Fairy Treasure

  Gwyneth Rees is half Welsh and half English and grew up in Scotland. She went to Glasgow University and qualified as a doctor in 1990. She is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, but has now stopped practising so that she can write full-time. She is the author of the bestselling Fairies series (Fairy Dust, Fairy Treasure, Fairy Dreams, Fairy Gold, Fairy Rescue), Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze, Cosmo and the Great Witch Escape and Mermaid Magic, as well as several books for older readers. She lives in London with her two cats.

  Visit www.gwynethrees.com

  Other books by Gwyneth Rees

  Mermaid Magic

  Fairy Dust

  Fairy Dreams

  Fairy Gold

  Fairy Rescue

  Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze

  Cosmo and the Great Witch Escape

  The Magical Book of Fairy Fun

  For older readers

  The Mum Hunt

  The Mum Detective

  The Mum Mystery

  My Mum’s from Planet Pluto

  The Making of May

  Illustrated by Emily Bannister

  MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  This book is for the real Ruby, with lots of love

  And with thanks to Nathan Hyland, for helping me check out the British Museum

  First published 2004 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2008 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-47092-6 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47093-3 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47094-0 in Microsoft Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47095-7 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Gwyneth Rees 2004

  The right of Gwyneth Rees to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Bluebell Hall, where Connie had come to stay for the summer, stood on a hill overlooking a small lake, in the middle of which was an ornamental fountain. A green bank, which was covered in bluebells every spring, sloped down to the lake from the house. Today, in the early morning, three swans were floating next to each other on the water. If Connie had been looking in their direction, she would have seen that each one had a little speck of colour on its back – pinkish red, pale blue and light green. If she had gone closer she would have seen that the specks of colour were actually fairy dresses, and that each of the three fairies wearing them had delicate fluttery wings that sparkled in the early-morning sunshine.

  But Connie wasn’t looking. She was carrying a mug of coffee and two slices of peanut butter on toast up to her uncle’s study. Normally Aunt Alice made Uncle Maurice’s breakfast for him, but today she was too busy writing her latest story. She had asked Connie to make breakfast instead and Connie hadn’t minded. At least it gave her something to do. She put everything on a tray, folded a piece of kitchen towel to make a napkin, because she reckoned most people got sticky fingers when they ate peanut butter, and carried it up the stairs, imagining that she was a maid from long ago. It was easy to imagine living in Bluebell Hall, even if, like Connie, you weren’t usually into playing pretend games.

  She glanced at herself in the hall mirror as she passed. Her mother claimed she had the blue eyes of her Irish great-grandmother, who had entertained Connie’s mother and aunt with stories about fairies and leprechauns for hours on end – firmly believing in the little folk herself. Connie had said that she thought her great-grandmother sounded a little bit mad, and her mother had laughed and agreed, but said that she’d had beautiful eyes just the same. Her great-grandmother had had red hair when she was young though, with lots of curls, whereas Connie’s hair was black and straight, and right now the ends of it were nearly dangling in Uncle Maurice’s peanut butter. If she were a proper maid, she thought, her hair would have to be tucked up neatly inside a little white cap like the ones maids wore in television programmes about olden times.

  Connie’s aunt and uncle, who never watched television and who were both writers, had rented out a flat for the summer in part of Bluebell Hall – an old stately home. The flat itself was quite small, but the whole house was enormous. Connie hadn’t met the old lady who owned it, but she knew she was called Mrs Fitzpatrick, that she didn’t have any relatives and that she was too frail to live in the house any more and had moved into a nursing home in the village two months ago. The whole house was now up for sale and Connie’s aunt and uncle had to let prospective buyers view their flat, which didn’t please them at all because the reason they had come here for the summer was to get away from other people.

  Connie’s presence here was another thing they hadn’t anticipated, although they had agreed to it because they wanted to help Connie’s parents. It had been a last-minute arrangement after the childminder Connie’s mother had arranged for the school holidays had cancelled. Both Connie’s parents worked and it was impossible for them to take much time off. Obviously Connie couldn’t be left at home on her own all day during the holidays and, since Aunt Alice and Uncle Maurice had a spare room in the flat, it was agreed that Connie would stay with them over the summer instead.

  ‘You’ll have a lovely time,’ Connie’s mother had said when Connie had protested at the idea of being sent away. ‘The house is in the country and it’ll be a holiday for you too.’

  ‘No it won’t! Aunt Alice and Uncle Maurice are both weird!’

