Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (10 page)

He shrugged, “I don’t know. Only your mother did. And
she’s
...”

The furrow was
back above Nettle’s nose as she retorted, “No longer here. Nor ever
will be.”

Fred
sounded tired. “It belongs to you.” He handed her the box
back. “It’s a gift from your mother. She wanted to give it to you
on your thirteenth birthday.”

Nettle was taken aback. Her birthday was less than a week
away.
Surely
our return home, wasn’t about this… this silly little
box?

“This box is why we’re back here?”
He nodded. “What’s so… important…
about it?” Her question drifted apart and ended weakly.
No, it wasn’t the
box Dad came home for.
“Is that why we came back.” It wasn’t a question.
“You were hoping she might be here, weren’t you? Mum. You were
hoping to find her here, waiting for us. Just because she made some
stupid promise about a birthday present. Dad, how could you be such
an idiot?!”

Fred’s
head jerked back as if she’d slapped him. His olive eyes gazed back
at her, wounded.

Anger coiled around her heart, her lanky frame tensed and
her mouth set in a harsh line. Once again her mother was trying to
worm her way back into her life.
“Well I don’t want it, whatever it is.”
She thrust the box back at him, but Fred refused to take
it.

“You’re
only saying that because it’s from your mother.”

Nettle’s tone was blistering,
her face puckered with spitefulness.
“You’re right, I am. I hate her! And I never, ever, want anything
from her!”

Nettle
stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut.

The bitterness was bubbling and boil
ing within. She glared at the
box in her hand, wanting to smash it to smithereens. She ran down
the stairs and out the door. She ran as far as the front yard and
then down the driveway. She didn’t know what she was doing, or
heading, until she came to the small bridge and the water running
beneath.

She stood there, doubled over, gasping for breath, wishing
she hadn’t said those things to her father, but also not wanting to
unsay them. She meant every single word.
Briar, could go to hell!

Nettle took one last look at the box before tossing it into
the stream, where it was sucked beneath the water, only to bob back
to the surface a moment later. She watched the wooden box swirl
away downstream, until it rounded a bend and disappeared from
sight. And with it, the anger evaporated, replaced by self-loathing
at the image of her father’s expression. His injured look, hurt
more than anything he could have said to her in reply.
Why do I have to
keep saying such horrid things about her? Why do I feel the need to
keep reminding everyone that Briar is gone?
But she couldn’t afford for any
of them to become sentimental, or hopeful. Her hope had been dashed
early on. Briar was never coming back.
Why can’t Dad realise that
too?

CHAPTER TEN

A
Basket Full of Fireflies

That night, Nettle found she couldn’t
sleep
, her
torturous mind reminding her of the horrid things she’d said to her
father, interspersed with images of the ransacked living room and
the mystery it held within. She tossed and turned and fluffed her
pillow and even tried to sleep curled up beneath the blankets,
before giving up completely. Sitting up, she realized a strangely
soft light illuminated the curtains. She slid out of bed and padded
over to the bedroom window, scrunching her toes up so they barely
touched the chilly wooden floor. She rubbed warmth back into her
bare arms before drawing back the curtains. She discovered a golden
glow radiated from somewhere below. Whatever it was, was tucked in
beneath the eves of the backyard porch.

Wrapped up in a fluffy dressing gown and well worn
slippers,
Nettle quietly stole downstairs and crept
outside.

She
found her father drowsily sitting on the old swing-chair, his feet
resting on a battered stool, where he’d placed a half whittled
mouse. A flowery old thermos sat amongst wood shavings on the porch
beside him. Fred started as she made her appearance, the mug of hot
black coffee he was gingerly sipping from sloshing a little over
the red tartan rug tucked over his long legs.

“Sorry,” she whispered with a quirk of a shoulder.
The golden glow
came from a wicker basket hanging from the porch ceiling. The
basket contained a thick cluster of fireflies.

Fred smiled
. “Can’t sleep, huh?”

