Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (46 page)

“Sink!” snapped Dolcie at her sous-chef. “Rosemary,
pinkerton and mud-eye tea leaves!” The big man dropped the pastry
onto the bench and lumbered over to the pantry, pulling a series of
small silver canisters from the shelves. Dolcie’s nose, no longer
button-like but thickened and piggish, wrinkled. “What is that
smell?” Something was burning on the stove. Dolcie smacked her
wooden spoon down on the kitchen bench with a
whoomph
that exploded within the
confines of the kitchen. The children jumped at the noise. “You
lot, back to work! Our customers aren’t going to feed themselves!”
Everyone, including Jack got stuck into their tasks while Dolcie
busied herself with preparing the ingredients for the tea,
grumbling and griping under her breath.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

A Tea
to Loosen the Tongue

As they waited for the tea to steep, Nettle drew in deep
breaths of air, feeling slightly better. She stole a glimpse at the
boy washing dishes. He had his back to her and remained that way.
Her eyes narrowed unkindly,
why doesn’t he speak up, help me out here?
He could have
easily covered for her, but instead he dropped her in it. And now
she was in deep trouble with the Balfreys, it was just yet another
reason for her to loathe him.

Though the younger sister politely handed over the cup to
Nettle, Dolcie refused to look at her. She could tell the
curly-headed woman was quietly simmering with resentment. She was
hesitant to drink the tea, her thoughts returning to the pink
powder Dolcie forced her to inhale. But what was she to do?
Claudine did stop her sisters, whatever they were doing to
her.
Surely
whatever Margot and Dolcie are up to, has nothing to do with
Claudine...

The vapour smelt heavily of rosemary. She took a tentative
sip and was pleasantly surprised. It tasted like liquid sunshine.
Warmth poured through every part of her body, erasing the
weariness. Her spirits lifted. Her lips curled into a bright smile.
Everything was going to be all right. Her turning up unexpected and
uninvited into the kitchen and upsetting Claudine’s sisters was
just a silly misunderstanding that would naturally correct itself
over time. She had nothing to worry about. There was nothing wrong
here.
I must
have fallen for some silly stirring from that boy, out to cause
trouble where there is none.
Nettle stretched out languorously, arching like a
cat. She sighed with contentment. “I feel wonderful. What is
it?”

“
Just a little something our mother used to make us when we
were little and unwell.”

“
It’s delicious.”

“
Isn’t it just. Now tell me, why did you enter our
kitchen?”

For a startling moment, Nettle couldn’t remember why she’d
come. She indulged in the lethargic sensation of the tea, trying to
remember. She knew she was staring vacantly at Claudine but she
couldn’t help it. Her brain was addled. Her gaze slipped over
Claudine’s shoulder as she tried to think but before she was able
to decipher exactly why she wanted to talk to Claudine, something
over on the far wall arrested her attention. There was a place on
the wall, a little nook where you might hang keys, except on these
hooks there were things of personal interest. A tie, a bracelet,
and handkerchief, a watch -
It looks like my Dads
she fleetingly thought - a ring, a
pair of cufflinks. Her eye swivelled back to the watch, the
watch-face was broken.
It is Dad’s! I thought Claudine was going to get
it fixed?
Maybe she hadn’t gotten around to it. But all those things
hanging on the little hooks, it looked a little like a lost and
found box.

“
Nettle?”

“Oh,” she shook her muddled head trying to clear her
thoughts from her father’s watch and remember why she had come
here. She glanced down, her brow creased in concentration,
why am I
here?
Rather
distractedly she saw that the floor was dusted with flour and
strange footprints strewn throughout. She’d seen those footprints
before… out in the dining room…

She
tilted her head, an almost imperceptive movement, to consider the
odd imprints. They appeared to have been made by animals, with only
three or sometimes six toes. Some imprints were tiny and others
were extremely large. Bewildered, Nettle was just about to look
about the kitchen for the animals that made the footprints when
Sink walked uncomfortably close by. He and the wait-staff wore long
aprons that reached the ground and covered their feet - it was
peculiar she hadn’t noticed that before - and as the giant man
walked about she saw why. Flurried footprints followed his movement
in the flour, but they were a hoofed animal’s footprint, like a
goats. Nettle blinked, her mind working slowly but efficiently. She
realised his other peculiarities, nostrils, but no nose to speak
of, squinty wide-set eyes and a broad mouth with dangerously sharp
pointy teeth.

