Untitled Starfell #2 (Starfell #2) - Dominique Valente Page 0,30

a solution, not without Sometimes. Though she was beginning to suspect that Holloway had been right – that her magic was being scrambled by her grief – and she didn’t know if there was cure for that at all … She swallowed, trying to push the hopeless feeling away.

Gradually, Willow organised all of Sometimes’s papers and righted all the plants, finding some that had rolled under the bed beside the sleeping dog.

The last thing she picked up was a small jam jar, inside which was a purple, iris-like flower with long, thin, dark blue roots suspended in the air. As she touched the glass, the plant appeared to wilt slightly, petals hunched over, reminding her a little of a grumbling Gertrude, which sulked when it wasn’t watered. Without really thinking, Willow fetched a glass of water from the kitchen and trickled some into the jar. To her surprise, when she put the lid back on, the plant seemed to wiggle, perhaps in satisfaction. It began to shimmer, turning into an almost smoke-like substance that was iridescent like glitter, dark purple threaded with blue.

As Willow touched the glass, the smoke-like substance followed her finger and started to shift as it formed itself into a young girl with long, stick-straight hair and a misshapen dress with a haphazardly sewn hem. The girl was pointing a finger at the glass. It was like looking into a small mirror made of purple shadows.

Willow swallowed. Something about it gave her the creeps.

Her eye drifted to the small label, but, instead of finding an explanation of what this plant was, Willow’s creeped-out feeling intensified. As it wasn’t a label at all.

It said:

MP for Willow Moss.

It was a clue.

13

Feathering’s Return

Willow stared at her shadow miniature in the jam jar for some time. Every now and again, it seemed to shudder slightly. When she took her finger away, the smoke-like shadows shifted and turned once more into a purple iris with long, thin roots suspended in the air.

Why would Nolin Sometimes have left her this? What was it supposed to tell her?

Willow went to sit in the armchair by the window to think. But at some point she must have nodded off, despite herself, because suddenly there was a small flash of light, and Willow blinked awake. On the floor was the leaf-scroll. It was the message that had gone missing from her attic before she ran away from home! Surprised, she bent down to pick it up when suddenly the sound of the furlarms began to whine loudly throughout the treehouse.

‘Oh no!’ cried Oswin as she dashed towards them. Harold started to howl as well.

‘What is it?’ asked Sprig, starting awake too, his dark eyes wary yet sharp as he looked around in alarm.

‘I don’t know,’ whispered Willow, fear clutching at her throat. ‘The furlarms detect intruders, though.’

She looked up towards the window with a worried frown and saw something large, like a cloud, heading straight towards them in a sky that was turning pink with the dawn.

‘Maybe it’s whoever came for Sometimes … Maybe they’re coming back,’ breathed Willow, looking worried.

‘Oh, Osbertrude, a curse upon yeh, me greedy aunt!’ whispered Oswin, who’d climbed on to the armchair to see out of the window better.

Whatever was moving towards them at breakneck speed sparkled in the early-morning sunshine with a pearly blue glow, and Willow’s fear suddenly changed to delight.

‘It’s Feathering!’ she cried.

‘Feathering?’ asked Sprig, his eyes widening in sudden fear as the blueish cloud neared. He took a step back from the window, his outline seeming to shift from boy to raven then back to boy so fast it hurt her eyes. ‘Is that A DRAGON?’

‘Yes! C’mon,’ she said, pulling him along by his arm. ‘This is the best news – maybe he knows who’s taken Sometimes!’

Willow raced outside towards a large branch the width of a road, with Sprig following more slowly behind her. As the dragon came in to land, the force blew Willow’s hair back and she clutched on to a nearby branch.

‘Why, hello there, young Willow. We wondered if we would find you here,’ said Feathering in his deep, wind-rattling-a-window voice.

Willow dashed forward to greet the dragon, and saw to her surprise that Essential Jones, another of her friends who had helped to save the missing day, was on his back. A grin split her face as Essential jumped down.

‘Hi, Willow!’ the girl said with a big smile, pushing back her glasses. Her long dark hair was like a knotty helmet around her