Starfell Willow Moss and the Lost Day (Starfell #1) - Dominique Valente Page 0,29

great feathered beasts.’ He groaned, then zipped himself back inside.

Feathering ignored Oswin’s grumblings. ‘Where to in Wisperia?’ he asked in his deep, wind-rattling-a-doorknob voice.

‘I guess we could start by finding the tree.’

‘In a forest?’ It sounded like the dragon was laughing. There was a tinkling sound like a wind chime.

‘I think it’ll be blue and really big.’ As she stared she saw that there were trees of all different colours. ‘This is mad,’ she said with a sigh, wondering how they’d find it with so many strange-coloured trees around.

As they got closer to the forest, though, Feathering breathed. ‘Maybe not so mad. Look,’ he said, tilting his head to the left.

Willow stared. An enormous tree dominated the entire forest. It was the colour of blue sea glass and was about as wide as several farmhouses stuck together. It reached out to the very top of the sky, and was shrouded in bright white swirling clouds. Perched at the very top of the tree was a small wooden house, surrounded entirely by clouds. It looked as if it were floating on air, but she could just make out the stilts creaking softly as it swayed slightly in the wind. As they drew closer Willow saw teapots strung below the windows filled with an array of plants, just like those they’d seen in Ditchwater.

‘That must be the forgotten teller’s house!’ she exclaimed, pointing.

Feathering nodded and flew towards the very top of the enormous tree. He landed on a branch the size of a large road, causing the tree to shudder and shake.

Willow slipped off Feathering’s back, her knees wobbling as she did and her hands firmly clutching her carpetbag.

Feathering inclined his massive blue head. ‘Who’s choosing a slightly extreme way to get out of having a bit of company. Look!’

While Willow did think calling a large dragon a bit of company seemed a stretch, she saw that he was right. A tall spindly man wearing lots of lumpy clothing with odd bits of vegetation poking out of every pocket was currently fleeing the house with everything he could carry, including a tea set and a large brown dog, with a tongue the length of a soup ladle, squashed beneath his armpit. Only the man was running the wrong way and he almost slammed straight into Willow before he looked up.

‘Gadzooks!’ he exclaimed, rocking backwards on his heels, and dropping the teapot, which slopped tea everywhere. He had enormous pale blue eyes and long, wispy all-white hair, which made him look like an old man, even though he was probably quite a bit younger than her father. It was the boy from the portrait, she realised, the one with the plant that had all those blinking eyes. Except now he was grown up.

‘Um – sorry?’ tried Willow, though it was hardly her fault that he had almost run into her …

The man took an involuntarily step backwards as if she might bite. His mouth opened but didn’t close. Willow saw that he was wearing what looked like every bit of clothing he possessed, including a necktie shaped like a bird in flight. He also seemed to have more pockets than his skinny frame should allow – all of which were bulging, some overflowing with bits of vegetation and others that seemed to be regarding them with interest. Willow could have sworn that a leafy tendril waved at her.

Just then the man smacked his forehead, his eyes going from blue to white and back again in an instant, and Willow wondered if she’d imagined it when he started to laugh, his thin shoulders shaking. ‘My old room … the pictures … You figured it out,’ he said with an admiring sort of laugh, and Willow wondered if he’d seen it as a vision or simply guessed. His smile faltered fast, though, when he looked past Willow and finally seemed to spot Feathering. His face went the colour of ash, his eyes seemed to pop, and he silently mouthed the word ‘dragon’ before he keeled over backwards in a dead faint.

‘Oh bother,’ said Willow.

She took the StoryPass out of her pocket, which commiserated with ‘One Might Have Suspected as Such’.

‘Happens all the time,’ said Feathering, shrugging a colossal blue wing. ‘Humans always faint when they see us now – it’s like they think a cloud dragon would actually eat a human. Can you imagine?’ he said in apparent disgust.

‘Er,’ said Willow, who was not about to admit that that had been precisely her first thought