Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (42 page)

I left the
food and clothing and ran from the village. As I hurried away I
felt eyes on me. A girl with dark red hair watched as I descended
the path. She looked soft and well nourished. She had to be the
girl Finnius spoke of last year. Lysette.

What
frightened me most about Olde Town, to which I cannot bring myself
to tell Mrs. Blackthorn, besides the girl with the red hair, there
were no other children. Not one single child did I see.

And there the journal ended. Nettle sat back looking down
at the page with Benedict’s last entry. She had so many more
questions.
The crops blighted, he wrote, and people either starved to
death or died from a terrible sickness - a plague no doubt – and no
children to speak of.
Was Lysette really a witch? Did she bring this
terrible curse to Olde Town?

A sickening sounding thud against the window pane, startled
Nettle.
What
was that?
She ran to the window and saw Willoughby, stunned from the
impact, lying on the ledge outside. He looked terrible. His
feathers on one wing were severely burnt and dried blood matted his
tail feathers together. His chest palpitated and she feared his
heart would burst.

She slid the window open and gently picked him up. “Oh
Willoughby… what’s happened to you?” Willoughby tried to rise
and
wik-wiked
with pain. “No… hush now… it’s all right… just lie still.”
Nettle urged him. Tears gummed her lashes, making it hard to
see.
Did
someone do this to him? Intentionally?
She carried him over to the arm chair
and placed him carefully on a cushion. He looked so tiny and
fragile, she felt sick to think they could lose him.

Willoughby let go of a small message he’d carried all this
way in his claw. It was furled, written on a dried leaf. Nettle
uncurled the leaf, her stomach in a knot, finding it hard to breath
as if the air were thin.
Surely it was a message from
Dad.

FATHER TAKEN!
FLEE THE WILDS NOW!

Shock burst
through Nettle and she felt the ground pitch beneath her.

Her hands began to shake uncontrollably and the message
fell from her grasp.
Dad’s taken?
She stumbled a little, then let herself slip to
the floor.
What does it mean? Who has taken Dad? What should I
do?
Flee the
Wilds now, the message says.
Is this what her father had meant that night
beyond the Thicket: times are a little precarious for us
Blackthorns.
Nettle just couldn’t grasp the concept that someone took
her father - actually took him! And now the Woodstock Twins wanted
them to run
.
When she thought back to that night she remembered Rory was
stunned her father had returned to the cottage, and that she and
Bramble had accompanied him.
Are we all in danger?
Of course we are, that’s why Dad’s
been acting so weird of late, warning us not to go to Olde Town or
into the Wilds.
She could only assume
he’d feared someone would find out they were back
at the cottage. But who would want to take Dad? And why would they
want us too?

Nettle woke
Bram with a violent shake. He awoke grumpily and scowled at her.
“What’s going on?”

Nettle didn’t
know what to say, so she handed him the furled leaf. Bram sat up
and fumbled for his glasses. He read the message and re-read the
message several times, his eyes growing rounder and rounder. He
flicked the leaf with a finger. “What does this mean? What’s
happened to Dad? Who’s taken him?”

“
I don’t know,” she wailed choking back tears. And then Nettle
told him everything about that night, beyond the Thicket, and this
time left nothing out.

They sat
beside one another on the bed, she had an arm slung around him and
her cheek rested on the top of his head. His hair was soft and
smelt of apple scented shampoo. “Why didn’t you tell me?” said
Bram, his bottom lip wobbling. He was still holding the message, it
was an oak-leaf and its tips were beginning to crumble away in his
palm.

“
Because I didn’t want to worry you,” she said sniffing and
wiped her nose with a tissue. “I’m the big sister and I’m supposed
to look out for you.”

His voice was
small. “Dad’s supposed to be the one looking after us.” He craned
his head so he could look up at her awkwardly. “What are we going
to do?”

She
straightened so that they faced one another. One side of her mouth
crooked downward. She didn’t want to, but what else was there to
do. “We have to leave. Now.”

“
What about Dad?”

