by Lari Don
Rosalind stopped chanting verses over Molly’s toes and said clearly, “People do silly things when they’re scared.”
Aunt Jean ducked her head under the table. “Yes, they do darling. But you don’t need to be scared. Beth will save our trees by asking these questions.”
Rosalind started murmuring again, “One berry, two berries, three berries RED! Four berries…”
Beth asked, “Was it a dying curse?”
Molly wrote yes, before everyone else said it, then Beth read out, “Are there limits to the curse?”
Jean answered, “Yes. The limits were when the families died out, which happened in the nineteenth century, and when the wood no longer exists. It’s a slow death, much slower than hers.”
“Was the curse written down? Do you know the exact words?” asked Molly.
Jean nodded. “It’s written in our hearts and the words burn again each autumn.”
They all said it, even Rosalind under the table:
“For this agony, I curse every man and woman round this fire. Each of your families will lose one member to a burning death by fever each October, until none of your blood live on this land. And I curse the woodland that tortures me with unbearable smoke and heat. One tree will burn each October, until that wood is bare dead earth. This is the promise I make with my death.”
There was silence in the kitchen, until Rosalind started murmuring again. “One berry, two berries, three berries RED!” She shifted so she was leaning warmly against Molly’s leg. “Four berries, five berries, the trees are all…”
Molly started to write the curse down, but she couldn’t remember it all. Beth took the pen. “Let me.”
Molly read the next question. “Does the curse specify a task or quest that will lift the curse?”
Pete shook his head.
So Beth read, “Is the curse-setter still living?”
No wrote Molly.
“Are any of her family still living?” Molly asked, hoping to fill in more space on the sheet. “Did she have children? Are there any Wilkies still around here?”
Pete said, “No, there are no local Wilkies descended directly from the witch because she had no sons, though there are couple of descendants through a daughter’s line. But they haven’t dabbled in magic for a long time.”
Rosalind crawled out from under the table, right over Molly’s feet, her knees crushing Molly’s toes. She said cheerfully, “Auntie Jean! I know how to bake cakes that aren’t horrid! I could put them out in the sunshine, that wouldn’t burn them!”
Jean smiled. “Shush just now. Beth’s doing her homework.”
Beth read out: “Would an apology help?”
“Who could we apologise to? What would we apologise for?”
“What would you sacrifice to be free of this curse?”
“Isn’t that a question for you, Beth?” Jean said softly.
Molly glanced at Beth, who was staring out the window at the trees around the house.
Molly opened her mouth to ask Jean something, and shut it again, afraid she’d offend her. Then she decided that offending dryads wasn’t as bad as burning their trees, so she said, “Why is Beth doing this workshop? If Mrs Sharpe lifts the curses of everyone who goes on the workshop, why hasn’t one of you done it before?”
“Aggie sets an age limit on this workshop, between eleven and twenty-one years old. Young enough to learn, she says. I suspect she’s looking for folk fit enough to howk her tatties. But when she started these courses a few years ago, the rest of us were already too old, and Beth only turned eleven this summer. That’s why Beth is doing it for all of us.”
“There is another hard question,” whispered Beth. “Do you deserve to be free of this curse?”
Jean and Pete looked at each other again. Beth rubbed her scarred arm.
Molly felt Rosalind, back under the table, tickling her ankle with the ends of the laces.
“Of course you deserve to be free of the curse.” Molly wrote YES in big clear letters. “You didn’t hurt this witch, your trees didn’t do her any deliberate harm, you shouldn’t still be suffering for what ignorant people did hundreds of years ago. Yes, you all deserve to be free of this curse.”
“But do we deserve it more than our uncles, aunts and cousins who suffered it over the years, when no one was offering a way out?” asked Jean quietly.
“Rosalind shouldn’t have to suffer like you have,” said Molly.
Beth took the pen from Molly’s hand and wrote:
We deserve to be free of it.
“Any other questions?” asked Pete.
Molly had lots of questions. How could human-looking babies be born from trees? How did they communicate with their trees? Did all trees have a dryad? Were there dryads in every wood?
But Beth said, “No more questions. We’ve done our homework, we’d better get back to the tattie-lifting. It’s hard work though,” she said with a small smile, “and we haven’t eaten since breakfast. Could we take a few cakes, please, Aunt Jean?”
“Of course. You could take all Rosalind’s cakes…”
Rosalind giggled under the table. “Innes would eat my cakes. He eats anything, especially when he’s a big squishy monster.”
Jean laughed too. “You can take a bag of my cakes, so long as you share them with everyone on the workshop.”
“Even the toad?” asked Molly. “We’re not really sure what the toad eats.”
“There’s a cursed toad?” said Pete. “Oh yes, I think being nice to the toad is a very good idea.”
They packed warm golden cakes into a paper bag, said goodbye to Jean and Pete, and hugged Rosalind. Then Molly and Beth walked back through the wood.
As they circled round three rowans with a pile of soggy grey cakes at their roots, Molly saw a robin peck up a crumb, tip its head to the side like it was considering the taste, then waggle its beak to shake the sticky crumb off. She smiled, then asked, “Was that useful, Beth? Did you find out anything you didn’t know?”
