Deepglint was bounding over to the fight now and so, with one final burst of strength, Morg wrenched herself free from Total Shambles. She staggered back through the glow-in-the-dark plants, into the far corner of the garden, and though Deepglint was hot on her heels he wasn’t fast enough to stop the harpy throwing herself down the well that stood there.
There was a flap of feathers and a terrible screeching. ‘This is not the end!’ Morg screamed. ‘I will find another way to steal the Unmapped magic! My reign is coming and when it does it will swallow you all in its darkness!’
Fox raced over to the well, but when she peered down into it she saw only black. A pit that seemed to go on and on forever more. There was no trace of the harpy at all.
Heckle fluttered onto Fox’s shoulder. ‘Has – has Morg gone?’
Deepglint placed two heavy paws on the well and, as he breathed over the top, a stone lid formed, crunching into place over the pit.
The Lofty Husk turned to Fox. ‘The phoenix magic you brought here granted me the power to set an unbreakable spell over this well. Never again will Morg be able to find a way back into Jungledrop.’ He raised his chin and looked at Fox not as if she was an insignificant little girl, as Morg had done, but as if she was his equal. ‘Because of the strength of your heart, Fox Petty-Squabble, and the strength of your brother’s, the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway are still standing.’
There were cheers from the animals and the Unmappers ringing Shadowfall, and Total Shambles pulled off a highly risky but very impressive loop-the-loop before crash-landing in a thunderberry bush.
Fox felt herself sway. No one had ever congratulated her for anything back home. She’d never won an award or been praised for doing well. This, Fox thought, this is happiness: knowing that, because you were brave enough to love, other people stuck around to love you back.
‘But – but how did the Forever Fern start growing in my satchel?’ she murmured. ‘And why did the phoenix tear only save Jungledrop when the fern had grown? Why not before? I had it from the moment I set foot in this kingdom!’
Deepglint smiled. ‘I am only now grasping the truth of what must have happened.’ He paused. ‘A plant needs four things to grow: water, air, soil and light. And a magical plant is much the same, with perhaps just a few little tweaks. So, can you think of an instance when water, or something like it, might have fallen onto the satchel?’
Fox shook her head but, from her shoulder, Heckle squawked. ‘Your tears in the bramble tunnel, Fox… Heckle distinctly remembers seeing them fall onto the satchel when you wept for your brother and for all those suffering at the hands of Morg!’
Deepglint nodded. ‘Water then – with a magical twist…’
Fox blinked as she thought back to her quest and for some reason she found herself remembering the ripple of air that had brushed against her skin as the butterflies she’d freed flapped round her. It had felt different from an ordinary breeze or a gust of wind – more magical somehow.
‘I think the air that came from the wingbeats of the butterflies I rescued might have been filled with magic.’ Fox glanced at Deepglint. ‘And some of Cragheart’s soil could have got nudged inside the satchel when I used it as a pillow that night we slept in the cave when we refused to give up on you being a Lofty Husk.’
‘Cragheart’s soil is most definitely magical,’ Deepglint said. ‘For from it springs every Unmapper’s fingerfern.’
Heckle was now hopping from foot to foot. ‘And surely the magical light was the golden mist that rose up from the letters of your name, Deepglint! That light dried Fox’s tunic and the satchel was right beside her at the time!’
Deepglint smiled again as he looked from the parrot to Fox. ‘It would seem the Forever Fern started growing in your satchel when you and your brother started working together to find the fern for others rather than for yourselves. It grew, little by little, as your kindness grew. And it was the strength of heart you showed inside Morg’s plant at Shadowfall that was the key to it bursting out of the satchel and activating the phoenix tear as the pearl to save Jungledrop.’
Again, Fox thought of Doogie Herbalsneeze’s words; the flickertug map really had sensed the journey of her heart. And of her brother’s, too, it seemed. Fox glanced around for Fibber. In all the commotion, she realised she hadn’t seen him since he’d torn a hole in Morg’s wings. Where was he?
Heckle launched herself off her shoulder to find Iggy while Fox raced towards the Forever Fern. Was Fibber still up in its branches or had he fallen and hurt himself? Her pulse thrummed at the thought of what might have happened to him.
‘Up there!’ Heckle squawked from Iggy’s side and she pointed to the top of the Forever Fern with one wing. ‘Heckle can detect some very panicky thoughts about heights!’
Fox watched the uppermost fronds as they rustled to and fro. There was definitely something up there. She snatched a charcoal sketch from the satchel, then scrambled up the fern, higher and higher, hoping and wishing…
Until there was Fibber. Not a sloth any more – perhaps the phoenix magic had broken that spell, too – but a boy again at last!
Fox threw herself at her brother, wrapping her arms round his neck. And he hugged her back with just the same strength as if, in this hug, the twins knew that they were making up for all the ones they’d missed out on before.
For a while, they sat together, looking out over the