Her
stomach was in knots. If they left now, they left without Dad, and
there were no guarantees if and when they returned they’d be able
to rescue him. But there was one hope she clung to, her father’s
sister - Jazz’s mother. “We’ll do as he asked. We’ll go to Aunt
Mae. She’s from here, she knows the Wilds. She can help
us.”

A spark of
hope lit Bram’s eyes. He gave a decisive nod in agreement. “OK.
I’ll start packing.”

Her lips
twisted wryly. “Guess I’m stuck with waking up Jazz.”

“
Better you than me,” he replied with ghost of a
smile.

When Nettle entered Jazz’s bedroom it was a pigsty as usual
and it was obvious there was no Jazz. She ran outside, Bram close
behind, yelling for their cousin. “Jazz?! Jazz?!” Anxiety began to
wrap itself around her like an unwanted blanket. “JAZZ?!!” With
every unanswered call, Nettle knew Jazz couldn’t be at the cottage.
She spun around to Bram, her face white. “She’s not here.” Where
could she be? Pippa’s message –
Jazz in danger
– flared in her mind. She felt her
breath suck away, her shoulders stiffen. Surely she’s not been
taken, like their father...
No, don’t think that, not yet anyway.

Nettle stalked up to Burban and woke him with a kick. “WHAT
DER YOU THINK YER PLAYING AT
?!” Burban roared.

There was no
time for politeness. “Jazz, where is she?”

“
She wanted out.” Burban grumbled glaring at her, and rubbed
his injured side into the dirt.

Nettle’s
stomach grew cold and her voice sounded thin. “Where did she
go?”

“How
would I know,” the boulder retorted, huffing. “Nobody tells me
nothing. Certainly don’t treat me with any kind of respect I
deserves. Young modern generation, you’ve all got no
ma-”

“Olde
Town!” Bram interrupted. “She’ll have gone there for a dress
fitting or something to do with Halloween.”

Nettle let her head loll back. She took in a welcome breath
of relief.
Of course, Jazz will be there!
“I’ll have to go get her.” Then the
elation swiftly disappeared as anxiety washed over her. Her heart
started beating a little faster as she recalled Pippa’s warning
written in spilt salt.
Jazz in danger -
Pippa didn’t want Dolcie to see what she’d
written.
What did Jack say?
They’re not who they’re pretending to
be.

“Talk to Claudine,” advised Bram. “She’ll know what to do.
Maybe we don’t have to go to Aunt Mae’s, maybe she could help us.
We’ll be safe there and there’s enough people in Olde Town for us
to use as a search party.”
Bram frowned and he took hold of her arm squeezing
it gently. “Nettle? What’s wrong?”

Nettle looked down at his small hand on her arm, her mind
racing. She couldn’t lay this fear on her brother, not with their
father gone too. And to be fair, she didn’t know for sure that Jazz
was in danger from the Balfrey’s.
She was reserved in her opinion of
Claudine, refusing to believe that there was anything sinister
about the eldest sister.
And whatever the case, she needed to find
Jazz.

She gave a
bright smile, shaking her head and making a face at herself hoping
to deceive him. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Just spaced out for a
moment.”

Bram’s
gaze narrowed shrewdly. He didn’t believe her. But before he could
protest, she knelt down so she could eye him levelly. His golden
complexion had paled and there were worry-shadows around his eyes.
She gave him a reassuring smile, taking both his hands in her own.
“Listen, you pack our bags, just the necessities, nothing more.
I’ll go get Jazz and talk to Claudine. We don’t have to tell her
everything but you’re right, she’ll know what we should
do.”

Bram worriedly
chewed his bottom lip. “You need to take someone with you. That
message sounded dangerous, someone could be-”

“I’ll be
fine,” Nettle interrupted. She’d briefly considered bringing along
one of the spriggans, but they were all still sleeping off their
hangovers from the night before. How they slept through all the
shouting that had gone on out here was beyond her. “I’ll be OK,”
she assured Bram. “Besides, I want the others here to protect you.
As far as I’m concerned this is the safest place for you while I’m
gone.”

