The Fairytale Curse (Magic's Return Book 1) Page 12

  “Put them on,” he urged. “I want to see if they work.”

  CJ looked as dubious as I felt, but she obediently took one and held it round her neck. Then she turned her back to me so I could do it up.

  “Go on,” said Dad.

  “Umm … is it working?” she asked.

  “Take the scarf off, idiot,” I said.

  “Right.” She slipped her wrist free. “Well? Any change?”

  The drops flew from her mouth and I sighed … but then I realised there were no diamonds sparkling on the carpet. I grabbed the other collar and urged Dad to fasten it at the back.

  “Is it working?”

  I hardly dared to hope. I felt the droplets leave my lips, but no frogs appeared. The magic seemed to fizz out as soon as it had begun.

  “Eureka!” Dad punched the air.

  “That’s amazing!” I held my hand up to catch the drops, but they just disappeared into thin air. “How did you do it?”

  “Sheer genius.” He grinned. “But I don’t know how long the effect will last. It should hold indefinitely, but we’d need to run some more tests to be sure.”

  “Oh, no more tests,” CJ begged. “Can’t we just go back to school?”

  “Good Lord,” Dad said. “It’s more serious than I thought. The Sidhe have actually stolen my daughter and left this changeling in her place.”

  “Ha ha. I’m just sick of all this weird stuff. I want to go to school and do normal things like everyone else. Is that so much to ask?”

  Yeah, right. She wanted to go to school and suck Josh Johnson’s face. Normally she’d take any excuse to skip school.

  “Actually, that could be very helpful.” His face settled into an unusually serious expression. “We need to stop the spread of belief in magic if we can. If any more Sidhe escape, belief will only strengthen them.”

  “Do you think they will?”

  “Well, I hope not. But since we don’t know how this one managed it, we can’t be a hundred per cent sure.”

  Well, that was comforting. We could have more of these troublemakers running around spreading curses?

  “How does us going back to school help?”

  “You can talk to the press.” Beside me CJ stood a little straighter at the thought. Photos! TV! Attention! “Show them there’s nothing magical going on.”

  CJ’s eyes were shining, but I wasn’t so thrilled with the idea.

  “You mean you want us to lie? And say what? That we pulled some stupid prank?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  Great. Go on national television and make myself look like an idiot. What an outstanding idea.

  “Don’t make a big deal out of it, Vi.” CJ wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of her getting back to school. “It’ll be easy. You can just stand there and nod, if you like. I’ll do all the talking.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” I knew from experience that I wasn’t going to win an argument against CJ, and I had my own reason for wanting to get back to school. He was tall, with floppy brown hair and gorgeous dark eyes, and had the world’s cutest dimple. “But what if more Sidhe escape? Will they come after us, too?”

  Dad looked thoughtful. “I don’t want you worrying about it. We’ll deal with the Sidhe. But if it makes you feel better perhaps we could spare a couple of seekers to keep an eye on you. I’ll ring the school and talk to the principal. I’ll tell her you’ve had threats on the internet.”

  That could even be true, for all I knew. Obviously she said yes, because half an hour later a familiar guy who looked like he never smiled came into the kitchen in search of us. It was Simon, the seeker whose twin had failed the test.

  “Warder Reilly has asked me to escort you ladies to school this afternoon.”

  I guess babysitting duty wasn’t as sexy as scouring the world for magical treasures, or whatever he usually did, but his face was carefully expressionless. I couldn’t tell what he thought of his new assignment. I wasn’t too sure I liked the idea myself. Surely if there was no danger, Dad wouldn’t have given us a bodyguard? It made me a little uneasy. Spitting frogs was bad enough. I had no desire to meet any more Sidhe. Who knew what else they might do? And what could this guy do about it if they tried something?

  “Thank God.” CJ leapt up, ready to rock and roll. I was still eating a sandwich, but what was my nutrition compared to the chance to see Josh Johnson again? “Hurry up, Vi.”