He didn’t look
human…

The
incredulity of it all awoke her from her muddled state, like a jolt
of adrenalin.

Several wait staff zipped in and out of the kitchen so
gracefully it seemed as if they were dancing. They wore no shoes on
their feet as their toes - Nettle counted six of them - were
incredibly long and knobbly and they spent most of their time
balanced on their toes rather than their heels.
They’re faerie! The sisters
have faerie working for them…

It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt it out when
Claudine leaned back, her brow pinching together as she regarded
her impassively. “There,” she declared to her sisters, “she’s
gone.” And to Nettle’s surprise, they began to talk about her,
as
though
she wasn’t even in the room.

Dolcie rolled a fingertip in the temple of her forehead as
if coming down with a headache. “Really Claudie, I just don’t
understand your interest in this...
girl.
” Nettle almost flinched. The way she said girl
was spoken with such hostility.

Margot
returned to the kitchen, her expression frosty. She was carrying a
large decanter with a cork stopper. There wasn’t wine inside the
glass vessel, nor even water, but smoky golden light swirling
around in a lazy eddy.

Nettle remained still, her mind racing, her heartbeat
quickening. Though it was warm in the kitchen, a chill settled over
her and she felt as if the blood in her veins had crystallised to
slush.
Orbs
filled with filament... Dad’s watch... The Gadfinch Crystal and
troll...
What was she missing?

Margot came up to a machine, much like the coffee machine
with its French horn pipes, pistons and brass levers, and unstopped
the decanter quickly feeding into its neck a slender pipe. She
pulled a lever and the machine started up, whirring, nice and low;
clanking and grinding as its cogs and wheels turned. The filament
got sucked up inside the machine’s big
-barrelled chest with a
fffff-pp
and a bell rung,
just once.

Nettle was turning the pieces of the puzzle over in her
mind -
mining the goblin-mound like Lysette before them... Jazz in
danger...

Margot sidled
up beside Dolcie, staring at Nettle as if she were a bug. She
absentmindedly twirled her quill beneath a thumb, rolling it up and
down her palm. She spoke to her elder sister. “She simply walked
right in here. Nothing stopped her, nothing at all.”

Claudine
gave Margot an imperious glance. “I can see that.”

Margot’s lips
took on an unpleasant pucker as she shot an irritated look
Claudine’s way. “But it shouldn’t be possible. She’s a-”

“
What Margot? A mortal? Is that what you were going to say?”
Claudine flicked her low slung pony-tail over a shoulder. “Clearly,
she’s anything but.”

Dolcie
tapped her wooden spoon against a shoulder as she peered at Nettle,
looking at her as if it was the first time she actually saw her.
“But Claudie, how is it possible for her to enter?”

“I’ve
told you before, there’s something different about her,” snapped
Claudine. “Neither of you bothered listening.” Dolcie sniffed,
casting an aggrieved glance at her sister. Claudine continued in a
more charitable tone, “Her family live in the Wilds.”

Nettle’s gaze was vacant as she looked through Claudine,
her thoughts racing ahead. A mortal?
The spriggans called us that, why would
she too?

The pieces of the puzzle were slowly beginning to fit
together. Lysette burned at the stake, left behind her younger
siblings – sisters
- and mother Lucinda. What did the Crone say?
Me and my fair
girls...

And they were blatantly talking about her, in front of
her.
They
think I’m, what..? Under some kind of enchantment, like I can’t
hear them? That would mean...

Surely
not...

They’re
witches..?

