“Nettle!” bellowed her father. His voice ripped through her dazed state. “Go get that horse-shoe!”
Nettle panicked, “What horse-shoe?” All she could see was the spriggan and its undulating folds of flesh. Its size was of such mammoth proportions, she could barely make out its limbs from its torso. It was like her father was grappling with a gigantic pillow.
“It’s on the wall, where the cot is – was,” he corrected. “Quickly!”
Nettle edged around the creature as it fought her father. The spriggan was trying to grab hold of her father, but the beast’s arms were too fat and its movements too slow. She didn’t know how much longer he was going to be able to keep the spriggan at bay. One more mouthful of air, and she was certain it would either smash through the ceiling or the floor would give way beneath them.
“Hurry,” Fred urged.
Right where her father said it would be, an old iron horse shoe hung on the wall where the cot once stood. Nettle gratefully ripped the horse shoe from the wall. She stretched out an arm, trying to reach her father. “Dad!”
Fred loosened his grip on the creature to reach for the horse-shoe. The spriggan wrestled its mouth free.
“Dad! Watch out!” Nettle shrieked.
The spriggan drew in an enormous mouthful of air, filling its cheeks to capacity and swallowed it down in a massive gulp. Nettle was instantly squished against the bedroom’s hard wall as the creature’s rubbery flesh expanded, the skin stretching thinly like a party balloon. The hand holding the horseshoe was pinned awkwardly above her head. She felt a crushing pain as her ribs begin to compress. “Dad!” she yowled.
Fred gave the spriggan a good slap in the face. “Nettle, you have to press the horse shoe against its body!”
“I can’t!” she gasped. She couldn’t move. She was stuck. It was getting hard to breath. Panic began to overwhelm her.
Fred let go of the creature’s mouth and punched it in the face. His fist smashed a couple of its teeth. It roared, expelling air and deflated slightly. Black blood spurted from its mouth as it spat out three rotten teeth.
The pressure against Nettle eased only a little, but it was enough for her to wriggle her arm free. She pressed the horse shoe against the spriggan’s rotund stomach.
As soon as the iron pressed into the creature’s skin it scorched a half-moon imprint. The air churned with blackened smoke of smouldering flesh, stinging Nettle’s nostrils. The spriggan howled in agony, releasing another mouthful of air and it shrank further in size.
Nettle pushed the horse-shoe, again and again, burning flesh and extracting screams of torment. The screeching noise made her skin crawl.
As the spriggan deflated, it grew more agile, its movements swifter. It lunged for Nettle. Nettle yelped and flung herself backward. She stumbled over something and fell, just as the creatures arms swung above, narrowly missing her.
Fred’s olive eyes darkened. “Don’t you dare!” He battered the spriggan’s head, startling it. The beast turned its attention back on him like he wanted. It went berserk, throwing itself against the wall, desperate to crush Fred. Fred hung on tightly and kept slapping the creature across the face, rocking its head from side to side to keep the attention on him and not his daughter.
The spriggan hurtled itself against the wall and caught Fred across the back. “Ooof…” Fred groaned, paling, and almost lost his grip.
Nettle screamed.
The spriggan shook itself violently like a dog after a swim. Fred’s glasses slipped from his face, hanging off of one ear, but he didn’t let go of the spriggan. “Horse-shoe!” he yelled and Nettle tossed it to him, her father only just managing to catch it.
She frantically looked about for her brother. “Bram?!”
“Over here!” Bram was cowering in the far corner of the room.
Nettle dodged past the whirling spriggan and Bram flung himself into her arms. She hugged him tightly, “Are you OK?”
She felt him nod and gave him a comforting squeeze. His muffled voice warbled, “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I let it out of the cage and it just went mad.”
“It’s OK.” Nettle soothed, “Dad’s got it under control.”
She watched her father in wonderment.
