Lauren,

My time is over – your time has come. Please don’t feel sad. This is the way things have to be. Now is the time to open the box. Guard the secret well, my dear.

Much love, Mrs Fontana x

Lauren folded the letter quickly so that no one else would see it. ‘It’s just a short letter,’ she whispered, forcing the words past a painful lump that was filling her throat. So it was true. Mrs Fontana was dead.

Beside her, her mum wiped her eyes. ‘We’d better go home,’ Mrs Foster said. ‘I’ll get you another book another time, Hannah.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Hannah said quietly. ‘It’s not important.’

They got back into the car. Lauren felt as if she was moving automatically.

‘Oh, poor Mrs Fontana,’ Mrs Foster said. ‘Poor Catherine.’

Hannah looked at Lauren. ‘Are you OK?’

Lauren nodded but she’d never felt less OK in her life.

Mrs Foster looked at her pale face. ‘Come on. Let’s get home.’

All the way home, the thought echoed around Lauren’s brain: Mrs Fontana’s dead.

When they got back, she got out of the car in a daze.

Hannah glanced at her and seemed to decide that it was better to leave her on her own for a while. ‘Shall I help you get lunch ready, Auntie Alice?’

‘Yes please,’ Mrs Foster replied. She hugged Lauren. ‘Are you OK, honey?’

Lauren nodded. ‘I think I’ll just go and see Twilight,’ she said numbly.

Mrs Foster nodded understandingly.

‘I’ll call you when it’s lunchtime.’

Lauren walked down the path towards the field. Twilight was waiting by the gate. He whinnied and then snorted in concern when he saw her shocked face.

Lauren climbed over the fence. ‘Oh, Twilight,’ she whispered. ‘Mrs Fontana’s dead.’

Twilight stared at her.

‘She died last night.’ Lauren’s brain swam in confusion. ‘But I don’t understand how she can have died then. We saw her!’ Twilight stepped forward and began to nuzzle her face and hair.

Lauren wished desperately she could turn him into a unicorn so that he could talk to her. She suddenly remembered the letter she had shoved into her pocket. ‘She left me this, Twilight.’ She opened it and read it out to him in a halting voice. As she finished, she looked up. ‘Now is the time to open the box,’ she whispered. ‘Should I go and get it?’

Twilight nodded and stamped a front hoof.

Lauren ran to the house and up the stairs. Luckily she didn’t see her mum or Hannah. She picked up the chest and returned to the field.

‘Here it is,’ she said.

Twilight watched as Lauren turned the key in the lock. For a moment it seemed to catch but then it turned smoothly and the clasp opened. Lauren lifted the lid. Inside there was a thick purple book tied with a silver ribbon, a dusty flat rock, a scroll, a silver pendant shaped like a star and five bottles of various sizes and colours.