Wake Up, Autumn

On the grass of the cliff, at the edge of the steep,

God planted a garden - a garden of sleep!

'Neath the blue sky, in the green of the corn,

It is there that the regal red poppies are born!

Brief days of desire, and long dreams of delight,

They are mine when my Poppy-Land cometh in sight.

In the music of distance with eyes that wet,

It id there I remember, and there I forget!

O! heart of my heart! Where the poppies are born,

I am waiting for thee, in the hush of the corn.

Sleep! Sleep!

From the cliff to the deep!

Sleep, my poppy land,

Sleep!

In my garden of sleep, where red poppies spread,

I wait for the living, along with the dead!

For a tower in ruins stands guard o'ver the deep,

At whose feet are green graces of dear women asleep!

Did they love as I love, when they lived by the sea?

Did they wait, as I wait, for the days that may be?

Was it hope or fulfilling that entered each breast,

Ere death gave release, and the poppies gave rest?

O! Life of my life! On the cliffs by the sea,

By the graves in the grass, I am waiting for thee!

Sleep! Sleep!

In the dunes by the deep!

Sleep, my garden, the Garden of

Sleep!

~ Clement Scott

My sister Lucasta ran away on the morning of my fifteenth birthday. She left my present, beautifully gift wrapped, outside my bedroom door, and left a letter on the kitchen table for the rest of the family.

None of us heard her Disapparate.

I had been in the middle of a dream when I woke up suddenly to the sound of my soon-to-be-step-mum screaming. It was a shrill burst of sound that sent chills of panic racing through my sleepy long limbs. I ran to my door, threw it open and promptly tripped over my birthday present, whacking my cheek on the banister as I fell. My face was aching as I scrambled to my feet and ran down the stairs to the kitchen, where Harriet was standing with Lucasta's note in her hands.

"I just don't understand this," she was saying shakily to my dad, who was standing beside her. The kettle on the stove was spitting and bubbling happily behind them and the post owl was still teetering on the window ledge before taking flight, like this was any other Saturday morning when we'd be getting up, one by one, and having our first cup of tea around the table, bleary eyed and scruffy haired.

"She can't just leave. She can't! Think of the wedding, oh my God, the formations will be all wrong without her! You have to find her, Gawain!"

Harriet was self absorbed. She thought the whole world revolved around her, and for most of her life it had. So when my sisters' sudden disappearance boiled down to the wedding choreography being ruined I wasn't angry at her, I just rolled my eyes and sighed inwardly. She was just being Harriet, useless step-mother number four.

"Let me see the note," my dad said calmly, taking it out of her hands. It was on Lucasta's thick, monogrammed stationary with matching envelopes.

Later when I read it, I saw it was completely concise and to the point. Lucasta had always been economical with words but precise in her use of them.

Dad & Harriet,

I want you to know, first, that I'm sorry about this. Someday I hope I'll be able to explain it well enough so that you'll understand.

Please don't worry. I'll be in touch.

I love you both.

Lucy

Harriet wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked at me.

"She's gone," she sniffled. "She went with him, I know it! How can she do this? She's supposed to be here! The wedding is tomorrow!"

"Harriet," my father sighed. "Calm down," he said as he tapped Lucasta's note with his wand, hoping that it would reveal invisible ink or betray the smallest hint of her whereabouts.

The him was Lucasta's boyfriend, Pollux Pasternak. He was twenty-one, had a goatee, and lived in a bachelor pad in London, paid for by his mummy and daddy and ran a bar exclusively for wizards. Since she'd come home from the beach three weeks ago - she'd met him there - Lucasta had been an immovable fireside fixture. She always had her head in the flames chatting for hours and hours on end to this guy. When she emerged pink cheeked and glittery eyed she'd walk around, dazed, for at least the following hour.