  Connie’s mother had laughed. Aunt Alice was her sister and she didn’t think her weird – just a little scatty perhaps. Her brother-in-law, Maurice, was a bit eccentric, but he had a good heart and sometimes he could even be quite sociable. The fact that he had jet-black hair that stuck out at all angles and thick black eyebrows that nearly always seemed to be bunched together in a frown made him look a bit scary, that was all.

  ‘Uncle Maurice just looks a little different to other people,’ Connie’s mother had insisted firmly. ‘And you know what a mistake it can be to judge somebody by their appearance.’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ Connie still wasn’t convinced. But since she knew she would have to go and stay with her uncle and aunt in any case, she decided there was no use making a big fuss about it. She knew that her dad’s company couldn’t do without him over the summer, and neither could the hospital ward where her mum worked as a senior nurse.

  When she took in his breakfast, Uncle Maurice was sitting at his computer with his back to her, typing in his thou
ghts at top speed. Uncle Maurice had told her once that the hard bit about writing was sorting out what you’d put on the page after you’d put it there. Connie reckoned that if he thought a bit more before he let all those words spill out all over the place then he might not have that problem. Her uncle was always changing what he had written, she noticed. At school, when she had to write a story, she never changed it. If there were any spelling mistakes, her teacher would always pick those up later. ‘What’s your new book about, Uncle Maurice?’ Connie asked him.

  ‘Dragons,’ her uncle grunted, without looking up.

  ‘WOW! Are they good dragons or bad dragons?’ Connie supposed that since her uncle was writing a children’s book, he would like it if she – a member of his future audience – showed some interest in it. So Connie tried to sound enthusiastic, even though she didn’t like reading much at all and, if she ever did read a book, she liked it to be about real children. She didn’t really go for stories about things that everyone knew didn’t really exist – like dragons and fairies and other make-believe stuff.

  ‘They are both good and bad, of course! Like people,’ her uncle replied, picking up a piece of toast and biting into it. He was looking at her with his very intense gaze, which used to scare her when she was younger but that didn’t any more. Uncle Maurice hardly ever shouted or lost his temper with her, even though he always looked like he was about to. In fact, although Uncle Maurice wrote children’s books, he wasn’t very comfortable around real children and he freely admitted to finding them quite frightening in large groups. His books had won prizes which Connie supposed must mean they were good, although she hadn’t read any of them herself. They were all set in strange worlds or on other planets, and the main characters were always very odd boys who seemed like they had nothing in common with her at all.

  Uncle Maurice smiled at Connie. Eating peanut butter always put him in a good mood. ‘If you’re bored, why don’t you go down to the lake?’ he suggested. ‘There were some fairies down there earlier this morning. They might still be there if you go and look.’

  Connie gaped at him in disbelief. Fairies? How old did her uncle think she was?

  She headed back downstairs feeling fed-up. Perhaps Aunt Alice would come for a walk with her if she asked. Aunt Alice could be quite good company when you got her away from her books. But Aunt Alice – who wrote mainly about children who had adventures in boarding schools – was still busy writing.

  Connie sighed. There were no other children here who she could play with and, since there was no television, all she could do here was read. And Connie certainly didn’t feel like doing that.

  There was one thing she could do though. She had noticed the other day that one of the ground-floor windows of the main house had been left open. She had been going to mention it to her aunt, but then decided not to as an idea began to form in her mind. She could climb into the house and go exploring. She wouldn’t touch anything or move anything, of course – it would just be fun to see what the rest of Bluebell Hall was like inside.

  Connie opened the front door of the flat and went out. The room where the window had been left open was round the other side of the Hall. As she walked across the lawn, she thought what a lovely house this must have been long ago when it was smartly painted and had lots of people living in it. Even though she didn’t usually like pretend games, this morning she found herself imagining that she was on her way to join her Mama and Papa in the breakfast room where the servants would be dishing out bacon and eggs from silver platters with shiny lids.

  Connie reached the window and found it still open. The curtains were drawn across so she couldn’t see inside. The window was the old-fashioned sash kind, where one half slid over the other half when it was opened. A gap had been left at the bottom and Connie pushed the window up until there was a space big enough for her to climb through.

  Inside, she found herself in what was obviously a library.

  After quickly glancing at the wall-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound books, she tiptoed across the wooden floor towards the door. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to tiptoe when she knew there was nobody else there, but somehow it seemed as if, that way, she would be disturbing the house less than if she walked normally.

  Just as she was thinking this, she heard a noise and looked round sharply. The curtain moved and she saw a tiny red fluttery thing fly out from behind it. She blinked. It had to be either a huge red butterfly or a tiny red bird – nothing else made sense – except that it didn’t look like either. Before she could get closer to see, something else in the room caught her eye. On a shelf to her right, in amongst all the other large dusty books, was one which was covered in a dust that sparkled.

