“What…?” Tanya stared down in confusion. It was a puppy with rolls of fat rippling over its back. Its paws and ears were huge and outsized, and its entire lower body shook as it madly wagged its tail. Tanya’s heart plummeted as she saw the puppy’s collar. It was so large that, as the dog jumped up at her, the collar slipped past its neck and went around the middle of its body. “Oh, no…” she whispered.
“Whose dog is this?” said Fabian, kneeling to pat the puppy. “And where’s Oberon?”
The puppy yapped and lunged playfully for Fabian’s earlobe. Fabian yelped and pried it away.
Tanya took the collar and slowly turned it in her hands. “This is Oberon.”
Rowan pushed past her and knelt at the puppy’s side. “What?”
Tanya looked at her, her eyes wide and angry. “Gredin. He said he’d punish me by getting to Oberon if I defied him, and that’s exactly what he’s done!”
Oberon lavished her with licks before turning his attention to Fabian and Rowan. After enduring a few licks, Fabian escaped and went to the fridge, noisily drinking milk straight from the bottle. “It could be worse,” he said between gulps. “He makes a cute puppy, I think. Apart from the biting.”
“That’s not the point.” Tanya gathered the puppy into her arms, then released him when he began to squirm. “Gredin’s got no right to mess around with my dog! And Oberon was just about the naughtiest puppy you could imagine. My mum said she’d never get another puppy again after him.”
“What are we going to do?” said Rowan. “You’ll have to tell Gredin you’re sorry. Maybe he’ll change him back.”
“I’d rather be turned into a puppy myself than apologize to him!”
“Young man! Would you please use a glass?” Nell had followed them around the back, evidently wanting to keep her mopped floor pristine. She frowned at Fabian, then tipped her bucketful of dirty water into the drain and came into the kitchen, shrieking as Oberon bounded over to her.
“Where did this dog come from?” She flapped her arms. “It’s bad enough having one set of muddy paws to clean up after. Take it away, it’ll snag my tights!”
Tanya pulled Oberon away. “It’s the same dog, Nell. The fairies… they’ve turned him back into a puppy.”
Nell shrank back from Oberon as though she thought he were contagious. Then her mouth dropped open as a small, trickling noise began. Tanya looked down, already knowing what she was going to see. Oberon stood in a widening yellow puddle, still wagging his tail.
“I’ll get some newspaper in a minute,” Tanya said lamely.
Nell tutted. She turned to Rowan. “Who were those two lads with you just now?”
“Friends of mine,” Rowan answered shortly, leaving the kitchen and heading for the stairs. Nell, Tanya, and Fabian followed, and Oberon bounded after them.
“Friends?” said Nell. “I haven’t seen them before.”
“That’s because they haven’t been here before. They’re part of the circus.”
Nell gave a surprised little squeak. “It’s a good thing Florence is out. I’m not sure she’d approve of you bringing vagabonds back here. That dark-headed boy looked especially shifty.”
Rowan raced past the grandfather clock, not bothering to reply. Nell waited by the clock as Rowan cleared the top step, evidently expecting an answer. It came in the form of a loud bang as Rowan slammed her bedroom door.
“Well!” said Nell, indignantly. “Friends of hers. My left foot!” She waltzed past Tanya and Fabian at the bottom of the stairs, leaving them alone in the hallway. In the silence, a snide voice sounded from the depths of the grandfather clock.
“Her left foot!”
Mischievous, tittering laughter rang out, followed by low whispering, but Tanya had neither the time nor the energy to wonder what it meant.
Oberon was now tugging at her trouser leg, wanting to play. She tried to disentangle herself and glanced about the hall to make sure she and Fabian were still alone. “What were you thinking of earlier, on the way home?”
Fabian took off his glasses and rubbed them against his shirt. “I can’t say yet, in case I’m wrong. I need more time to think.”
“Fabian!” she exploded. “Don’t be stupid, of course you can say! I don’t care if you’re wrong, just tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“But I don’t like being wrong,” Fabian began to object, then gave in. “Oh, all right. Just don’t tell Rowan. I want to be sure before I confront her.”