The spriggan had diminished to the size of a tall human. Fred clung to its back as it whirled about the room, shrieking and struggling to strike him. He held on tight, pressing the iron against the creature’s flesh. It screeched and squealed in frustration as it quickly deflated, dwindling to the height of a stocky teenager. The spriggan staggered beneath her father’s weight and fell to its knees. Fred stepped off the creature and loomed over it as it rapidly shrunk to the height of a young child, swiftly shrinking back to its natural size.
Fred snatched the spriggan and held it tightly about the waist. The little creature was only a foot tall but still fought fiercely to free itself. Finally after a long spell, it gave up and went limp. Out of breath, it kept a leery eye on Fred.
Fred blew out a deep breath, exhaustion made his limbs instantly heavy but he dared not relax until he had the spriggan locked away. He turned to his children, grinning with relief and a certain amount of satisfaction.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Wart-Face and Rat-Droppings
Nettle stared in disbelief at the strange little man trapped in her father’s hands. She clutched Bram’s arm so tightly, he squirmed. “Ouch, you’re hurting me.”
She started, and relaxed her grip. “Sorry.”
Bram rubbed his arm, and gave her a small smile.
The creature gave her a churlish sneer. He had a squat face with beady black eyes and no neck. After a long moment Nettle was finally able to ask, “What is that?”
Her father gave her a level stare. “This, is a spriggan.”
The shriek that followed was not from either of his children. It came from Jazz. She stood in the doorway, a trembling finger pointed at the spriggan. “It’s not a RAT!”
The creature pah’d and spat a gob of spit on the floor. He fixed Jazz with a baleful glare.
“Ew,” Nettle grimaced. “So very, very gross.”
The spriggan said nothing further, but he didn’t take his eyes from Jazz either.
“No, not a rat.” Fred said very slowly and calmly, hoping to reassure them all. “It’s a type of faerie.”
Jazz and Nettle exchanged a perplexed glance. Nettle turned back to her father with an are-you-for-real stare. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Well,” Fred drawled, looking from Nettle to Bram to Jazz. How to explain this? “I guess, the best way to describe a spriggan, is, if you think along the lines of brownies and imps and goblins and pixies-”
Nettle burst into laughter. “Really, Dad? Come on.” Maybe he’s just one of those really little little-people, she thought, trying to be rational. Except, a moment ago, it was this massive creature that engulfed the whole room… so that wouldn’t explain it either. Her gaze started getting a far-away quality. “A faerie…” she echoed.
Bram interrupted, grasping the concept far quicker than the two girls. “Like the bedtime stories you used to read?”
Nettle shook her bewildered head, her charcoal lashes blinking rapidly, and repeated again, “Faerie?”
Fred nodded, briskly moving on. “Now, a spriggan,” he began, holding the little creature aloft. It gave the children a sullen pout. “Can’t help himself. They’re thieves and bandits, simply annoying at best. But they have been known to steal babies. And their only real form of protection is blowing themselves up to the size you saw, just now.”
Nettle still needed clarification. She raised a finger. “You mean that’s a faerie, a real faerie?”
“Yes.”
“So all those stories… are real?”
Fred gave a non-committal half-nod. “Yes, well, as you can imagine, the stories have been exaggerated and twisted somewhat, but in essence… I suppose… yes.” He began to pace the room. “Trenawts, sprites, imps, brownies, p
ixies, the lower denizens. Then there’s the goblins and the ysar, with more power than anyone should rightfully own,” he said giving the kids a disparaging look, as if they knew and agreed with him.
The two girls just stared back at him, slack-jawed and stupefied.
“Right… then…” the words drifting apart as he realized he’d gone too far. Bram was the only one soaking in the new knowledge, listening with interest. Fred waved his hand in a careless manner. “I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.”
Nettle just couldn’t get her head around it all. “Faeries actually exist?”
Fred grimly nodded.
“Oh, OK,” she said and sank to the floor. Her murky green eyes were wide and vacant and fixed on nothing in particular. This was ridiculously mind-bending. Faeries actually exist... they actually exist… It was hard to think, to contemplate. Her world had been knocked sideways, and upside-down and back-to-front. There was this other world just outside her door, and she had grown up in this cottage. Why don’t I remember any encounters? It didn’t make sense.
