Suddenly she was nine years old again, hiding away in the attic, hiccoughing as she cried big angry sobs, because her mother had said that she couldn’t go with her sisters to the Travelling Fortune Fair.
‘She doesn’t love me like she loves them, that’s what it is,’ she told Granny Flossy, who had followed her up the stairs and had taken a seat next to Willow on an old bench.
‘Nonsense,’ said Granny. ‘She loves you very much.’
‘Then why can’t I go?’
‘Because yer too young, child. Those fairs aren’t what you think they are – dark places some of ’em. Creepy, trust me. ’Tis no place fer a child.’
‘Juniper went at my age.’
‘Juniper is different; she can take care of herself.’
This was true. She could blow things up.
Not like Willow.
‘It’s because I don’t have a power like hers. She’s embarrassed of me …’
‘No, I don’t think it’s that exactly. I think she’s afraid that if yer not here, I’ll blow the house up again.’
Willow snorted and couldn’t help a small smile from forming. There was that. Though to be fair to Granny Flossy it hadn’t been the whole house. Just a big part of the roof. And the spare room. And there was that time that she smashed all the windows in the greenhouse.
‘Tell yer what – why don’ I make us something special? Something you can’t get at any fair?’
Willow sniffed. ‘Like what?’
‘Like maybe …’ She peered into her hairy old green carpetbag, tapping her chin, her lime-green hair swinging in front of her face. ‘Eternal youth?’
‘So that I can never go to the fair?’ scoffed Willow. ‘That won’t exactly help me, Granny.’
‘Right, right, that one’s tricky anyhow … Last time it went a bit wrong.’
Willow raised a brow. It had gone very wrong actually. To be honest most of Granny’s potions went more than a bit wrong. There was the time when Mrs Crone-Barrow developed that beard … which kept growing back no matter how much she shaved.
‘Ah!’ said Granny. ‘I know, we’ll make The Perfect Sunday Afternoon,’ she said, pulling out a big glass jar full of strange green-and-gold pie-shaped blooms. She opened the jar and the scent that wafted over to Willow smelt sweet and delicious.
‘What’s that?’
‘These are apple-pie blossoms – they’re a key ingredient.’
‘Apple-pie blossoms?’ exclaimed Willow. She’d never heard of such a thing.
‘Oh yes. You get all sorts of strange things growing in the magical forest of Wisperia. Even the trees are different colours … You know, they say that’s where the magic hid when the Brothers of Wol tried to rip it away during the Long War … Anyway, it’s the only place these flowers grow, on the Great Wisperia Tree itself. You can’t miss it – it’s the biggest of the lot and it’s a really strange pale sort of blue. Never seen anything like it. It grows all sorts of things … but keep that between ourselves, right? Can’t have everyone knowing my secrets … and where to get the best plants and ingredients …’
The potion hadn’t really worked. It had caused Willow to skip and sing for days, but they’d had a pretty good Sunday anyway.
‘Wisperia,’ breathed Willow now. The largest, most magical forest in Starfell. Of course. It made sense. Few – apart from mad people like her granny – ever dared to venture there. It was an unpredictable place with magic fizzing about – they’d all heard the stories of people who’d come back changed as a result. Hooves for feet, hair that turned to flames, leaves for fingers …
It was supposed to be beautiful, and colourful, but it could be dangerous too – especially if you didn’t know what you were looking for. It sounded like the perfect place someone who didn’t want to be found would hide …
She stared at the picture of the tree, and then looked at the others, noting that most of them had the same handwritten note at the bottom. ‘Wisperia,’ she breathed again, touching one of the pictures. ‘I think that’s where he’s gone … and where we’ll have to head to next.’
There was faint gasp from the bag. ‘Oh no.’
9
The Dragon’s Tale
‘I jes don’ wanna go back to the Cloud Mountains. Yew don’ understand … ’Tis not right … all these big rocks dangling in the sky wiff nuffink around them … ’Tis creepy and yer eyeballs don’ works … I means, I like the dark … but I like the dark whens you can’t also falls off …’
‘The Cloud Mountains?’ asked Willow, looking at him with a frown. ‘But – that’s not where we’re going.’ She stopped, then grinned, taking out the StoryPass, which just then pointed to ‘One Might Have Suspected as Such’. Oswin turned from green to orange, clearly a bit angry at himself as it dawned on him at the same time as Willow said, ‘Oh – because that’s the way to Wisperia, isn’t it?’
In answer he put a paw over his eyes, then zipped the bag shut again. Willow could hear Oswin softly cursing his bad luck, and his big mouth, in High Dwarf. As well as something about being a cumberworld, whatever that was.
But, as much as Willow wanted to press ahead on their journey, she felt the exhaustion that had been creeping in after their long day start to take hold. She found herself struggling to keep her eyes open, and suggested they stop for the night. Oswin’s sigh of relief was the last thing she heard before she fell fast asleep, curled round the hairy carpetbag on the small wooden bed, the air smelling faintly of flowers.
The next day, when Beady Hill was far behind them, Willow and Oswin passed a sign that read,
A little further on one read:
But the last one was probably the most ominous as it sort of gave up:
Willow took a steadying breath as she went past it.
Fog was beginning to sweep the ground, and the air was cold as it slithered inside Willow’s cloak, making the hairs on her neck stand on end. She shivered, though she wasn’t sure if it was just the sudden chill. It had grown dark and grey, and she could no longer see her feet as she walked. She could make out odd shapes in the mist; as she neared one she found that it was a large rock, which looked a bit like a child. She swallowed, grabbing her chest when it seemed for a moment to look at her. Clutching the hairy carpetbag tightly, she walked past the rock-child fast, and saw through the swirling mist that they had rounded upon a mountain range that was suspended among the clouds so that it appeared to float in the air. These must be the Cloud Mountains, thought Willow. As she got closer the air grew even thicker with hazy mist and the familiar sound of Oswin’s panicked wailing.
‘OH NO! Oh no! Oh, me greedy aunt! Osbertrude, a curse upon yeh. A curse, I tell yeh! I’m gonna die with only fruit in my bellllly …’
Willow felt her fear grow. His wails were reaching a deafening crescendo. He’d never been this panicked before, she thought. Not even when the Brothers of Wol or Amora Spell had appeared.