11
Just as Erin opens her mouth to blow the fairy dust, the front door slams open and the four of them turn to see Ellis, bedraggled and sweaty and bloody and smelly and there’s a second of confusion where Ellis can’t understand why Fletcher and Elodie are with her kidnappers, and Fletcher and Elodie can’t understand how Ellis got away from whoever took her and knew where to find them, and Erin and Anna wonder if they can escape the wrath of three witches.
They realise they cannot win a fight against three angry witches and turn to flee.
“Stop them!” Ellis screams out, and with no further explanation Fletcher holds up his hands, binding and freezing the two fairies. While Elodie sits them down on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, Ellis falls into fletcher’s arms.
“God, you’re hurt?”
She nods. She can feel every cut from the glass now, every scrape, every bruise. She can also imagine how disgusting she looks, pretty much as disgusting as she feels. She pulls back from his embrace. “Can you do some of your magic, clean me up?”
Elodie steps forwards. “Here.” With a few dabs and flicks of her wrist, Ellis looks and feels ten times better. “I can do more for you when we get you home, but for now that’s the best I can manage.”
“Where did you come from? How did you know we were here?”
Ellis dissolves into tears. “I didn’t. I’m so sorry. I was so stupid. I went to see my parents and Isey – I didn’t let them see me, I promise, I was invisible. I don’t even know how. And then when I came back down the hill, someone shoved a hood over my head and took me.”
She takes a breath and Fletcher hugs her. “I saw it. I saw them take you. There was nothing I could do. But I saw it. We figured it was the rebels or the council, so we came to talk to the twins.”
“We figured they were the most sensible, the most likely to listen,” Elodie says.
“They were just about to take us to you, with fairy dust.”
“Or so we thought.”
“That’s why they left me for so long,” Ellis says, shaking her head. “They brought me inside, still with the hood over my head, but not tied up. It was so hot in the hood, and when I started crying it was claustrophobic, so I pulled the hood off and threw up, and that’s when I realised I was alone. I smashed the window, jumped over a six-foot fence and was ready to run, when I got the strongest feeling that I shouldn’t. That’s when I came around the front.”
Elodie kicks at Erin. “I can’t believe you were here the whole time. The liars!”
Fletcher shakes his head, disgust for the fairies covering his face. “They were so convincing. We really thought they would help us.”
“Obviously not. So I think it’s safe to assume that the council is still angry with us?”
Fletcher nods. “I almost feel like not giving them their power back. The effort we went to, going back in time, fixing this total mess, and this is how they repay us?”
“No, Fletcher, that’s not how this works. We do the right thing, because it’s the right thing, not because people deserve it. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
“And these two?”
“Oh, they’re coming with us. I’m done.”
Elodie grabs hold of Anna, none too gently, and pulls her up off the floor. She turns to Fletcher. “You get Erin.”
Fairies in hand, the three of them head outside.
“Ellis can’t fly.”
“Well, she will have to learn.”
Fletcher raises his eyebrows at Ellis, who nods her head. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do my best.”
“Come on, Fletcher, help her. We can’t leave her here and then come back for her. It’s not safe. Again. Nobody goes anywhere alone.”
Reading the anger in his mother’s tone, Fletcher nods. “Okay, so you know how when we fly and you’ve told us where to go, instinctively just knowing?”
Ellis nods.
“That’s like flying. There’s no broomstick or magic wand. Just think it and do it.”
“What if I fall or crash?”
“You won’t. Don’t overthink it. Don’t stress. Just follow me home.”
Ellis nods and takes a breath.
Elodie goes first, without a word. Fletcher kisses her cheek, Erin tucked under his arm like a roll of carpet. “You can do it. Just like you turned invisible.”
He takes off, slowly, watching her.
She closes her eyes, and then she’s doing it. She’s actually doing it.
They land at home, Ellis a little further away from Fletcher and Elodie, who are still holding the fairy twins. She runs up to them. “I did it!”
“You did! Well done.”
“Let’s get these two inside.”
“Not so fast.”
A figure jumps down from the fence and lands in front of the door. As his feet touch the floor, he shifts. Into an enormous snarling wolf. Fletcher turns at a noise behind him and then looks the other way. They are surrounded.
Seven snarling, dribbling, angry wolves are literally at their door. Skulking closer and closer, teeth bared and ready to pounce.
“Fletcher,” Elodie speak to him, but not out loud. “Drop Erin and run in the house. Ellis follow him. I’ll ward them off.”
“But the fairies...”
“The wolves are here for the fairies. Let them have them. They’re not worth dying for.”
With a shout, hoping to confuse the wolves, Fletcher tosses Erin like a rag doll onto the floor and turns to grab Ellis. Elodie throws Anna then magics up a ring of fire. Wolves fear fire.
Ellis is in the house, Fletcher about to follow her, when he hears his mum cry out. One wolf has braved the flames and has her scarf in its teeth. “Mum!” Fletcher yells, kicks at the wolf, and pulls the scarf from his mother’s neck. “Go!” She runs inside and he follows, just as another wolf sinks its teeth into his calf.
