‘The problem with being a liar, Tanya, is that you have to have a good memory.’ Her mother was cross now. ‘It’s much harder to remember something that didn’t happen than something that did.’ Her voice was clipped and her cheeks and nose were starting to turn pink. ‘You’ve been out for hours, and all I’m getting is vague, wishy-washy explanations of where you’ve been and who you’ve been with.’ She eyed her daughter critically. ‘You’re covered in gnat bites, and don’t think I haven’t noticed the state of your dress. That was new on today and you’ve lost one of the buttons already.’
Tanya lifted her hand to the collar of her dress. There had been three daisy-shaped buttons there this morning. Now there were only two and a hanging thread where the third had been. Strange, she thought. When had that happened?
‘I’m not lying,’ she repeated quietly. Not this time. Lying was something she’d grown very good at over the years. She’d had to be. Being honest got her nowhere and, besides, how else could she explain some of the things the fairies had done? They were simply too bizarre. ‘Really. I’m telling the truth. I can’t remember.’
Her mother’s expression softened. ‘You do look a bit peaky. Perhaps you have a temperature; you’ve been in the sun all day.’ She held a hand to Tanya’s forehead. ‘You don’t feel too hot.’ She looked worried suddenly. ‘You didn’t take anything to eat or drink from anyone, did you?’
Tanya shook her head. ‘No. I mean, I don’t think so.’ Again, there was a worrying gap in her memory. ‘I drank some apple juice in a café on the pier.’ Strange that she could remember the earlier part of the day, and later, when she’d returned to the cottage. She and her mother had taken an evening stroll past the pier into the town centre and returned with fish and chips. She remembered all that well enough. It was just around Ratty and that horrible fairy of his that things got sketchy. She got up from the table, trying to smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve probably had too much sun. I’ll be fine in the morning.’
Her mother nodded, looking only a little reassured.
Tanya went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. That fairy of Ratty’s must be responsible for this. It was the only explanation. She pursed her lips as she took off her dress and pulled on her bathrobe. She’d give them both a piece of her mind if she saw them again.
As she threw her dress over the back of the chair, something landed on the wooden floor with a light ping and rolled under the bed. She knelt down and picked up a rusty, brown nail. At the foot of the chair there were also two small packets of salt. They hadn’t been there a minute ago. Surely these things hadn’t fallen out of her pocket? Where had they come from? She shook her head in confusion and threw the items in the waste-paper basket, then headed to the bathroom, eager to wash away the day’s sweat and stickiness.
Ten minutes later, she’d pulled on her pyjamas and slid between the cool, crisp sheets, but her uneasiness wouldn’t leave her. As she lay in the darkness, drifting into a doze, she thought she heard muffled muttering and scratches from beneath the bed. Several times she jerked awake, but only to a silent room and her own troubled imaginings. A sliver of yellow light was visible underneath the bedroom door and she could hear her mother moving about. It must be earlier than it felt. Eventually, a deeper sleep came. It didn’t last.
When she woke again, the light beneath the door had gone. It must be late now, for her mother had gone to bed. Only a shard of moonlight lit the room through a crack in the curtains. In that thin, silver shard, dark shadows moved and, before Tanya was even properly awake, her eyelids gave a telltale twitch. It was enough to jolt her from sleep completely.
She sat up, rubbing her twitching eyes. She could smell it now, too, on the breeze from the open window: the earthy, outdoorsy smell that gave them away.
There were fairies in the room.
She pulled the bedclothes closer, her heart starting to thud. Her eyes darted around the room, seeking out every dark corner. Shadows flickered and a low, snorting snuffling sounded from underneath the bed. She half ducked as something swooped past her face, skimming the tip of her nose. When she looked up again, a large, black raven had perched on the end of the bed, its scaly claws grasping the wooden frame. Next to it stood two small figures, both male. One was dark-skinned, thin and wore a suit of leaves. The other was plump and short, with a feathered cap and an unpleasant moustache that he twirled around his fingers. They both regarded her in silence.
