Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (26 page)

Fifteen
minutes later, Bram left Quary with a handful of insects, an egg
cup of orange juice and another spoonful of Nutella. He found
Nettle by the lean-to hooking up an old paint-worn wagon to the
back of her bicycle. She’d tucked her hair under a grey tweed
bakers boy cap and wore a fly fisherman’s vest over her chequered
shirt.

Unbeknownst to
him she’d already hidden her father’s bicycle in the woodshed. She
was in the midst of squirting oil at the wheels of the wagon and
rolled it backwards and forwards until the horrid squeaking noise
subsided a little.

Jazz
fixed a cushion to the bike carrier, making a sharp snapping sound
with the spring. Nettle fixed her cousin with a baleful stare and
was bluntly ignored. Jazz eased herself onto the back of the bike.
“Come on, let’s go.”

“
Why do I have to pedal?” Nettle glowered.

Jazz gave her a
duh
look. “Because I said so, that’s why.”

Nettle’s jaw
tightened but she took her place on the bike. Bram got into the
wagon and held the sides tightly. With a push and a heave they were
off, rattling and squeaking around the cottage heading for Olde
Town. Except, as they rounded the cottage it became blindingly
obvious there was no exit. Nettle gently rolled to a halt.

Bram leaned
over the side of the wagon. “What is that?”

The
Forgotten Wilds was nowhere to be seen, neither was the driveway.
Overnight, just as Burban had said it would, the copse had grown to
the full height of the cottage. The black stems were heavily
studded with new buds. Each boulder’s tangle of branches had
interwoven with its companions, so the cottage was completely
surrounded by its very own thicket of rosebushes.

Nettle
delivered a grim half-smile. “That, is for our protection. It’s a
copse of roses. Talking roses, no less.” And she wondered if
perhaps this might be a blessing in disguise. If they couldn’t get
out, they couldn’t get to Olde Town.

“Oooo…”
replied Bram, impressed and eager to meet this new
development.

Nettle stepped off the bike and strode up to Burban. He was
fast asleep and snoring loudly. She politely
ah-ahemed
several times, and when that
failed, said stridently, “Excuse me!”

Burban
started, and slowly roused himself, his branches swaying and
scratching against one another. A puff of moths flew out of the
copse above his head in a cloud of white wings. He smacked his dry
lips and blinked gummy eyes, turning his tawny gaze on Nettle. His
mouth turned sourly. “Can’t you see I was sleeping?”

“
Sorry,” replied Nettle feeling just a little guilty. “It’s
just...” She scratched the back of her neck looking about. “I don’t
know how to get out of here. Where’s the exit?” There didn’t seem
to be any sort of gate or door or hole. She supposed, perhaps like
the Thicket, Burban might create an entrance by untangling the
branches.

Krinsky
drowsily woke, coughing and hacking. He went to ask what was going
on, but his nasally voice was scratchy and broke apart. He
swallowed several times to lubricate his throat, and tried again.
“What’s going on?”

Burban yawned.
His branches rustled gently. “The Blackthorn lass here wants
out.”

“
Whatever for?”

“
Don’t ask me, how would I know?” Burban snapped.

“Oooo
, don’t you get all moody with me,” complained Krinsky. “I
was just asking a perfectly reasonable question.”

Burban
squirmed in the dirt and looked grumpily at Nettle. “Where you
heading?”

“
Olde Town,” Nettle answered. She was scuffing her boot in the
dirt, easing out a patch of prickled weed. She quirked an eyebrow.
For some reason Burban looked inexplicably pleased.

“
Well, then. No.” Burban answered thoroughly enjoying refusing
permission.

Nettle’s
gaze became a little hooded. “What do you mean, no?”

“
You got twigs for ears? I mean it like it sounds. No. No one
goes to Olde Town.” Burban glowered at her. “Your father left two
instructions. Firstly, no one goes to Olde Town.”

Jazz gave an
annoyed groan, her mouth set sulkily. “Really, a talking tree is
telling us what to do?”

Nettle
turned to her cousin. “Looks like it.” She kicked at the pickle
patch by her feet. For some reason being denied Olde Town set her
teeth on edge and made her now want to go, her father’s orders to
stay out of sight be damned.