For a moment
it seemed so utterly ridiculous she almost laughed out loud. A
moment later her stomach pitched and her heart gave an erratic thud
as Margot said, her eyelids heavy with disbelief, “Yes, but even
Good-Folk can’t cross the kind of spells we’ve cast.”

There, she said it!
Spells! The Balfreys’ really are
witches!

Her heart
began to pound so loudly she thought Claudine would surely hear it.
She also knew, without a sliver of doubt, it was imperative she
remained unnoticed, her life depended on it.

“
Here, take another sip...” Claudine guided the cup of tea
toward her lips. She took a sip, as small as she could get away
with. She was terrified to let the liquid roll down her throat, but
she had to trust that it wasn’t going to affect her. The tea tasted
bitter and wrong, why hadn’t she noticed that before?

After a few mouthfuls Nettle felt confident the initial
headiness the tea had wrought in her wasn’t about to happen again
and so she drank more fully from the cup. In one way it was a
welcome respite. A moment to gather herself.
What should I do? They can’t
know I’m aware of everything.
Whatever they thought the tepid tea was doing to
her, it wasn’t. And she needed it to remain that way.

Satisfied
Nettle had drunk all the tea, Claudine handed the empty cup to
Dolcie who dumped it with a porcelain clatter into the pile of
dirty dishes beside Jack at the sink.

“You’re
right, she shouldn’t have been able to trespass our spells,”
Claudine replied to Margot before turning back to Nettle, her voice
soft and silky and thoughtful. “There’s more to her than any
ordinary girl. She could see the doorway to the Atelier. No mortal
should be able to see that.”

Nettle held
herself rigid, Claudine was gazing intently at her. It was an
effort just to keep her breathing calm and even.

“
Do they know they’re Good-Folk?” Dolcie returned. She
absentmindedly rubbed her décolletage, the crinkled skin sun
reddened and blotchy.

Claudine
considered Nettle, her chin tilted haughtily. “I’m not sure. Her
bumbling father seemed harmless enough.”

At her father’s mention Nettle almost revealed her
duplicity with a slight clenching of the jaw.
Stay still,
she warned herself. Claudine’s
eyes narrowed, her crows-feet crinkling even further, then after a
brief pause, she relaxed giving Dolcie a side-long glance as her
youngest sibling said, “Then why are we bothering with her at all?”
She’d withdrawn to oversee the children toasting spices at the hot
stove, and gave one of them a displeased smack with her wooden
spoon, eliciting a small yelp.

“Isn’t
it fortunate that I did,” Claudine said, taking umbrage. “We needed
a thirteenth sacrifice and luckily for us, we found one in her
father.”

Nettle’s heart skipped.
Sacrifice?! Dad?!
She almost recoiled giving herself
away. Her stomach had pitched and was now roiling as a sickening
feeling swept over her.
They’re going to kill him...

Claudine
wandered over to a large pan hanging from a hook. She inspected her
reflection in its shiny bottom said loftily, “If I hadn’t bothered
to investigate her family, we may never have found him in
time.”

“In that
regard, yes, of course. But we have all we need from her. What more
can we ask? Like Dolcie, I haven’t understood your desire to get to
know them better either. So why not simply dispatch her?” Margot
suggested with an indifferent shrug.

“Kill
her, you mean?” Claudine queried, turning so quickly her skirt made
a swishing noise with the movement.

Kill me?!
Nettle held herself together, just. Her hands began to
tremble so she carefully tucked her fingers between her
thighs.

Claudine
expelled an aggravated breath. “Both of you are far too
short-sighted! She may yet again prove useful. She provided us with
her father and also managed to lure the Crone for us. Might I
remind you, both are vital to our cause.”

Dolcie felt a need to remind her sisters, “Jasmine too. It
was
me
who cast the spell to find someone suitable-”

Claudine
gave a dismissive gesture with a hand, cutting her off. “We would
have made do with anyone. No, Jasmine is not necessary, not like
her father or the Crone. But now, I fear that what to do with this
girl is no longer up to us. She needs to go to our Lady. There’s
something of the Wilds about her and she will know what. But before
we hand her over, I want some answers.”