Starfell: Willow Moss and the Forgotten Tale

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2020

Published in this ebook edition in 2020

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Text copyright © Dominique Valente 2020

Illustrations copyright © Sarah Warburton 2020

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Dominique Valente and Sarah Warburton assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator respectively of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780008308438

Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008308452

Version: 2020-08-28

For dearest Harriet and Julia, who leave

fairy dust wherever they go

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Chapter 1: Leaf-mail

Chapter 2: Magic Most Peculiar

Chapter 3: An Unlikely Accomplice

Chapter 4: Pimpernell, a ‘Hed’ Witch

Chapter 5: The Wizard Beyond the Wall

Chapter 6: The Tower Fights Back

Chapter 7: The Sudsfarer

Chapter 8: A Conspiracy of Ravens

Chapter 9: Magic Ahoy!

Chapter 10: Sprig

Chapter 11: Oh, Brother

Chapter 12: The Iris Inside the Jar

Chapter 13: Feathering’s Return

Chapter 14: Capture

Chapter 15: Forest-touched

Chapter 16: A Town Called Library

Chapter 17: The Old Library Gardens

Chapter 18: The Ghost Tree

Chapter 19: The Mists of Mitlaire

Chapter 20: Netherfell

Chapter 21: The Boy Made of Shadow and Feathers

Chapter 22: The Forgotten Tale

Chapter 23: The Ferili Seed

Chapter 24: Home

Chapter 25: Moss Cottage

An (Abridged) Oswin to English Dictionary

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

Books by Dominique Valente

About the Publisher

Dear Willow,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. My experiments with cross-pollinating a memory flower with samples from the Great Wisperia Tree have worked. I am happy to report that I can now see ten minutes into the future. Unfortunately, I have just seen that my kidnappers will be arriving IMMINENTLY! Which means, alas, I can’t even have a decent cup of tea before I send this letter via leaf-mail.

I once had a rope swing that might have offered a means of escape, but the baby dragon, Floss, accidentally burnt it to a crisp during a rather unfortunate coughing fit on his last visit. So I fear my captors are likely to catch up with me soon. (Well, in seven minutes and thirty-three seconds to be precise.)

My attempts at getting hold of the cloud dragons through pepper-tree communication haven’t gone according to plan … So I thought I’d drop you a note to ask if you wouldn’t mind terribly trying to rescue me? Also, could you please look in on Harold while I’m held hostage? He gets a bit lonely when I’m not here. Though he is very capable of feeding himself.

Hope you are well otherwise? The apple-pie blossoms are in bloom again and they always remind me of you …

Must dash —

Your friend,

Nolin Sometimes

Oh dear, thought Willow, putting the leaf-scroll down on the cluttered attic table, her heart starting to thud.

The post had arrived in a rather unusual way. Willow had answered a knock on the attic window only to find herself confronted by a rather grumpy oak tree with a face carved deep within its trunk. The tree had scowled at her with thick, bushy twigs for eyebrows, hard knots for eyes and a grim slash of a stick for a mouth. It had made an annoyed and windy huffing sound as it handed over the leafy scroll. Then, after giving her one last thunderous glare that seemed to scorch her very soul, it had slumped back to its usual spot by the garden wall, leaving a steady stream of acorns in its wake – and a fair bit of swearing too. Mostly about being rudely awoken from a rather enjoyable two-hundred-year nap and NOT being a blooming postal service.

Willow hadn’t known that trees could move, never mind swear or deliver mail. But she’d had a good guess, before she’d even read the leaf-letter, that it had something to do with the forgotten teller, Nolin Sometimes, and the way his rare ability helped him make use of the hidden magic of plants. Still, even Willow Moss, who was used to a bit of odd in her life, had to admit that this was all something of a shock.

Willow wasn’t the only one surprised by the strange visit. So was her best friend, Oswin, who greatly resembled a cat, but was in fact a kobold – a type of monster – who usually lived under her bed. At this moment, his panicked wailings could be heard from the fat blue stove in the corner, where he had shot off to hide when Willow answered the knock on the window.

‘Oh NO! Oh, me ’orrid aunt Osbertrude, WOT fresh eel is this?’ (Kobolds regularly overheard popular sayings from beneath beds or other hiding places, but often got them a bit confused.)

Ignoring Oswin, which was sometimes the best approach for general peace of mind, Willow took a deep breath and tried to summon Sometimes from the clutches of his kidnappers. If only he’d said who they were! She concentrated hard, her eyes scrunched up tight, silently begging her magic to work. Though begging hadn’t had much effect lately to be honest.

