Authors: Holly Webb
Lily (22 page)
‘No. We have to find our father.’ Lily traced the evil-looking scratches on her sister’s neck with a delicate finger. ‘He’ll be able to help Georgie, I’m sure he will. We have to break that spell. It’ll still be with us, otherwise. Wherever we are.’
Georgie sat up a little, stretching out her fingers, and stared at them, almost hatefully. ‘I know. I can feel it inside me now. Waiting.’
‘What for?’ Henrietta looked up at her, the glint gone from her round black eyes.
‘I simply don’t know.’ Georgie clenched her fingers tightly.
‘We’ll break it,’ Lily told her, seizing Georgie’s stone-like fists. ‘We’ll find him, and he’ll know how. Then you’ll be free, and you can do whatever you want with your magic. Nothing, if you like! You can come back and help Maria in the wardrobe instead, and forget all about it. Couldn’t she?’ she asked Daniel fiercely, and he nodded, smiling, even though he still looked sad.
‘What will you do?’ Georgie whispered, squeezing Lily’s hand gratefully. ‘When we’re free?’
Lily looked at Henrietta, silenced for once. She had no idea.
Henrietta sniffed. ‘Break the spell first. Then we’ll decide.’
Lily nodded. ‘Exactly.’ She took a deep breath, and brushed the last of the pinkish mud from the skirts of her costume. She knew she had to free her sister.
Nothing else mattered.
Where did the idea for
Lily
come from?
Lily
started as a sequel to my
Rose
books. I loved the world that had grown through the four books, and I didn’t want to leave it. But I wanted to change it – so that magic wasn’t special and amazing any more, but something that people were ashamed of instead.
Did you set out to write a historical novel?
Yes. I loved historical novels as a child and still do. My favourites were
A Traveller in Time
by Alison Uttley, and
A Little Princess
by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Rose and Lily – who both have very hard childhoods, even though they’re so different – owe a lot to Sara, the main character from
A Little Princess
. I loved her story.
Characters from your earlier series
Rose
appear in
Lily
– did you intend to do this from the start?
Yes – a main character from the
Rose
books (I won’t tell you the name because it might spoil it!) will appear in the second
Lily
book, and Rose herself will be in the third – but she will be fifty years older! I didn’t want any of the
Rose
characters to take over the
Lily
books, but I really like the idea of the passing of time within that world.
Which idea came first: the animals or the magic?
The magic. The editor I originally discussed the
Rose
books with, when I was planning the first book, asked for ‘no talking cats please.’ But Gus was unstoppable…
Lily and the Shining Dragons…
‘S
omeone’s watching you two.’
Lily looked up at Sam, panting a little. He’d caught her as she hurried offstage. They’d had three curtain calls, and she’d had to race back to the front of the stage and bow again and again before they could go, and let the trick cyclist troupe come on. The illusionist act seemed to be more popular every night.
‘They’re supposed to watch us, Sam.
Everyone’s
supposed to be watching!’
‘You know what I mean, missy. Don’t be smart.’
Henrietta growled, very quietly, but she was eyeing Lily, not Sam. Lily stopped smiling, and shook her head. ‘I won’t. What do you mean? Who’s watching?’
‘A lady. Tall, looks like to me. Thin. Ver
y
thin, but not like it’s natural. She’s in one of the boxes, first tier, left of the stage.’ He frowned. ‘She’s got a look of your sister, though I can’t quite say how. That light hair, maybe.’
Lily went pale. ‘Mama?’ she faltered. But then Henrietta nipped her ankle crossly. ‘Oh, no, not if she’s thin. All right, I know it was stupid, Henrietta! But there’s no one else…’ She stopped. Actually, of course, she didn’t know that. She and Georgie had always supposed they had no relatives, because Mama had never mentioned them.
‘Want me to point her out?’ Sam shuffled her towards the edge of the curtain.
Lily peered around it, careful not to sway the heavy velvet. The auditorium was packed, not a little crimson chair empty.
‘There, see? With a boy next to her.’ Sam nudged Lily, showing her a tall, regal-looking woman in one of the nearest boxes.
She had a good view there, Lily thought, the blood seeming to flow through her heart more slowly all of a sudden. A very good view. The gold-haired woman couldn’t know that Lily was on the other side of the curtain. Lily would swear that she was hidden. But the woman was staring right at her. Straight into Lily’s eyes.
Lily ducked back into the wings, with Henrietta coiling anxiously around her ankles, and whimpering.
‘Who is she?’ Sam demanded. ‘You look as though you’re about to faint, Lily. What’s happening? Is that your ma?’
Lily shook her head. ‘I don’t know who she is. But you’re right, she does look like Georgie. A little. She was
looking
at me, Sam. She knows who I am.’ She leaned against the wall, biting her lip. ‘We have to go on stage again, at the end of the show. Our finale act. She’ll be watching us again.’
‘And I’ll be watching her. I promise you. If I see anything that looks…nasty, I’ll haul you offstage. All of you. Even if it means breaking the illusion. I won’t let anyone hurt you.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Lily sounded shocked. She and Georgie and Henrietta had only been theatre performers for a few weeks, but they had absorbed how important it was to keep the audience happy. However much one hated someone offstage, onstage one smiled and laughed and acted like the best of friends. The show must always go on.
‘Watch me,’ Sam muttered, leaning out to try and catch another glimpse of the skinny, gold-haired woman.
Lily smiled at him. She knew that she and Georgie would have to go onstage, and wave and smile and do everything the way they usually did it. And she knew that although Sam would do anything he could to help, if the woman in the stage-left box wanted to hurt Lily or Georgie somehow, he would be worse than useless. He would probably get himself hurt too, which was another thing for Lily to worry about.
Whoever she was, she’d used magic. Lily was sure. She’d
known
that Lily was behind the curtain peering out. Only magic could have told her that, and all magic was forbidden by the Queen’s Decree. The gold-haired woman was another magician in hiding. She had to be.
So even if Lily hadn’t hated the idea of spoiling the show, she had to go back onstage. She had to show the gold-haired woman that she wasn’t afraid, that she knew who had come to watch them. Lily would stare back, eye to eye. That way, the woman would want to meet them, surely? Then they would have what they needed. Another magician. Someone who might know where their father was.
‘Is she still there?’ Lily hissed to Sam, as they waited in the wings to run on for the finale.
He nodded grimly, and Lily smiled.
‘What are you two planning?’ Daniel asked, looking at them suspiciously, and Georgie turned worried eyes on Lily.
‘There’s a magician in the left-hand box.’ Lily lowered her voice and nodded towards it. ‘A woman. Georgie, don’t go into your dying duck act! We need a magician, don’t you see? She might know where Father is. Just and try and look…tempting.’
‘Tempting!’ Georgie hissed. ‘I’m not a supper dish, Lily!’
‘Not yet.’ Sam exchanged a determined look with Daniel. ‘I’ll be watching them, don’t you worry.’
‘You can’t.’ Daniel shook his head. ‘If she’s a magician, we have to let Lily and Georgie protect everyone else. Lily, why didn’t you say? We could have cleared the theatre. A fire. A typhus scare. Anything!’
‘I didn’t tell you because I knew that’s what you would say!’ Lily snapped. ‘Especially after Marten. I don’t want to get away from her, I need to ask her things.’ She shook out her glittery skirts, and assumed her stage smile, the one with lots of teeth. It did not go well with the determined scowl. ‘So come on. Tempting, remember?’
And the curtains drew back…
