Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (7 page)

“
Is that why you were talking to it, hoping it would move for
you?”

For a long
moment he said nothing, until he spluttered an outburst of awkward
laughter. “Nettle, you’re so funny.”

Nettle thoughtfully considered her father. He was
purposefully being evasive and just plain weird.
Well, even weirder
since arriving back at the cottage. And what was there to be afraid
of, besides toadstools and,
what else did her father say,
silver-moss springs?

A
boisterous BANG, came from the back door.

Bram and Jazz
, who was moaning as usual, dragged a dusty blue
rug outside. To Nettle’s amazement, her cousin actually appeared to
be helping, albeit grudgingly.

Bram
immediately spied Fred and his sister, and called out, “Dad,
where’s Willoughby?!” He quickly made his way toward them. Jazz,
annoyed at being left with the rug, dumped it on the porch and
using a hockey stick – she’d packed plenty of hockey sticks along
with her luggage - hacked her way through the backyard.

Fred
’s stance changed as Bram approached. He moved slightly
uneasily and Nettle watched one cheek puff out before expelling it
slowly. Nettle gave her father a shrewd look. “Yes, Dad, where is
Willoughby? We found his birdcage, but no bird.”

Bram
arrived. His golden face and trusting blue eyes looked expectantly
up at his father. “Where is he, Dad?”

Fred
said it, as gently as he could. “I let him go.”

Both siblings were stunned.
“What? But why?” asked Bram.

“This,”
Fred replied, looking around at the trees. “Is his
home.”

Bram’s
confused gaze slipped from his father to Nettle. “But he’s been
with us forever. What if he’s forgotten how to live in the
wild?”

“He’s a
bird, a wild bird, he’ll remember. I couldn’t keep him locked up in
a birdcage any longer. Not once we got back here. It wouldn’t be
right,” their father answered.

Nettle
slipped an arm around her brother, feeling his shoulder slump
beneath her hand. She shot a sharp glare at her father. He should
have discussed it with them both, before going ahead and letting
their family friend go. Sometimes he was a right idiot.

She gave Bram’s shoulder a gentle shake.
“Dad was doing what
was best for Willoughby.”

“Besides,” jumped in Fred, in a desperate attempt to cheer
up his son, “I have a feeling he’ll be back soon.”

“
Why?” Bram’s face crumpled on the verge of tears. He said
with a plaintive tone, “Surely he’s just flown off and forgotten
us.”

“He
hasn’t, OK. So trust me on this, Willoughby will come
home.”

Bram still
didn’t look as if he truly believed his father.

Knowing
her brother, Nettle tried a different tactic. “It’s better for him
to be free, isn’t it, and visit us from time to time?”

Bram chewed on
his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Guess so.”

Jazz,
huffing and puffing and walking with a decided air of disgust at
having to deal with the unpleasantness of being outdoors, arrived.
“What’s going on?”

“Dad let
Willoughby go,” said Bram, his bottom lip pouting.

Jazz
gave a scornful laugh. “Is that all?”

Nettle gave Jazz a blistering glare. Jazz caught her look
and silently returned -
well-it’s-true
. Nettle sighed softly
.
Jazz really was a block-head at the
best of times.
She needed to change the subject fast. Her father saved her
the trouble.

“So has everyone finished their schoolwork?” asked
Fred.

With the
endless travelling the Blackthorn’s did, the two siblings completed
their work by correspondence. They missed out on the school
experience and making friends their own age, but quickly finishing
their schoolwork in the morning and having the afternoon to explore
the latest town they’d found themselves in certainly made up for
it.

Bram
answered, “Dad, it’s the school holidays. Besides, you told us to
tidy the cottage.”

“Oh,
right, right. How’s that going?”

“Forced
child labour is illegal, Uncle Fred. Just so you know,” Jazz said
twisting her hockey stick around in her hands.

Bram
rolled his eyes. “You haven’t exactly done much, Jazz, just moaned
a lot.”

