Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  In the Star World

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Collect Them All

  Extract

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  Deep in the glittering woods, an owl, a stag, a badger and a wolf stood around a pool of stars watching a picture in the sparkling surface. It showed four ten-year-old girls, each cuddling an animal – a fox, a squirrel, a wildcat and a deer. The animals all had beautiful indigo eyes.

  “Maia, Lottie, Ionie and Sita,” said the wolf. “They’re turning out to be excellent Star Friends.”

  “Indeed. They are doing a lot of good in the human world by using magic,” agreed the owl. “Their Star Animals are helping them discover new abilities and develop their powers.”

  Every so often young animals from the Star World would travel to the human world. When they got there, they had to find a child who believed in magic enough to be their Star Friend. Each animal taught their Star Friend how to connect with the magical current that ran between the human world and the Star World, and then the child had to use it to help others and stop people who wanted to use magic to do evil things.

  “Our young Star Animals look very happy with their friends,” said the badger.

  “They are but they are also facing a dangerous threat at the moment,” said the owl. “The person doing dark magic near to them is very powerful, although they do not know who she is yet.”

  “A battle is coming,” said the wolf.

  The owl nodded gravely. “And it is fast approaching.”

  The stag looked anxious. “Let us hope our animals and their friends can win.”

  I must be dreaming. Maia shivered as she looked around. She was standing in the woods dressed only in her pyjamas. The sky had just the faintest hint of dawn light in the east.

  I want to wake up, Maia thought firmly. Wake up now! But she didn’t. Through the trees she could see the clearing where she had first met Bracken, her fox who had come from the Star World. She started walking towards it but then stopped dead. A cloaked figure was standing in the centre of the clearing, surrounded by a green circle of light. She was tearing leaves up and dropping them into a silver bowl. A chill crept down Maia’s spine. She had a feeling something bad was going to happen. Wake up, she told herself quickly. Just wake up!

  But she remained in the woods.

  “Creeping ivy … ground elder … nightshade…” muttered the woman as she dropped the plant leaves. A large hood concealed her face. “Come together, merge together, give me power to bind forever…”

  She waved her hand over the bowl and green smoke spiralled up. Then she pointed at a bush nearby. Small pink and white flowers suddenly bloomed all over it, buds bursting open as if it were a summer’s day instead of a cold winter’s night.

  Picking the flowers, the woman added them to the bowl. “And to seal the spell,” she said. The smoke thickened and a bitter smell wafted towards Maia’s nostrils.

  “Give me your power, trees!” the woman cried.

  A cold wind swept around the clearing, blowing Maia’s shoulder-length, dark blond hair around her face and pulling at her pyjama legs. She could feel magic crackling through the air, prickling her skin like needles. The trees shook and then there was a bright flash of light inside the bowl and the clearing became still again.

  The woman laughed and, taking a silver bottle from her pocket, she filled it with dark liquid from the bowl. Then she straightened and held it up to the stars. “For those who would meddle in my affairs,” she said grimly. “They will be sorry.”

  Maia felt intense foreboding sweep over her as she looked at the little silver bottle in the woman’s hands.

  With a laugh, the woman tucked it into a pocket of her cloak and strode from the clearing. She passed Maia without seeming to notice her, her dark cloak swishing around her ankles…

  Maia woke, her heart pounding. A damp nose was snuffling at her cheek. “Are you OK?” She found herself gazing into Bracken’s indigo-blue eyes. “Were you having a nightmare?” he asked anxiously.

  She nodded and sat up, looking around the room. She was having a sleepover with her friends at Ionie’s house. Ionie’s Star Animal, Sorrel, the wildcat, was stretched out at her feet. Lottie was sleeping in a camp bed with Juniper, the squirrel, snuggled against her chest while Sita, like Maia, was sleeping on a blow-up bed on the floor. Willow, the deer, was lying beside Sita, her delicate legs curled underneath her, her head resting on Sita’s back. They looked very peaceful. Maia pulled Bracken into her arms and stroked his soft russet-red fur. His black whiskers tickled her skin.

  “Was it a magic nightmare?” he asked as he cuddled closer.

  Maia pushed back her hair as she remembered it. “It was.”

  The Star Animals had shown Maia and her friends how to use the current of Star Magic in order to do magic themselves. The girls all had different magical abilities. Ionie could create illusions, shadow-travel and command Shades to return to the shadows where they belonged; Lottie could use magic to be incredibly agile and run super-fast; Sita could heal and soothe, and also had the ability to command people to do whatever she wanted, although she found that power frightening and almost never used it; Maia’s abilities were to do with sight. She could use a shiny surface to see what was happening in other places and to see into the past and future, and her dreams often showed her things that were useful.

  “What did you see?” Bracken asked.

  Maia told him.

  “You’ve had a dream like this before, haven’t you?” Bracken said.

  “Kind of, but not exactly the same,” said Maia. Last time she had seen the cloaked figure in a dream, the figure had also been drawing energy from the surrounding trees and using it to make a potion. “There was less wind this time and no lightning and the person made a bush bloom with flowers, then used the flowers in a potion she was making. She said words that sounded like a spell.” She shivered as she remembered the silver bottle the person had held up. “I don’t know what she was doing but it felt like very bad magic.”

