Philippa Fisher and the Fairy's Promise (3 page)

We worked together to wipe the muck out of the letters. “I guess not many people crouch down behind the stones,” I said.

“I bet we’re the first people to see this for hundreds of years!” Robyn’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. I wasn’t so thrilled, to be honest. We were here to find Daisy, and I was pretty sure once we’d rubbed the dirt out of the words, it would just be an old signature. A twelfth-century version of
Jill was here
or something.

It was hard to make out at first — the writing was old-fashioned, and the engraving was quite faint. But once we’d cleared away the dirt, we could read it. It was a poem. Robyn read it aloud.

“Follow a fairy ’round the stones,
Amongst a hundred trees.
Call her name and catch her eye,
And join her world with ease.”

I stared at the poem, my jaw so wide open it began to ache. “Fairies,” I managed to say eventually.

Robyn was equally stunned. “We were right. This really is a fairy portal!” she said.

“So you think the poem is for real, not just someone messing around?”

“Why would they write it way down here, virtually out of sight at the bottom of a stone, if they were messing around? And look how old-fashioned the writing is.”

“Wow,” I said lamely as I read the poem again. What did it mean? What
could
it mean?

Just then a sound broke into my thoughts. The woman on her phone. She was close enough for us to hear her now. I almost wanted to jump out and shout at her: “How can you wander around here talking on your stupid phone when this place is so magical?” But I didn’t, of course. For two main reasons. The first reason was that I’m not the kind of person who does that sort of thing. And the second reason — well, the second reason was only just starting to dawn on me.

“Robyn!” I whispered, grabbing her arm. “Listen!”

“That woman?” she asked. “I know; how dare she —”

“No! What she was saying — did you hear her?”

By then, she’d walked by and was heading away from us again, and she’d put her phone away in her pocket. But the snippet of conversation I’d overheard was enough to convince me that I was right. I didn’t hear the whole thing, but I was sure I’d heard her say something that humans generally don’t know anything about.

Robyn shook her head.

“I only heard a few seconds, but I’m positive about what I heard.”

“What? What did you hear? What did she say?”

I paused. Was I imagining it? Did I just
want
it to be true? Would Robyn laugh at me if I told her? No — none of those things mattered. I knew what I’d heard, and suddenly I knew what I had to do. “She said, ‘See you at ATC.’ I’m sure of it,” I said, getting up from behind the stone and brushing my legs off. “Wait here; I’m going to check it out.”

Then I followed the woman as she walked around the stones. She still hadn’t turned around. Still hadn’t noticed me. I held my breath as I followed her, passing one stone after another, until we reached the last one.
Follow a fairy ’round the stones, amongst a hundred trees. . . .

And then we passed the final stone.
Call her name and catch her eye, and join her world with ease.

Taking a deep breath, and praying I didn’t have this wrong and wasn’t about to make the biggest idiot of myself, I stood still and called out as loudly as I could, “Daisy!”

For a moment, nothing happened. My cheeks burned. I’d made a fool of myself. I was wrong. Robyn
would
laugh at me.

And then the woman turned around, looking to see who had spoken, her face crinkled up in confusion and disbelief. And then she saw me. Looking me straight in the eyes, she grinned so widely that I was left in no doubt at all.

“Philippa!” she shouted. And in that moment, everything disappeared. The ground, the stones, Robyn — everything except me and Daisy. She was no longer the weird woman; she had transformed into the Daisy I knew. Her blond curly hair, her smile, her sharp green eyes — the eyes that I suddenly realized I’d recognized in the woman, that had troubled me so much when I couldn’t figure out why I knew them. They were Daisy’s eyes!

For a moment, I thought I was fainting. The feeling reminded me of the one time I’d gone on the Tilt-A-Whirl at a fair — sick and dizzy from spinning around and around, feeling as if the ground was falling away from me.

I shut my eyes, hoping that would make the feeling go away. But when I opened them again, they only confirmed that this wasn’t the temporary feeling of dizziness you get from a carnival ride. The ground really
was
falling away from me!

I looked around and all I could see was Daisy, spinning and hovering above the world beside me as we both rose higher and higher into the huge, great, black nothingness of space.

I walked around the stones in a daze. “Philippa?” I called out to the empty sapce where she’d been standing a moment ago. What had happened to her? How had she disappeared like that? It was impossible — but it had definitely happened. Philippa and that weird woman had disappeared, right in front of my eyes!

What had Philippa shouted? I’d seen her follow the woman and heard her shout something, but I couldn’t hear what it was. I’d heard the woman’s reply, though. She’d called Philippa’s name! How did she know her? Who
was
she?