Bram clambered
out of the wagon and joined Nettle. He eyed Burban astutely, his
mouth pursed thoughtfully. “And the second instruction?”

Krinsky piped
up excitedly, “Is that the wee babe? The little Blackthorn
lad?”

Bram looked up
to Nettle, who gave him a slight nod of encouragement. He stepped
forward a little closer to Krinsky. “Yes, I am. I mean, I guess I
was, the last time I was here.”

“Oooo,
don’t he look just like his mother?” chit-chatted Krinsky
to Burban, his branches swaying closer to the siblings.

“
I don’t care if he looks like my behind!” Burban bellowed.
“No one’s going to Olde Town. We’re under strict orders, and that’s
that!” He ground himself deeper into the dirt, his large tawny eyes
furious. “So you lot take your bike back and settle in until your
Dad arrives back home!”

Bram twined
his fingers through Nettle’s, drawing nearer to her. His voice was
cast a little more hesitantly. “But what about this second
instruction of Dad’s?”

Before Burban
could reply, Krinsky answered brightly, “You’re in charge of
course. Well your sister is. We do, as she says.”

Burban’s
branches crackled and snapped. “Why’d you have to go and tell them
that for?!”

Krinsky
blinked, mildly confused. “Because that’s what her father told us
to do.”

Burban squiggled around in the earth burying himself deeper
and deeper until all that was left were two incredibly cross
looking eyes. He snorted out a scattering of dirt, surfacing to
grumble. “Tell me I’ve got pebbles for brains.
Baaah,
you’re the one with the intelligence
of a rock. Yer a right
plonker
!”

Nettle tried
not to smile and failed. She glanced over at her cousin and winked.
Jazz was astride the bike, each sneakered foot planted on either
side, she didn’t exactly grin back, but Nettle knew she was
pleased. She turned back to Burban. “So, according to my father,
you have to do whatever I want. So if I want you to let me out, you
have to.”

Burban scowled
looking away.

“
Burban..?” She sung.

He finally
pulled apart his taut lips. “Yes.”

“
Let us out.”

“
But you want to go to Olde Town and-”

Jazz interrupted, clearly bored with having to wait.
“Listen
Bonbon
, or whatever your name is, lets make this easy. Don’t
worry about where we’re going. Only worry about what Nettle here
tells you to do. So be a good...” she struggled to think, “pip...
seed...
ugh
,
whatever you are, and let us through.”

Burban’s
branches rubbed against one another, the barbs crackling and
snagging. “This is all your fault,” he grumbled at Krinsky. “When
he gets back, and we’re all in trouble, I’m gonna make your life a
misery. You’re going to wish you’d let me roll off into the Wilds
like I wanted.”

A moment later the branches before Nettle parted and an
exit was created through the copse. “Just like her mother, aint
she?” Krinsky whispered to his companion who was petulantly
distracted. As the trio rode through, Nettle’s mouth puckered and
she shot a dark scowl at Krinsky. “I am nothing like my
mother.”
And
for that,
she thought wickedly, her green eyes speckled with a fiery
amber,
neither of us are
going to be an any kind of hurry to return to the
cottage.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Toad
Terrine or Earthworm Pastry Cups?

An hour
later they stood in front of Barber Tuttlebee’s. Jazz wore a
horrified expression, her pale face pinched and drawn. “This can’t
be the place...” In the shop’s window, an elderly man with banker’s
sleeves using an old fashioned blade shaved off his customer’s
stubble. His own grey hair was thinning. He kept the front and
sides short, but long at the back. Jazz whispered in horror, “He’s
got a mullet.”

Nettle replied
with a smile and tone she reserved for times when Jazz was being
simpleminded and patted her congenially on the shoulder. “This is
the type of hairdresser us mere mortals without trust funds use.
It’ll be OK.” Nettle gently pushed Jazz toward the door. “We’ll see
you later at the tea house. It’s just a bit further up the hill.”
Before Jazz could protest, she added, “And for goodness sakes,
don’t tell anyone about the Forgotten Wilds and Quary.”