Fred lifted the spriggan to eye level. He remained silent for a long while until the spriggan squirmed uncomfortably under his stare, and then he asked. “What’s your name?”
The spriggan pressed his fat lips together, refusing to answer.
“What are you doing here?”
The spriggan didn’t answer that question either, crossing his arms defiantly instead.
Bram answered for him. “His name is Quary Gravell.”
Fred glanced at his son in surprise.
“He told me that just before I let him out of the cage.”
“What cage?”
Bram bent down and picked up the bird cage. “I was tired of Jazz blaming us for everything that happened to her, so I laid a trap.”
Jazz, for the most part, looked slightly ashamed. She gave her cousin the briefest of apologetic glances. Nettle guessed that was the best either of them was going to get from her.
Fred looked at the cage appreciatively. The spriggan shrank from it as far as Fred’s grip would allow. “I haven’t seen this in years. I crafted it from the branches of a rosebush. They don’t go near the plants as it weakens them. Leaves nasty welts on them too.”
“You built that?” asked Nettle, rising from the floor.
Fred shrugged. “I was sick of them getting in the house.” He dropped the spriggan into the cage. The little faerie immediately sprung away from the wooden bars, squealing, and crouched in the centre of the cage.
Nettle stared at her father as if it was the first time she’d ever seen him.
Bram poked his glasses back to the bridge of his nose which was crinkled in contemplation, now understanding why the cage had been so effective. “I trapped him in it earlier today. He didn’t do anything, until I took him out. I guess he couldn’t, ‘til he was freed.” Bram’s shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry Dad. I didn’t know what he could do. He could have destroyed the cottage and it’s all my fault.”
Fred ruffled his son’s hair, letting him know everything was all right. “But he didn’t.” And he bumped his son playfully with a hip, eliciting a small smile from Bram. He turned back to the bird cage, “So, Quary Gravell, you got anything you want to say for yourself?”
The spriggan turned his back on Fred and huffed.
“Did he say anything else to you besides his name?” Fred asked Bram.
Bram wrinkled up his nose, “Just a few things. He called me ‘wart-face’ and he hoped I’d ‘choke on rat-droppings.’”
Fred chuckled. “Well I wouldn’t expect much else from the likes of a spriggan.” He ran a rough thumb across his lips, thoughtfully. “They often travel in small thieving bands. I expect whoever he’s travelling with will try and free him. I suppose I should think about letting him go.”
The spriggan suddenly turned around in interest.
“No,” snarled Jazz, suddenly animated. “He cut off my hair! He needs a good spanking if nothing else. And I’ll give it to him.”
The spriggan glared daggers at Jazz, almost as if he dared her to.
“Why would they do something like that?” Jazz wailed to her uncle, “What did I ever do to them? It’s going to take ages to grow it back.”
“I’m sure it won’t take long before your hair grows back,” soothed Fred. He headed toward the bedroom door, the cage under his arm. “Well, I don’t know about you lot, but I’m starving. Come on, lets eat.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Forgotten Wilds
Fred whistled while he cooked up a hearty supper of eggs, beans and fried tomatoes with thick slices of buttered toast. He’d hung the bird cage up on a hook in the kitchen and the spriggan glowered at the family below. Though he’d been offered something to eat, he’d refused, but every so often his nose twitched and stomach growled and he glanced down with longing.
Night had fallen and Bram had lit a collection of candles gathered in the centre of the table. The slight draft in the kitchen sent their slender flames into undulating waves and cast playful shadows that chased one another in the corners of the room.
Nettle pushed her eggs around the plate. Orange yolk had burst from one of the poached eggs and soaked a corner of her toast. She didn’t need to remind herself to check in with the cage, she found herself glancing up frequently just to verify the creature was still there. Now that she had time, she realized the spriggan wore an eye patch and sported a three cornered hat with a raspberry patched shirt, with Jazz’s earring as a breast plate beneath a leather vest. She shook her head in mild disbelief for the umpteenth time that evening.
