Star Friends – Mirror Magic Read online

  “Where you saw that fox? Did you see him again today?” Sita asked.

  “You’ll find out tomorrow,” Maia said, hoping she was right. She ended the call and hugged the phone to her chest.

  Oh, please let Lottie and Sita be Star Friends, too! she thought.

  Maia was still buzzing with excitement when she got home. She danced around the kitchen, where Clio was sitting at the table reading a magazine.

  “What’s up with you?” she said in surprise.

  “Nothing. I’m just happy,” said Maia.

  She remembered the compact in her pocket and pulled it out, turning it over to look at it.

  “That’s pretty. Where did you get it?” Clio asked.

  Maia passed the mirror compact to Clio so she could take a look. “It was in one of the drawers at Granny Anne’s house. Auntie Mabel found it.”

  Clio opened it and looked at the mirror.

  “You can have it if you want,’ said Maia with a rush of generosity. “I don’t need it.”

  “Thanks!” Clio smiled. Her phone buzzed. She checked the screen and gasped. “No way! Guess what’s just happened to Beth!”

  “What?” said Maia.

  “She’s been asked to model for a magazine! Oh, wow, I am soooo jealous!” Despite her words, Clio didn’t sound it, she just sounded delighted for her friend. She hurried out of the kitchen. “Beth!” Maia heard her squeal as she headed up the stairs. “That’s awesome. What happened?”

  Maia shook her head. If Clio thought that was awesome, what would she think about what had happened to her that day?

  She wondered if there were other Star Friends nearby and what their Star Animals were. Suddenly she remembered what Auntie Mabel had said about Bracken being a magic fox and a thought struck her. Maybe Auntie Mabel was a Star Friend! And what about Granny Anne? Could she have been a Star Friend, too? She couldn’t wait to see Bracken again – there were so many questions to ask!

  “This path is really overgrown,” said Sita the next morning as she edged round a giant fern on the way to the clearing. The sky above was blue with wispy white clouds trailing across it. They’d cycled to Granny Anne’s cottage together and left their bikes in the garden.

  Lottie jumped over a mossy rock. “Why is it so important that we come here today, Maia? What have you got planned?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Maia said. Butterflies fluttered in her tummy. What was going to happen when they all reached the clearing? She remembered Bracken’s words from the day before. To be a Star Friend, you have to really believe in magic. Lottie and Sita always said they believed in magic, but did they mean it? What if they couldn’t hear the Star Animals speak? She swallowed as an even worse thought hit her – what if only one of them could?

  Lottie looked at her warily. “You know I don’t like surprises.”

  “This will be a good one,” Maia said, crossing her fingers.

  When they reached the end of the path, Lottie and Sita looked around the clearing.

  “Um…” said Lottie, looking confused. “What’s the surprise then?”

  Maia chewed her lip. “Well…” She wasn’t quite sure what she’d imagined would happen when they got there – maybe that Bracken and the other Star Animals would all be waiting. I should have made a plan, she realized.

  Lottie and Sita were both looking at her expectantly.

  “The um … the surprise will be along in a moment.” Maia glanced round. “Bracken! Bracken!” she called in her head. “I’m here! Where are—”

  Sita made a sharp intake of breath. “Look! It’s a deer! Oh, isn’t she beautiful!” A young deer with a coat gleaming like a conker stepped out of the trees. She stopped and stared at them with huge eyes, her delicate ears twitching. A red squirrel scampered down a tree and ran up beside the deer. It sat down on its haunches and looked curiously between the girls, and then an otter poked its head out of the river.

  “There are so many animals here!” said Lottie as a sparrowhawk flew down from the trees and landed on a rock, a badger shuffled from underneath a bramble bush and a dormouse ran out. Finally a sleek wildcat with slanted eyes slid out from the shadows. All of the animals stared at the three girls.

  “Oh … my… Wow!” breathed Lottie, staring around. “What’s happening?”

  “Is this the surprise, Maia?” whispered Sita.

  Maia nodded.

  “But how did you know these animals would be here?” Lottie said in amazement.