“Sure about what?”
Fabian put his glasses back on. “Where’s that charm bracelet of yours?”
“In my room, under the floorboard,” Tanya said in surprise. “Rowan gave it back to me after she lost James. It’s been there ever since, wrapped up in my red scarf.”
“Can you get it?”
She hesitated. “Do I have to?”
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that every time I go near that bracelet, something bad happens. It’s like it’s cursed. Why do you even want it?”
“Forget it,” said Fabian. “Never mind.” He pulled out his book and flicked through the pages. “I’ve still got the notes I made on each of the charms when we were hunting for them last year—I can work from that. I just thought it might help if we had something visual to look at as well.”
Tanya sighed. “If you really think it’ll help, then I’ll get it. Just don’t blame me if things start to go wrong.”
“Things are already going wrong,” Fabian said darkly. “Get the bracelet and bring it to my room.”
Tanya returned Oberon to the kitchen, first cleaning up the puddle, then laying newspaper down. Then she shut him in, despite his whines. Her head pounded as she tried to think of what she was going to tell her grandmother and how she was ever going to get Oberon back to normal. She pushed it from her mind. There was nothing she could do just yet.
Ten minutes later Tanya was at Fabian’s door, the bracelet safely concealed in the red scarf. Fabian called her into his room, his head bent over his desk as he wrote in his notebook.
“Close the door,” he said.
She did, and sat on his bed. “It’s tidy in here,” she said in surprise.
“I know,” he said, disgusted. “It’s Nell. She keeps on putting things away and muddling everything up. I can never find anything after she’s been in.”
“I’ve got the bracelet,” she said, unwrapping a corner of the scarf. A glimmer of light bounced off one of the charms. “Why did you ask me to bring it?”
“Come here,” said Fabian.
She got up and went to the desk. In Fabian’s notebook, a column of names had been written in the margin of one of the pages.
“Rowan, Sparrow, Tino, Suki, Crooks, Samson…” Tanya read. “You listed all the people who came to the barn the other night.”
“Plus the two who didn’t come,” said Fabian. “Cobbler and Dawn.” He put a light pencil line through both their names, and Fix’s too. “There are thirteen names on this list. Three of them are already dead.”
“Wait a minute,” said Tanya. “I don’t understand your reasoning. How does this link to the thirteen treasures just because there are thirteen names?”
“It doesn’t. But I’ve been noticing things—things about these people. Maybe you’ve noticed things too.”
“Like what?”
“Like Suki, having visions and being able to sense things. Crooks, always carrying keys about with him, plus the fact that he seems to be able to break into just about anywhere.”
“He’s an escape artist in the circus,” said Tanya with a frown. “And Suki is the fortune teller, but she’s genuinely got the ability….”
“Then there’s Victor, with his sword-swallowing and knives,” Fabian rushed on. “Clearly an expert on weapons—he has to be for his part in the show. And his brother, Samson, the circus strongman—you felt how powerful he was when he grabbed us outside the barn. Don’t you see? Don’t you get it?”
Tanya unwrapped the bracelet and set it down next to Fabian. “Yes,” she whispered. “I think I do.” She took the pencil from Fabian’s hand and wrote down four words, one next to each of the names: Cup, Key, Sword, Mantle. Then she put the pencil down and picked up the bracelet, looking through the charms.
“Suki: the Cup of Divination,” Fabian said solemnly. “Crooks: the Key to open any door. Victor: the Sword of Victory, and Samson: the Mantle, a staff for strength. Now, I don’t know about you, but to me that seems an awfully big coincidence.”
“I don’t think it’s coincidence,” said Tanya. She picked up the pencil again and held it next to Fix’s name. Her eyes drifted over the bracelet. “I remember now. One of her tattoos—it was a dagger. She tapped the dagger charm. “The Dagger, dripping blood that can heal any wound. Fix made potions and remedies. She had the power to heal.” She wrote “Dagger” down next to Fix’s name.
“She also had the power to kill,” said Fabian. “One of her own concoctions killed her. Write that down.”