Nettle shook her head. She slipped beneath the cosy blanket
and curled up beside him. He slung an arm over her shoulder. He
smelled of rich pungent coffee. For a while they sat in an easy
silence
while Nettle brooded over what she’d said about her mother,
wondering how to fix it.

“Dad,”
she began a little hesitantly.“I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t
have said those things about Mum. All I ever do is just end up
hurting you.”

He let
out a heavy breath and squeezed her shoulder. “It’s hard, I know,
not having her around.”

She bristled a little.
And then reminded herself she’d come to
make up. She looked at him askance with a lopsided grin. “I’m not
so sure. We’ve done pretty well.”

“We’ve
done pretty well, only because of you.” Fred sighed. “You grew up
too quickly Nettle. I did that to you. You should have been a kid.
Not looking after a baby.”

She
nudged him with her shoulder. “Someone had to. You’re nimble with
whittling wood, but a total bumpkin with a nappy pin.”

He
flashed a brief grin. “All the same, I should have protected you
better. Let you be a little girl for a while longer.”

“Dad,
we’re a team, the three of us.” They shared a smile and fell into
silence once more. But since being back at that cottage, that
mystery of the ransacked living room bothered her enough to finally
ask, “Dad, why did she leave? Did you two have a fight?”

“No.
Yes.” He answered, a little baffled at her question. “Well, we of
course argued, like most couples do, over silly things. Why do you
ask?”

“
Well, it’s just that the house, the downstairs living room,
looked like there’d been some kind of physical fight.”

“And you
thought it was us?” He said it quietly, more to himself than
her.

“Did you
try to stop her leaving?” He shook his head. “Who else could have
made that mess down there?”

“Oh
Nettle, I just don’t know. No, it wasn’t your mum and me. I… there
are things I can’t get into just yet, OK. Your mother didn’t…” his
words fell apart and he raked a hand roughly through his
hair.

“Didn’t what, Dad?”
If they weren’t the cause of the mess, then who
was?

“I’ve
never known how to explain it to you. Your mother was always better
at those kinds of things.” He let out a tense puff of air. “Now’s
not the right time. I’ll explain it all. Soon, I promise.” He
squeezed her hand. “Hopefully we’ll explain together. I’ll find
her, I promise you.” Fred tried very hard to sound convincing, but
to Nettle, he came off sounding more desperate than anything else.
Even now, he was in denial.

Nettle couldn’t keep the scorn from her tone.
“Mum’s not coming
home, you know. Not ever.”

Fred was
exhausted. “There are things you don’t understand.”

“Like
what, Dad? What’s so hard to understand? She’s not here, ergo,
she’s left us.”

He snappily
answered, “She didn’t leave us. I’ve tried to tell you that, but
you just don’t want to hear.”

“Oh,
that’s right, she had to go off and do something, that’s why she’s
not here. Now, what was it again? She had to pay off a debt? Or, go
and look after Grandfather Burr? A debt, you don’t know who with,
and a grandfather, you’ve got no idea where he lives. No, Dad, it’s
you who doesn’t want to hear.” Up close, Nettle could see the dark
circles under his eyes. He was tired and she also thought, worried,
but she didn’t care, she wasn’t thinking, she was reacting. She
wrenched her hand from his and pushed away so she could twist
around to face him. She eyed him hard. “Whatever you claim she had
to go and do, she should have finished by now and returned to us.
But she hasn’t, and you need to face facts, she clearly doesn’t
want to. Besides, I no longer care, I don’t ever want her
home.”

His voice was waspish.
“Don’t you ever say that again, Nettle.
She’s your mother.”

“No,
she’s not. She gave up being my mother when she left
us!”

Fred’s usual mellow expression contorted with anger. He
bellowed,
“Go to bed, Nettle!” He’d had it with his daughter’s rude
and cold behaviour.

Nettle
flinched at her father’s furious tone.

