Free Emily Feather and the Enchanted Door by Holly Webb Page B

the other fairies watching eagerly, and the one with the peacock wings was leaning over to her now, holding out her own hands and smiling, as though she wanted to wrap Emily in her arms and comfort her.
    â€œNice!” Lory laughed in disgust. “Emily, don’t be stupid! If you eat, you’ll have to stay here! You can’t eat fairy fruit and go back to your own world; you’ll never want to eat real food again. It’ll taste like ashes, and you’ll starve, pining for just one more taste of those berries.”
    Lark nodded, her eyes bluer than ever, glittering with worried tears.
    â€œDon’t listen to them, Emily,” the fairy in the green dress said sweetly. “Why would you want to go back, anyway? Stay here with us. We won’t lie to you.”
    Emily hesitated, looking back and forth between the fairy girls and Lark and Lory. Her sisters looked even more fairy-like here, their wings and hair sparkling with a furious light.
    â€œEmily,” Lark tried again, her voice gentle but shakily anxious. “Emily, you don’t understand. They want to steal you. They won’t let you go home.”
    Emily swallowed, trying to make the ache in her chest go away. “It isn’t really my home,” she told Lark miserably. “Is it? And I’ve already been stolen…” With a weary sort of stubbornness, she pulled a berry off the little cluster in her hand and reached up to put it in her mouth.
    There was an excited hiss of indrawn breath from the fairy girls around her, and Lark screamed, “Emily, look!”
    Jolted out of her anger by the pure fear in Lark’s eyes, Emily looked where she was pointing. At the fruit that Lark had thrown across the floor. It was scattered over the polished stone, brown and wizened-looking, the scarlet seeds of that strange fruit all over the floor now, smearing the stone with a blackish, treacly juice.
    Emily glanced down at the berries in her hand and flung them away in horror. They’d shrivelled to an ugly mess, seeping and covered in a grey-blue mould. She had been about to eat that…
    â€œEmily, come on, please. We have to go. Just trust us, please.” Lory was holding out her hand. She had glittery nail polish on, and it was flaking a bit. Real nail varnish, the one that Emily had borrowed off her a week or so before, without asking. The glitter was made of little plasticky flecks, not some lying, beautiful magic.
    Slowly, Emily reached out, and put her hand in her sister’s.

Someone screamed in fury, and Emily looked back at the fairy girls gathered around the bed. Their faces had changed – they were still beautiful, but now they looked paler and older, and almost cruel, their features sharp with rage.
    â€œDon’t let her go!” the dark-haired fairy cried, and the little brownie servant caught at Emily’s sleeve.
    â€œYou’re not having her,” Lory snapped, yanking Emily away, so that the brownie fell back against the bed. She pulled Emily behind her, putting herself between Emily and the fairy girls. They were calling for the servants to fetch help, and the dark-haired fairy was stepping delicately after them, still smiling, and beckoning to Emily.
    â€œEmily, I know you think we lied, but we never wanted to hurt you.” Lory stared at Emily for a second, and then ducked her eyes. “I don’t want to charm you. I need you to come with us because you want to.”
    â€œThat’s why neither of us are looking at you,” Lory added, catching Emily’s other hand. “Will you come with us?”
    Emily nodded. The dark-haired fairy had sharp pointed nails like beetle claws, and her feet were the wrong shape in her embroidered slippers. Now that Emily could see her without all the charms, she walked as though her legs were bent the other way. And she was getting closer.
    Lark and Lory might not really be her sisters, but they weren’t