  Bracken came trotting out of the trees. Maia felt a rush of happiness as her eyes met his. He touched her hand with his nose. She heard him say, “Hello, Maia. Are these your friends?”

  Lottie and Sita both gave strangled squeaks.

  “That fox! He just spoke!” said Lottie, pointing at Bracken.

  Maia looked from her to Sita. “Did you hear him too, Sita?” she asked.

  Sita nodded wordlessly.

  Delight rushed through Maia. “If they can hear you, that means they can be Star Friends, too, doesn’t it, Bracken?”

  Bracken spun round in delight. “Yes!” He turned and looked at all the watching animals – the otter, the squirrel, the deer, the hawk, the badger, the dormouse and the wildcat. “The question is – whose Star Friend are they going to be?”

  “What … what’s going on, Maia?” Lottie said uncertainly.

  “It’s magic,” Maia said in a rush as she looked around the clearing at the beautiful animals, all with sparkling indigo eyes. “These animals come from another world – the Star World. They’re each looking for someone to be their Star Friend. They’ll teach that person how to do magic to make good things happen.” She turned to Bracken in excitement. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Maia’s my Star Friend,” he told Lottie and Sita. “She said she thought you might both be Star Friends, too – and she was right!”

  “I’d love to be a Star Friend!” Sita gasped, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  “Where is this Star World? Can we go to it?” asked Lottie eagerly.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” said Bracken. “Only Star Animals can travel between the worlds.”

  “But you’re saying we can learn to do magic here?” said Sita.

  Bracken nodded.

  “What sort of magic?” Lottie asked.

  “That will depend on your own natural abilities,” said Bracken. “But first you need to find out which of us is your Star Animal.”

  “Do we choose or do they?” said Lottie, looking around at all the animals.

  “It can be either way,” said Bracken. “But you both have to feel it in your hearts.”

  To Maia’s surprise, Sita suddenly started walking towards the deer. “Hello,” she whispered, holding out her hand. “I don’t know how I know this but I think I’m meant to be your Star Friend.”

  The deer sniffed her hand. She wasn’t tall – her head was only just higher than Sita’s hip and her eyes were huge, fringed with curling lashes.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. “I feel like I know you already. My name’s Willow.”

  “I’m Sita.” Sita put her hand on Willow’s neck and Willow sighed happily.

  Maia glanced at Lottie. Lottie was looking at the rest of the animals – the badger, the dormouse, the wildcat, the sparrowhawk, the otter and the squirrel. “You’re all so beautiful,” she whispered.

  The squirrel scampered across the clearing towards her. “But I’m the one you should choose! I just know I am!” He stood up on his hind legs and stared at her with his small bright eyes. “I’m Juniper. What’s your name?”

  “Lottie,” Lottie said.

  Juniper leaped on to the tree trunk beside her, then on to a branch and hung upside down.

  Lottie giggled. “I can do that, too.” She did a handstand and looked back at him.

  Juniper made a chattering sound as if he was laughing. “You’re supposed to be my Star Friend!”

  As Lottie turned the right way, Juniper leaped from
the branch and landed on her shoulder.

  A smile spread across Lottie’s face as she touched his soft red fur. “Yes, you’re right,” she declared.

  Bracken yipped.

  “The rest of us must keep looking for our Star Friends,” said the badger rather sadly. “Come. We should move on.”

  The animals headed into the trees. The otter paused and looked back at the wildcat, who was still standing there. “Sorrel, are you coming?”

  The cat yawned, showing sharp white teeth. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I’ll please myself.”

  Bracken made a grumbling noise in his throat. “As always.”

  Maia glanced at him and saw he was looking at the cat with dislike.

  The cat – Sorrel – stood up, shook her paws daintily and then stalked into the trees in the opposite direction to the other animals.

  “She seems kind of prickly,” Maia whispered to Bracken.

  The fox nodded. “She is. I’m glad neither of your friends chose her to be their Star Animal.”

  Maia turned to look at Lottie and Sita. Sita was stroking Willow and they were speaking softly to each other. Lottie was sitting cross-legged, giggling as Juniper ran up one arm, behind her head and down the other.