The raven preened its feathers briefly, then shook itself. The feathers fell away, transforming into a soft, gleaming gown. It was worn by a small woman, not much larger than the bird had been. The tips of two pointed ears poked out from her silky, black hair. Next to it, her skin was as pale as cream, glowing in the moonlight.
‘What do you want?’ Tanya whispered. Her body was tense, every muscle tight with dread.
‘What makes you think we want anything?’ Raven answered. Her voice was soft, but not exactly friendly.
‘You usually want to cause trouble,’ Tanya retorted. ‘To punish me for something. Well, I don’t know why you’re here this time – I haven’t done anything. I haven’t written about you, spoken about you or picked any flowers that I shouldn’t have.’
‘Actually, that’s not quite true, is it?’ said Raven. ‘You have been talking to someone about us.’
Gredin, the dark-skinned fairy, nodded in agreement. ‘We saw you,’ he said. ‘Speaking to that boy.’ His yellow eyes were narrowed. ‘We didn’t like it.’
‘Why?’ Tanya protested, her voice rising. She racked her brains to recall what she and Ratty had spoken about, knowing that they must have discussed fairies, but not able to pinpoint anything in particular. ‘If he can see fairies, too, what have I done wrong? It’s not like I told him anything he didn’t already know.’
Gredin’s lip curled back over his teeth. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Quite the opposite.’
Tanya closed her eyes, willing her memories of the afternoon to return. Quite the opposite? That meant Ratty had been the one with the information, telling her things – important things – about fairies that she didn’t know. But what? The question niggled her, the answers just out of reach.
‘How was I supposed to know that it’s wrong to speak to someone else who can see fairies?’ Tanya said, remembering to keep her voice low just in time. Indignation had chased away her fear and lent her courage. ‘I’ve never met anyone else who can before!’ She glared at the three of them. ‘Why is it even wrong at all?’
Feathercap, the third fairy, stepped forward. ‘It’s wrong,’ he hissed, ‘because the less you know about us, the better.’
‘Better for you, you mean?’ Tanya retaliated.
Gredin’s golden eyes glinted meanly, and Tanya knew she was straying into dangerous territory. ‘Careful,’ he said slowly. ‘Be very careful.’
Tanya lowered her eyes and said nothing, but beneath the covers her fists were clenched as tightly as her jaw. It wasn’t fair. How dare they bully her like this?
‘How did you even find me here?’ she asked.
‘We can find you anywhere,’ Feathercap replied. ‘No matter how far from home you are. ‘We’re always watching.’
In the silence that followed, she caught another snuffling sound from under the bed. It sounded a bit like Oberon when he was eating his dinner – but Oberon wasn’t in the room. The snuffle became a gulp, then was followed by a swallow.
‘Feathercap, will you please see what that blasted creature is up to?’ Gredin said irritably.
Feathercap gave a stroppy sigh, but hopped off the bed and vanished underneath it.
‘You won’t be punished,’ Raven said softly. ‘Not this time anyway.’
Gredin made a noise of impatience. ‘How else will she learn?’
‘She did not know.’ Raven’s voice took on a steely tone. She looked away from Gredin to Tanya. ‘But now you do. You’re not to speak to that boy about us, or any other fairies, ever again.’
‘But I
can still speak to him about other things?’ Tanya said stubbornly.
Raven’s voice was curt. ‘It would be better if you didn’t, but yes. You may, if you really must.’
Feathercap returned at that moment. For once, Tanya was glad of the interruption. The fewer rules the fairies laid out, the better. Behind him flew a strange little creature, something halfway between a hedgehog and a piglet. It looked moth-eaten and miserable, and landed clumsily on the bed, its ragged wings struggling to keep it up in the air.
‘It was eating a spider,’ Feathercap said, his face twisted in disgust. ‘Must have sniffed it out as soon as we arrived.’
Tanya shuddered. She didn’t mind the Mizhog much, for it never spoke or did anything unkind to her, unlike the others. It just seemed to accompany them rather like a pet, watching everything that went on with its large, gloomy brown eyes. It did, however, have a revolting diet and habits to match. As well as spiders, the Mizhog was fond of gobbling up slugs, snails, worms and woodlice. It was never quiet or discreet about it, either. Every squish, squelch, chomp and chew was plain to hear, and the remains of its grisly meals usually glistened on its whiskers for some time afterwards. It was also full of fleas and constantly scratching and licking itself.
