Philippa Fisher and the Fairy's Promise Read online

  Daisy said that if you really knew what you were doing, you just had to think about what you wanted to know and it would come up with answers. I still hadn’t quite gotten my head around this whole think-it-can-happen-and-hey-presto-it-can-happen idea yet, so I stuck to saying things out loud.

  “Where am I?” I asked, just for fun.

  The screen burst into light, a thousand colors spilling across it, spreading and weaving into every space in swirling, dancing loops and lines. Through the colors, three big letters emerged: ATC.

  OK, I knew that.

  “Who am I?” I asked. The screen went blank.

  I turned to Daisy, trying not to be too freaked out. Did I still exist, or, now that I was at ATC, had I been wiped off the face of the earth forever, with no way back?

  Daisy glanced at the screen. “That’s good,” she said.

  “What? How can it be good?”

  “It can only tell you what’s already in its program. It’s not programmed to recognize humans up here. If it doesn’t know you, that means it’s unlikely anyone realizes there’s a human up here — yet.”

  “Yet?”

  Daisy paused. “Well, it will catch on eventually,” she said. “Any changes in the atmosphere gradually seep through and need to be identified and categorized.”

  Changes in the atmosphere? Identified? Categorized? “Daisy, you haven’t actually made me feel a whole lot better.”

  “Look, trust me,” she said. “If the computer doesn’t know who you are, all it means is that we’ve got longer to plan a way of getting you out of here before we land ourselves in any more trouble.”

  “OK,” I said.

  “Good. Now, let me think. We need to find out what’s happening with your mom first, and worry about the rest later.”

  Daisy was right. That was all that mattered right now. Finding out what was going to happen to Mom — and figuring out how we could stop it.

  Daisy shut her eyes and sat in silence for a moment. The computer seemed to be waiting. I waited, too. What was she thinking? Was she asking the computer a question? Would it know the answer this time?

  I looked at the screen. A small word was emerging in the center of the screen.

  YES.

  I stared at the word. Yes? Yes what?

  YES, I WILL KNOW THE ANSWER THIS TIME.

  Whoa! The computer had heard my thoughts! It was answering me!

  Daisy gave me a quick nudge. “Stop thinking things,” she said. “Your thoughts are getting in the way.”

  Stop thinking things? How was I supposed to do that?

  JUST DO IT, the computer replied.

  OK, this was getting spooky now. I had to stop thinking. I tried to do something Mom had once taught me when she came back from a meditation and yoga weekend. You imagine that your mind is like the sky, and if any thoughts come into it, you think of them as clouds floating slowly across it. Mom had spent a week doing it every day until she decided that she needed to spend more time thinking, not less. She thought it might make her brain lazy.

  I shut my eyes and concentrated on the image for a while, and it must have worked, because when I opened them again, something was happening on the screen. Daisy was staring straight at it, as if she were looking into its eyes, holding a conversation with it. In reply, pictures were forming on the screen.

  They were quite blurry to begin with, but then they became sharper and clearer — and as they did so, I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth. It was the cottage my family and I were staying in! The computer was showing a series of pictures: the garden, the kitchen . . . my mom and dad!

  “Daisy — look!” I cried out.

  “I know. That means the SRB will happen soon. The computer only gets images when the event is imminent.”

  I shuddered. Something really bad was about to happen to my mom — and all we could do was watch it take place on a screen?

  “Wait,” Daisy said. “Let’s see if we can get some volume on this and hear what’s happening.”

  She touched the screen, and instantly I heard my mom’s voice coming through the computer!

  “I don’t care who she’s with,” she was saying. “Or how long they’ve lived here. She’s my daughter and I’m not happy!”

  Her daughter — they were talking about me! Why was she unhappy with me?

  I leaned closer to the screen.

  “I know, darling,” my dad replied. “I’m only saying we should give them a bit more time. Robyn knows the area like the —”

  “I don’t care how well she knows the area. You heard Martin. Even her father doesn’t know where they are. They’ve been gone for hours, and it’s getting really dark. I’m just not —”

  Mom broke off as her phone rang. She practically threw herself across the table to grab it. “It’s Martin,” she said, checking the screen on her phone. “They must be back.”

  Mom answered her phone. “Martin,” she said, her voice thick with relief. But as she listened, her face turned gray. “I see,” she said. “Right,” she added a moment later. Finally, she said, “OK, yes, if you don’t mind, put Robyn on.”

  While she waited for Robyn to come on the phone, she turned to Dad.

  “They’re back, then?” Dad said, smiling at Mom. But not his usual smile, the one he wears nearly all the time because he’s as happy and carefree as a baby and nothing in his world could make him do anything other than smile. This was more like the smile a scary clown wears — the type that’s painted on to hide the unhappiness underneath it.

  Mom shook her head. “Robyn’s back,” she said, her voice almost cracking. “Philippa’s missing.”

  Dad slumped into a chair as though someone had punched the life out of him. Mom turned back to her phone. “Robyn,” she said tightly. “Tell me what happened.”