Jazz
blinked her big cornflower eyes at Nettle in disbelief. “Who’d
believe me anyway?” She turned on her heel and marched into the
barbers and flung one last look at Nettle, conveying her
displeasure with a simple crook of her mouth.

Nettle dawdled
up the path, Bram had run on ahead. While he’d found the peculiar
businesses that made up Olde Town fascinating, Jazz had irritated
them both with long sighs and bored expressions. She was severely
disappointed to find there weren’t any of the fabulously expensive
stores she was accustomed to, which rankled Nettle even further,
for in light of her parents misfortune, Jazz didn’t exactly have
any money to spend anyway.

Speaking of faerie, Nettle wondered how Olde Town might
have been spared the antics of the spriggans and other similar fae.
She’d not observed any lurking about, scuttling in the shadows, or
saw any slight suggestion the village might be plagued with faerie.
Which was strange, since the Forgotten Wilds was rife with
them.
Oh
well
, she
thought,
maybe they weren’t interested in large
settlements
.
Nettle rolled her shoulders and rubbed the back of her neck. The
itching had abated... but there was something else that troubled
her.

An uneasy
feeling...

The fine hairs
on the back of her neck prickled and a shiver ran through her.

She felt...
watched
.

It was just a
slight sway of black fabric, a shrug of the shoulders, easily
mistaken for slinking shadows, but Nettle had caught it. She
pivoted, her sharp gaze taking in the gloomy darkness of the
alleyway separating Saintsberry’s Bakery and Goodmire Grocers. A
figure, hunched and shrouded in a threadbare cloak, shrank back.
Nettle’s pulse quickened.

She took a
couple of steps forward, very slowly, as not to startle the
stranger. “Hello there?” The tattered hood of the cloak hung over
their head, shielding their identity. The stranger stood still for
a moment, each of them seizing up the other. Then at the merest of
movements, a hand slowly rising in a peaceful gesture, Nettle
frightened off the cloaked figure who scuttled away, casting one
last glance over their shoulder.

“
Wait!” Nettle cried and ran to the alleyway. But by the time
she got there, the person, whoever it was, was gone.

Puzzled, Nettle reluctantly carried on up the hill. Someone
lurking in the alleyway in a worn and shabby old cloak didn’t quite
fit the image of Claudine’s Olde Town.
Maybe they’re part of the act,
she thought, not
really convinced,
a beggar perhaps?
It just didn’t sit well with Nettle. The encounter
was far too odd and she had the strangest feeling that whoever it
was, had been following her since her arrival.

By the time
Nettle entered the Three Wicked Sisters’ Tea House, Margot had
seated Bram. He waved her over, his golden face beaming. “I love
it! Isn’t it marvellous!”

Nettle’s
freckled face broke into a matching grin. “Isn’t it just.” She
pulled her bakers-boy cap off her head and stuffed it into her
jacket pocket before sitting down beside him. Delicious smells of
cardamom wafted from a goblet as a waiter whisked by with a silver
tray. Nettle waved out to Claudine who had just entered the dining
room, a wicker basket over an arm. No doubt she was about to make
her morning deliveries. Claudine came over, weaving around the tea
room. She was dressed formally in her black taffeta dress, the
skirt elegantly rustling as she wove past each table, and the
town-folk took notice, glancing her way.

“
Well hello.” Claudine’s white teeth set in a wide smile,
gleamed. “So nice to see you again. I had such a wonderful time
yesterday.” She glanced around and Nettle was delighted to see she
was looking for her father.

“
Oh, Dad’s not here.” Nettle answered before she spoke. “He
had to leave for a few days.”

Claudine’s
expression faltered, her smile slipping a little. “Oh.”

Nettle shot Bram an overly excited
oh-my-gosh
look and tried very hard not to let
her excitement show. Their father had actually made a positive
impression on Claudine!

“
I hope he’s not going to be away too long.” Claudine almost
sounded put-out with Fred and his absence. There was a flash of an
expression that danced across her face, a disappointment and
annoyance in herself, as if she’d made a wrong decision. But then a
moment later with a silly dismissive wave to herself, she said in a
light tone, “Oh, not to worry. I’ll see him soon
enough.”