Beginner's Guide to Curses (Kelpies)

by Lari Don

  Then she heard a car door slam, and a voice shout, “No, Tilly! Come back!”

  And she heard a dog bark.

  Molly felt a familiar flash of heat along her spine.

  She dropped to the ground, low and crouching…

  She saw the big cat looming over her and a flock of birds circling high above. She heard the dog bark closer, and she felt very small and very tasty.

  So Molly started to run.

  Chapter 5

  Molly leapt over the earth she’d just been digging.

  She heard the dog bark again, and zigzagged as she sprinted away. She saw it to her left, hairy and golden, bouncing cheerfully and hungrily towards her. It probably didn’t have the speed of a greyhound, but it would still happily savage her if she made a mistake and let it catch up.

  The earth wasn’t as smooth and easy on her paws as grass. And there wasn’t a fence or a hedge nearby, just high stone walls. Molly knew how far she could leap forwards as a hare, but she’d no idea if she could do the high jump.

  She hurtled round the field, searching for a way out. But she couldn’t see a gate. She still wasn’t completely used to the blind spot in front of her nose and she couldn’t stop moving to look properly.

  She heard shouting behind her. An adult voice, in the distance, yelling for Tilly to come back. Then Beth and Innes, nearer, yelling at the dog to go away.

  Molly could see Beth standing white-faced in the middle of the field, with Atacama crouched at her feet. She didn’t run towards them, because this wasn’t the time to find out what sphinxes liked to eat.

  Molly felt trapped. She could run like this for ages, but she needed somewhere to run towards.

  She saw the dog behind her right shoulder. It was running straight for her, and she still had no idea how to get away. She switched direction again, dashing to her left.

  And she saw a gate, at the top corner of the field.

  Molly ran towards the gap under the wooden bars. In a few more bounds, she darted under it, fitting easily through the space between wood and earth.

  She ran across a field of undug tatties, feeling a sudden desire to lie down, keep still and hope the dog wouldn’t see her. But that would be too risky, because she could already hear the dog’s bark of triumph as it squeezed under the gate and started chasing again.

  Molly sprinted towards the other side of the field, hoping for another gate with a lower bottom plank this time.

  But when she reached the other side, there was no gate.

  She suddenly realised this must be the last field on Mrs Sharpe’s farm. There was no gate because this was the limit of her land. And this boundary wall was higher than the walls between Mrs Sharpe’s own fields. It looked too high to jump.

  The golden dog was already halfway across the field.

  And it wasn’t the only thing following her.

  Now there was a horse following her too. A big white horse, huge hooves churning up the earth, crashing onto the ground like an earthquake.

  The horse was chasing the dog.

  The dog was chasing the hare.

  And the hare had nowhere to go.

  Molly ran frantically along the base of the wall, hoping for a hidden gate or a few tumbledown stones.

  She heard a squeal behind her. The horse had caught up with the dog and was slashing at the dog with its teeth. Molly watched, shocked into stillness, as the horse bit down.

  The horse snapped its mouth shut just above the dog’s ears. It had missed deliberately. But the dog didn’t know that; it howled and ran off.

  The horse galloped towards Molly.

  Molly wondered if the white horse was a kelpie, if the white horse was Innes, and remembered Atacama saying she should fear him when he ran fast on four legs.

  She sprinted up the edge of the field, still hoping for a gap in the wall.

  But there was no gap, and the huge horse was almost on top of her.

  So Molly swivelled round, took a run at the wall and…

  Jumped.

  She cleared the top stones with ease.

  On the other side, Molly fell awkwardly on her human hip and shoulder, and only just rolled out of the way as the white horse landed elegantly beside her.

  Before she could scramble to her feet and run off, the horse was already a boy.

  “Wow!” Innes reached out a hand to pull her up. “You’re fast! Fast and tricky!”

  She ignored the hand and used the rough stones of the wall to pull herself up.

