Free The Crystal Mirror by Paula Harrison Page A

she yelled, as it drew blood from her arm with its claws. She kicked out, managing to free herself and scramble up.
    More of the creatures entered the clearing in a strange lurching kind of run. Miss Reed was firing ice bolts at them while Stingwood grabbed two by their arms and hurled them at the thicket wall.
    “Quick, Laney! Go now while the other Elders are busy,” Gwen said into her ear. “Run!”
    “What are those things?” gasped Laney.
    “Hobgobbits. They’re nasty little things and they hate faeries. We’ll get rid of them. Now, go.”
    “There’s no way out!”
    Gwen touched her shoulders and Laney felt the rush of power as her wings unfolded behind her back. “Fly!” said Gwen.

Laney took a deep breath and launched into the air. Her wings snagged on the branches but she struggled on and flew over the thicket before bumping down to the ground again. Then she ran and ran until she’d left the hobgobbits and the Elders far behind. The terror of the night lessened a little. She didn’t know whether she was happier to get away from Stingwood or those creatures.
    She pushed back the wisps of hair that had fallen over her eyes. Now that she thought about it, it wasn’t very hard to choose. Horrible as the hobgobbits were, with their growling and their pointed teeth, she’d rather face them than Stingwood any day.
    She slowed down at the edge of Skellmore and spent a while trying to make her faerie form disappear. Why hadn’t she been able to use her Mist power in front of the Elders? She felt so stupid.
    At last she managed to change back to human form. Then she hurried down the High Street, only stopping when she heard the sound of laughter. A few kids from school were hanging out next to the minimart and all of them had gold-ringed eyes.
    “Hey, Laney!” Jessie walked up to Laney and looked her up and down.
    Laney’s heart sank. So Jessie was a faerie too. Great.
    Jessie faked a theatrical yawn. “I heard you’d Awoken
at last
. It must have been really boringwaiting for
so long
.”
    The kids behind Laney sniggered.
    Jessie’s eyes gleamed as she sensed Laney’s discomfort. “So now that you’re a Mist like me, you need to stop being such a freak and do
something
about your hair.” Her eyes swept over Laney’s clothes and she curled her lip.
    “We’re in the same tribe?” Laney hadn’t thought her heart could sink any lower.
    “Only if you really are a Mist faerie, and right now I really doubt that. And you can’t hang around with Claudia like you did this morning,” said Jessie. “Mist faeries don’t make friends with Greytails.”
    “Why?” said Laney.
    “Because they’re Greytails, stupid!” said Jessie. “They hang around with smelly animals. Didn’t you realise what the stink was?” Right on cue, the kids behind her laughed again.
    “I’ll show you what a real Mist faerie looks like.” Jessie walked round the corner of the minimart, out of sight of the houses. The air shimmered as she changed into faerie form and stretched out violet wings. She swept her curly dark hair over her shoulders. “I heard that you can’t actually control your powers at all. What is the point of a faerie that can’t do that?” She leaned forwards. “And I was there just now, hidden behind the trees. I saw you fail the test and now they’ll never invite you to starttraining.” She stepped back, her eyes alight with triumph.
    “You were there?” Laney stared at her, disbelieving.
    “You don’t deserve to be a Mist tribe member anyway,” said Jessie. “Not after the things you’ve done. Even when we were little I knew there was something wrong with you.”
    “Shut up, Jessie.”
    “It’s probably your dad’s fault. I bet freakiness runs in your family.”
    Laney’s fists balled and she changed to faerie form instantly. As her anger rose she felt her wings begin to beat.
    Jessie rolled her eyes. “Ooh, wings! Big wow! I bet you can’t even fly properly.”
    The other faerie