For once Jazz was unusually quiet and compliant. She’d gingerly washed the dust off earlier, and her lacerated skin was dotted all over with a creamy white lotion her father had made for her cuts. She looked as if she’d a bad case of the chicken-pox. If the evening wasn’t so strangely odd, Nettle probably would have had the forethought to take a sneaky photograph of her.
“So Dad,” Nettle began. “What is the Forgotten Wilds, really?”
Fred took a moment, he wasn’t sure exactly how to explain. “I guess the best way to describe it as other-worldly. It’s the territory, realm… homeland…” he said rubbing his fingers against his stubbly chin. “I don’t know, I guess it’s just the place where all those fantastical beings that you read about as children live.”
“Faeries.” Nettle answered, her mind skipping through images of ogres and pastel winged fairies, goblins and pixies.
“But, aren’t they just tales?” Bram said, but then glanced up at Quary Gravell who was glaring down at him through his one good eye. “I guess they’re not,” he amended.
“All stories of myth are based on some form of reality, no matter how slight. It’s just the passage of time and doubt that twists them into long-ago-tales.”
“But why don’t we know of them? Why isn’t it common knowledge?” Nettle threw her arms wide. “Like, this forest is huge.” She remembered the map that brought them here. The forest almost took up the entire chart. “How come no one else has stumbled upon it, and these creatures, well before now?”
“The Forgotten Wilds is an appropriate name for such a place.” Fred answered. “No one ever seems to remember it. People just drive by. They forget the forest even exists. Its there in the peripherals of their mind, but… it just doesn’t seem to stick.”
Bram rested his elbows on the table and leant his chin on his interwoven fingers. “If that’s the case,” he said, reminding Nettle of a professor. “Then, how do we? You remember the Wilds, and we do too.”
“We come from the Wilds. Our family has always lived at Blackthorn Cottage.” He shook his head. “Though the cottage used to be situated near the border of the forest. Over the centuries the Wilds encroached upon the property and surrounded us. It’s only been my generation that left the Wilds for the outside world. Even then, you both were born here.”
“I wasn’t,” piped up Jazz.
“No, but you�
��re blood.”
Now seemed like the right time to ask about something that had been playing on her mind. “Then why don’t I remember?” Nettle asked. “I know I was a child when we lived here with…” Nettle refused to say with Mum, “But, why don’t I remember meeting any faerie folk?”
“We had things in place to keep most of the faerie from the cottage, but you’re right, on occasion you did meet some.” He half-shrugged shaking his head despondently. “But when we left the cottage for good, you never wanted to talk about our time here. You made yourself forget.”
Oh, Nettle thought to herself, she had. She’d done her best to erase everything that had anything to do with her mother, which meant most of her childhood memories.
“If we’re from here, wouldn’t it be safe for our family to walk through the forest, then?” pursued Bram.
Fred shook his head. “No. It’s not safe for anyone. We always have to be very, very careful and respectful of where we live. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you, like the man I suspect Jazz met, will fall to one of its many entrapments. Unwary travellers, even today, go missing in the Wilds and centuries can pass during the course of a single day.”
Nettle shot her cousin a quizzical glance. “What man?” She’d almost forgotten her father and Jazz staggering out of the forest earlier today.
Jazz’s broad shoulders shuddered. “He was so creepy and weird. He really needed to see a dentist about his rotten teeth.” She waved a hand before her nose. “Ugh, he had the foulest breath. And he was annoying. He wanted, me to help him,” she said with aghast. “And then when I did, he just went – poof - turned to dust, all over me.” Jazz shivered with the recollection. “Totally freaked me out.”
Astonished, both siblings turned to Fred. “The Forgotten Wilds is treacherous. I’m warning you all, don’t ever go in there. The only safe passage through, is the path that cuts through the forest.”
“But, that ends with a wall of prickles,” said Jazz with a perplexed look. “There’s no way past that I could see.”
Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters Page 13