“Did
too!” She fluttered a hand in front of him. “I chipped two nails
dragging that awful rug out of the house.”

Nettle
pulled a face behind Jazz’s back that made Bram laugh. Jazz quickly
spun around, but only caught Nettle’s quick change of expression to
commiseration. She glared at her cousin suspiciously.

“Come
on,” urged Fred. “You three back inside, there’s plenty more work
to be done in the cottage.”

All
three groaned and gave Fred varying looks of annoyance. Nettle led
the way across the backyard toward Blackthorn Cottage. As Bram was
turning to follow Jazz, he stopped. “Hey Dad, where’s that path go?
That one, right there. It looks like it goes right into the woods.”
Bram ran to the trees.

Nettle’s ears pricked
, as did Jazz’s. Both girls turned around,
curious. They followed Bram’s lead and caught up just as Bram made
it to the forest’s edge. In the cool shade of the quiet trees,
Nettle still had that tingling feeling she was being watched. She
pushed a fern’s frond apart and peered through.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Path
Through the Wilds

The wind
’s cold fingers whipped through the Wilds, ruffling leaves
and smacking branches. A sound much like wooden sailing ships,
their ropes groaning to be freed from the cleat, rippled through
the woods.

It was
like looking into an ink sketch. All dark shadows with motes and
tiny fluffy seeds floating in the pale silver light that managed to
filter through the forest’s thick canopy. A carpet of dark green
moss was tucked like a blanket around the foot of each tree, with
gnarled roots like horribly crooked feet extending out over the
undulating ground littered with fallen leaves. It was
magical.

The blood in Nettle’s veins thrummed like a plucked cello
with excitement.
There, right in front of her, was the beginning of a
path.

The dirt
path cut through the forest, meandering along with the natural flow
of the forest floor, in bends and bumps, heading inward to be
swallowed up by the gloomy woods, until she could discern it no
longer.

The path
was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and strangely,
not a single bit of forest litter, not one crisp dead leaf, nor a
single tree root, blemished the pathway. The trail was so pristine,
it was as if someone had taken to it with a broom.

The path was
also incredibly inviting.

Her skin
prickled with anticipation and she was overcome with an
overwhelming urge to run through the trees. There was something
about being outside, surrounded by nature which had always made her
feel at home. Since before she could remember, forests and woodland
were comforting.

The idea
of finding where the path led enticed her. She gravitated without
thought, pushing past the fern and the long spiky grasses. She
desperately wanted to enter the cool moist shade of the woods. Her
foot wavered above the earthen path. As she was just about to take
her first step, a voice stopped her.

“
Nettle, come away from there.”

Fred’s
voice was like the sharp snap of fingers, gaining her attention
instantly.

She took
a deep breath and struggled to shrug off the insistent impulse. It
was terribly difficult to let go of the urge to walk beneath the
forest’s lush canopy. But she remembered her promise to her
father.

She
slowly turned around with guilty eyes.

Her
father looked deadly serious. He stared hard at her. She gulped
uncomfortably, feeling as though she’d been caught doing something
naughty, which she supposed she had. Her voice was whispery, “Where
does it go, Dad?”

Fred
glared a little longer at his daughter, watching her shift uneasily
under his gaze.

“
I wouldn’t go in there,” Bram quickly interjected as his
father’s thick brows knitted together with irritation.

“Good.
No one should.” Fred hoped that his answer was enough until he saw
that all three of his charges were looking at him expectantly. He
sighed. “That path cuts into the Forgotten Wilds, deep into the
woods. The Forgotten Wilds, well, it’s just that - wild and
dangerous and not a place for any one of us.” He looked as hard and
stern as he could at each of the children. He even had Jazz’s
attention.

“
What’s in there?” breathed Bram softly.

