She could hear Oswin’s similar wailings from the hairy green bag as he was carried away by a small wind monkey with white fur and transparent wings. ‘Oh no! Get off me, yer hairy carbuncle!’
They were carried to a treetop village where those strange, tear-shaped houses hung like odd birdcages, as jewel-bright as the forest itself. Willow and her friends were taken past these homes towards the very top of one of the trees, to a large, open, wooden structure shaped like a star. It looked a bit like a stage or a platform.
To Willow’s relief, the horned woman with the large sea-green wings finally set her down, and she was joined shortly by Sprig and Essential, who were dropped with a thud in the centre of the platform.
Sprig flapped his wings in agitation. Essential’s glasses were hanging off her nose. ‘WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?’ she demanded angrily, sitting up and throwing out a hand to freeze one of the wind monkeys who was trying to snatch her glasses. The freeze only lasted for a second, as Essential’s ability wasn’t very powerful, but she managed to keep her glasses nonetheless.
‘Yes, tell us why you’ve taken us!’ cried Willow.
The horned woman regarded them with piercing yellow eyes. ‘Sekac moon?’ she said.
Willow was distracted, though, by another wind monkey, who had set Oswin down and was trying to pat the kobold through the bag. This wasn’t going down very well. The monkey made a sound that sounded alarmingly like, ‘Fat kitty …’
‘Oi, stop that! I is a fearsome monster – ’onestly, peoples jes ’ave no respect for kobolds these days. I is NOT a pet!’
Meanwhile, Feathering was fighting against the net they had thrown over him. The dragon vowed to eat them all, cloud dragon or no.
The man with midnight skin and flaming hair glared at him. ‘Sekac,’ he said, like the horned woman.
It was a language Willow had never heard before, and she stared. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
The horned woman took a step forward, and Willow saw that her legs were bowed like a goat’s, strong and covered in thick blue-green hair. Her eyes blazed. ‘It is we who will ask questions first. You. What are you doing in the forest? What did you want from the tree?’
It sounded like she was not used to speaking their language.
‘The tree?’ asked Essential, freezing the same wind monkey who’d tried to take her glasses and was now trying to touch her long, curly hair.
At Essential’s question, several of the forest creatures started speaking rapidly in birdsong that trilled loudly in their ears.
‘The Great Tree,’ said the horned woman. ‘We know you were there. Don’t lie to us, child.’
Willow paled. ‘My friend lives there – at the top. He sent me a letter, asking for my help.’ As Willow reached into her dress pocket, there was more angry birdsong. Willow wondered what that other language was that they spoke – was it part of the bird-like one, or was it something else?
‘You will not use your magic on us!’ said an older man with leaves for hair. ‘It is forbidden in the starjna!’
Willow swallowed. She didn’t know what he meant by starjna, but she held up her hands in a gesture of peace. ‘I-I’m not using magic, I promise. It’s just a leaf-scroll – it was from my friend.’ Then she took the scroll from her pocket and showed it to them. ‘See?’
The horned woman frowned, then stepped forward to take the letter from Willow. Her vast wings settled round her body like jewelled robes, winking in the morning light. They looked like stained-glass windows. A strange look came over her face as she touched the leaf-scroll, and the fire in her yellow eyes seemed to momentarily calm. She trilled something softly in the bird language and there was an answering hoot from one of the wind monkeys.
‘My friend was captured,’ Willow explained.
‘Yes, we—’ The horned woman broke off suddenly.
There were more angry warbles, and the man with the green flames for hair shot the horned woman a warning look as they seemed to discuss something in their strange bird language.
Sprig cocked his head to the side, almost as if he were trying to listen, but when Willow looked at him he lifted his blue-black wing as if to say he didn’t understand.
Willow stared at the horned woman. ‘Did you take him?’
Hope that he was near, and fear that he was in grave danger from these fierce creatures, filled her heart. Perhaps they didn’t want him here in Wisperia. Maybe they thought of him as an outsider, not one of them – someone who was using the forest with his strange botany experiments … Perhaps he’d seen some of their secrets, and they didn’t want a witness to them. Would they keep Willow and her friends here too? All of this and more raced through her whirling mind.
The horned woman shook her head. ‘It was not us who took him. It was the—’
Suddenly there was an ear-splitting chorus of birdsong. The flame-haired man’s voice was loudest, and he turned to glare at the horned woman. ‘Know your place. Remember what you risk,’ he said in Shel – the common language of Starfell. Then he hissed something that sounded almost like ‘merali’.
The horned woman stepped back, dipping her head towards him, almost like a bow, then said nothing.
Willow stared, not understanding. What was that about? ‘Do you know who took him? Did you see?’
The horned woman shook her head. ‘We cannot say. It is not our way, I’m sorry.’
Willow stood up abruptly. They knew who had taken Nolin Sometimes, but wouldn’t tell them? Anger and frustration bubbled up inside her. ‘Why? Please, he needs us! If you know anything, you have to tell us. We’re so worried about him – anything you know could help us find him. Please – he’s our friend.’
The horned woman shook her head. ‘This we cannot do. Beroc was right to remind me. It is helia – risking the lives of others, especially ones who are so young, is forbidden—’
‘Pardon me, but I’d hazard that I am older than all of you combined!’ huffed Feathering.
The horned woman gave him a rare smile and said, ‘That would be the worst sort of helia – to risk a rare creature such as yourself. You cannot ask it of us.’ Her eyes grew guarded again as she stepped back and repeated, ‘Please do not ask me more of this. We will remember him, your friend. He was … strange, but one of us in many ways. We shall remember him when we say the blessings at the purple moon.’
Willow felt anger flush her face. They were speaking of him as if it were already too late! As if he were dead. As if they had given up all hope.
‘B-but he’s still alive – I’m sure of it! He doesn’t need a – a – blessing! He needs our help! And you could give it, if he’s your friend as you say! You don’t have to risk anything, surely, in just telling us who took him?’
‘No, that would be the worst thing we could do,’ refused the horned woman. ‘We are not afraid of the risk to us, but to you. We say this as a caution, not to be unkind: it is best if you leave it now.’
Willow frowned. She didn’t understand these fierce magical people at all. They knew who’d taken Sometimes, but wouldn’t give them any clues to find him, even though they claimed he was their friend and that they didn’t want to be unkind!