  Maia felt a burst of happiness. They were all Star Friends! “Can we start learning to do magic now?” she asked.

  Bracken leaped into her arms. “You can, but first I think we need to tell your friends more about where we’ve come from.”

  Maia, Sita and Lottie sat close together while Bracken, Juniper and Willow explained about the Star World. Juniper sat in Lottie’s lap, Willow lay beside Sita, her slender legs folded underneath her, and Maia sat with her arm round Bracken, stroking his thick fur.

  “So, what’s the Star World like?” asked Lottie.

  “Beautiful,” said Juniper. “Everything shines and sparkles.”

  “It must have been really hard to leave,” said Sita.

  “It was,” said Willow. “But we wanted to come here to help. Humans need people in their communities who know how to use magic to do good, people who can solve problems, stop arguments, look after the environment, and heal things and people.”

  “And we were told we were particularly needed here, in this area,” said Bracken.

  “Why?” said Lottie.

  “The older animals in the Star World think someone might be using dark magic nearby,” said Bracken.

  “Dark magic,” echoed Sita. “What’s that?”

  Willow’s ears flickered anxiously. “Dark magic is the opposite of Star Magic. It comes from the ground and it is magic that can be used to hurt people and make them unhappy. If someone is using dark magic near here, they must be stopped.”

  “Will stopping them be dangerous?” Lottie breathed.

  Juniper nodded. “Yes. But we’ll have each other.” He stroked her hair with his little paws.

  Maia felt a mixture of excitement and nerves bubbling up inside her. Stopping someone doing dark magic sounded scary but thrilling, too. “When can we start learning to do magic ourselves?”

  Bracken jumped up. “Right now!”

  “The sooner the better!” said Juniper, scampering after Bracken.

  “Oh, yes!” said Willow, her dark eyes shining as she stood up. “We need to find out what your magic abilities are. Everyone is different.”

  “What do we have to do first?” Maia asked eagerly.

  “Star Magic is all around you. It flows in a current, like a stream, from the Star World to the human world. You just need to open yourself up to it,” said Bracken.

  “How?” asked Lottie.

  “Have any of you ever had times when you’ve felt completely lost in the moment?” Willow said.

  “I have,” said Sita. “Sometimes when I lie on the heather up on the clifftops with the sun on my face, everything else in the world just seems to fade away.”

  “That’s happened to me, too,” said Maia, remembering times when she’d been lying on the beach or sitting in the clearing, watching the waterfall.

  “And me – when I’ve been floating in the sea,” said Lottie. “Or sometimes when I’m playing a piece of music I really love, I feel like I get lost in it.”

  Juniper waved his tail. “That’s exactly the feeling you need to find now – exist in the moment, open your hearts and the Star Magic will flood in.”

  “Don’t try and make it happen, just let it happen,” advised Willow. “If you think about it too much, I don’t think it’ll work.”

  Maia looked around at the others. “Come on! Let’s try!”

  Maia, Lottie and Sita shut their eyes.

  Forget everything, Maia told herself. She tried to push all her thoughts out of her head but for some reason she found herself picturing what she might have for lunch – sandwiches maybe or pizza… She shook her head. No. She needed to concentrate. If she didn’t, the others would start doing magic and she wouldn’t be able to. That would be awful. She pictured Sita and Lottie doing amazing things while she just watched…

  “Maia.” She heard Bracken’s voice. “Don’t think about anything else. Just focus on being here, in this moment.”

  Maia took a deep breath and focused on the clearing. She could hear birds in the trees, the splash of water. She could smell fallen leaves and moss. She didn’t think about anything else. Her body started to tingle slightly. She caught her breath. Was this it? Was she about to do magic? It would be so cool. What would she be able to do? The tingling feeling faded.

  “Maia, stop thinking about it. Just let it happen,” Bracken said.

  Maia heard Sita give a gasp. “Oh, wow!”

  Maia desperately wanted to open her eyes. What was Sita doing? Had she discovered what magic she could do?