  “No rush,” said Simon. “I’ll just wait outside until you’re ready.”

  “She’s ready.” CJ made furious hurry up faces at me, so I shoved the rest in my mouth and stood up. And promptly choked.

  I coughed so hard I thought I was going to bring up my whole lunch. My eyes watered furiously. CJ thumped me hard on the back, which did nothing to help, but eventually I managed to catch my breath.

  “You okay?” Simon offered me a glass of water, a look of concern on his face. Probably wouldn’t look good on his resume if I died in the first five minutes he was responsible for me.

  “Much—better, thanks,” I gasped, still struggling to breathe normally.

  Out in the hall we found Kyle, the other fake policeman. Apparently he was also part of our new security detail.

  “Won’t people at school recognise you?” I asked doubtfully. After all, they’d spent the morning there yesterday pretending to be policemen. Surely Josh at least, and probably the principal, Mrs Crawley, wouldn’t have forgotten their faces already.

  Simon pulled out a pair of sunnies and put them on. With his dark suit it made him look like a bouncer. “We look different now.”

  “No. You look like the same guy wearing a pair of sunglasses and a suit. Not the world’s greatest disguise.”

  “You’ll see.” There was a certain smugness to his smile. “Uniforms are amazing. When you’re wearing one, no one ever remembers your face. You’re just a policeman, or a fireman, or whatever. Anyway, I doubt we’ll run into Mrs Crawley.”

  And Josh would be too busy oozing all over CJ to notice what anyone else looked like.

  We passed the library and were nearly at the lift when I had a Brilliant Idea.

  “Oh, hey, I nearly forgot. Dad wanted me to take one of the library books with me. Read up on magic history and stuff.”

  “Okay,” said Simon. “We’ll wait.”

  “Great.” I walked to the library door and paused as if trying to remember something. “Damn. What was the name of it again?”

  Simon raised an eyebrow, though I couldn’t see his eyes behind the glasses he still wore. I swallowed hard and brazened my way on.

  “He said to read the really famous one about the original seven warders and how they imprisoned the Sidhe. You know the one?” My heart beat faster, but I tried to look calm. It was a pretty safe bet that there’d be such a book. As long as it wasn’t in the restricted section I was probably all right.

  There was a long pause. I struggled to keep staring at him expectantly, fighting the urge to look away guiltily.

  “You mean The Gilded Cage?”

  “Yeah, I think that was it. Do you know where to find it?”

  “Sure. May I?”

  He gestured at the door and I stepped back politely to let him pass. He went straight to a shelf at the back of the room—not in the restricted section, thank goodness—and ran his finger along the spines until he found the book he wanted. It wasn’t very big.

  “Thanks.” I took it and followed him out. In the mirrored walls of the lift, CJ caught my eye and raised a curious eyebrow. She could tell I was up to something, but the habit of backing each other up was strong. Twins first, always. She was smart enough not to ask questions. I clutched my prize as we rode down in the lift to the parking garage. Somewhere in here, I hoped, would be a clue as to why the Sidhe were after the spear of Lugh, if that was really what was hidden in St Mary’s Cathedral.

  I remembered how assured Puck had seemed, how he’d laughed at his so-called interrogators. You don’t even know what game
we’re playing yet. Somebody had to find out. I had a feeling we were running out of time.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We took one of the big black cars with the tinted windows. Simon drove and Kyle sat in the front passenger seat, both looking very official. I had an urge to call them “Agent Simon” and “Agent Kyle”, but I wasn’t sure if they’d find that funny. It probably wasn’t the right time for Men in Black jokes.

  We sat in the back, being chauffeured like ladies, and I flipped open The Gilded Cage and scanned the contents page. The Origins of the Council didn’t sound too interesting. Maybe the chapter The Rise to Prominence of Maeve Reilly? She was our ancestor on Dad’s side.