  Daisy had opened a new page on her computer and was looking through a long list. She ran her finger down the list, then stopped and shook her head. “I don’t believe it,” she said, talking more to herself than to me. “I’m so stupid!”

  “What?” I asked flatly.

  “The SRB,” she said, looking up as though she’d just remembered I was there. “It could be any moment now. It must have to do with your disappearance.”

  “Mom’s SRB is my disappearance?”

  Daisy shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s not that simple. There could be something else — maybe a result of your disappearance.”

  “But how is that possible? I only disappeared because I was coming to find you, and you already knew that something really bad was going to happen to my mom.”

  “I know.”

  “But surely that’s impossible — isn’t it?”

  Daisy let out a long breath. “Not impossible. Just hard to understand if you’re not used to the way these things work.”

  “Try me,” I said.

  “It’s complicated,” she admitted. “It has to do with MTB’s role.”

  “MTB — that’s the department that decides if something’s meant to be?”

  “That’s right. The thing is, MTB is a pretty efficient team, and sometimes if they don’t have a huge load of cases, they can get information on an SRB before it actually happens.”

  “OK,” I said, half of my brain understanding what she was saying and the other half screaming at me that it couldn’t possibly be true.

  “Listen, Philippa,” Daisy said urgently. “None of this really matters. The important thing is what’s happening or going to happen to your mom.”

  “I know,” I said, swallowing hard. “What are we going to do?”

  “That’s just it,” Daisy said darkly. “There’s nothing we can do now. It seems like the SRB is already in motion.”

  I held the phone to my ear with both hands, trying to stop them from shaking. “Mrs. Fisher,” I began. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  She didn’t let me get any further. “Where is she?” she burst out. “What’s happened to my girl?”

  “I �
� I —” What on earth could I say? I’d gone over it a hundred times in my head, trying to figure out what had happened. One minute, Philippa was there, crouched down next to me behind the stone. Then she’d gotten up and wandered around the stone circle, following the woman who we’d been hiding from. They’d both called out to each other, and then disappeared into thin air!

  I couldn’t make any sense of it. Except for the thought that kept niggling at the back of my mind. The thought that the weird woman was Daisy in disguise.

  Could it really be true? And even if it was, how could I ever say anything to —

  “Robyn.” Mrs. Fisher’s voice broke into my thoughts. “I’m not blaming you,” she said tightly. “You’re not in any trouble. I just want to know where my daughter is.”

  What could I say? Well, you see. It’s like this: Philippa disappeared into thin air, and so did this weird woman who’s been following us around and whispering strange things to us. And I have a strong suspicion that actually, the weird woman wasn’t really a weird woman at all, but a fairy in disguise, who is, incidentally, your daughter’s other best friend.

  I don’t think so.

  “Mrs. Fisher, I really don’t know what happened,” I said. “We were at the stone circle, just hanging out, you know. And she — well, I wasn’t really looking and I think she must have wandered off.” This was sounding terrible! How was the idea of her daughter wandering off on her own into the forest going to make her feel better?

  “The stone circle?” Mrs. Fisher said, her voice now sounding as if she were trying to speak while having her throat twisted into knots. “Tidehill Rocks? That’s where you last saw her?”

  “Well, yes, I guess so,” I said.

  “Right,” Mrs. Fisher said. “Thank you, Robyn. Thank you.”

  A second later, I heard a click, and then the line went dead. I handed the phone back to Dad.

  Dad put an arm around me. “You OK? You want to talk about this?” he asked.

  I hesitated. Could I tell Dad what had happened? Would he believe me? I didn’t dare risk it. Not when we’d been doing so well lately. For nearly a year after Mom died, he’d been like a stranger. But since everything had come out in the open, about how Mom had been a fairy and all the dreams she’d left for me and everything — well, he’d been almost back to his old self. But he had hated fairies and everything to do with them for so long that I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to bring it all up again. I didn’t want to spoil it by sharing half-formed thoughts about fairies and disappearances and all sorts of other things that didn’t make any sense.

  “Dad, can I go and look for her?” I asked.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Look, I know where she was last. I’m sure I’ll be able to find her again. Please let me go out. You stay here in case she turns up. I’ll be right back.” And before he had time to answer, I’d thrown a coat on, run down the stairs, and shut the shop door behind me.

  I sat, paralyzed, listening to the whole conversation between Robyn and my mom. It was awful.

  I wanted to scream at the computer screen: I’m OK, I’m OK! But even if I could have done that without attracting the attention of an office full of fairy godmothers, it wouldn’t have made any difference. They wouldn’t have been able to hear me.

  The screen went blank as soon as the phone call ended. “Why’s it stopped?” I asked.

  “I timed it for two minutes,” Daisy said. “Any more than that is too risky.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Those pictures were only for SRB to see. They have access to relevant scenes — people, places, conversations, anything that can help them do their job.”

  “So it’s only SRB who should have been able to watch what we’ve just seen with Mom and Robyn?”