Alas, her face formed a rather regrettable expression that made Oswin snigger behind a fluffy green paw. ‘Looks like yew needs the privy.’

Willow ignored this. Her heart pounded, but, despite how much she tried, her hands remained empty. She just couldn’t seem to find her friend …

Which was unfortunate, as Willow had a magical ability for finding lost things. Like shoes, or socks, or, most recently, a lost day that had been stolen by the Brothers of Wol, using a thousand-year-old spell. With the help of her friends, including Nolin Sometimes himself and Moreg Vaine, the most powerful witch in Starfell, Willow had got it back.

But she had never tried to find a missing person before. The closest she had ever got to that was when she ‘found’ Oswin. She had summoned him from a neighbour’s stove a few years ago and never quite got rid of him since.

Willow sighed, then glanced at Oswin with a frown. ‘Never mind how I look. Nolin Sometimes has been captured!’

Oswin sat up fast, releasing a puff of blue coal dust into the air. In his outrage, his fur went from the colour of lime cordial to bright pumpkin in an instant – one of the side effects of his koboldish heritage. He blinked large, lamp-like eyes and his ears flattened to his skull in shock. ‘WOT? Why’d they take ’im?’

Willow shook her head. ‘I don’t know! Maybe he’s made someone a bit cross or something?’

The kobold shrugged a shaggy shoulder, as the idea of Nolin Sometimes making someone a bit cross was entirely possible.

He couldn’t exactly help it. As a forgotten teller (or an oublier, to use their official name), Sometimes had visions of other people’s memories when he was around them – even the shameful ones. To make matters worse, he then blurted these secrets out loud. He didn’t know what was happening when the memories washed over him, so he couldn’t control this. Still, it made some people a bit angry … Murderous even, if the stories of what had happened to some of the other forgotten tellers over the years were true … And the trouble was, when Willow stopped to think about it, Nolin Sometimes could have been taken by just about anyone really.

She looked at the leaf-scroll again, as if hoping it would offer something – anything – else to help her find him. But aside from a tiny splodge that looked a bit like a flower, where the ink had run next to the forgotten teller’s name, there was nothing. Willow sighed and paced the dusty attic floor, leaving a small trail of sock prints behind. Then she tried to use her magic again, hoping that this time it would just work. But the problem was that lately it just wouldn’t.

Unbidden, her sister Camille’s voice flared in her mind. ‘Well, I’ve never been unable to use my magic before, not even when I had rumble fever and was nearly on my deathbed. But then I suppose it’s hard to lose a really powerful ability. Maybe yours was so weak, Willow, that all it took to make it disappear was a really good sneeze.’

Willow took a deep breath and pushed her sister’s annoying voice out of her mind. She was fairly sure magical abilities didn’t just disappear with sneezes.

Mostly sure.

‘Just focus, Willow,’ she said aloud, picturing her friend’s wild white hair, skinny frame, and the way he always had so many pockets filled with strange plants. She tried with all her might to find him, but nothing happened.

Until … something did.

Something a bit unfortunate, which began with a rather loud popping sound and the familiar wailings of a certain kobold.

‘Oh noooo!’ cried Oswin. ‘Oh, me GREEDY aunt, why’d yew CURSE me to live with witches?’ He dived out of the stove and shot into the much-repaired and patched-together green, hairy carpetbag near Willow’s feet, which started to shake violently.

Willow shut her eyes, afraid to look. She heard about it, though, soon enough.

There was another loud pop, followed by a bellow from her mother downstairs.

‘WILLOW MOSS! WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT TRYING TO USE YOUR MAGIC BEFORE YOU’VE RECOVERED?’

Willow swallowed. ‘Um. That I shouldn’t?’ she mumbled, reluctantly opening an eye, only to blanch. Most of the attic had vanished. What remained was the single floorboard on which they stood.

It had all disappeared.

From the kitchen below, her mother and oldest sister, Juniper, were staring up at her with identical FURIOUS expressions.

‘I – um … erm … Sorry, Mum,’ stammered Willow.

This was bad enough, but things were about to get a whole lot worse rather quickly.

Juniper frowned, then looked at the empty seat next to her and paled. ‘W-where’s Camille?’

Willow scrunched up an eye, afraid to witness what would no doubt come next. Her mother looked from the empty seat back to Willow accusingly, her lips stretching into a thin, angry line. ‘You had better not have made your sister disappear. Again.’