  “But what’s with all the dodging about and zigzagging?” Innes asked. “Surely it means you have to run further? I just choose a spot and gallop straight at it.”

  Molly said, “Are you being hunted when you gallop?”

  “Not usually, no.”

  “I think the dodging is to throw off pursuit, and anyway I didn’t have a spot to run towards, because I couldn’t see a gate.”

  “You didn’t need a gate! You cleared the wall with loads to spare. You’re a serious athlete in that hare form. I’d love to race you to find out who’s faster, a stallion or a hare.”

  Molly clambered over the wall. “But aren’t you most dangerous when you’re four-legged?”

  “Not to hares. Too much fur, not enough meat, all those small bones are a choking hazard. You don’t need to worry about me when you’re a hare!”

  As they walked across the undug tattie field, Molly asked, “So how do you do that? How do we do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Change. Into a horse. Or a hare. How is it possible to change into something so much bigger than you, or so much smaller than me?”

  She looked at the hare’s prints in the earth as she covered them with the soles of her wellies. Long leaps, but small paws. The hare must be a tiny fraction of her human size.

  “Have you done physics at school yet?” asked Innes.

  “No, I’m not in S1 until next year.”

  “Me neither, but my dad explained it to me. There are huge gaps between all the different bits of an atom. The nucleus is like the sun, and the electrons are like orbiting planets, with vast spaces in between. We look solid and we feel solid. So do Beth’s trees, the water in the river, the stones of that wall. But actually we’re mostly made up of gaps between the atoms and gaps within the atoms. So Dad thinks shapeshifting expands or squeezes those gaps. It also moves the atoms around into slightly different, but not completely different, formations. I can shift into a fish or a horse, but not a stone or a tree, because all animals are built from the same basic proteins.”

  Molly frowned. “But you definitely weigh more as a horse, I heard you thunder across that field. And I weigh less as a hare, because I couldn’t leap like that if I didn’t. How does science explain that?”

  “No idea.” Innes grinned. “I might explain it better when I’ve passed Higher Physics and Biology!”

  “So you go to school?”

  “Of course. So does Beth.”

  “Do your classmates know what you are?”

  “Not all of them, just ones from families who tell the old stories. But no one really minds kelpies, so long as we don’t eat their children.”

  “And do you?”

  “Not if someone provides me with regular picnics,” replied Innes, as he climbed over the gate. Which by Molly’s count was the third time he hadn’t answered that question properly.

  As they walked across the field towards Beth and the others, Molly said quietly, “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For scaring off the dog.”

  “No problem. You’re so fast I’m sure you’d have got away yourself, but I was happy to help. We’re a team, aren’t we?”

  Innes walked past Beth and sat down by the basket. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

  Beth said, “Oh, now you’re hungry, so it’s time to eat.”

  Molly said, “I’d prefer he ate too.”

  Beth nodded. “Let’s eat, then finish digging.”

  Innes
found wipes and water in the basket, which they used to clean earth off their hands and paws. Then he passed out rolls to those with hands, and a roast chicken for the one with paws.

  Beth looked at the toad. “Mrs Sharpe didn’t pack for you, because you’re not on the register. Would you like my salad?” She pulled a lettuce leaf out of her cheese roll and placed it in front of the toad.

  Then she said, “So, now we know. Molly is a part-time hare. How did that happen?”

  “What’s the trigger?” asked Innes.

  “How do you turn back?” asked Atacama.

  Molly sighed. “I should just tell you the whole story. But it’s a bit embarrassing.”

  Innes laughed. “Curses aren’t usually good-behaviour prizes. Most of them have embarrassing or unflattering or even criminal stories behind them. Just tell us what happened.”