It regarded her now, hiccuping occasionally. Something long and thin that looked suspiciously like a spider’s leg dangled from its snout. Tanya looked away as her stomach gave a lurch.
Thankfully, the fairies chose that moment to leave. As usual, their departure was swift, with no goodbyes. A simple, ‘Remember – we’ll be watching,’ was all she heard from Gredin as he leaped on to the window ledge, soon followed by Feathercap. Raven transformed once more, spreading her black wings wide and gliding to the window. As always, the Mizhog was last to depart, its hurried flaps all the more clumsy-looking compared to the grace of the creature before it. Then they were gone and Tanya could finally release the breath she had been holding on to.
She lay back in bed, willing her heart to slow. The fairies’ visits normally meant bad news and a pickle she couldn’t explain her way out of. It was rare, very rare, for her to escape without punishment as she had tonight, but, even so, she could not count it as a victory. They hadn’t punished her, but the threat of it was still there if she spoke to Ratty again – and how could she avoid speaking about fairies to the only other person she knew who could see them?
She was wide awake now and too warm. Kicking the sheets off, she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing for sleep and morning to come. When she finally began to doze off again, it was not peaceful, for she dreamed her eyelids were still twitching and could smell that giveaway, leaf-mulch smell of fairies. Somehow, she pushed these things to the back of her mind, allowing sleep to pull her further in until she was aware of nothing.
It was not the clattering of the breakfast things that woke her, or even the sound of Oberon scratching at the bedroom door. Nor was it the sunshine streaming in on her face, the promise of another fine, scorching day ahead. Instead, Tanya woke to the unpleasant feeling of a drip sliding down her cheek. Her eyes snapped open.
Sweat. She was covered in it. At some point during the night she must have pulled the covers back over herself, but now she was unbearably hot. She turned to look at the clock on the bedside table and squealed. An ugly china doll with a chipped face and a green velvet dress stared back at her. It looked very old and there was a yellowed piece of paper pinned to it which said: EMILLIES DOLL.
Tanya frowned. Emily’s doll? Who was Emily? A little girl who’d lived here once? Where had the doll come from?
She tried to throw the bedclothes off – but found she couldn’t.
‘What—?’ she whispered.
Her arms and legs were pinned tightly to her sides, unable to move. For a moment, she thought she must have rolled herself into a cocoon of sheets, but they held fast, not giving an inch. Not only that, but her pyjamas felt . . . odd, like her hands and feet were trapped. She wriggled a hand out from under the bedclothes, then froze in shock.
Her pale blue pyjama sleeve had been sewn together at the cuff, trapping her hand inside. The stitches had been made in horrid brown wool and were ugly and frenzied, like a mad dressmaker had been sewing as if their life depended on it. She wriggled her toes and her other hand. All of them had been tightly sewn in.
In despair, she remembered the twitching in her eyelids as she had fallen back to sleep. She hadn’t been dreaming it. This had to be the work of the fairies – though normally they stayed to watch her reaction to their punishments. Yet that didn’t make sense; not after they’d made a point of telling her she wouldn’t be punished this time. By now, however, Tanya knew better than to question why they treated her the way they did. It was a mystery, especially if what Ratty had said about them being guardians was true.
For now, it didn’t matter why they had done it. The important thing was to get out of this mess before her mother came in and saw her. She tried again to pull the covers back, but again they would not budge. Only then did Tanya realise that things were much worse than she’d originally thought. She twisted her head to the side to find more crazed brown stitches, this time securing the blankets to the sheet underneath her. Not only had she been sewn into her nightclothes, she’d been completely sewn into the bed.
A panicky feeling rose in her chest. She forced it down, fighting to stay calm and think. Her hands – she had to get her hands free first. Luckily, her pyjamas were made of thin material and she could still grip things through it easily enough. She attempted to lift the pyjamas off over her head, only now there was another problem. They were stuck, too, because the top had been sewn to the trousers. She gave a low growl of frustration. There was only one thing for it. She brought her sleeve to her mouth and bit into the brown wool.