Willow bit her lip, then shared a look of commiseration with Oswin, whose eyes were peeking out of the bag in fright.

‘Oh no …’

2

Magic Most Peculiar

It had started with the spoons.

No one could say for certain if the dessertspoons went first or the serving spoons, but, by the time the teaspoons had vanished throughout the village (and no one could make a decent cup of tea, which was enough reason for anyone to start sharpening their pitchfork), the whispers began to twist their way towards the youngest witch in the Moss family.

In an ordinary village, missing spoons wouldn’t cause that much concern, but in Grinfog, home to a family full of witches, it was natural that a few questions were raised. Some with raised voices to match.

Though, as Willow’s ability was to find things, not make them disappear, she along with the rest of the family had dismissed their neighbours’ concerns. A hiccough in the greening moon perhaps? A band of spoon-stealing poltergeists maybe? Nothing to do with her, though. Until the bunfire on Elth Night, that is, when even Willow began to wonder if she was, in fact, the person responsible for all the weird disappearances.

Elths, not to be confused with elves, are tiny, hairy, bearded creatures – and rather excellent bakers – who live underground. Many years ago, at the precise moment an evil wizard named Wollace Humperdink was passing over their mound, one of the elths’ ovens exploded and burnt him to a crisp. Now, all across Starfell, people celebrate the anniversary of this wondrous accident with elthish mushroom mead, ‘bunfires’ and beards.

Willow had just put aside the gumbo apple and currant bun she’d been toasting and removed her fake, sparkly beard to help a rather persistent neighbour who’d lost her anorak. The woman hadn’t quite got the memo that this was supposed to be Willow’s night off.

Nevertheless, Willow closed her eyes, lifted her palms to the sky and coughed, while she searched with her mind for Birdy Pondwater’s misplaced possession.

There was a faint popping sound, but nothing appeared in Willow’s outstretched hands, which was rather puzzling. Willow’s magic might not be exciting, but it was always reliable, which was something she’d always taken a bit of quiet pride in. As Granny Flossy used to say, ‘A bit of quiet pride does a body no harm. It’s the loud pride that can bend a nose right out of joint.’

Granny Flossy had been full of these sorts of observations. Along with lots of dodgy potions resulting from a cauldron explosion in the mountains of Nach.

Willow pushed up her mental sleeves, eyes still closed, and tried again. ‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured Birdy, who had begun to make a low panting sound a bit like a snuffling wild boar. ‘Sometimes lost things just need a bit of encouragement to be found … They can get too comfortable there, but I can coax them back.’

Except Birdy would not calm down. She began to shriek blue murder.

Willow saw why when she opened her eyes and found to her utter shock that Birdy’s dress had vanished, and she was standing in a vest and a pair of rather old-fashioned red-and-white bloomers while the entire village gawped at her, their currant buns left to burn on the bunfire.

‘What happened to your dress?’ Willow whispered, wishing she had something besides a sparkly beard to offer the poor woman to protect her modesty.

Birdy spluttered, turning violently red, while Willow looked around to see if the wind had blown the dress away. But there was no trace of it. When she turned back, what she saw caused her some dismay, as everyone was staring at her in sudden fear.

Which was a bit … odd.

While occasionally there was some grumbling about her family’s magic, the Mosses were mostly accepted as part of the community – like, say, the way your mother will remind you that your weird aunt with nineteen cats and a collection of dish towels with their faces on them is still, technically, part of the family …

A week later, Birdy Pondwater’s lost dress landed in Willow’s kitchen in a red-and-white flash. She left the dress at Birdy’s house, and a kind of stilted peace ensued, in which Willow was far less busy, and far poorer as a result, as most of her regular customers kept well away.

Camille had made the mistake of teasing her about this, which had led to her first disappearance and caused utter MAYHEM until she’d reappeared a minute later with a loud, angry pop.

Willow had never seen Camille so furious. She had threatened to transport Willow to the Mists of Mitlaire – the strange and ethereal fog that separated the world of the living from Netherfell, from which no one returned … mostly on account of losing their souls. It was a serious threat and Willow had retaliated that if Camille tried that, she’d figure out a way to make her disappear for good. At this point, their mother, Raine, had decided to take matters in hand.

‘I am taking matters in hand,’ she’d said, her mouth forming a grim line as Camille set a feather duster on Willow. It hadn’t done much aside from making her sneeze … but this had caused Camille to disappear again for a moment, and their mother had decided that the safest course of action was to separate them for a while.