  So Molly told them:

  “I’m staying with my Aunt Doreen for the October holidays. Doreen Drummond, she lives on the corner opposite the big distillery. The first morning I was here, I was walking past her neighbour’s house and I trod in a pile of dog dirt. I realised the pavement was covered in little stinky piles, it was like doing the slalom on the ski slope getting round them all. I asked Aunt Doreen if that stretch of pavement was some kind of local dog toilet, and she said no, but Mr Crottel is lazy and throws his own dogs’ mess out of his garden onto the pavement, rather than cleaning it up properly. But, she said, don’t mention it to him, because he can get quite grumpy.

  “That afternoon, I was walking on the road to avoid the disgusting heaps on the pavement, and he threw dog dirt over the hedge and it hit me. It actually hit me. On the leg. It splattered against my jeans and slid down onto my trainers. So I shouted at him. He shouted back. It became a bit of an argument. Then he waved his hands about and used really old-fashioned language I didn’t completely understand, and now…

  “Well, now every time I hear a dog bark or growl, I turn into a hare. I didn’t even know what I was turning into the first few times. It was… it was quite scary…” Her voice tailed off as she remembered the first time.

  “I bet it was,” said Innes. “Kelpies aren’t allowed to shift until we’re seven years old, and even then we have our whole family around us to stop us panicking.”

  “How did you work out what you were?” Beth asked Molly. “Did you examine your pawprints?”

  “I didn’t think of that. I found out when a dog owner told me what animal he’d seen his dog chasing.”

  “Hares are wise and tricky animals, as well as fast,” said Atacama. “If Mr Crottel transformed you into a hare deliberately, he knew you wouldn’t be easy to catch. He may not have intended it to be a fatal curse.”

  “I think he wanted to give the local dogs sport, rather than give me a sporting chance, judging by what he yelled at me.”

  “Is it only dogs that trigger the shift? Not other predators?” Beth asked.

  Molly shrugged. “Atacama looks like a panther, like those big cats people sometimes report sightings of round here…”

  Atacama sighed. “We can’t stay hidden all the time.”

  “So you look like a predator, but even when I got a surprise meeting you in the classroom, I didn’t turn into a hare. And birds flying overhead,” she glanced round at the scarecrow, “like those crows, or even hawks, don’t make me change either. I think it’s just dogs. Which makes sense, if any of it makes sense at all, because it was dogs we argued about.”

  “What shifts you back?” asked Innes.

  “I don’t know. I run for ages, then change back when I least expect it.”

  “Tell us exactly where you’ve changed, every time,” said Atacama.

  “The first time, I changed back to a girl when I ran across a road. That was a bit awkward. The second time, I made it into someone’s garden under a fence. Yesterday, I reached the edge of the playing field and pushed through a hedge, and just now when I jumped the wall. Perhaps I turn back when I cross from one field or space to another?”

  “It can’t be that simple,” said Atacama. “You didn’t shift back when you went under the gate between the fields.”

  “Oh. No. Maybe we can figure it out during the workshop. Though if Mrs Sharpe can lift the curse before I meet any more dogs, I won’t need to find out what turns me back to a girl, because I’ll never become a hare again.”

  Chapter 6

  After they’d dug up all the potatoes in the small field and dragged the buckets to the back of the shop, they collapsed into chairs in the chilly classroom.

  Mrs Sharpe walked through the red door, clean, smiling and smelling of fresh herbs. She nodded at everyone slumped, muddy and exhausted, at their desks. “I see the buckets are full of tatties. You did the narrow field so fast, I’m sure you’ll manage a bigger field tomorrow. Now, are you ready to start some serious digging?”

  Beth sighed. “Not more digging.”

  “This is digging with words rather than forks. How much do you know about your own curses?”

  Before anyone could answer, Mrs Sharpe started writing on the blackboard in clear blocky letters that Molly recognised from the price boards in the shop. But the prices of cauliflower and kale were written in white chalk; these words were written in bright red chalk.

  Innes opened his notebook and carefully copied the witch’s words down.

  Molly looked round for pen and paper, but Beth, sitting behind her, whispered, “Don’t worry, Innes will get it all. We can borrow his notes if we need to.” So Molly leant back and watched the witch write questions:

  -Who cast the curse?