My dad put the note down on the kitchen table and walked to the fire. Our kitchen was bright and airy and had the feeling of a French farm. The fire was built into the centre of the right hand wall, the mantelpiece was strewn with junk and holiday snaps, the girls in the pictures all had smiley faces and waved enthusiastically or burst into silent laughter.

"I'll get in touch with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes right away," he said, and Harriet burst into tears, her hands rising to cover her beautiful face.

Over her shoulder, through the glass door and over the patio I could see our neighbours Boo and Lorcan Williamson. They were cutting through the tree line that separated our houses for my birthday brunch. Boo was holding a bouquet of freshly cut zinnias, as bright pink as her hair.

"I just can't believe this," Harriet said to me, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table. She was shaking her head. "What if something happens to her? She's only eighteen."

"Yes, hello, I'm here to report a missing person," my father said suddenly in his official Quidditch Manager voice. He had thrown a handful of glittering powder into the kitchen fire, turning the flames green. "Lucasta Hopkins. Yes. She's my daughter," he was saying to someone at the fireplace on the other end.

I had a sudden memory pop into my head: my mother, standing in the doorway of the childhood bedroom Guinevere, Lucasta and I shared, back when we all had twin beds and pink wallpaper. She would always kiss us, then stand in the doorway after extinguishing the lamps with a flick of her wand, her shadow stretching down the length of the room between mine and Lucasta's beds. She was always the last thing I tried to see before I fell asleep.

"See you in the Garden of Sleep," she'd whisper, and blow us each a kiss before shutting the door quietly behind her, as if the Garden of Sleep was a real place, tangible, where we would all wander close enough to brush shoulders and smell roses. I always went to sleep determined to go there, to find her and Lucasta and Guinevere amongst the hedges and the rhododendrons, and sometimes I did. But it was never the way I'd imagine it to be, especially after Mum died.

Now Harriet sat weeping as my father reported Lucasta's vital statistics - five-nine, strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, a heart shaped scar on her right shoulder, her newly acquired tattoo - and I had the sudden sinking feeling that the Garden of Sleep might be the only place we'd be seeing her for a while.

"What's going on?"

It was Serafina, standing in the kitchen doorway in her baggy, violet Weird Sisters t-shirt and bright white knee socks.

Just looking at her made me acutely aware of my own height, the pointedness of my elbows and hipbones, the extra inch I'd grown since the summer holidays began. At fourteen my sister was a petite five-four, with the kind of curvy, rounded body that I wished I'd been born with; tiny feet, shiny strawberry-blonde hair, small enough to be cute but still a force to be reckoned with. Even though she was a year younger than me she was already one of the most popular girls in school. She had an ineffable air of high school glamour about her. On the outside she had a life just like Morgana's (the Wizard equivalent of Barbie): popular, perfect, a Quidditch playing boyfriend and the cool crowd at her beck and call. All she needed was the Dreamhouse and a her own flying pony to make it real.

Now my sister just scowled at me when she caught me looking at her, then scratched her foot with the other. She had a good tan already, something my body rebelled against. A whole horde of step-mothers had told me it was because I had red hair, auburn, I'd correct them sharply with a death glare.

"Lucasta ran away," I said in a hollow voice.

"You're joking!" Serafina gasped, her eyes getting very wide and a surprised laugh escaping her mouth. "No way," she repeated smiling, "but the wedding is tomorrow."

"Guess she didn't think the fourth time would be any different to the others," I said, my voice smothered by the commotion. "I don't blame her."

Serafina slouched against the door and shot me a sly smile, "me either. This is going to be the shortest yet."

Since my mum died when I was seven my dad had been compulsively remarrying. Weddings were beginning to seem like a summer ritual that consumed our household for half of the summer, then we spent the rest of it living with the consequences.

I heard a knock and looked up to see Boo and Lorcan standing on the patio, waving at me. They'd been our neighbours for as long as I could remember, since before I, or even Guinevere my oldest sister, was born. They were so obviously mages. We all thought it was hysterical that our muggle neighbours thought they were New Agers because they wore robes, believed in massage, fresh-baked homemade bread, and herbal remedies. They had absolutely nothing in common with my dad, except proximity, which had led to twenty years of being neighbours and best family friends.

