Investigators
of the
Unknown
Magic. The word made their eyes
darken and grow watchful. This was not the toy store variety
sold in boxes.
The Gold Dust Letters
"Dear Angela: I, Pilaria, known also as the Gray-Eyed Faerie, send friendship in this time of trouble. Your letters made me happy and I will try to answer your questions. You asked where I live. My world is invisible to you and would seem strange if you could see it. Here there are no colors, only dark grays and browns. The people go about with stiff faces and few can say what is really on their minds. We faeries have fallen on hard times in recent years..."
Angela Harrall is carrying on a most extraordinary correspondence. Letters from Pilaria of the Kingdom of the Faeries, Eighth Tribe, Fourth Earth, Under the Sun-Star Aravan, have begun appearing on her living room mantelpiece. They're beautifully written on scrolled paper that comes tied with a thin gold thread around the middle. Angela's friend Georgina is suspicious but Angela knows the letters are real because they're so sad. There is also the strange matter of the gold dust that flies out whenever the letters are opened, and then mysteriously vanishes.
Georgina will not be satisfied, though. She must see the fairy being with her own eyes before she'll believe. At first, Angela won't allow it. She knows that real magic is a fragile thing. One rude gust of outside air and it can fly to pieces. Then she relents, and plans are put in motion for a meeting with the shy, lonely, other-world creature who turns out to be realer than anyone expects.
The Gold Dust Letters
(Orchard Books, hdbk; Avon, ppbk) is the first book in the "Investigators
of the Unknown" series. (There are four books in all.) Orchard
Books, 1994, Ages 8-11, 116 pages, Paperback: Avon, 1995
Bank Street Notable Book, 1994
Looking for Juliette
Never had a place looked so forbidding. While all the other houses on the street glowed with friendly lights, Angela's house sat dark as a hunk of coal in its yard. The windows were black; the porches lurked in shadow; the chimneys rose against the sky like a devilish pair of horns.
"What do we do now?" Georgina asked.
"We walk around and look. And call." Poco spoke calmly but even she felt nervous.
Juliette, Angela's Siamese
cat, has been lost for days and the friends are desperate to find
her before some evil befalls her. Or perhaps, it's already too late.
Miss Bone, the old spinster caretaker at Angela's vacant house, has
been acting very oddly. When Poco sees her leaving her house wearing
an elegant fur hat in the exact shade of gray as Juliette's beautiful
coat, she begins to imagine the worst.
Orchard Books, 1994, ages 8-11. 120 pages. Paperback: Avon, 1996. Book #2 in "Investigators of the Unknown" quartet. Bank Street Notable Book, 1994
Georgina leapt straight up in the air when she heard.
"A message?" she cried. "From the Match Girl? Where?"
"Right here," Walter said. While Georgina and Poco watched, he took from his back pocket an ordinary white envelope, rather bent from being pressed into chairs all day. Walter, being Walter, had waited until the very end of the school day to show them.
"Good grief!" Georgina practically screamed. "How could you just sit there on top of it all day?"
"I wasn't sure if I should tell." Walter glanced over his shoulder. "Some spirits don't like being told on, you know."
Walter Kew, the orphan
boy in Poco and Georgina's school, has made a strange discovery.
He believes his mother is trying to speak to him from beyond the
pale. She has chosen a bronze statue of The Little Match Girl in
Andersen Park as the place of contact. Whenever Walter receives an
envelope in the mail with wooden matches sealed inside, he knows
what it means: Go to the park. The Match Girl has another message
for you.
Orchard Books, 1995, 121 pages. Paperback: Avon, 1997. Book #3 in "Investigators of the Unknown" quartet. School Library Journal Best Book, 1995
The night fell into silence again. There was no moon. Except for the far-off prickle of stars, the sky was blacker than a cave. A phantom claw of wind scraped though the tree and in that in instant, Georgina felt something new.
"Poco look!"
Above, a squadron of round, bright-lit objects hovered in silence, sharply etched against the night sky.
Angela Harrall's return from a year of living in Mexico coincides with a strange sighting, but it's awhile before her friends, Poco, Georgina and Walter, begin to make the connection. Angela has changed, or been changed. Some fearful alien force seems to have taken hold of her. Not until Angela tells the riveting story of her abduction, though, does Georgina begin to understand who the real aliens responsible for her friend's transformation are.
Orchard Books, 1996,
120 pages. Paperback: Avon, 1997
Book #4 in "Investigators of the Unknown" quartet.
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