“Not really, and I’d have found it out a lot faster if you hadn’t insisted on showing off your ignorance by asking all those extra questions. I told Innes we shouldn’t let a beginner, a human, onto the workshop. I knew you’d slow us down.”
“What do you have against humans? I thought you went to the local school with human pupils?”
“Yes, but that’s me in their world. That’s safe. I don’t do any harm there. I don’t trust humans in my world.”
“Why? Because of one human witch, one curse, three hundred years ago? You can’t blame all humans for that!”
“It’s not just the curse. And it’s not all humans. Some people do respect trees, but most of you don’t. There are humans damaging the trees’ world all the time. Look!” Beth marched over to a gnarled old silver birch, with hearts, lightning bolts and initials carved into its wide trunk. “See! Humans and their blades cutting our trees. Attacking and assaulting and hurting and scarring!” Beth’s voice cracked as she stroked the bark.
Molly sighed. She had never carved her initials into a tree, but she’d never thought it was a crime before either.
Then Beth gasped. “This one is still fresh.” She shoved the bag of cakes at Molly, laid her hands either side of a botched splintery ‘K’ hacked into the bark and murmured gentle words.
Molly waited quietly, not wanting to interrupt another dryad-to-tree conversation, nor to defend the vandal who had hurt this living tree.
When Beth patted the birch and stepped away, Molly saw that the trunk was still marked with a squint ‘K’, but it looked less wounded now, as if it had been scraped rather than hacked.
“Did you just heal the tree?”
“I encouraged her to knit the damaged cells back together. That’s my job, to look after the trees. It’s not my job to look after annoying humans in my wood, or in this magical world.” Beth grabbed the cakes and strode off towards the bikes.
As Molly clambered onto her bike, she said, “Back to the fa
rm and the tattie field?”
“So long as we dig at opposite corners.”
Molly nodded. That was probably the best idea.
Chapter 10
When Molly and Beth arrived back at the tattie field, they found three forks, a stack of empty red buckets and a lunch basket, but no one digging. Beth dropped the bag of the cakes onto the basket, picked up a fork and a bucket, then strode off to the far corner of the field.
Molly picked up a fork and pushed it into the claggy earth. “I’ll meet you in the middle,” she called.
Beth didn’t answer.
Digging allowed Molly plenty of time to think, especially as she was pulling up fewer tatties than the day before, even though she was putting in as much effort. Working beside Innes, Atacama and the toad yesterday had gone much faster and more easily.
She knew she should be coming up with ways to change Mr Crottel’s mind about lifting her curse. But it was hard to think about her curse without also remembering how terrified she’d been when the witch’s dogs trapped her in the garden.
She found herself thinking about Beth instead. About the unfairness of the curse on Beth’s family, but also the unfairness of Beth blaming Molly for all the awful things humans had done to her trees.
She looked at Beth on the far side of the field, head down, digging and pulling. She found the dryad prickly, but fascinating. She’d love to know more about how dryads worked with the trees. But if Beth couldn’t be friends with a human, there was no point pushing. Once they’d finished the course, they’d probably never see each other again.
She kept digging and loosening and howking. Molly found herself chanting as she worked. “Dig, wiggle, pull! Dig, wiggle, pull!” Soon she was waggling her shoulders and hips as she chanted. “Dig, wiggle, pull!” She smiled as she danced her tattie-howking dance.
She raised the fork in the air, chanting, “Dig, wiggle, pull! Dig, wiggle, pull…” and brought the four metal prongs down, right towards the big round eyes of the toad.
Molly gasped and jerked the fork away.
The toad didn’t move. It just stared up at her.
She dropped the fork and crouched down. “I nearly speared you right through, you silly thing! Why did you creep up on me?”
The toad stared at her.
“I suppose you couldn’t warn me, could you? Can toads even make a noise?”
The toad inflated its pale throat and made a sudden loud sound, like a fast drumming or hammering.
“So you can croak! Next time, please croak when you’re getting close, so I don’t aim a fork at you.”
The toad croaked again.
“Was that a yes?”
The toad croaked again.
Molly smiled. “Now we’re chatting, can you tell me if you found answers to your curse questions this morning?”
The toad croaked.
Molly frowned. “Is that a yes or just a croak? What about silence for no and croaking for yes?”
The toad croaked.
“Brilliant. So, did you find out more about your curse?”
The toad stayed silent.
“Can’t you ask the person who cursed you?”
The toad just stared at her.
“Would that be too dangerous?”
The toad gave one small quiet croak.
“I’m sorry.” Molly sighed. “So, do you know how to lift your curse?”
The toad didn’t croak.
“Me neither.” Molly smiled sympathetically at the toad. “But Mrs Sharpe will do it for us, won’t she?”
The toad was silent.
Molly sighed. “I wonder if you understand any of what I’m saying…”
The toad croaked.
“Oh. Good. So, can I help you write your homework or anything?”
The toad was silent.
Molly stood up. “I’m happy to help, if you want. In the meantime, let’s dig these tatties. I find singing as you work helps it go faster. You can sing the bass line…”
The toad croaked.