She gagged instantly. It tasted disgusting: damp and mildewy, like it had been forgotten in a cupboard for about a hundred years. The rough texture of it scratching against her teeth was almost as bad, but she had no choice except to gnaw and nibble at it until it broke. Eventually, it did and she was able to pull at the wool with her teeth until the stitches unravelled and her hand was free.
Immediately, she tried to unpick the other sleeve with her fingernails, but there was no obvious knot where the stitches had been tied off. She was forced again to chew her way through it, while trying not to imagine where the wool might have come from. Finally, both hands were free.
She bit back a shriek at a sudden knock at the door.
‘Tanya?’ her mother called. ‘Are you up yet?’
‘I’m awake,’ she spluttered, praying her mother wouldn’t come in. Thankfully, the door stayed closed, but the delicious smell of frying bacon had started to waft under it.
‘Breakfast in five minutes,’ Mrs Fairchild said.
‘Coming!’ Tanya called desperately. She waited until her mother’s footsteps moved away from the door, then started to wriggle, caterpillar-like, up and out of the bedclothes. It was harder than she had imagined it would be, for the covers were sewn so tightly there was barely room to move at all. It’s a wonder I didn’t suffocate, she thought. Her anger lent her strength. A minute passed, then another. She was almost waist-high out of the sheets. From the kitchen, her mother called her again.
She wriggled harder, sweat making the sheets and her pyjamas stick to her skin. At last, her hips were free, and she was able to pull herself up and slide her legs out.
A sneaky laugh from somewhere in the room made her breath catch in her throat. She glanced about fearfully. Where had it come from?
Only then did she see what else had been left for her.
A series of large, brown woolly letters had been stitched across the beautiful lemon bedding, ruining it. Dazed, Tanya slid off the bed and crept sideways to see it better. Though the spelling was terrible, the message was unmistakable:
LEEVE THIS HOWSE
Leave this house.
Of course. This wasn’t the work of the four fairies who had visited
in the night after all. They had kept true to their word. No, Tanya realised. This – and the horrible doll – was the work of whatever it was that lurked under the floorboards and was in the room with her now, chuckling slyly from some unseen nook or cranny.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked in a furious whisper.
The chuckling stopped and a low muttering began. ‘Leave this house,’ it chanted. ‘Leave this house, leave this house . . .’
‘Tanya!’ Her mother rapped on the door, startling her. ‘I’m not calling you again – you can eat it cold!’
And then the doorknob turned and the door began to open.
7
A Jar of Odds and Ends
TANYA DID THE ONLY THING SHE COULD think of. She grabbed the pillow from behind her and threw it over the ugly brown lettering on the bed to hide it. It worked, with not a moment to spare. Her mother stood at the door, tapping her foot with impatience.
‘You should be up and dressed by now, young lady.’
‘Sorry,’ Tanya muttered. She was well aware that the ankles of her pyjamas were still sewn together and that the top was still attached to the bottoms. She held her mother’s gaze, hoping she wouldn’t notice. ‘I’m coming right now.’
Luckily, her mother was too busy looking at the doll. ‘Where did that ghastly thing come from?’
‘Oh . . . I found it. In a cupboard. I thought it was . . . sweet.’
Mrs Fairchild shuddered. ‘It’s creepy, if you ask me. Anyway, hurry up.’
Tanya nodded, watching as her mother retreated. Once she was out of sight, Tanya hobbled to the bathroom and locked the door behind her, rummaging through her mother’s toiletry bag. Finally, she found what she was searching for: a small pair of nail scissors. She set to work, snipping at the wool. To her dismay, it was so thick that it left noticeable holes in her pyjamas, but there was nothing she could do about that except hope that her mother wouldn’t notice.
Fat chance, she thought miserably, replacing the scissors and dumping the wool in the bin. She hurried back to the bedroom and threw the wardrobe open, ready to grab the first thing she found – but there was another shock in store.