“Right now you’re acting like a petulant child. One I don’t
want to be around
. So go to bed,” he ground out; his dark eyes,
stormy.

Nettle
got to her feet, her mouth pressed in a callous line. “Why
can’t you move on, Dad? It’s pathetic the way you still hopelessly
love her.” She stalked back inside, slamming the door behind her,
and instantly regretted her harsh words.
I went down there to apologise, and
now look what I’ve done. I’ve made it worse. Me and my stupid big
mouth.

Nettle slid into bed with a heavy anguished heart,
wondering how to make it up to her father
, yet again. When she finally slipped
into slumber, she’d decided to act on the plan she’d thought of a
day or two ago to mend her father’s broken heart. Tomorrow, she’d
head into Olde Town and find her father a new wife.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hidden
in a Hide

Dawn slowly
approached, heralded by the raucous dawn chorus of woodland birds.
Noisy chaffinches and jays; the shrill call of the goldcrest;
linnets with their melodious song; cheerful sparrows and sweet
sounding robins - it seemed as if every single bird within the
Forgotten Wilds welcomed the awakening sun.

The pale
yellow of the pre-dawn light filtered across the skyline, brushing
tree tops to skim the thatch peaked roof of Blackthorn Cottage.
Nettle’s bedroom gradually brightened from murky darkness to a
shadowy grey. A piercing alarm sounded from her wristwatch directly
beneath her ear, jolting Nettle rudely awake. She pushed her drowsy
head off the mattress, squinting around the bedroom with puffy
tired eyes, dazedly wondering why on earth she’d set her alarm at
such a ridiculous time of the morning.

Olde Town…

Dad! A new
wife!

She sat up too fast and fell off the bed to land with an
ungainly thump on the freezing wooden floor. Nettle stuffed a hand
across her mouth, stifling the moan. She rubbed her smarting thigh
and winced.
Ooooo that hurt!
Glancing around, she discovered that this time
Bram hadn’t crawled into bed with her during the night. Curiosity
and puzzlement briefly flittered through her mind, only to be
pushed aside. There was no time to lose. She had to get out of the
house and onto the road before her father could stop her.
Technically, he hadn’t expressed Olde Town was off limits, but he
hadn’t exactly said they could go there either. And she knew that
technicality was, at best, precarious.

Nettle
dressed quickly. Outside, the ivy clinging to the cottage’s stone
walls rustled as gusts of whistling wind began to build, muffling
the sound of birdsong. The branches of the old ash tree right
outside her bedroom buffeted against the window. It promised to be
a very chilly and blustery morning; she put on her warmest
clothes.

She tugged a brush through her knotty hair and nimbly
plaited it into a long thick braid that fell over a shoulder.
Stuffing her woolly owl hat into the pocket of her army jacket, she
left her bedroom to tip-toe down the hallway. The door to her
parent’s bedroom was wide open. Her father wasn’t in bed and she
assumed that he had fallen asleep outside
.
She went to creep silently past his
bedroom and stopped herself with a chiding grin.
Why on earth am I
bothering sneaking around?
She went to wake Bram and let him know of her
plans.

Nettle entered
the nursery and found the room empty. Bram’s mattress on the floor
hadn’t been slept in at all.

A deep trepidation flared in the pit of Nettle’s stomach.
He never made his bed first thing in the morning, always needing to
be reminded and hounded to do so. So, clearly, he hadn’t even been
to bed.
What
could have coerced him out last night? Where could he be?
Nettle’s heart beat
faster as her imagination spun along frightening lines.
He wouldn’t have,
would he? He wouldn’t have entered the Forgotten Wilds? Not when
Dad said not to? But what if he had? Was he lost,
hurt..?

That’s when she heard a, “
Pssst...
”

Nettle spun around, the soles of her fur-lined boots made a
squeaking noise upon the floor. Relief spread through her in great
waves. The ‘
Pssst,
’ sounded like Bram, but she wasn’t sure which direction it
had come from.