  It wasn’t a thick book, so I should be able to read the whole thing in a few hours. I was just so impatient to know. Shame I couldn’t ask Simon instead of sneaking around like this, but I felt sure he wouldn’t tell me. Gretel had told us plenty about the Cottingley affair and some basic history, but she always seemed to develop urgent business elsewhere whenever I asked something she thought I shouldn’t know. Was it because Mum and Dad hadn’t told us anything before the curse struck? Were we supposedly too young to be trusted with the truth? We weren’t exactly five years old. It wasn’t as if we were going to blab about magic’s existence the first chance we got. I glanced up and saw Simon watching me in the rear vision mirror. Maybe that was why we had babysitters—they thought we couldn’t be trusted to keep our mouths shut. Would he mention the book to anyone? Probably. I’d just have to read fast before someone took it off me.

  I saw there was a chapter on The Cottingley Disaster, so I turned to that one. Gretel had given us the basics, but there was a lot more detail about the testimony of the various experts, the public speeches and presentations. Apparently Conan Doyle had even written a book on the subject, he believed so strongly in the girls and their photos. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, being made to look like an idiot by the technicians of the Council when he was right all along. A bit like us, really. I was not looking forward to talking to the press.

  The Cottingley Disaster was a turning point for the Council. It became clear to the seven warders that as long as the Sidhe remained pent anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, so close to their places of origin and associated belief systems, such outbreaks would continue. Accordingly, at the historic Council of 1920, the warders resolved to move the Cage to the Southern Hemisphere and relocate it in the arid heart of the newly federated country of Australia, far from the population centres of the Old World.

  To this end the four treasures of the Sidhe, which had been used as anchor points for the original condensing, had to be regathered from their hiding places and sent to Australia, where work was begun at the four points of the compass in Sydney, Perth, Broome and Townsville, to build the anchors anew. The work was completed in 1921 and the relocation accomplished without mishap.

  It was considered safest to remove the treasures once more when the relocation was complete, and accordingly three were returned to the care of their guardians in the Old World. Only the Spear remained in Australia to permanently anchor the Cage there.

  That was the end of the chapter. So there was a spear in Australia, though it didn’t say where. I bet it was in Sydney, though, since that was where Magic HQ was located. I wished the book would tell me more about the four treasures—it seemed to assume anyone reading would know all about them.

  I knew what they were from my reading in the library: the Dagda’s cauldron; the Spear of Lugh, who was some kind of Apollo-type sun god; a Sword belonging to one of the Sidhe kings called Nuada; and something called the Stone of Fal or sometimes the Stone of Destiny. The Stone of Destiny didn’t seem all that useful—it cried out in a human voice when touched by the true king of Ireland. Maybe that had come in handy when the Sidhe’s ancestors had strode the world as the gods of Celtic Britain but it was pretty obsolete now. The others were two weapons for hand-to-hand combat and a cooking pot—also a little outmoded, or so it seemed to me, anyway.

  Not that I was an expert in magic, of course, so maybe I was missing something here. The mention of the treasures being used in “the original condensing”, whatever that was, sounded important. I sighed and settled in to read the whole book from the beginning. Knowledge is power, so they say. I wasn’t going to be caught napping by any more Sidhe troublemakers.

  I was only a few chapters into it when I noticed we were in familiar territory.

  “We’ll have you home in a couple of minutes, ladies,” Simon said.

  I wished he wouldn’t call us that. It made me feel forty years old.

  “We’ll just make a brief stop here so you can change into your school uniforms and gather any books you need. Your father’s given me the remote controller for the garage door, so we’ll drive straight in. Let’s not mess around with the press until we get to school. Might as well only do this once.”

  I closed the book and sat a little straighter, a small knot of anxiety beginning to form in my stomach. The press of bodies around the car, the shouting and thumping as we’d left home, had been a little unnerving. I wasn’t looking forward to going through that again.