  Connie was moving towards it when there was another noise above her and she looked up to see a huge book hurtling down towards her from the top shelf.

  ‘That was your fault, Emerald!’ a cross little voice whispered as Connie sat on the floor, feeling dazed. ‘You always get carried away.’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Yes, you do! I said to distract her – not knock her out!’

  Connie hadn’t been knocked out, but she had lost her balance when she’d ducked to try and avoid the book, and she’d ended up landing on the floor. She put her hand up to feel her head where the book had hit her. The book itself – which looked like a huge encyclopedia – was lying on the floor beside her. Connie tried to get up, but she couldn’t seem to find the energy to stand. Her legs felt paralysed, a bit like in a dream where you wanted to run somewhere but couldn’t move your limbs. She couldn’t be dreaming though. She knew where she was. She was in the library of the old house.

  ‘Come on, Emerald. We’d better go,’ one of the tinkly voices said from above her. ‘Ruby, be careful. Don’t go too near her.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sapphire. She won’t be able to hurt me. She can’t even see me.’

  ‘She saw you before.’

  ‘She was in the right mind then. Now she’s gone back to normal. Look.’

  Connie felt a strange fluttery draught just in front of her nose, as if a pair of wings were flapping there. But she couldn’t see anything.

  Then the room fell completely silent. Connie pulled herself slowly to her feet. She couldn’t see where the voices were coming from. Fleetingly, she wondered if she had been knocked out when the book fell on her and she was dreaming after all. She looked around at the books, trying to spot the one that had been coated in the shimmering dust, but there was no sign of it. She went over to the windows, pulled the velvet curtains back to let in as much light as possible, and turned back to properly inspect the room.

  And there in the doorway was a middle-aged couple and a young man in a suit, staring at her.

  Connie gulped.

  ‘Who are you?’ the young man demanded sharply.

  Connie recognized him as the estate agent who had brought some people round to look at the house last week. ‘C-Connie,’ she stammered.

  The man was looking stern. ‘You’re the girl who’s staying with the people in the flat, aren’t you? What are you doing in here?’

  ‘N-Nothing,’ Connie stuttered, feeling stupid. ‘A book fell on me.’ She turned to point at the encyclopedia on the floor.

  Her mouth fell open and she felt as if she had been hit on the head all over again. The book, which had been there only moments ago, had vanished.

  ‘I suppose you thought it would be an adventure to go exploring inside the big house,’ Aunt Alice said, when the estate agent had left.

  Connie nodded, surprised that her aunt understood without her having to explain.

  ‘Well, it probably wouldn’t have been all that exciting,’ Aunt Alice continued. ‘I shouldn’t think there are any secret passages or anything like that. Real life isn’t like books, I’m afraid. That’s something I discovered myself a long time ago.’

  ‘I wasn’t looking for secret passages,’ Connie said quietly. ‘I was just looking for something to
do because I was bored. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Bored? Well, I know how to cure that. I can lend you some books to read about some children who go exploring. They’re called the Famous Five and—’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m really more of a TV person,’ Connie replied.

  ‘Oh . . . ’ Aunt Alice looked flummoxed, as if she had never heard of anyone liking television more than books before.

  ‘You aren’t going to get into trouble with the old lady because of me, are you?’ Connie asked quickly. She had been worrying about that ever since she had been caught inside the house.

  ‘Mrs Fitzpatrick? I shouldn’t think so. She needs our rent too much, poor thing.’

  ‘Does she?’ Connie found that surprising. ‘I thought she must be really rich since she owns Bluebell Hall.’

  ‘Her family used to have a lot of money a long time ago. But now all that’s left is the house. And Mrs Fitzpatrick needs money to pay the nursing home to look after her, so she has to sell it. Nursing homes are very expensive, you see.’ Aunt Alice glanced at her computer screen where her latest story was waiting to be finished. She had been in full flow when the estate agent had arrived with Connie.

  ‘I think I’ll go down to the lake and feed the swans,’ Connie said, sensing that her aunt wanted to get on with her work. ‘Have we got any bread?’

  ‘Of course, darling. Take whatever you want.’ As Connie was almost through the door, Aunt Alice added, ‘But keep away from the big house, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Alice,’ Connie mumbled.

  She went down to the lake thinking about what had happened just now in the library. She knew what her friend Emma would say if she were there. She would say that the voices Connie had heard had been fairy voices. But Connie didn’t believe in fairies.

  Connie looked across the water to see the swans gliding towards her. They seemed to have something bright on top of their heads. As they came closer she saw that each one was wearing a crown of red flowers.