  “We’d better tell the others,” said Bracken anxiously.

  Maia glanced up at the window. Pale light was starting to streak across the night sky. “OK, let’s wake them up.” She went round gently shaking her friends’ shoulders while Bracken woke the Star Animals. He nuzzled Juniper and Willow awake but when it came to Sorrel he gave her long tabby tail a cheeky tug.

  She sprang up with a hiss and glared at him. “What are you doing, Fox?” she spat. “How dare you bite my—”

  “Maia’s had a dream,” Bracken interrupted. “I had to wake you up quickly. Come on, pussycat.”

  Leaving Sorrel with her fur puffed up, he leaped back into Maia’s arms. She shook her head at him but couldn’t help smiling. He and Sorrel had a prickly relationship. The wildcat could be very arrogant and Bracken could be a tease.

  Soon, the girls were all sitting on Maia’s blow-up bed, their duvets over their legs, cuddling their animals and listening as she recounted her dream.

  “So, you were in the woods and you saw someone making a potion?” said Ionie.

  “Was it definitely the same person you’ve seen before?” asked Sita, stroking Willow’s velvety, dappled-brown coat.

  “Definitely,” said Maia. “I couldn’t see her face but I’m sure it was the same person.”

  “The one who’s been doing dark magic in the clearing, making potions and conjuring Shades,” said Willow with a shiver.

  Maia nodded. The clearing was a crossing point between the human world and the Star World, and so the magic current was very strong there. A few weeks ago, the girls and animals had discovered that the clearing was withering – the spring flowers and green buds were shrivelling up. The animals suspected it was because someone was doing dark magic in the clearing, draining its power. Maia’s dreams and visions had seemed to back this up.

  “Do you think you were seeing something that has happened in the past or was it something that will happen in the future, Maia?” Lottie said. “Your dreams can show either, can’t they?”

  Maia nodded. “I don’t know which it was.”

  “You said it was almost morning in your dream,” said Ionie thoughtfully, glancing at her bedroom window. “Well, the sun’s just rising now. Could you have been seeing the present?”

  Maia hadn’t thought about that possibility. “I guess… I was wearing these pyjamas,” she said slowly.

  “So you could have been seeing what was actually happening as it was happening?” said Bracken, pricking his ears. “That’s a clever idea, Ionie!”

  “Of course it is,” said Sorrel. She purred and pressed herself against Ionie’s chest. “Ionie always has excellent ideas.”

  Ionie looked pleased. “If it’s only just happened there may be some clues in the clearing still – clues that will help us work out who this person is,” she said eagerly. “We might find a footprint or the person might have dropped something.” She pushed her duvet back. “We could go and look.”

  “OK!” said Maia, jumping to her feet.

  “But what if your mum comes in here, Ionie?” said L

ottie.

  “I’ll leave a note saying we wanted to go for an early morning walk and I’ll take my phone so she can ring me if she’s worried,” said Ionie. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Um … what if we go there and the person comes back?” said Sita.

  “Even better. Then we’ll know who she is and you’ll be able to use your magic to command her to stop!” said Ionie.

  “Oh … OK,” said Sita, looking a bit alarmed.

  “Come on, everyone, get dressed!” Ionie insisted. Grabbing a hoody, she pulled it on over her pyjama top.

  “Yes, do stop sitting around like lemons and let’s have some action,” said Sorrel, padding over the airbeds and stopping expectantly by the door, her fluffy tail held high in the air. “Ionie’s right. There’s no time to waste.”

  Bracken bounded over to her. “For once I agree with you, pussycat,” he said, his eyes shining with excitement and his bushy tail wagging. “Let’s go!”

  Maia looked around the clearing, worry swirling in her stomach. The trees’ branches were bare and even the evergreen fir trees were losing their pine needles. The grass was brown, the air smelled of damp and decay and the stream that normally tumbled and splashed down a series of rocks before flowing away into the trees was moving sluggishly.

  The clearing was usually such a peaceful, beautiful place with flowers blooming and birds singing and woodland creatures scampering through the undergrowth. Now, it felt eerily quiet and still.

  Bracken growled at Maia’s side. “Someone has definitely been doing dark magic here.”

  Sorrel stalked around the clearing. “I agree. The air feels wrong – weaker.”

  “It smells sour,” said Willow, her delicate ears flickering.

  “I don’t like it,” said Juniper, jumping from Lottie’s shoulder into her arms, his tail quivering.

  “Can you smell Shades?” Ionie asked Sorrel.

  Sorrel sniffed the air. “No. I think whoever has just been here doing magic has not been conjuring Shades this time.”

  Shades were evil spirits. They could be conjured from the shadows by people using dark magic. Once in the human world they caused trouble by encouraging feelings like jealousy, envy and fear. Only last week, the girls and their animals had found three Shades trapped in dreamcatchers who had been manipulating people’s dreams, making them behave in strange and frightening ways. They had managed to send them back to the shadows – but only just. They hadn’t found out who had conjured and trapped the Shades but they were sure it was the mysterious figure Maia kept seeing making potions in the clearing.