“
Creatures who will tear you apart and pick tiny bits of your
flesh out of their teeth with your bones and save it for later.”
Fred saw that while Jazz and Bram were wide eyed and slack jawed,
Nettle looked dubious.

“What kind of creatures?” Nettle asked.
This was different, not quite
the springs and mushrooms of earlier.

“Mangy
wolves, feral cats, toxic spewing slugs, plants that spit venom at
you… the woods are lurking with things that can kill you in an
instant. People go missing in there, all the time, it’s so easy to
lose your way, and get lost, and then become someone’s
dinner.”

Bram and Jazz
had paled and were looking at the forest in horror.

“So, I
don’t want any of you entering the Wilds, or following the
path.”

Jazz and Bram
readily nodded.

“
Nettle?” pressed Fred.

Nettle
crossed her fingers behind her back. She smiled. “Of course, Dad,
whatever you say.”

“
Alright you lot, back to work then.”

Bram and
Jazz quickly made their way through the backyard, Jazz in the lead
swinging her hockey stick like a machete. Nettle went to follow and
was stopped. Her father grabbed her arm, twisting her hand back to
reveal her fingers still crossed. Fred wasn’t surprised. “Nettle,
you look like me, but you’re your mother’s daughter.”

Nettle
chewed on her inner lip, ashamed and a little annoyed at being
caught. She wondered what her punishment was going to
be.

“Jazz is
far too self absorbed to bother going into the Wilds and Bram’s
entirely trustworthy. You, on the other hand,” he wavered, his tone
growing softer. “Well, you’re impetuous like your mother, but
entirely capable.” Fred eyed Nettle hard. There was a long quiet
moment before he added, “However, if by some reason, you do happen
to enter the Forgotten Wilds, keep to the path and never, ever,
stray from it... OK?”

Nettle nodded, her eyes round.
It was almost an invitation.
Almost.

“OK?”
her father urged. “I need to hear you say it.”

“
OK, OK, Dad.”

“OK
then.” Fred broke out into a grin and playfully slapped his thigh.
“Good, now I’ve got things to do, so I’ll be in later for
lunch.”

Nettle
watched her father go back to one of the rocks he was trying to
relocate. She wondered why he made up those ludicrous creatures to
warn them away from the Forgotten Wilds. Her father really was
behaving very, very strangely, and she needed to find out
why.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Accusations

The next morning
, Nettle was abruptly woken by the jarring sound
of Jazz’s bellow of fury. Jazz’s blotchy complexion was the hue of
her hair, a vibrant red. Utterly enraged, she grabbed the brightly
patterned quilt and hauled it from the bed, leaving Nettle and Bram
- who had crawled into her bed during the night with whisperings of
talking rats once more - exposed to the crisp autumn morning. At
the touch of cool air, goose-bumps rose in a rash of prickled skin
across Nettle’s chest and exposed arms.

Bram sat
up, blinking and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, wondering what
was going on, Nettle was beside him, looking just as
surprised.

For the moment it was highly amusing.
Dressed in silk floral pyjamas,
Jazz stalked up and down the bedroom, her hands flying about in
agitation as she snarled and spat and roared.

“What’s going on?”
Nettle asked, her voice slurred from sleep. She
ran a hand through her dishevelled mess of locks. Nettle couldn’t
make out too much, apart from the words “gone,” and “ruined,” as
well as “destroy you!”

“What’s going on?!” shouted Jazz, “
WHAT’S GOING ON?!” She stomped up the
side of the bed so she could lean down close to the
siblings.

Bram
flinched.

“As if
either of you don’t know. Stop playing dumb, and just tell me,
WHY!?” Jazz flicked Bram on the sensitive tip of the ear. Nettle
could tell her cousin wanted to do more than just flick his
ear.

“Ouch
,” Bram wailed, clamping a hand on his stinging ear,
squiggling away from her. Jazz’s hand snaked out as quick as a whip
and latched onto a handful of Nettle’s hair. She tugged down
viciously, dragging her cousin close.