Emily Feather and the Enchanted Door Read Online Free PDF

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    â€œI don’t think I want to go out, it’s so hot…” Emily murmured, hesitating at the door to the playground at break. “I’m going to go to the library.”
    Rachel nodded. “I know what you mean. I don’t mind. It’ll be nice and cool in there.”
    They wandered off along the corridor to the library, and Rachel curled up on one of the beanbags with a book, but Emily couldn’t settle. She kept picking books up and putting them back again. Nothing sounded interesting. Not as interesting as her odd dreams, and the strange way her family were behaving, anyway.
    She ran her fingers along the spines of the books, hoping she could find one to take her mind off things. The plastic book covers felt sticky in the heat, and the titles swam in front of her eyes.
    But then Emily’s fingers ran across a bumpy, frayed old book that felt pleasantly cool. The leather binding had gilt letters pressed into it, but they were so faded she had to take the book off the shelf to read them. It was heavy, even though it was quite a small book, and as she picked it up the cool leather seemed to warm and glow in her hands, as though the dusty maroon had turned blood red.
    Grimm’s Fairy Tales , Emily read, peering at the letters. She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. It didn’t look like any book of fairy tales she’d read – shouldn’t it be pink, and a bit sparkly? And Grimm ? She giggled to herself. Not the best name for somebody who was going to write about fairies and unicorns and stuff. Still, she wanted to read the book – really, really wanted to, actually, which was weird when a couple of minutes before, all the books had looked boring.
    Emily took the book over to the beanbag next to Rachel and huddled up in a patch of sunlight. The sun made the gilt letters on the front cover glitter, and Emily drew in a hungry breath, fumbling at the cover to open up the book. She blinked as the pages fell open, surprised at how small the type was, and how black against the yellowy cream of the fragile paper. Words and enchanting phrases sprang out at her here and there, and Emily frowned, forcing herself to start at the beginning of the story.
    It was “Cinderella”, she realized with a little smile. It had always been one of her favourite stories, and she loved the Disney film, with all those silly singing mice. But this wasn’t the version of the story she knew, she discovered as she kept reading. She’d never known that after Cinderella’s mother died she’d haunted a tree… And there was no fairy godmother in this version; the mother’s tree shook its leaves and ball dresses floated down. Emily read on to the end of the story, fascinated. There was a little illustration close to the end, a picture of the prince on his horse, with a girl behind him, but her foot was dripping blood. Uuurgh! Cinderella’s sisters had cut bits of their feet off to try and fit into the slipper! That definitely wasn’t in the film… It was the strangest version of the story she had ever read.
    The one that came after was “Snow White”, and Emily eyed the illustrations cautiously. Even in the versions she’d read, it was a bit gory. The wicked queen made the huntsman bring back Snow White’s heart. It couldn’t get much more horrible, surely?
    Apparently, it could. The queen actually ate it – it wasn’t really Snow White’s heart, of course, but still. Yuck. No illustration of that bit, though, luckily…
    Curious, Emily turned over the page to find the next story. The title was drawn in a garland of flowers, very pretty ones that reminded Emily of the mirror on the landing at home. She ran her finger over the letters and shivered. “The Changeling Child”. She had never heard of this story – it wasn’t in any book of fairy tales she’d ever seen before.
    Once upon a time, a woman longed