The Crystal Mirror Read Online Free

The streetlights were bright and the houses were lit behind their curtains. It was just another summer’s evening, except for that creepy red moon. She scanned the sky, but a bank of cloud had moved in and the moon had disappeared.
    She hurried back home and let herself in the back door. There was no one in the kitchen but some dinner had been left out for her on the side. Thebirthday cake sat on the table, cut into slices but still uneaten.
    “Laney? Are you OK?” called Kim from the living room. “Let me come and heat your dinner up for you.”
    “No, don’t worry. I’ve got a headache so I’m not that hungry,” Laney called back. She grabbed a slice of cake and went upstairs before Kim could come out to check on her.
    She switched on the light in her room and looked at the finger she’d hurt on the candle flame. The red burn mark was still as bright as before.
    Now for the thing she really had to know…
    She took a deep breath and turned towards the mirror. Scraping her hair back from her face, she made herself walk right up to the glass. A pair of gold-ringed eyes blinked back at her. So it was true. Her eyes were different now.
She
was different.
    She closed her eyes and opened them wide again. The gold circles were still there, like rings around her pupils. It reminded her of a picture of an eagle she’d once seen.
    She sat down heavily on her bed, ignoring her sore finger. When she was very young and before her dad had married Kim, they’d been walking in the woods together. She had thought she’d seen a person flying, but her dad had told her it was an owl. She’d always remembered how it had swoopedaway, with its wingtips brushing against the leaves.
    And there was an old story about an Eagle Man who had lived near Skellmore and had flown over the woods at night. They’d learned the story at primary school – how the Eagle Man had turned the whole village into eagles and then they couldn’t change back into people again.
    Was that what she was now – an Eagle Girl? Had the dark figure by the trees turned her into something that wasn’t human? She shivered. She couldn’t go back there to find out. There had been something so terrible about that figure.
    Anyway, her eyes had turned gold
before
she saw the figure. She’d seen them in her reflection in the kitchen window. So maybe it was nothing to do with the dark figure at all. Maybe some people’s eyes changed colour as they grew up. She’d heard somewhere that babies’ eyes could change colour.
    She closed her eyes and tried to breathe slowly. Her mind went back to the river. It had always been her favourite place – she loved the sound of the water.
    A gentle brush of air touched her face. She opened her eyes and stood up, searching for what had made the draught. The school clothes she had been wearing were gone, and in their place was a pale-blue dress. Two translucent shapes curved out from her back, flexing as she put her hand overher mouth. They glinted, reflecting the light of the ceiling lamp.
    How could they be real?
    These shining wings.

Laney stared into the mirror for a long time. Wings? That was impossible!
    And she realised that she wasn’t standing any more; she was hovering just above the carpet. Her start of surprise launched her upwards, and she bumped her head on the ceiling. Trying not to laugh, she flew back down and landed clumsily on the bed. Flying was obviously harder than it looked.
    She stood in front of the mirror again, this time willing her feet to stay on the floor. Even her skin looked different – almost glowing. But it was the wings that she couldn’t stop gazing at. They reached far above her head and curved down in a graceful arc to meet her back. She reached round to touch them. They were silky smooth. These weren’t eagle wings. Eagle wings were feathery. These weren’t like bird’s wings at all. She wasn’t sure exactly what they were, except that they were like the shape of a butterfly.
    Her