Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters

by Winter Woodlark

  Quary blustered, sucking in a little bit of air so he puffed out a bit. He was patched all over in a burn-lotion Bram had applied the night before onto all the singe-marks he’d received after Jazz had shaken the bird-cage. As he inflated he came precariously close to the rosebush branches trapping him. The fire in him dampened down a little, and he deflated back to his normal size. He sat back down on the bed and turned away, cradling the chocolate coated teaspoon to himself, mumbling all the things he was going to do to Jazz if he ever got his hands on her again.

  “Didn’t Dad say anything about him?” Bram asked his sister. He poured milk all over the muesli; it was the long-life kind. Jazz hadn’t as yet acquired a taste for it and had swapped her usual cereal for toast since she’d been sent to join the Blackthorns.

  “No. He kind of left, a little suddenly.” Nettle became intensely interested in her own muesli, though there was just the dregs left in the bottom of the bowl. She hated lying to her brother, but couldn’t think of a way around it. She’d earlier told Jazz her father had gone back the way they’d come, to investigate the region away from the Forgotten Wilds to see if there was anyone he could sell his furniture to. She cleared her throat and said weakly, “I think he forgot about him.”

  “Oh,” said Bram looking at her a little dubiously. He said nothing further and went back to noisily munching on his breakfast. He’d brought a dictionary with him and while one hand flicked through the pages reaching the ‘P’ section, where he’d left off yesterday, the other was attempting to roll a coin from finger to finger. An attempt at improving dexterity and his first lesson in thievery, according to his new friend.

  Jazz got up from the table. She was dressed in her usual hockey uniform, except she’d exchanged the skirt for tracksuit pants. “See you all later, I’m off to Olde Town.”

  “Hey,” Bram immediately yelped. “I’m coming too, wait for me.” He stood up, his chair noisily scrapping against the wooden floor.

  Panic jolted Nettle to her feet. “Dad said we weren’t to go,” she protested, frantically wondering how to avert Jazz’s decision.

  Jazz fixed a fiery look upon her. “Well Uncle Fred’s not here and what I say goes. I’m getting my hair fixed at that place Claudine suggested and no one is going to stop me.” She pursed her rosy lips together, daring Nettle to defy her.

  “Good by me,” Bram grinned. Thrilled at the prospect of investigating Olde Town, his golden cheeks flushed with excitement. “Give me a minute or two and I’ll be ready, promise.” He hurriedly slurped down the rest of his muesli.

  “Well hurry it up, I’ll be leaving with or without you,” Jazz griped. She went to leave the kitchen and was halted by Nettle’s hysterical shout.

  “STOP!”

  Both she and Bram spun to face Nettle in surprise. Even Quary stopped grumbling to himself and looked below, his tongue poking half-way-out.

  Nettle stood in the middle of the kitchen, glancing from her cousin to her brother and back again, not quite sure what to do next. She fidgeted with the long sleeves of her chequered shirt. “We’re not allowed to go,” she informed them a little lamely, cringing at how whinny she sounded.

  Jazz popped a hand on her hip, crackling with attitude. “Pardon?”

  “Dad, he, uh, doesn’t want anyone to know we’re here. So he said he doesn’t want us to go to Olde Town.” Nettle inwardly groaned, how pathetic do I sound?

  Bram quirked an eyebrow. “But what about Claudine? She already knows we’re here, along with everyone else you met in Olde Town.” He turned to Jazz, and shrugged, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown. “Seems like a moot point to me.”

  “Moot?” queried Jazz with an acerbic tongue, suspecting he was mocking her. Her younger cousin was always showing off with words she didn’t know the meaning to. She frowned suspiciously. “You’re like eight. You should barely be able to string a sentence together.”

  “Irrelevant argument.” Bram explained, squinting sceptically at her behind his glasses, wondering if Jazz slept through her school lessons.

  “Oh,” replied Jazz suitably impressed on having her younger cousin onboard. She gave Nettle a told-you-so look, and hooked a thumb Bram’s way with a smug smile. “Whatever Bram said, he’s right.”

  “But Dad-”

  Jazz cut her off with a wave of a hand. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Uncle Fred’s just overreacting as usual. You know how he is. All drama, and it’s-the-end-of-the-world, boo-hoo-hoo.” And she left to get what she needed for the journey.

  Nettle grabbed at Bram’s dressing gown, her father’s warning at the forefront of her mind. She was really worried now. Jazz was always going to do what she wanted, but Bram was her little brother. “You can’t go Bram. Dad said we’re to stay here.”

  Bram tugged his gown free and frowned up at his older sister, acting - on one of those rare occasions - his age. “I’m not missing out. You got to go there, why can’t I?”

  “Dad specifically said we’re to stay at the cottage while he’s away.” He also said things were a little precarious, and that did not sound good at all. “So please, please,” she begged, “just do as I say.”

  Bram wasn’t about to miss out on Olde Town for a second time. He gave her a look that reminded her of their father. “You heard what Jazz said, Dad’s overreacting. Besides, you said she’s in charge. And if she gets to go, then so do I.” He tucked his dictionary beneath an arm, pushed past his sister, and followed Jazz upstairs.

  “What yer gonna do girly?” asked Quary, sucking the last of the chocolate spread from his fingers in loud satisfied smacks.

  Nettle just gave the spriggan a defeated shrug and followed her brother up the stairs. She could hear the spriggan’s shrieks of injustice all the way to her bedroom. “Oi! What about me? You can’t just leave me here, alone, I’ll starve! Come on, leave me with a teaspoon or two of that goodness!”

  She had no idea now how to reign in the pair of them. Jazz was doing what she always did, whatever she pleased, and now Bram was following suit. Dad shouldn’t have left. If Jazz gets us into trouble, it’s all his fault, Nettle thought unkindly. There was nothing else for it, she was going to have to accompany them to Olde Town and she needed to be quick about it. She needed to hide her father’s bike before Bram spotted it.

  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.
<
br />   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.