  But the street was relatively clear when we turned into it. There were no TV vans, and only a couple of parked cars outside our house. When the people in them realised the big black car was turning into our driveway, they got out, thrilled to see some action after sitting around waiting. Stakeouts must be so boring. But Simon followed his plan and none of them caught so much as a glimpse of us through the car’s tinted windows, and we were soon inside out of the sight of prying eyes and camera lenses.

  We dashed upstairs and got changed in record time. Even CJ only paused long enough in the bathroom to apply a quick coat of mascara and some lip gloss, which was unheard of. She must be desperate to get to school to see Josh.

  Quick as we were, Simon was still checking his watch when we came back downstairs. Kyle was in the front room, discreetly keeping an eye on the handful of photographers waiting on the footpath outside the house.

  “Let’s go,” Simon called, and we all piled back into the car and headed out again. The photographers seemed to have realised they weren’t going to get any photos. Instead of surging toward us when the car reappeared, they all ran for their own cars, determined to follow and find a better opportunity.

  So we drove to school at the head of our own little convoy, three cars tailing us. I slipped The Gilded Cage into my backpack, unable to concentrate on reading any more. It was only a ten-minute ride to school.

  “When we arrive you can say a few words before we go inside, then Kyle will accompany Crystal to her classes, and I’ll go with Violet. We have copies of your timetables and will be escorting you to each class.”

  “Really?” CJ didn’t look too pleased with that idea. “You don’t need to do that—the press aren’t allowed onto the school grounds, are they?”

  Kyle turned to look over his shoulder at her. “The press aren’t the only concern here. Every student in that school has a phone and is a potential source of leaks—of information or video footage. Our role is to discourage them from taking liberties, and also to ensure no one tries to incite another incident like the other day. We’ll be as discreet as we can, but I’m afraid we’ll have to stay close.”

  But surely our new collars would prevent any more “incidents”. That didn’t seem to have occurred to her; she was more concerned with how she was going to sneak some alone time with the caveman with Kyle looking over her shoulder every moment. “Are you going to come into class with me too?”

  “No, I’ll wait outside unless I hear a need for me to come in.”

  “Damn.” She gave him a lazy smile. “I thought you might be able to do my maths homework for me.”

  He laughed. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want me doing your maths homework. You’d end up with a D.”

  “Don’t answer any questions you don’t want to,” Simon added. “Just smile a lot and tell them it was just
a prank. Understood?”

  Of course. We weren’t stupid. The guy couldn’t seem to open his mouth without patronising us. Frankly, I wondered what Gretel saw in him. CJ threw him a mock salute and I saw his lips tighten. Naturally she got Kyle, who at least knew how to crack a smile, while I was stuck with Simon.

  Then the car turned into the school’s street and I clutched my backpack tighter, scanning the street for suspicious cars. Everything seemed quiet enough—looked like the only photographers around were the ones trailing after us like baby ducklings following their mama. I swivelled in my seat to watch them make the turn too—there were four of them now. That wouldn’t be so bad. I forced myself to release my deathgrip on the straps of the backpack before my hands started to cramp.

  I was just turning back to face front again when I caught a flash of red and Simon slammed on the brakes. As we lurched forward against our seatbelts a little red convertible turned straight across the front of us. If Simon hadn’t stopped when he did we would have slammed right into the side of it. I caught a glimpse of the driver as the car roared down the driveway to the teachers’ car park: a woman with long black hair streaming behind her in the wind of the zippy little sports car’s passage. I didn’t know her, but then I wasn’t familiar with many of the teachers yet.

  “Bloody woman!” Simon snarled. “What does she think she’s doing, driving like that around a school?”

  He pulled in to the kerb outside the main entrance, still shaking his head. I got out and stuck close to him as instructed. He had a ferocious scowl on his face, though whether that was for the woman or the photographers sprinting toward us I wasn’t sure.

  “This way, ladies.” He put an arm around my shoulder and began herding me toward the gate.

  “Violet, how are you feeling?” one man shouted, raising a microphone. The girl next to him had a massive zoom lens on her camera, and was shooting furiously. I ducked my head, suddenly self-conscious.