Philippa Fisher and the Fairy's Promise (10 page)

“So that’s it — that’s all there is to it,” FG32561 said defiantly. “You can do whatever you want with me, but I am declining your assignment, thank you.”

She stood in front of the two High Command officials, her knees shaking so much it was a wonder her legs were managing to hold her up straight. But still, she spoke with conviction.

The two stars — two of the highest ranking officials in the whole of ATC — turned to each other and nodded.

At this tiny gesture, the young fairy closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

Then one of the fairies spoke.

“Wait outside,” she said.

FG32561 did not need to be asked twice. She shot out of the room as quickly as her terrified body could manage.

Once the door was closed behind her, the stars turned to each other again. This time, their smiles were so bright, the room was ablaze with twinkling light. The older one spoke first. “We’ve found them,” she said. “They are exactly what we need.”

“And just in time!” the other replied. “Let’s get them back in here, and get the
real
assignment started.”

And with that, word was instantly issued to their staff. “Bring FG32561 back in the room. And that new fairy at ALD — the one that located FG32561 — bring her to us as well. Immediately.”

I bit my nails, twirled my hair, hummed quietly to myself, and looked at my watch again.

Only a minute had passed since I’d last looked. Where
was
she? What was going on? Why hadn’t she told me what she was going to do? I couldn’t stand the thought of Daisy getting into any more trouble — and I couldn’t bear not knowing what had happened to her.

I was on the verge of going off to look for her when the door at the end of the office materialized — and the two male fairies about my age walked in.

They looked slowly around the whole office. Then they spotted me and instantly headed my way.

I gulped hard and tried to focus. I’d said I’d rather take the punishment than have Daisy face it herself — maybe that was exactly what was going to happen. I’d obviously put the thought into Daisy’s head, and she’d put it into action!

No! She wouldn’t do that — would she?

The fairy godbrothers had arrived at my desk and indicated for me to follow them out of the office.

“We’ve been sent to get you,” one of them said. And without another word, they escorted me from my desk, along the corridor, and out of the office.

“Good luck!” Tabby whispered as I passed her. I tried to smile at her, but as with everything else I’d attempted since I’d been here, I failed.

“We’ll get straight to the point,” the fairy said. She told us she was called Alya. I was only half listening at this point. The other half of me was trying to communicate with Daisy. She was here, too! We’d been summoned together. At least that told me one thing. Whatever was happening, we were in it together. She hadn’t pushed me forward for punishment instead of herself. I knew she wouldn’t have, really. I felt disloyal for even having let the thought cross my mind.

The other fairy spoke. She was called Chara. “But first, sit down,” she said.

Er, on what? There weren’t any chairs! But when I looked again, a pair of comfy chairs had appeared behind us. And then a table appeared in front of us, with two steaming cups of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies.

“Help yourselves,” Chara added.

Was it a trick? We’d broken some of their most important rules, and they were offering us cocoa and cookies?

“We’ll wait,” Daisy said firmly. “Let’s hear what you have to say to us first.”

“I agree,” I said — even though the hot chocolate did smell
really
nice.

“Very well,” Alya said. “We’ve brought you here because of the way you have both acted.”

“Philippa’s done nothing wrong!” Daisy said.

“Neither has Daisy,” I added quickly. “Everything she’s done is because of how good and how loyal she is, nothing else.”

Alya held up a hand. “Wait, wait,” she said calmly.

“We know all this,” Chara said. “You have both acted exactly how we wanted you to act.”

“
Wanted
us to act?” I said. “What do you mean?”

The fairy looked at me. “You refused to use the code to get you back to Earth, so you could stand by your friend’s side if she was in trouble.”

“How do you —”

Chara ignored me. “And you”— she turned to Daisy —“refused to turn your friend in. We know about all of it.”

“But how?” Daisy asked. “How do you know? And if you know about it, what are we doing sitting here being offered drinks and sweets?”

“We know,” replied Alya, “because we set it up.”

I have to say, I was quite glad I
hadn’t
helped myself to the hot chocolate, because at that point I think I might have spurted it out all over the fairies.

“You set it up?” Daisy asked, her face a picture of baffled disbelief. “But why?
How?
If you knew that Philippa was the human, why did you send me off to find her? Why did you —”

The fairy interrupted her with another silencing hand. “Wait,” she said. “We’ll tell you everything.”

Daisy glanced at me. I gave a quick nod. “OK,” Daisy said, folding her arms. “We’re listening.”

“First — neither of you is in any trouble,” Alya began in a soft voice. It felt soothing and warm — a bit like the hot chocolate, which we’d decided to drink after all. “Quite the contrary,” she went on. “You are a very special pair. Unique, in fact.”

She took a sip of her drink. “Let’s go back a few thousand years. A long, long time ago, humans and fairies were very great friends. They had friendships like you would not imagine.” Alya paused and smiled at us both. “Friendships that
most
could not imagine, anyway,” she said. “You two can probably imagine their friendships perfectly. Our tests have proved this.”

“Your tests?” Daisy burst out. “You’ve been playing games with us?”

“Believe me, this is anything but a game,” Alya said seriously. “The tests we carried out were to ensure that we were right about you. That you had the kind of friendship that is needed.”

“Needed for what?” I asked.

“For an assignment that could save all of us,” Alya said gravely. “Listen. I’ll explain.”

I shut my mouth tight and listened to what she had to say.

