Free Emily Feather and the Chest of Charms by Holly Webb

Where’d Lark go?” Robin asked, standing at the top of the attic stairs and looking around.
    Emily and Sasha peered over his shoulder. It was late afternoon and thick, honeyed sunlight was pouring through the small windows, leaving golden pools on the dusty floor. The attic seemed to run all along the top of the house, Emily realized, just under the roof, so the ceilings were slanted and low. It was just as she had imagined – piled to the rafters with strange old stuff. At first look, it was like any other family’s junk room – bags full of outgrown clothes, wooden boxes packed with unwanted books, an old bird cage, a little row of tiny shoes. But when Emily crouched down to inspect a pile of books, she saw that the one on the top had a green leather cover stamped with gold letters. She couldn’t read the title – the letters wouldn’t stand still long enough. It was as though Emily had to open the book to make it decide what it was going to be. She wasn’t quite brave enough.
    â€œWhere’s Lark gone?” she asked, reluctantly turning away from the pile. “Through another door?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Robin murmured back. “And I’m sure Lory’s been here too, not long ago. I can feel her. I thought she and Dan would be up here looking for that secret door and Lark would be having a go at them. I was all set to be breaking up another fight. Where are they all?”
    â€œI don’t know…” Emily replied unhappily. A cloud must have passed across the sun – the golden light had darkened now, and the attic had turned shadowy and dim. Suddenly, she had the strongest sense that something was wrong. “I don’t like it,” she added, swallowing. It felt like there was a solid lump of fright stuck in her throat.
    â€œMe neither,” Robin stepped back closer to her. “Emily, I think we have to go and tell Mum and Dad what’s going on.”
    â€œBut the spell!” Emily shuddered. Watching Lark twisting in pain from the burning spell had been so awful. She wasn’t sure she could bear to make something like that happen again.
    â€œI know…” Robin shook his head worriedly. “I don’t want to hurt Lark, but everything up here feels dark and horrible. You can feel it too, can’t you?”
    Sasha nodded. “Yes. I can feel it too. Some sort of treacherous spell, cruel, and dark.”
    â€œTreachery?” Emily gasped. “Does that mean Lory’s done something else awful to Lark? Where are they?”
    Here…
    It was the faintest whisper, so faint that they felt it rather than heard it, from over in the far corner of the room.
    Lark was lying behind a cluster of battered chairs, her fingers reaching towards an old wooden chest. Her wings were torn and battered, like a sea bird caught in a storm. The beautiful soft brown glow of them was gone, leaving the feathers grey and dusty.
    â€œWhat happened?” Emily cried, crouching down beside her.
    â€œI tried to follow them. He found the door. Look.” She stretched her fingers out another painful fraction and tried to point. “The chest. Dan left a spell to stop us. He must have known we’d try to follow them.”
    â€œAre you all right?” Emily asked, hesitantly stroking Lark's dusty feathers and wishing she knew a healing magic.
    â€œI will be. I just can’t move. It’s a binding spell fixed to the door … to cripple whoever tries to follow after them. He must have thought we’d be together, but I got all of it.”
    â€œCan’t we undo it?” Robin asked, brushing his fingers over the dusty boards around her, trying to find the limits of the spell.
    Lark wriggled helplessly and sighed. “I don’t think so. It’s strong. Like … like I’m set in stone, or something.”
    â€œI don’t think it’ll come undone until they come back through the