  -When was the curse cast?

  -Why was the curse cast?

  -Was the curse justified and reasonable, or disproportionate?

  -Was it a dying curse?

  -Are there limits to the curse?

  -Does the curse specify a task or quest that will lift the curse?

  -Is the curse-caster still living?

  -Would an apology help?

  -What would you sacrifice to be free of this curse?

  Innes was scribbling fast, Atacama was staring at the moving chalk like a cat watching a bird, the toad was squatting on a desk, and Beth was slouching in her chair.

  Then Mrs Sharpe wrote one last question:

  -Do you deserve to be free of this curse?

  She turned round. “Anyone know the answers to all these questions?”

  There was silence. Not even Atacama knew everything.

  “We can’t answer that last one ourselves, can we?” Molly said, eventually. “Surely someone else would have to decide if we deserved our curse. Is there a curse court or exam board or something? A judge who decides if people deserve their curses? Do we have to sit a test to lift these curses?”

  Mrs Sharpe shook her head. “It’s not like learning to drive or getting your cycling proficiency. And the wider world of curses is too advanced for this workshop.” She frowned as the toad knocked a pencil off its desk and the pencil rolled noisily across the floor.

  “But Molly is right: the last question is different. You can’t answer it until you know the answers to the others.

  “So your homework for tomorrow is to find answers to all these questions, ideally by interviewing the person who knows most about your curse. Then bring the answers back to the farm and share them with your fellow classmates. I also expect you to harvest the tatties from the field nearest the farmhouse before the sun sets again. I’ll see you here this time tomorrow evening to set you another task.”

  “But…” said Molly.

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “But… the only person who can answer those questions is the man who cursed me.”

  Mrs Sharpe walked over to a wall of wooden cupboards, each door stencilled with the name of a different workshop. She pulled a few sheets of paper out of the cupboard marked ‘Curse-lifting workshop supplies’ and handed them to Molly.

  “So you’d better visit your curse-caster. He might even li
ft your curse, if you ask nicely. But it’s not wise to bother dark-magic users when there is no light in the sky. You should all go to bed soon, then wake early to dig up my tatties – and dig up your curses.”

  Molly looked at the top sheet. It was printed with the questions Mrs Sharpe had written on the board and spaces to fill in the answers.

  Mrs Sharpe said, “One more piece of health-and-safety advice. It can be risky to speak to dark-magic practitioners even in daylight, so I suggest you go in teams.”

  The door closed behind her.

  “I told you she was into teamwork,” said Innes. “There are five of us, so that’s a team of two and a team of three. Beth, you’d better take Molly.”

  “Why? Because she’s a girl? We’re not going shopping for makeup, you know.”

  “Not because she’s a girl, because your family history isn’t full of eating people.”

  “Our family history is full of humans cutting our trees down.”

  “I can go on my own,” Molly said, as she handed out the sheets of paper. “Or with Atacama, or the toad…” She glanced at the toad, then added, “Couldn’t we just lift the toad’s curse right now? You know, with a kiss?”

  They all stared at the toad. The shiny, warty, pale brown toad. With its bulging eyes and wide mouth.

  “Are you volunteering to kiss the toad?” asked Innes.

  “It may not be a toad prince. It may be a toad princess. Maybe you should kiss it.”

  Innes laughed. “Prince or princess, I don’t mind. But you’d think if it wanted a kiss it would be friendlier.”

  Molly said, “Toad, if you want one of us to kiss you, just a quick kiss to break your curse, please hop or walk or crawl, or whatever toads do, right up to whoever would be most use to you.”

  The toad looked at Molly, then at Innes, then at Beth, then at Atacama. It leapt off the desk, legs splayed, and landed on the wooden floor.

  Molly held her breath, hoping it wouldn’t walk towards her.

  The toad turned its lumpy back on all of them and waddled towards the door instead.