A thought was starting to form in my head. I bent down behind the stone to read the poem again.
Follow a fairy ’round the stones, amongst a hundred trees. Call her name and catch her eye, and join her world with ease.

Was it possible? Could the weird woman have been a fairy? Could she even have been . . .

No. It was ridiculous. Impossible!

But the more I thought about it, the stronger my conviction became. It was the only answer that made sense. Not that it actually
did
make sense. Not the kind of sense that most people would understand, anyway.

But it was the only explanation that fit. Philippa had been trying to tell me something about the woman. Something she’d just figured out.

And we already knew that Daisy was meant to be meeting someone at the stones. However impossible, I was more and more convinced it was true: the weird woman was Daisy!

Which just left one question:
what had happened to them both?

“Philippa, take my hand. Hold on to me!”

Daisy was calling to me across the blackness. “It’s OK,” she said as I reached out to her. “It’ll pass soon. Just hold on another minute.”

I shut my eyes and concentrated all my efforts into trying not to be sick. “Please stop now,” I whispered under my breath. “Please make the spinning feeling go away.”

And then it did. Just as Daisy had said it would.

I opened my eyes and looked around me. We were in a corridor that seemed to stretch on and on as far as I could see. All around me were bright white walls, long and clean and clinical, like a hospital. Daisy was beside me.

“Is it really you?” I asked.

Daisy smiled. “Of course it is!” she said. Then she threw her arms around me in a happy hug. “How did you
find
me? And how have you managed to follow me here?”

“I’m not really sure!” I said. “We heard something on Robyn’s computer and it sounded like you, so we went up to the stones and —” My words were coming out in a jumble. Everything was suddenly so confusing. “Oh, Daisy — I have no idea how this happened, really!” I confessed. “But I’m so happy to see you! I’ve really missed you!”

“Me, too.” But she wasn’t smiling anymore. She suddenly looked as serious as I’d ever seen her.

“Daisy, what is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been trying to contact you for days,” she said.

“I know. I didn’t realize at the time. But then it clicked at the stone circle — you were that odd woman, weren’t you?”

“Among other things.”

“Other things?” Then I made another connection. The green eyes! “Daisy, were you the mouse as well?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know! I just didn’t expect it.”

Daisy waved a hand. “It’s fine. Listen, I have to tell you something. It’s really important — but I’m not supposed to tell you. I could get into
serious
trouble.”

“What is it?” I asked, a knot of anxiety starting to form in my stomach.

Daisy opened her mouth to reply, but just then, something beeped in her pocket.

“Hang on.” She pulled out her MagiCell — that’s a fairy’s electronic device, which gives her all the information she needs for her assignments and keeps her in touch with ATC. Then I realized, of course! The funny woman — Daisy — hadn’t been talking on a cell phone at the stone circle; she’d been talking to someone from ATC on her MagiCell.

“I understand,” Daisy was saying. “Yes, of course. Yes, I will. Immediately.” Then she clicked off her MagiCell and put it back in her pocket. “I’ve got to go — now,” she said to me. Her face had turned pale.

“What is it?” I asked.

Daisy shook her head. “I have to get back, before I’m in even more trouble.”

“Back where? What kind of trouble? Daisy, what’s going on?”

“Come on,” she said tightly. “I’ll explain everything on the way.”

And with that, she turned and led the way down the bright, white, never-ending corridor.

“I’ll start at the beginning,” Daisy said as we walked briskly along the corridor. “I’ve been working in a new department since I finished my last assignment. It’s called ALD — Admin and Liaison Department. My job is to match fairies with clients. And that’s all I’m allowed to do. Not get involved or interfere in any way. That’s
strictly
against the Fairy Godmother Code.”

“OK,” I said, trying to take in what she was saying. I mean, I know I’ve had Daisy in my life for a while now, and I know she’s a fairy godsister and all that — but it still felt amazing to hear her casually talk about fairy godmothers and their jobs and clients and things.

Daisy turned to look at me as she walked. “And then while I was working I saw a name that I recognized,” she went on. The look in her eyes turned me cold inside. “It was your mom, Philippa.”

“OK,” I said, a little less confidently this time.

“And I wouldn’t normally worry too much,” she went on. “I mean, people get fairy godmother assignments for lots of reasons. It might not have been serious.”

“But it was?” I asked, the anxious feeling spreading into my throat.

Daisy nodded. “Your mom’s down for a fairy from the SRB department,” she said solemnly.

“SRB?” I asked. “What is that?”

Daisy stopped walking and looked me in the eyes. “Something Really Bad,” she said. “It’s when a fairy godmother steps in to help when something really bad happens to someone.”