"Good morning!" Boo called out to us through the door, holding up the flowers for me to see. "Happy Birthday!"

She reached down and pushed the door open, then stepped inside with Lorcan swishing in after her. He was levitating a large bowl and a couple of plates, each covered with a brightly coloured napkin, which drifted down onto the table in front of Harriet.

"We brought blueberry buckwheat pancake mix and sliced mangoes," Lorcan said in his soft voice, smiling at me. "Your favourites."

I smiled gratefully.

Boo was crossing the room, arms already extended, to pull me close for a tight, long hug.

"Happy birthday Autumn," she whispered in my ear. She smelled like bread and incense. "This will be your best year, I can feel it."

"Don't count on it," I said, as she pulled back and frowned at me, confused, just as my father pulled his head out of the fire and exploded,

"I can't believe it! They can't do anything for twenty-four hours. They're keeping an eye out for her, but they can't promise anything. They've been inundated with disappearances the summer, and right now Lucy's at the back of the queue! We need to get in touch with all her friends, right now. Maybe they know something."

"What's going on?" Boo asked, her heavily made-up, ice blue eyes getting wide. At the table Harriet just shook her head. She couldn't even say it. "Harriet, what is it?"

"It's Lucasta," my dad told her, his voice falling flat. "It appears she's run away."

"Oh my God," said Boo, pulling out a chair and yanking it close to Harriet before sitting down. "When did she go?"

"I don't know," Harriet sobbed hopelessly, and Boo took one of her hands, rubbing the fingers with her own, as Lorcan moved to stand behind her, his hand on her shoulder. They were touchy people.

Harriet sniffled, "nobody ever tells me anything."

And at any other time Serafina and I would have laughed at how pathetic she sounded.

"Autumn," my father said to me briskly, "get together a list of all Lucasta's friends, anyone she might have talked to - and you can start with the boy she met at the beach, Pollux Pasternak."

"Okay," I said, my heart sinking a little.

He nodded before turning his back on Harriet and Boo and Lorcan to look out across the patio at the few squirrels crowding around the bird feeder.

Serafina turned her head and saw the long, dreamy white nightdress of our littlest sister, Candida, drifting down the stairs. She trotted out of the room and steered Candida into the living room, trying to shelter her from one of our many family dramas. My littlest sister wasn't that easily distracted and I saw her craning her neck, trying to get a good look into the kitchen as Serafina wrestled her into the living room.

My dad gave me a look and I headed from the kitchen, my heart sinking, my birthday brunch forgotten. On the way to my room I picked up my present from where it was lying in the middle of the landing. It was wrapped in sparkly pink paper with no card, but I knew it was from Lucasta. She would never have forgotten my birthday.

I took it into my room and sat down on my bed. In the mirror over the bureau I could see my face was scratched from where I'd fallen into the banister, the skin around it was bright pink. No one had even noticed.

I unwrapped Lucasta's present slowly, folding the paper carefully as I slipped it off, savouring the surprise. It was a book, I turned it to read the letters on the cover: Dream Journal. All around the words were silver stars, moons, and comets scattered across a peacock blue background. It was beautiful.

The first page was an introduction about dreams, what they mean, and why we should remember them. This was Lucasta's thing - she had been big into symbols and signs in the last year. She'd got top marks in her Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Astronomy exams. If anyone could read signs and symbols it was Lucasta. She said you never knew what the world was trying to tell you, that you had to pay attention every second.

I flipped through the book, letting the smell of the parchment waft over me. The second time I did it something caught my eye on one of the first pages. It was an inscription in Lucasta's curly handwriting, my name biggest and curliest of all, the message smaller.

Autumn, it said in green ink, I'll meet you in the Garden of Sleep.