles. ‘I call it “The Business”,’ he said with a wide smile, which to all their shock Moreg returned. She ran a hand along its polished length, saying, ‘Perfection! A broom, but not a broom.’ Her eyes were alight.
There was a hushed silence. After some time he closed his mouth, then turned to Willow. ‘Now, yours … I already know. As soon as I saw you I thought … this is the girl.’
He came forward with a mid-sized broom that glided as light as a feather. Its wood had a silvery sheen and mixed in with the twigs were long white tail feathers. It was simply beautiful. While she stared it seemed to disappear before their eyes, blending in with the surroundings.
‘This,’ said Chopak, leaving the broom to suspend next to Willow’s hip, ‘is Whisper. It’s a very rare Stealth-Racer. This one is most unusual; we found it on Wednesday and no one remembers making it – which is odd as it has these unusual tail feathers. They remind me a little of a cloud dragon’s feathers, but that’s impossible, of course; cloud dragons have been gone from Starfell for years. Go on, give it a whirl.’
Heart pounding, Willow gripped the sleek handle, swung a leg over and sat astride. The broom hovered very slowly off the ground, but when she touched off with her toes it shot up faster than she could blink. She soared high, past the trees, her carpetbag clamped beneath her arm. Oswin’s green eyes peered out as he gasped, ‘Oh no!’
She did a loop, then rejoined the others (and her stomach, which had plummeted to the ground). It was without a doubt the best moment of her life and she couldn’t stop smiling.
But reality came crashing down hard as Willow mentally calculated her spurgles and knew she didn’t have a hope in Starfell of being able to afford Whisper.
But when they asked the price Chopak insisted that the brooms were gifts. ‘We want to aid your quest, so consider it our gift – our way of helping you to rediscover the missing day. Good luck, young Willow,’ he said as she stuttered her thanks.
Despite their better intentions to press on with their journey, it was noon when they finally left Radditch. Not that Willow minded. She’d loved her time with the Mementons – and now, wonder of wonders, she was leaving on her very own broomstick.