“Many, many years ago, humans and fairies worked together on all sorts of things. Among these were the portals.” She turned to me. “In your world, they are known today as stone circles, ancient monuments whose history is unknown. The old days are so long forgotten now that many theories abound about the stone circles — their origin, their purpose. It is only the fairies who remember their true use. Indeed, today it is only fairies who can use them at all.” Alya glanced at me. “It is only fairies who can
intentionally
use them,” she corrected herself. “If a human gets caught up in some of the ancient magic, there is nothing we can do to prevent it from working. But this very rarely happens. So rarely, in fact, that most of us at ATC had forgotten it was even possible.”

“But not you?” I said.

Alya shook her head. “Even we at High Command paid very little attention to the portals anymore — until recently.”

“The stone circles were built as portals to allow fairies and humans to travel between each other’s worlds,” Chara went on. “But they were also a testament to the friendships between these fairies and humans. Because of this, only those with the greatest bonds of friendship were able to take part in their construction, or their continued upkeep. The friendship sealed the stones in place more solidly than any cement or mortar. The friendship was what really made the circles magical. So, the human and fairy relationships and the magic contained in the circles were inseparable. You understand?”

We nodded hurriedly, anxious for her to continue with the story.

“Unfortunately, things began to change quite soon after the formation of these circles. Tiny hairline cracks began to emerge in the alliances between fairies and humans. As more and more humans stopped believing in fairies, the cracks became chasms, which grew bigger and bigger, and eventually led to a complete parting of the ways. Within only a few hundred years, the friendships that had once existed between humans and fairies had vanished completely.”

Daisy coughed pointedly. The fairy looked at her. “
Almost
completely,” she said with a smile.

“So what happened to the portals?” I asked.

“The portals didn’t go anywhere,” Chara went on. “Nor did their use change. They were still gateways between the two worlds. The only difference was that humans no longer knew — or cared — how to use them. To humans, fairies were the stuff of children’s stories. They no longer believed, and with this disbelief came the denial of our existence, so we became invisible.”

“Invisible to humans?” I asked.

Chara nodded. “To
most
humans. Of course, over the years there have still been those who have believed — usually children — and they have had a sighting or two. But beyond that, it’s been as though we don’t exist.”

“So what happened then?” Daisy asked. “If we weren’t friends with humans anymore, why did we still need the portals?”

“Just because humans no longer believed in us, this didn’t mean that our role in their lives changed. We still continued to visit their world, to do whatever we could to protect and look after them.”

“But why would you do that?” I asked. “If humans denied that you even existed, why keep on helping them — I mean, us?”

Chara smiled. “Because, my dear, we need one another.”

“But why? I mean, it’s obvious we need
you.
You do so much for us, like deliver our dreams and help us if something really bad happens! But why do you need
us
?”

“Have you ever noticed what we are — a rain cloud, a flower, butterfly? We
are
a part of the earth. That’s where we get our magic. We look after humans. Humans look after the planet — or so we hope. Humans might have forgotten about our existence, but it doesn’t change the fact that we need one another in order to survive.”

“So, go on,” Daisy said. “Tell us what happened with the portals.”

“Each portal has a fairy to operate it,” Chara went on. “We call them the stone fairies, because they govern and control the portal stones, infusing them with fairy power so that the portals continue to operate. And the portals are all connected, so that if one ceases to work, gradually they will all break down and fail. Each of the stone fairies stays at his or her post for a hundred years.”

“A hundred years?” I broke in. “Wow!”

“It is a long time, yes. One of the longest of any of ATC’s assignments. These fairies are among the most important fairies in the whole of the FG world. Without them, the portals wouldn’t function, and the links between the two worlds would be closed up forever.”

“OK,” Daisy said. “But we still don’t see why —”

“The stone fairy at the Tidehill Rocks portal is missing,” Alya broke in.

No one said anything for a while. After a few moments, I found my voice. “Missing?” I said. “How can a fairy be missing?”

“We don’t know exactly how she disappeared,” Chara said. “Since the portals aren’t used much anymore, we don’t keep a close eye on their activities. This particular stone fairy is about three quarters of the way through her assignment. All we know is that she disappeared on a misty night a week and a half ago.”

“A week and a half?” Daisy broke in. “But we’ve used it since then. I thought the portal couldn’t operate without the stone fairy.”

“It can’t for long,” Chara said. “Since all of the portals are connected, it can draw magic from the stone fairies at the other portals, but only for a short while. The stone fairies belong to a very special FG department, whose sole role is the movement between the human and fairy worlds.”

“That’s NMD, isn’t it?” Daisy said.

“It is indeed.”

“NMD — what’s that?” I asked.

Daisy turned to me. “New Moon Department. It’s one of the most secret departments. No one knows much about it except that it controls access between the human and fairy worlds.”

“Well, you are about to be among the few who know more than that,” Chara went on. “The way these portals work is linked with the cycle of the moon. Each new moon infuses the stone fairy with the power to do his or her job and keep the portal working. This fairy’s disappearance means that the portal can only continue to operate for the rest of the current moon’s cycle. After that, if we have not found her and restored her to the portal stone, then the portal will close. And trust us, this would be disastrous — for humans and fairies alike.”

“So why do you need us?” I asked. “How can we help you find the stone fairy?”

“The fairy transforms on Earth as a gemstone. In this case, her name is Amber, as that is what form she takes. As a piece of amber, she was kept well out of sight at the top of the highest stone. There is magic built into the formation of the stones purely to protect their fairy. It states that if the stone fairy is ever removed from the circle, she will be kept in a safe place that can only be reached by a human and fairy together. A very special place.”

“How special?” I asked.

“As magical as a hole in time,” Chara replied.

“A whole what?” I asked.

“A hole in time,” she repeated. “The moment the fairy leaves the circle, a small tear in time opens up and she slips through it. She is kept safe on the other side, in a place where time is frozen at the exact moment that she left the circle.”