Starfell Willow Moss and the Lost Day (Starfell #1) - Dominique Valente Page 0,27

soft trail close to her face and she swallowed nervously. One dragon was plenty. The shaking bag in her hand told her that Oswin wholeheartedly agreed.

‘I – I didn’t know there were still dragons in Starfell,’ said Willow, thinking that perhaps if she kept talking he may decide not to eat them.

‘There aren’t many; just me and—’ said the voice, which broke slightly.

‘And who?’ asked Willow, stepping closer.

In the haze she could just make out the ENORMOUS shape of the dragon, like a small mountain himself. He was covered in indigo-blue feathers that seemed to glow with an iridescent, pearly sheen; even his barb-like tail was covered in wispy dark-blue feathers. He was curled round a very large silver-gold egg about the size of Oswin. As she neared he turned his massive head and pinned her to the spot with a sad golden eye.

‘A human child,’ he said with what looked almost like a smile. There were certainly a lot of very sharp, glistening white teeth.

Willow swallowed, managing a nod.

The dragon looked at her. ‘What is your name?’

‘W-Willow.’

‘I am called Feathering. For many years I was the last cloud dragon … until I found Thundera – my mate,’ he said. A large sapphire tear formed at the corner of his eye and landed on the egg. ‘But she’s left me now,’ he said, slumping his head on top of the egg in a rather despondent way.

‘Why did she leave you?’ asked Willow, who couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the dragon.

‘I was meant to be looking after the egg,’ he said, tapping it very softly with a sharp jewel-like claw. His voice sounded like a mournful wail from a broken pipe.

‘It was meant to hatch last week, you see. Thundera went hunting so that we would have enough food for when it arrived … but it never did.’

Willow gasped. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t remember!’ he cried, lifting his head off the egg. ‘I keep trying to – but I can’t. I can’t remember anything that happened that day. When I told Thundera that she became so angry she burnt down the whole side of the mountain,’ he said mournfully. ‘And, look, the egg – it’s empty; though I don’t know how that could have happened. It wasn’t empty before, and I don’t remember it hatching,’ he said. Another tear slipped down his snout, landing with a heavy splash on Willow’s foot, drenching it completely.

Willow felt desperately sad. She looked at the egg he was still cradling and her eyes began to smart. She inched forward and laid a hand on the tip of his wing.

‘Was this last Tuesday?’ she asked.

His golden eye slowly blinked. ‘How did you know?’

In Willow’s mind a giant purple hat with a long green feather swam before her eyes, her grandmother’s face turned away from her, and she felt something hard and painful twist inside her belly. There was something there, trying to get her attention. She bit her lip and shook the image away. ‘Someone has stolen it, I think …’

‘Stolen what?’ he asked.

‘The day.’

He lifted his head off the ground. ‘Someone stole the day? But how? Who? Who would have done that?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know – but that’s what I’m trying to find out. It’s not just you – no one can remember what happened last Tuesday. All our memories of it are gone. It’s like they’ve been taken …’ She thought about it and said, ‘But it’s more than that – it’s not just the memories; it’s everything really.’

‘What do you mean?’

Willow looked at the egg. ‘It’s worse than I imagined …’

And it was. It was all the births, the deaths, the weddings, the funerals, the arguments, the big things, the small things, all those incredibly special and mundane moments that go into the recipe of one ordinary day, making it something else, something quite extraordinary when you stop and really think about it as Willow did just then. She suddenly saw the incredible value and significance of one ordinary day. Not just what happens on a single day, but how that day informs the next, giving it meaning and structure, and now what it meant to have it simply gone …

Her lungs forgot to breathe as she realised something. What wasn’t she remembering? And why was it that every time she tried she saw Granny Flossy’s hat? What did it mean?

The dragon lifted his large head, hope flickering in his eye. ‘If it’s been taken, can we get it