Tanya wrote down “poison” on the same line. Then, almost subconsciously, she wrote “Glamour—a mask of illusion” next to Tino’s name.
“Just a guess,” she muttered. “With all the costumes and masks.”
Fabian nodded. “I was thinking the same.”
Tanya raised the pencil and rested it next to Rowan’s name, looking at Fabian questioningly.
“That’s what we need to find out,” said Fabian. “We don’t know enough about Rowan or the rest of them—or what they do—to make a judgment. But I’m guessing that every one of them symbolizes one of the thirteen treasures in some way, which indicates that this group of theirs is much more strongly linked than they’d like anyone to know. No wonder Rowan wants out.”
“Why do you say that?”
A muscle twitched in Fabian’s cheek. “Because with something running this deep, you can bet they’ve made some pretty dangerous enemies.”
Nell’s voice could be heard all the way up the stairs the next morning. Rowan woke, dragged herself out of bed and dressed, then went downstairs to the kitchen. Florence sat at the table, calmly sipping a cup of tea while Nell stood barefoot in front of the fireplace; a mound of shoes was strewn across the hearthrug. Already they had been well chewed by Oberon, who was still very much a puppy.
“Every single one of them!” she fumed, brandishing a scuffed shoe. “Just look! Even me bleedin’ flip-flops! Now what am I supposed to wear while I do the housework?”
“You can borrow a pair of my slippers,” Florence said with a sigh. “We’ll have to go into Tickey End and get new ones.”
Rowan sat down and reached for a slice of toast. “What’s the matter?”
“Left feet! Every one of them.” Nell threw the shoe to the floor. It landed near Oberon’s nose, and he sniffed it longingly. “You might as well have that one too,” Nell told him. She stomped to the table and sat, sulking. “I’ve had it up to here with those fairies!”
The General cackled from his cage. “My left foot!” he croaked. “My left foot!”
“Quite,” said Nell. “It seems protecting myself isn’t enough if they can still meddle with other things to annoy me.”
“Speaking of which, nobody has told us what exactly Tanya did to anger Gredin,” said Florence, glancing at Oberon, who was now pouncing on a pile of newspaper he’d shredded earlier.
Rowan pretended not to hear. “You need to appease them, Nell,” she said, slathering her toast with butter and jam. “They’ve been targeting you ever since you caught one of them in your mousetraps. They’re not going to forgive you that easily.”
Nell scowled. “What do you suggest?”
“Leave some food out for them,” Rowan said with a shrug. She bit into her toast and looked away as Warwick came into the kitchen. He frowned at the pile of shoes and at the puppy, but said nothing, busying himself by fetching the boot polish and brushes from under the sink.
Tanya and Fabian came down a few minutes later.
“What the…” Fabian began. A slow grin spread across his face as he studied the mountain of shoes. “Your left foot!” he crowed.
Nell glowered at him.
“That’s enough, Fabian,” Florence warned. “Any more of that and you’ll be helping Nell with the housework for a week.”
Fabian stopped grinning immediately.
“And Tanya, whatever you’ve done to annoy Gredin, will you please sort it out? Oberon has piddled just about everywhere this morning, apart from the garden, and you can’t take him back home like that.”
Tanya glowered into her cereal. “I know.”
After breakfast was eaten and cleared away, Rowan, Tanya, and Fabian huddled on the landing upstairs.
“Right. I’m meeting Sparrow and the others in five minutes,” Rowan whispered. “I should be back early this afternoon. I just told Florence I’m meeting some friends from school to talk about homework, in case anyone else asks.” She collected her bag from her room, stuffing a notepad, a textbook, and her pencil case in the top to obscure the fox-skin coat hidden beneath, and locked her door.
She slipped down the stairs, leaving Tanya and Fabian behind, and left through the front door. She sat on the porch and pulled on her walking boots, and was lacing them up as Warwick came out. She saw his eyes slide over her bag, clocking the pencil case in the top where she had purposely left it open.
“Off to the library?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Haven’t seen much of you, considering it’s the school holidays. Rose has been hoping you’d spend more time with her.”