“So they stop it from happening?” I asked hopefully.

Daisy pursed her lips and turned to continue walking. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly? What do you mean? What does SRB do, then?”

“It’s complicated,” she said. “And it varies.
Sometimes
the bad thing can be prevented. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. If it’s meant to happen, it’s meant to happen.”

“Like fate?”

Daisy grimaced. “You can call it that if you like. It’s dealt with by the MTB department.”

“MTB?”

“Meant to Be,” Daisy replied. “That’s who figures out if it’s something we have to let happen, or something we have to try and prevent. If they decide it’s meant to be, the human will get someone from SRB to help them deal with it.”

“What happens to the others?” I asked.

“They get a fairy from S&C.” She glanced at me before adding, “That’s Stop and Change. They are really high-level fairy godmothers. You don’t mess with them.”

My head was starting to swim from all the information. “So my mom was supposed to get a fairy from SRB to help her deal with something bad that was going to happen to her,” I said. “But you wanted to warn me, so we could stop it from happening?”

“Correct.”

“But whatever the bad thing is, it’s meant to happen, and not meant to be stopped?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Which means that you’re not only breaking one of the most important rules of the Fairy Godmother Code, you’re also meddling with some of the most powerful fairies at ATC.”

Daisy nodded. “That’s about the long and short of it, yes.”

I let out a breath. “OK, now I see why you’re looking so nervous.”

We fell silent for a moment, each wrapped up in our own thoughts as we walked.

Then something occurred to me. “Daisy, what was it — the SRB? What’s going to happen to my mom?”

“That’s just it,” Daisy said. “The file doesn’t say.”

My throat felt like it was full of sharp icicles. “At least you tried,” I said, desperately trying to think of something positive to say. She sounded as wretched as I felt. “I know how much you wanted to help.”

“I’m not giving up, Philippa. I’m not going to let something terrible happen to your mom. We’ll work something out — no matter what ATC does to me.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Even though now on top of whatever punishment I’m going to get, you’re somehow stuck up here, and I have no idea how to get you back!”

“Daisy,” I said, suddenly realizing there was something I still didn’t understand.

She looked at me.

“What do you mean by ‘up here’? Where are we?” I asked, half of my brain knowing what she was going to say and the other half knowing I couldn’t be right. It was impossible!

Daisy met my eyes. “We’re Above the Clouds,” she said. “Philippa, you’re at ATC!”

We turned a corner, and the corridor opened out into a large circular room. Above us, an enormous domed ceiling of colored glass sprinkled rainbows over the walls and floor. Around us, doors led off in every direction. We walked over to one on the opposite side and Daisy took her MagiCell out of her pocket.

“I’ll do the talking,” she said as she held her MagiCell against a panel in the middle of the door. “Whatever happens, we can’t let them know you’re a human, OK?”

“Surely they’ll be able to tell! I haven’t got wings!”

Daisy laughed. “You don’t need them up here. Most fairies look just like you and me when they’re at ATC. Look — haven’t you noticed I’m the same Daisy you see on Earth?” She spun around. “No wings!”

“But don’t you fly around and do . . . fairylike things up here?” I asked, feeling stupid, like someone who’s just arrived somewhere for the first time where everyone else knows how it works except them. That’s exactly what I was!

“Of course we do,” Daisy replied. “But you can do that anyway. This is ATC. You can do virtually anything you like up here — if you know how.”

“How do you fly, then?”

Daisy shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “You just kind of know that you can do it — and then you can!”

She made it sound easy, and I’m sure it was — for a fairy!

Daisy pressed a few buttons on the door. A moment later, it slowly swung open.

“Remember, act like a fairy, OK?” Daisy whispered. “Humans at ATC are
strictly
against Fairy Godmother Code. We don’t want to get into even
more
trouble than we’re already in.”

I nodded — even though all I could think was:
how the heck do I act like a fairy?

“Afternoon, afternoon — hi there. Hey, how are you?”

Daisy was all smiles as we walked through her office. At first glance it looked like any other kind of office. Lots of people busy bustling around, sitting at desks in front of their screens, making calls.

The only difference was — well, for one thing, there was no floor below us. Secondly, things kept appearing out of nowhere.

“How do they do that?” I asked as we walked past a fairy sitting at a desk tapping away at her computer and reaching out to drink tea from a cup that materialized out of thin air in front of her.

“It’s like everything here. You think it — it happens.”

I didn’t have time to wonder about it for too long, because Daisy suddenly elbowed me in the ribs. “That’s my supervisor.”