So the toad dug at one tattie shaw while Molly did a whole row, singing, “Dig, wiggle, pull! Dig, wiggle, pull! Dig, wiggle—”
Then a voice said loudly in her ear, “Are you dancing with the fork or the toad?”
She looked round at Innes, pale and hunched with his hands in his pockets, and Atacama, dark and calm with his tail flicking in the cool autumn air.
Molly laughed, “I think we’re all dancing with the tatties. It’s a bit boring otherwise! Now you’re here, though, we can discuss what we found out today, which should make the digging go faster.”
But Innes picked up a fork and walked to another corner of the field, muttering, “Even your singing would be better than talking about how my dad entirely deserves the curse that’s killing his sons and his rivers.”
Molly, Atacama and the toad watched him slouch away, but Beth yelled, “Oh no you don’t, Innes! No one’s going off in a huff today!”
Molly thought that was a bit of a cheek, after Beth had walked away from her so many times in the woods.
But she smiled as Beth chivvied everyone into Innes’s corner, organised them digging neighbouring rows and said, “We have to do as much homework as we can now, so Mrs Sharpe can teach us new stuff tonight. Let’s share what we found out.”
They dug, much faster than before, while Beth ran through the answers her Aunt Jean and Uncle Pete had given.
And Molly described her unpleasant encounter with Mr Crottel. “Even though he wasn’t very cooperative, I did find out that he meant to curse me and that he won’t lift it, and also I know that crossing boundaries is what shifts me back. So my homework was a bit scary, but it wasn’t a waste of time.”
Then she added, “I’ve chatted to the toad, and the toad hasn’t spoken to the person who cursed him or her, and doesn’t know of a way to lift the curse. Is that accurate?”
The toad croaked.
Molly said, “Yes, that’s accurate.”
She looked up, to see the rest of them staring at her.
Beth said, “You chatted to the toad?”
Molly nodded.
Innes muttered, “This human sings to tatties, dances with forks and chats to toads. It’s a shame none of those are vital skills for lifting curses.” He lunged forward and thrust his fork into the earth like he was eviscerating enemies.
Beth said, “It was you who thought involving her would be a good idea.”
Atacama said, “It was a good idea. And working together was a good idea too, Innes, even if you’re struggling to remember why just now.”
Innes didn’t answer, just threw a large potato so hard that the bucket tipped over.
Beth said, “We’re stuck with each other just now, so let’s make the best of it. What did you two find out?”
Innes said, “Why do we have to talk about it? Are we learning anything from each other’s horror stories of death, destruction and dog jobby? Our task was to find these answers, not to discuss them all day like a group therapy session.” His voice was cracking. “I don’t see why you have to know all my family’s business…”
Molly said quickly, “That’s fine. We’ll hear it when you tell Mrs Sharpe tonight, if you don’t want to say it more than once.”
He looked at her and nodded.
Beth said, “So, Atacama, did you find your curse-caster?”
Atacama shook his head and groomed his left ear.
“For goodness sake, cat. Can’t you bear to tell us either?” snapped Beth. “We’ve told you everything.”
Atacama said, “There’s very little to tell. I don’t know who cursed me, and there weren’t any witnesses, so I couldn’t interview anyone. But I returned to the site I was guarding when it happened…” His voice trailed away into a growl.
“Where is that?” asked Molly.
“It’s beside a pyramid, obviously,” said Innes.
“Really? A pyramid? In Speyside?”
Atacama said, “Yes. Until last week, I
guarded a hidden entrance to our client’s domain, in the back wall of the cooperage yard at the distillery, where the whisky barrels are made and mended. There are lots of old casks stacked in wooden pyramids. It’s a perfect place to hide a magical door and the sphinxes who guard it.”
Molly had seen the high piles of rounded barrels every time she came to stay with her aunt, but she’d never thought of them as Scottish pyramids. “Who’s your client and what’s through the door in the wall?”
“I don’t know. I’m a guard. I stop people entering or allow them past; I don’t know where they go or whom they visit.
“So, Innes and I went to the pyramids, where we greeted my sister Caracorum, who is guarding the door today. Then Innes asked the questions on the sheet and pushed me to remember everything I could about the day I was cursed.”
“And you showed me how you stopped your attacker getting through the door,” interrupted Innes, sounding more enthusiastic than he had all day. “You must have had an amazing duel.”
Innes turned to Beth, Molly and the toad. “Scars on the ground, claw marks on the casks. It was pretty impressive. Atacama fought him off single-handed! Single-pawed, anyway.”
“I didn’t win, though, did I?” murmured Atacama. “I’m cursed now, I’m no use to anyone.”
“You stopped him getting in, so you did your job,” Innes said firmly. “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Unlike… unlike some other people who’ve been cursed.”
“If you fought with the curse-caster, why don’t you know who it is?” asked Molly.
“I’ll tell you the story I told Innes in the cooperage yard. One evening, when I was on duty, a pillar of whirling golden sand approached the pyramids. I stood up to block the door in the wall, and a voice demanded to be let past.”