“
What’s this all about?” Burban enquired, his brown eyes
narrowed suspiciously.

Nettle
stood up, her fingers still linked with Bram’s. She looked down at
Burban, her mouth set in a determined line. “Dad. He’s been
taken.”

Burban gave a
ponderous blink. “Taken? What do you mean?”

Nettle
shrugged. “I don’t know.” She felt Bram draw close, letting go of
her hand to wind his arms about her waist. “The Woodstock Twins
sent a message. They said he’s been taken and for us to leave,
immediately. But we can’t go without Jazz.”

“
Gone?’ Burban said distantly, his voice crackling like
pebbles rolling down a beach. “Just like last time...” The next
moment he was full of purpose and he opened his mouth wide to
bellow, “RIGHT LADS - TIME TO WAKE!!” The cottage’s clearing came
alive with grumblings as Burban’s companions were abruptly awoken.
“COME ON! TIME TO WAKE! TIME TO SECURE THE
BLACKTHORN’S!!”

All around the cottage the copse rustled and
whoomphed
like someone
beating dust from a rug. Burban began to
baaaarrRRROOOOOMMMM!!!

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The
Accursed Lysette

Nettle had peddled as fast as she could, the wagon bouncing
behind the bike, to arrive twenty minutes later at Olde Town, her
clothes sticky with perspiration and her face red-cheeked and
slick. She dumped the bike and wagon beside the welcome gate and
ran up the steps, dodging Mr. Fussbinder leading a new group of
visitors; threading her way through the various plateaus where
guests clustered around milk-maids handing out balloons and
ribbons; jugglers in orange and purple coloured tights, spinning
apples in the air and a piper leading a group of giggling
children.
Lysette, the eldest daughter…
It kept niggling at her.
The eldest daughter
I’m led to believe of a family rumoured to have Kin-Folk
blood...

As Nettle
passed O’Grady’s Bookstore she found herself wondering if she had
the time. There was that book she’d come across earlier in the
store, the Accursed Witch of Olde Town. Maybe it might unearth
something new, and explain to why she felt so uneasy about
Benedict’s journal.

Nettle
disappeared into the bookstore a step or two behind a middle-aged
man, who was almost as wide as he was tall, and slunk off to the
alcove she’d discovered before and located the book she was after.
Smilla stood cleaning the wooden counter with a yellow rag and a
half-hearted attitude.

The customer had a voice that boomed, disturbing Nettle.
“Tea,
bah!
Everyone’s offering bloody tea wherever I go. I’ve swilled
enough tea to fill a lake. What’s so special about
yours?”

Nettle
peered through a small gap between books. The squat man was dressed
in a three piece suit that was straining at the seams. His bulging
form dwarfed Smilla, who’s timid voice whispered something Nettle
couldn’t make out. She needn’t of worried, for the man with the
portly stomach bellowed, “Cowslip, lovage and raspberry? Sounds
flipp’n arty-farty to me.”

Smilla said something else to which the man replied,
“
Ah
go on then, pour me
another, and show me where you’ve got the Brownlee Radcliffe books.
I’ve a mind to read a good espionage book while the wife traipses
about the place, burning a hole in my wallet.”

Nettle heard
the clinking of china and liquid pouring into a tea cup. The man
quickly finished the cup and passed it back. “That were an
interesting drop.”

Nettle’s dark
hair fell like a curtain as she went back to studying the book and
that’s when she saw out the corner of her eye the air above the
man’s head began to shimmer and undulate like the surface of a
puddle reflecting the morning sun. A thin thread of gold wafted
from the top of his head to his ceiling.

Nettle’s head snapped up, her eyes widened, and her heart
began to beat faster.
Maybe I’m just seeing things that really aren’t
there?
But
she wasn’t. There was definitely some sort of vapour rising from
the man, twisting and curling upwards in misty puffs.
Smoke? Maybe his
hair or his jacket’s on fire.

And then, the
vapour was gone.

Nettle rubbed
her eyes, and looked again.