Emily Feather and the Enchanted Door by Holly Webb Page A

on a shelf. She loved this photo. It was a rare one of all the children, sitting on the big old sofa in the living room. It had been taken when Robin was little – just turning from a baby into a boy, and losing his round, chubby face and the wispy, fair baby curls. His hair was darkening to red, and that pointed chin was starting to show. It was an odd photo, not much like other people’s family portraits. Lark and Lory looked serious, and Robin was staring wide-eyed at the camera. Only Emily was smiling, in the middle of Lark and Lory, a dark-eyed, dark-haired, golden-tanned five-year-old, with Robin clutched on her lap.
    The photo was in a little seashell frame, and it always lived on the dresser. But most of the time it was hard to see, because there was so much other stuff on there too. Fabric samples, and a scattering of beads. Homework. The dog’s comb. Sheets of manuscript from their dad’s latest novel, covered in scribble, and possibly torn into pieces. Vases of drooping flowers that Lark and Lory had brought in from the garden. But just occasionally, when it was tidy – which was usually only when her mum was lost for inspiration, and drifting around looking for something to do – the picture could be seen.
    â€œWhy does Robin look like Lark and Lory, and not like me?” Emily had asked her mum once, picking up the frame and running her fingers over the dusty shells.
    Her mother had stopped on her way through to her studio, and stared at Emily for a second, her grey-blue eyes wide, before she smiled. “It just happens that way sometimes, Emily, flower. You got your looks passed on from another relative, I should think. It’s just like Lory’s yellow hair,” she added. “No one else in the family has hair like that. We’re all different.”
    Except that, actually, they weren’t. Lory had yellow hair, it was true, but her features were just like their dad’s. Her mum and dad actually looked quite alike too, Emily realized, sweeping a golden syrup drip off the side of the tin with her finger and sucking it as she went out into the garden. It was only her. She wished she knew whichever relative it was that she looked like.
    Emily’s house had a strange garden – it was the same size as all the other gardens on the street, but it seemed bigger somehow, and more private, because it was surrounded by trees. It was a useless sort of garden for football, or anything that needed a lawn, because there wasn’t one – but it was full of tunnels, and holes, and twisted old trees, and it was perfect for playing hide-and-seek. Lark and Lory were out there somewhere, but as Emily let herself out by the back door and stood hesitating on the step, she couldn’t see them at all. She could hear them, though: sharp, sweet giggling, and then a muttered comment and a riffle of pages, and another burst of laughter.
    â€œLark! Lory!” She set off down one of the little brick paths, calling for them. The sun was blinding, and she held her arm up across her eyes, pulling her hot hair back into the band and making for the shade under a clump of thorn trees at the edge of the garden. Where were Lark and Lory hiding?
    Suddenly, Lark and Lory’s voices came to her, as clear as little ringing bells, or the sharp twittering of the birds gathered above her in the thorn tree.
    Emily stumbled on up the path. The sun was so bright that she was half-blinded, and she blinked as the light flickered, filtering down through the trees above her in dark bars of shadow and sunlight.
    â€œEmily, what are you doing?” one of her sisters giggled. A thin-fingered hand caught hers and pulled her down on to a rug laid over the mossy grass. Gruff, their huge black dog, opened one eye to see who’d turned up, grunted, and went back to sleep again.
    â€œYou looked like you were about to fall over,” Lark said, wrapping an arm round her shoulders and staring