  “I didn’t see any Shades in my dream,” Maia put in. “I just saw a person making a potion.”

  “Using plant magic,” Bracken added.

  As well as Star Magic that the girls used, they knew there was crystal magic, which involved using the energy inside crystals, and plant magic, which involved using the properties of plants and the energy inside them to make potions.

  Ionie started to hunt around. “Let’s see if we can find any clues about who she is.”

  Maia thought back to the dream. In the centre of the clearing the grass was flattened but there were no footprints. She looked at the bramble bush growing there and bent down to examine it. It was the bush that the woman had made burst into flower, she was sure of it. Looking at it she realized that there was another plant with long twining tendrils creeping over the top. Her eyes caught a flash of white. Carefully parting the tendrils, she saw a single white and pink flower. She picked it.

  “Look! This is one of the flowers I saw the person using,” she called.

  “Do you know what type of flower it is?” Sita said, coming over with Ionie.

  Maia shook her head.

  Ionie examined it. “I don’t either. Lottie!” she called to where Lottie was rootling around in the bushes at the edge of the clearing. “Do you know what this flower is? Come over.”

  “Wait!” Lottie’s voice was urgent. “There’s something here under this bush. It’s a bird. Its wing is injured.”

  The flower was instantly forgotten. Putting it into her pocket, Maia hurried over with the others. A mistle thrush was under the bramble bush. It was flapping one wing but the other lay useless on the ground. It started to panic as the girls crowded round.

  “Oh, the poor thing,” Sita said softly. “Stay back, everyone!”

  They all moved away as she crouched down and gently put her hands around the bird. Its working wing beat frantically and it pecked at her hands but she didn’t flinch. “Shhh,” she soothed it. “I can help you.”

  The fear faded from the bird’s eyes and it relaxed. Maia realized Sita must be using her calming magic. Sita picked it up, gently untangling it from the brambles. The others stayed still, not wanting to scare it again.

  “Its wing is broken in three places,” Sita said, putting the bird on her knee and stroking its brown feathers.

  “How do you know?” Ionie asked.

  “I just do,” Sita said simply. “It’s part of my magic.”

  “Can you heal it?” Maia asked anxiously.

  “I can try,” Sita said, biting her lip. “But I’ve never healed a broken bone before – let alone three.”

  “I think it might take a lot of power to heal broken bones,” said Sorrel.

  “Have a go, Sita,” Willow urged her. “I’m sure you can do it.”

  Sita took a deep breath and closed her eyes, opening herself to the current. Maia knew she would be feeling the magic sparkling and fizzing inside her. Sita placed her hand gently on the bird’s wing. The others waited as the seconds passed.

  After what felt like an age but was really less than half a minute, Sita opened her eyes. “I can’t do it,” she said, her shoulders sagging with disappointment. “I can take the pain away and I can feel the bones shifting back to where they should be but I can’t make them stay in place.”

  “What are we going to do?” said Lottie.

  “Maybe we should take it to a vet?” said Ionie.

  Sita nodded. “I’m sorry,” she whispered unhappily to the bird. “I really want to help you but I can’t.” She moved as if to stand.

  “Wait,” Sorrel said suddenly. “Let’s think about this. Maybe if you all work together, you can help Sita.”

  “What do you mean?” Bracken said. “The others can’t do healing magic.”

  “No, but they can draw on the magic current – if they all do that while touching Sita, they might be able to give her extra power.”

  “It could work,” said Juniper, flicking his bushy tail in excitement.

  “What do you think?” Maia said to Bracken.

  “I think you should try,” he urged. “Star Friends are supposed to work together. Sorrel’s idea is a good one.”

  “Of course it is, Fox!” said Sorrel smugly. “I wouldn’t have a bad idea, would I? Now, are you going to try, girls, or just sit around talking?”

  Maia sighed. Sorrel and Ionie could be so alike – both quite annoying at times, but both extremely clever, brave and loyal.

  The girls moved closer to Sita and put their hands on her. Maia felt the magic current surge inside her. It swirled around her body as it usually did, making her feel as if her blood was tingling but instead of staying inside her, she felt it flow through her hand and out into Sita. A feeling of being one with the whole world filled her.

  “It’s working!” Sita breathed after a few moments. “I can feel the magic power and now the bones are mending. They’re fusing together. That’s it!” she gasped. They all opened their eyes and saw the bird stretch both wings out and flap them. “We did it!”

  The thrush opened its beak and chirruped gratefully. Sita got to her feet and gently threw it into the air. It flew off, singing as it went.

  Delight rushed through Maia. “It worked!” The animals leaped around happily and the girls hugged each other.

  “Thank you! Thank you for helping me!” Sita said. “It felt amazing!”

  “It really did,” said Lottie, her hazel eyes shining.

  “It was like being swept away by magic,” said Maia.

  “And look – look at the clearing,” said Ionie.

 

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