The animals vanished as the girls left the clearing. The overgrown footpath led from the clearing, back through the trees to a stony lane. Lottie lived at the top of it, near to the main road.
As they stepped out on to the lane, Maia glanced at the thatched cottage opposite and felt her heart twinge. It had belonged to her granny before she had died the previous summer. Now, a new family lived there. A black cat was sitting on the front doorstep. It watched them with unblinking green eyes.
“Hey, Lottie!” One of the downstairs windows opened and a very pretty girl with blond hair looked out.
“Hi, Essie!” Lottie called, going over. She was good friends with Essie, who had started at their primary school a few weeks ago. She was in Year Six, just like them, but the others weren’t so keen on her. Ionie thought she was shallow because she only seemed interested in talking about boys, fashion and make-up. Maia didn’t like her because she had heard her being mean about Sita. Sita didn’t mind her – she liked everyone – but Essie made no secret of the fact that she had no time for Sita, who wasn’t interested in fashion and often wore her sister’s hand-me-down clothes.
“What are you doing out so early?” Essie asked as Lottie went over to the little fence outside the cottage.
“Oh, we were having a sleepover at Ionie’s and woke up early, so we went for a walk.”
Essie’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve been sleeping over at Ionie’s?”
Lottie blushed slightly. “Yeah.” She knew her two friendship groups didn’t get on.
“Why shouldn’t she?” Ionie challenged.
Essie acted as if she hadn’t even spoken. “Well, just remember you’re coming round here later with the rest of the squad, Lottie.” She giggled. “And guess what, I sent a message to Taylor, Brad and Jake last night and they’re coming over, too! But not until five o’clock so that will give us an hour to do our make-up and hair before they get here.”
Lottie grinned. “Sounds fun! See you later.”
“Yeah, later!” Essie ducked inside and shut the window.
“Sounds fun?” Ionie echoed as Lottie rejoined them. “Spending an hour doing your hair and make-up and then hanging round with Brad, Taylor and Jake? Seriously? What exactly is fun about that?”
Lottie looked defensive. “I like that kind of stuff.”
Maia elbowed Ionie. The week before they had had a big fallout with Lottie over her friendship with Essie and ever since then Maia had been trying to accept that Lottie liked Essie and her “squad”. “Lottie can hang round with them if she wants,” she said quickly, slipping an arm through Lottie’s. “Just so long as you’re always best friends with us,” she told her.
Lottie gave her a grateful look. “Always. You know you’re my best friends and the stuff we do together will always come first, but I do like having fun with Essie and the others, too.”
Ionie sighed. “I just don’t get it. I really don’t. You’re clever, Lottie. Almost as—”
Maia trod on her foot before she could say “as clever as me” and start an argument with Lottie. Sometimes Ionie really didn’t think before she spoke.
“Race you all back to Ionie’s house!” Maia said hastily, setting off up the lane. “And no cheating by using you-know-what, Lottie!”
“I can beat you even without cheating!” said Lottie as she sprinted past her.
Laughing, the others charged after her, the conversation about Essie forgotten.
Breakfast was delicious – hot chocolate with fresh pancakes with a choice of syrup, lemon and sugar, jam or chocolate sauce. Ionie’s mum and dad were in the kitchen, too, so the girls couldn’t talk about magic but as soon as they had helped clear away, they headed up to Ionie’s room.
“So, has anyone had any good ideas about how we can find out who is doing the dark magic in the woods?” said Ionie.
“Maybe we could spy on the clearing and wait until she comes back,” said Lottie.
“We could but she could go there at any time and we’ll be at school in the day,” said Ionie.
“One thing we haven’t worked out yet is what she wants the potions for,” said Sita. “What’s she doing with them?”
“Perhaps the flower we found will give us a clue,” said Maia. “Alice who owns the Fairytales shop does a little bit of plant magic. Well, why don’t we go to the shop and ask her if she knows what sort of potions a flower like that might be used in?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Lottie.
“Though Alice doesn’t know we’re Star Friends,” Sita reminded them. “And we mustn’t tell her.” The girls had learned before how important it was not to tell anyone about the Star Animals.
“No, we mustn’t tell her we’re Star Friends but she already thinks we believe in magic,” said Ionie. “We can pretend to be interested in how plants can be used for magic and start the conversation that way.”
Maia nodded. “The shop isn’t open today,” she said, “but we could go tomorrow after school.”
“I’ve got gymnastics,” said Lottie. “But you three go without me. You can ask Alice about the dreamcatchers while you’re there.”
The dreamcatchers the Shades had been trapped in had come from Alice’s shop. Esther, Essie’s mum, had bought them from there and Essie had innocently given them out as presents. At first, the girls had suspected Alice must have put the Shades in the dreamcatchers but it had turned out she knew nothing about dark magic – she only used magic a little and she always used it for good.
Ionie nodded. “We should try to find out where they came from. Somehow the person doing dark magic must have got hold of them before Esther bought them.”
“Tomorrow then,” Maia declared. “We’ll go to the shop and we’ll find out what we can!”