She stood up, fastening her bag. “I will,” she muttered. “I’ll come and see her this afternoon.”
He nodded and strode off in the direction of his den at the side of the house, leaving her alone in the forecourt. She passed through the gates, and after a quick glance around, opened the bag and ditched the books and her pencil case in a bush at the side of the dirt track.
“Nice dress,” a voice remarked.
She turned to see Sparrow and Crooks emerge from behind a cluster of trees opposite the gates.
“You look like a proper lady,” Crooks said, smirking.
Rowan stared at him and lifted the hem of the dark green fabric slightly to reveal the tip of the dagger strapped to her right thigh. “Looks can be deceiving,” she said. “I thought we all knew that by now.” She let the dress drop back into place and started to walk. “Where’s Suki? I thought she was coming.”
Sparrow fell into pace beside her. Crooks skulked behind them.
“She’s still at the caravan,” Sparrow said. “She had another one of them dreams last night, and she’s convinced someone has put some kind of a jinx on her, to block her visions, like. When we got there she was turning the place upside down, searching it all over for spells or curses. We’re going back there now—if she hasn’t found nothing by the time we get there she says she’ll come with us to Dawn’s.”
Within twenty-five minutes they were heading toward Suki’s caravan. A handful of people had gathered outside. Suki and Tino were there, along with Samson and Victor. Sparrow broke into a run, closing the gap. Rowan started to run as well, leaving Crooks trailing behind.
“You found something?” she asked, arriving beside Tino. Wordlessly, he pointed. Suki’s caravan had been pulled back a few meters to reveal the ground beneath it. Next to her she heard Sparrow’s intake of breath.
A large circle had been gouged into the grass, patterns and odd symbols carved within it. At its center, fenced in by a host of burnt-out matches and candles, a pebble weighted a photograph of Suki to the ground. Hardened candle wax had been dripped over her face, obliterating it.
“I knew it,” Suki whispered, white-faced. “I just knew it. Someone’s worked magic against me. This is why my visions have stopped.” She leaned forward, reaching for the photograph.
“Don’t touch it!” Tino batted her hand away. “Don’t touch anything! You don’t
know what kind of spell this is—it needs to be properly disassembled.” He glanced around, seeing more groups of people approaching. “Samson, move the caravan back into place for now. And all of you keep quiet about this. We don’t want the whole camp knowing—the last thing we need is to cause a panic.”
Samson dragged the caravan back into place, hiding the sinister circle from view, despite Suki’s protests.
“We can’t leave it,” she insisted. “We have to get rid of it, now!”
“We will,” Tino replied. “But we need to find out how to go about it. Without Fix, that could take awhile. But for now, a simple purge spell should be performed. I can tell you how to do it, but you’ll need to do it alone….”
Suki and Tino walked off in the direction of his caravan, leaving the rest of them behind.
“That settles it, then,” said Crooks, his eyes tracing the tracks in the mud where the caravan had been dragged. “Looks like we’re going to Dawn’s without Suki.”
Almost an hour had passed since Rowan had left Elvesden Manor. While Fabian cleaned out the chicken coop and collected the morning’s eggs, Tanya hung around the kitchen waiting for him to finish. She had held off on walking Oberon until Fabian returned to accompany her so that they might use the opportunity to talk about the previous night’s discovery and to think about how to tackle Gredin’s punishment. She was so preoccupied that, for several minutes, she did not realize that she was alone with her grandmother.
“Something on your mind?” Florence asked, emerging from the pantry.
“No,” she said quickly, before realizing that there was, in fact, something she had been meaning to discuss. “Actually, yes.” She sat down, silencing Oberon’s whines with a biscuit. “It’s about Gredin.”
Florence closed the pantry door. “Are you going to tell me what’s happened?”
“Not exactly. It’s about guardians… fairy guardians in general,” Tanya continued. “I know that every child born with the second sight has one, but what I don’t understand is why. Because they don’t seem to enjoy it, or want to protect us.” She stroked Oberon’s head, then lifted him onto her lap. “Sometimes they even seem to resent it.”