  Bracken stepped on to her knees. “Stroke me, Maia. Don’t think about anyone else. You need to lose yourself in the moment so the magic can come in.”

  Maia ran her hands down Bracken’s fluffy coat. She concentrated on the feeling of his soft fur as she stroked his body over and over, breathing in his warm scent. The tingling feeling started again but this time she didn’t stop and think about it, she just relaxed. The tingling spread from her toes to her head. She felt like every bit of her was waking up, opening like a flower in the sun. She felt linked to the whole world, joyful, alive…

  “You’ve connected to the magic,” Bracken said. “Open your eyes.”

  Maia opened her eyes. Everything looked sharper, as though she could see each blade of grass, every vein on every leaf, every hair on Bracken’s russet-red body. She slowly looked around. Lottie was still sitting on the ground, her face screwed up in concentration. Juniper was sitting on her shoulder.

  “You’re trying too hard, just relax,” Maia heard him say.

  Bracken bounded in front of her. “What do you feel?”

  “Like I can see everything really clearly,” breathed Maia.

  “That could mean your magic abilities are to do with sight,” said Bracken. “I think I know how to find out for sure.” He bounded to the stream. “Take a rock out of the water.”

  As Maia looked into the stream, she gasped. She could see through the swirling eddies to the pebbles and rocks below, the little fish slipping through the weeds, the water beetles spinning round. “It’s like I’m looking through a magnifying glass.”

  “With the power of sight you’ll be able to do far more than just see everything around you really clearly,” said Bracken. “Look into the surface of a wet rock and say the name of someone you know.”

  Maia took a rock out of the water, wondering what was going to happen. The surface shone like a mirror. “Mum,” she whispered. She almost dropped the rock in surprise as a faint picture appeared in the wet surface. She could see a fuzzy image of her mum in the kitchen at Granny Anne’s, cleaning the cupboards.

  “What do you see?” Bracken said.

  “My mum. Look.”

  “I can’t see it,” he told her, shaking his head. “
It’s your magic that lets you see the image. As you practise more, you’ll be able to use shiny surfaces to see what’s happening elsewhere really clearly, you’ll be able to hear what’s being said and look at the details of a scene. You’ll also be able to see the past and glimpses of the future, and you might even learn to see into people’s minds.”

  “Oh, wow!” said Maia, her thoughts racing. She glanced around and saw Sita touching a broken stem of cow parsley. As she ran her fingers along it, the stem strengthened and repaired until it was tall and strong again. “Look at that!” she said.

  “Sita’s abilities must be to do with healing,” said Bracken.

  Sita came over with Willow beside her. Her eyes were shining. “I feel amazing!” She took Maia’s hands in hers and Maia immediately felt soothed, as if someone had wrapped a cosy blanket round her shoulders. “Willow thinks I’m going to learn how to comfort people and heal them,” said Sita. “Can you do that, too?”

  “No, my magic’s different – it’s to do with seeing things,” said Maia.

  Lottie cartwheeled over the clearing towards them, jumping to her feet after the fifth cartwheel. “Every bit of me is bursting with energy. I want to run and jump and climb!”

  “Then do it,” urged Juniper, scampering up a tree. “Come on!”

  Lottie shot up the tree trunk after him, as agile as a squirrel herself. They climbed high into the tree in just a few seconds. Straddling a branch, she wrapped her legs around it and hung down. “Look at me!” she cried, waving at them.

  “Be careful!” exclaimed Sita.

  “Don’t worry,” Willow said. “Her magical abilities must be to do with agility.”

  “When she’s using her magic, she’ll be able to do things a normal human couldn’t,” added Bracken.

  As if to prove his point, Lottie pulled herself upwards, climbed on to the branch and then jumped down to the ground easily, turning a forward roll as she landed and springing lightly to her feet.

  “This is awesome!” she said, beaming.

  “Now you’ve connected with Star Magic once, you’ll find it much easier next time,” Juniper said. “If you practise, you’ll soon be able to use your magical abilities in the blink of an eye. But now you should release the magic. It will tire you out if you use it for too long at first.”