  “Exactly. Breaking into their work like this is one of the easiest ways to get caught. A couple of minutes will usually go unnoticed but any more than that and they could trace us.”

  “Could we at least try watching Robyn?” I asked.

  Daisy shook her head. “It’s too risky.”

  “Please! Just a few seconds.”

  Daisy bit her lip and looked around. “Right, OK, I’ll see what I can do. I may still have some access to her from my last assignment.”

  She shut her eyes and faced the screen. Nothing happened.

  “It’s not working,” I said.

  “Wait. Give it a chance.”

  I stared and stared at the blank screen. A moment later, something started to happen. A picture was forming — blurry around the edges, but I could see two people. It was Robyn and her dad!

  Robyn was talking. Her voice was as faint as the picture, so it was hard to tell what she was saying. But I caught a couple of snatches of their conversation.

  “Where she was last,” I heard. “I’ll be able to find her again. Let me go out. . . . I’ll be right back.”

  And then the picture disappeared.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “That’s all I could get, and even that was more of a risk than we should be taking.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I don’t know,” Daisy said. “Let me think a minute.”

  She glanced around the office, then lowered her voice. “There’s only one way.” She took out her MagiCell and pressed a few buttons.

  As it whirred into action, I hunched down in my seat and leaned in closer. I lowered my voice, too. “What are you doing?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Hacking into SRB. I’m going to try to find the exact time when the assignment is due to start. If it’s tomorrow, at least we’ll have the night to think it through.”

  A moment later, Daisy’s MagiCell bleeped and flashed with a bunch of numbers and signs. Daisy pressed a few more buttons. Then she stared at the small screen. And then she slumped in her chair.

  “I’m guessing it’s tonight, then,” I said.

  Daisy nodded.

  “Did the MagiCell show anything else?”

  Daisy looked away.

  “Daisy, tell me. I need to know.”

  She turned toward me but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “The team is getting ready to go,” she said. “And they’re dressed as an ambulance crew. They’ve got stretchers and everything.”

  I fell back in my seat, almost as though I’d been hit. Stretchers. For my mom?

  “Your mom’s already gone looking for you, and I think she’s going to have some kind of accident on the way.”

  I sat in silence for a moment. My mom was going to have a terrible accident — and it was all my fault. No! I wouldn’t let it happen — I couldn’t! Come on, think. Think!

  If Mom had already left the house, it was too late to stop her from going.

  And since Robyn had told her I’d gone missing at the stone circle, I figured that’s where she would be headed. But she’d never been there before, and it would be completely dark soon. She’d never find her way.

  Then I remembered something. The path on the way to the stone circle. The flood last year. The place where if you went off the path, the ground became a sheer cliff. Mom would have to take the same path! It was the main one up from the road. But she wouldn’t know about the floods or the landslide!

  I didn’t need a computer to tell me what was going to happen. I knew it as firmly as if Daisy’s supervisor had stood in front of me and confirmed it herself.

  “We have to get in touch with Robyn,” I said. “We have to get her to find Mom and stop her from going up to Tidehill Rocks.”

  “Got it!” she said. She turned back to the computer. “Open the communication box,” she said out loud. The computer sprang to life as Daisy sat looking at it, thinking so fiercely I could almost see her thoughts myself.

  Of course! It was the same panel that had opened up on Robyn’s computer when we’d heard Daisy’s conversation with her supervisor. So perhaps we could use it to communicate with Robyn! Why hadn’t we thought of this before
?

  A moment later, the box was open. “Come on, come on,” Daisy murmured, staring at the blank box, waiting for it to find Robyn via Annie’s, and now Robyn’s, computer. Anticipation danced inside my stomach.

  But the anticipation soon began to flutter and die. The connection didn’t go through. Nobody was there. Robyn must have already left. Every second seemed to last an hour, each one passing in useless, awful silence.

  And every second that passed was another one wasted, and another one closer to the moment when Mom would have a terrible accident — all because of me.

  “I can’t bear it,” I said. “I feel so useless.”

  “Me, too.” Daisy was fidgeting and glancing around.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Who are you looking for?”

  Daisy leaned in close again. “My supervisor,” she whispered. “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, take the desk next to mine. It’s been empty for weeks anyway. I’m going back down there. I’m going after your mom. I’ll stop her from going to the woods.”

  “But how? She’s probably halfway there by now. And you don’t even know where the dangerous part is. You’ll never find her.”

  “Well, I’ll find Robyn, then. She can show me!”

  “Daisy, how will you get Robyn to listen to you? If you go down as yourself, they’ll find you immediately and you’ll be in the worst trouble ever. You know you can’t risk that, especially now.”

  “You’re right,” she said glumly. “I probably won’t even get out of the door if I go as myself.”

  “And if you go in disguise, she’ll never listen to you. Look what happened with me! All the attempts you made to get me to listen to you, and I just wrote you off as a weirdo. How will you convince Robyn it’s really you?”

  Daisy looked as miserable as I felt. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “After all this, we just have to sit around and wait for something awful to happen to your mom. If only we knew how to get you down there.”