‘For the time being, I think you can sleep in the spare bed in the attic, Willow. We will get to the bottom of this. You had a cold, and I think that’s the most likely culprit – look what happened when you sneezed, and you were coughing at the bunfire …’ Then Raine had narrowed her green eyes and said reproachfully, ‘Though you should not have used your magic if you were feeling unwell. You know this. The number-one rule for any witch who’s feeling unwell is what?’

Willow had opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t feel unwell, but changed her mind when her mother crossed her arms expectantly. Willow had sighed and recited in dull tones, ‘Not to use her magic.’

‘Correct.’

As far as witches went, this was a rather good rule, as being under the weather could cause a lot of magical misfires. Willow’s cousin, Petulant Moss, who had a talent for rather nasty hexes, had ignored it to her peril when she got a bad case of stutter pox. She had accidentally turned herself into a pig, instead of hexing her neighbour – to his delight. It was rumoured that she was still living up north somewhere with rather fluffy, spotted ears …

‘So, no magic, Willow. Understood? Not until we get you better,’ Raine had said.

Willow had agreed, and had moved into the attic that morning. She’d lasted half a day.

It wasn’t technically her fault that she’d broken her promise so quickly … As far as she was concerned, the letter from Nolin Sometimes and her fears for him had surpassed her concerns about her magic. In the stakes of wonky magic versus missing friend, missing friend had won out. Or it should have if her dodgy magic hadn’t made the attic – and her sister – disappear in the process …

Luckily, they both reappeared a few moments later. The lecture, however, went on for considerably longer.

Willow now sat at the kitchen table while her mother paced up and down, shaking her head and muttering things like, ‘I just don’t know what’s to be done with you. I sent your father word that he should come home so that we can all deal with this together as a family. What if your sister had gone missing permanently? You don’t know how to control this – and, despite the risks to all of us, you’re still using your magic …’

‘But Mum,’ Willow interrupted, feeling a pang of guilt that her mother had asked her father to leave work early to ‘deal’ with her, ‘I had to use my magic! I’ve got to find Nolin Sometimes.’ She tried once again to explain. ‘He’s my friend, and he needs me. He sent me a letter—’

‘Which has conveniently vanished,’ said her mother. She made a ‘pfft’ noise, eyes narrowed.

This was true unfortunately. A few things from the attic hadn’t reappeared, like Granny Flossy’s old purple hat, several tonics that her mother had been forcing her to drink, and the leaf-letter, so no one would believe a word Willow said.

Her mother shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. ‘I’d like to believe you, Willow, truly … but trees do not move or speak! I don’t know what on Great Starfell made you think they could. Besides that – which is worrying enough – I’m not sure where you got this idea that you’ve met a forgotten teller …’

‘Mum, I have!’ she protested.

‘No, you haven’t, Willow! It’s not something one does. Oubliers are extremely rare, and most end up … well, dead because of their abilities, which land them in trouble.’

Willow blinked. ‘I KNOW that! That’s why he needs me – it’s urgent!’

Willow’s mother shook her head, her eyes wide with concern. ‘Oh, Willow, I think you’re really quite ill. It might be a fever or something that’s been causing all this trouble with your magic – and now these delusions …’

But Willow wasn’t ill. She felt fine. She’d had all kinds of colds before and it had never caused her magic to act strangely. Her rogue magic came from something else … she knew it. In the back of her mind, Granny Flossy’s voice on a cold winter’s night whispered, ‘Folk that venture into the forest of Wisperia don’ always come back the same. I’ve heard stories of people who changed. Their hair turned to flame, their feet to hooves, their fingers to leaves … Forest-touched, they call it … They end up having to make a life there, away from everyone they know, as they’ve turned wild.’

Willow swallowed. She’d been to Wisperia when she’d tried to get back the stolen day. The forest must have done something to her. She tried to push the thought that her hair might turn to flame or her feet to hooves out of her mind, with difficulty.

The problem was getting anyone in her family to consider these risks because, when the lost Tuesday had been restored, so had the usual timeline. No one remembered when the day went missing at all, and they didn’t know what Willow had done or where she’d been … The only people who remembered were those, like her, who had been in the presence of the spell that had brought back the day.

‘Please, Mum, just listen to me – I think I know what’s happened. I’m going to tell you all about it, and afterwards you’ll see what needs to be done.’

She asked them not to interrupt so that she could get through the whole story. To her surprise, they agreed. Mostly, she would find out later, because they’d been trying to gather just how far her fevered delusions went and how urgently they should send for help.