Philippa Fisher and the Fairy's Promise Read Free Page B

stuff.”
    Annie’s a fairy godmother herself. We only found out when I was here for fall break. She’s actually a really important one. The Dream Maker — that’s the fairy godmother in charge of creating and distributing dreams all around the world. That was probably why her computer had access to fairies’ conversations like the one we’d heard. I was sure Robyn was right — we hadn’t been meant to hear it. But at the same time, it was Daisy’s voice we’d heard! And I knew Daisy well enough to be able to tell from the tone of her voice that something was seriously wrong.
    “I can’t leave Daisy to get into trouble without trying to help,” I said.
    Robyn nodded. “I know. You’re right,” she said, leading the way down to the shop. “Come on, let’s see what we can find.”
    Half an hour later, we were back in Robyn’s bedroom with a pile of maps and guidebooks. We’d looked up the word portal while we were in the shop and found it was a kind of doorway. So Daisy had been told to go to a fairy doorway!
    We’d narrowed the numbers down to some sort of map coordinates but hadn’t figured out whether it was some kind of GPS thing or what. I sat by the radiator, leafing through an atlas.
    Then Robyn picked up a map from the pile we hadn’t looked at yet. “Philippa — look!”
    I put the atlas down and looked to see what she was holding. It was a local map, with the words Chiverton Maps: JK & BZ on the cover.
    I looked at the letters I’d written down. “BZ,” I said. “Do you think it’s in here?”
    Robyn started unfolding the map. “Only one way to find out.”
    We spread the map across the bed. “If I remember from geography, the first three numbers are along the bottom and the second three go up the side,” Robyn said. She ran a finger along the bottom line and another up the side of the map. They met at a point roughly in the center of the map. “That’s where it is,” she said. “Somewhere around this point.”
    We scoured the map, looking for anything in the area that could possibly be a fairy doorway.
    “That’s it — it must be!” Robyn cried, suddenly jabbing a finger at a symbol right in the middle of where we were looking.
    I checked the symbol against the key on the back. “Archaeological site?”
    “It’s Tidehill Rocks!” Robyn said excitedly.
    “Tidehill Rocks?” I repeated. “Isn’t that —”
    “Yes!” Robyn gathered up the map and started putting her shoes on. “The stone circle. It has to be there. Tidehill Rocks must be a fairy portal!”
    We clambered up the hill, squelching through mud and wiping rain off our faces. We followed the path that led from the main road all the way up into the woods, even scrambling up a sheer hillside where the ground had collapsed earlier.
    “Be careful,” Robyn said. “There was a landslide here last year when there was lots of flooding. You’ll be OK as long as you don’t go off the path — the edge is a lot closer than you think. Follow me.”
    I had no intention of going off the path. I couldn’t see far beyond it anyway, through the damp mist that was settling more and more heavily around us as we walked farther into the forest. I followed her steadfastly until the ground evened out again and we could walk side by side. In the distance, a startling sight came into view.
    “Wow,” I said, stopping to wipe another strand of wet hair out of my eyes.
    “I know,” Robyn said. “Amazing, aren’t they? There’s nothing like coming over this hill and seeing them.”

    Tidehill Rocks stood ahead of us: a circle of large stones, standing proud and majestic and solitary, a line of mist hovering around them, like a band holding them together. As we drew closer, I could see there were nine stones making up the circle, and a larger one probably four or five times my height in the center.
    “They’re incredible,” I whispered, so awed by the sight, I didn’t want to speak too loudly. A feeling of peace spread