Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters

by Winter Woodlark

  Quary’s tone became wistful and he leaned back against his pillow, glancing upward at the reflection of firelight coating the ceiling in a ruby wash flickering with ochre. “Ah, home. It’s a hard feeling to have, to not have a place to call home. Wandering the edge of the Wilds, waiting for the day we can cross over to our families… or...” Quary said wistfully, letting the last word drift away. Nettle knew what he insinuated – or die.

  “Aye, and I wonder if we ever did, what kind of world we’d be entering,” said Egnatius, his voice contemplative. “The Queens and their warring ways, there might not be much left of what we remember as home.”

  “Queens?” asked Nettle. She hadn’t given much thought to who if anyone actually presided over the Forgotten Wilds.

  “Aye, two sisters rule over the Forgotten Wilds. Just before the Thicket came up there was a call to arms, I overheard me Da talking about it.”

  The other thing that Nettle was curious about was the name in the journal. “Do you know who, or what, Solstace Wittle is?”

  “Do we?!” Spix interjected with a wide fearful look. “Sure we do. Egnatius used to threaten us all with Solstace Wittle when we were young ‘uns, threatened to call the darkness to our doorstep if we didn’t do as we were asked.”

  “A fat lot of good that did me, too,” complained Egnatius. “Didn’t ever work, only a good boxing in the ears would get you lot to listen to what I had to say.”

  “So, is Solstace real or just a fairy-“ she almost said fairy-tale. “Just some sort of story?”

  Egnatius tapped his bottom lip with the pipe, his eyes becoming hooded again. “She was a name that me Ma and Da told dark and sinister stories of. She ate wee ‘uns who misbehaved and flayed their skin to make her leggings and boots.” And he told a tale, that suited the mood of the dark dreary day, of a sinister twisted creature who wore a red hat dyed with the blood of her victims.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Box and a Sword

  The gloomy day had waned into dusk. Bram lit the candles and gas lanterns with long safety matches and he and Nettle collected around the dining table in the kitchen with the spriggans, picking at the food left over from the lunchtime affair.

  Nettle scoured her back against the chair. That annoying itch had been plaguing her all afternoon. It felt like her skin had been bitten by fire ants.

  “Here lass, let me see if I can ease yer irritation.” Sandee had already poured a dirty yellow powder into a cup, emulsifying it with water.

  “What is that?”

  “A wee lotion. Now here, lift yer shirt so I can get at it.”

  Nettle turned around and lifted up her turtleneck so the spriggan could rub the lotion onto her back. Sandee’s fingers felt calloused and coarse but there was a comfort in her touch. The cool paste tingled her flesh where it was spread and swiftly dried from the heat of her body, calming the irritating itch. “Ah, that feels so much better.”

  “Aye, I hoped as much. It’s almost been more painful to watch you scratch yer back like a flea-bitten cat, than I imagine it is to be one.” Sandee rolled down Nettle’s jersey. “What is it? I didn’t see no signs of a rash or the like of one.”

  Nettle swivelled around. “I don’t know. It’s only really come about this last month. It just comes a goes, but it’s getting worse.”

  Sandee pressed a small wax-coated pouch into her hand. “Well if it does, try this. It’s a mixture of lemon-weed and perrin root.”

  “Thanks,” smiled Nettle, pocketing the pouch.

  “The thanks goes to you and your brother,” Sandee replied, nodding her head in the direction of Bram and Spix. They were sitting beside one other, their heads close together laughing over something. “He don’t talk much young Spix. It gladdens my heart to see him gain a friend.” Sandee gave her a friendly wink and walked off to join Roq.

  Nettle smiled. Sandee was right and not just on Spix’s account. It was heart-warming to see her brother with a friend, even if he was a spriggan, and one with a dubious line of work. We’re all making friends and that can’t be bad, she thought to herself, one side of her mouth curling upward. Though she couldn’t help but wonder what their father was going to make of it all when he returned.

  The front door slammed shut and Jazz stomped into the kitchen. Only then did Nettle realize just how late it’d become. She stifled a yawn. “How was your day?”

  Jazz just shrugged. “So, so. What’s going on here?” She rubbed the inside of her arm gazing about the living room with curious eyes.

  Egnatius was sitting in one of Nettle’s childhood chairs on top of the dining table, pipe smoke drifting above him in big whorls as he sung a melancholy tale in a raspy voice while Roq hummed along. Quary sat beside his rooster stroking his feathers and feeding him wheat from his palm while Sandee stirred a pot of fruit she’d gathered earlier on the hotplate of the wood-burner. Nutmeg, pear and tangy blackberries gently stewed together, spicing the air. Nettle’s lips tugged into a lopsided grin. “They’re just making themselves at home.”

  Sometime during the night Nettle managed to drag herself up the stairs to bed. The next morning she awoke with a start.

  Dad!

  She was fairly exploding with all sorts of feelings. Eagerness and impatience and zeal, tempered with apprehension and dread that frayed the edges of her excitement. Today Dad was set to return with Aunt Thistle and her friends, if their plan had worked. And if not, she realized with a sinking heart, they’d have to leave the cottage and set out for Aunt Mae and Uncle Geoffrey. It would also mean something terrible had befallen her father. But for now she decided to put that kind of worry out of her mind. It was far too early in the morning for such troubles.

  She yawned, lazily stretched and rolled over. As there was no rush to get out of bed she may as well go back to sleep. But for the moment sleep eluded her. It took a while, since her mind was skipping around all sorts of things and nothing in particular, she became fuzzily aware of something that wasn’t quite right. It sat on the bedside table blatantly out of place. Nettle blinked, rubbing her eyes. Surely she was still half asleep.

  The Box.

  The mysterious Box with something inside and no way in, perched on the bedside table. The very same box she’d thrown into the brook and watched float away downstream. How on earth did it get back here? Was this some kind of joke? The spriggans, perhaps? She was positive she had thrown it into the stream, but so much had transpired in the last few days, her memory proved sluggish and untrustworthy. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I thought I had, or had wanted too, but in the end didn’t.

  Nettle sat up and snatched the Box, squeezing it with her fingers. It looked just like the Box her mother wanted to give to her for her thirteenth birthday, with its polished golden wood, her name flourishingly carved onto the lid. She was so sure she’d thrown it away, yet here it was in her hands. It felt real enough.

  Her mother, Briar…

  Just the thought of her mother twisted her lips sourly. She felt as if Briar was meddling with her mind, toying with her… She felt a rush of fury. She didn’t want this Box, this gift. I want rid of it!

  Nettle rolled out of bed and shrugged into her dressing gown, thrusting the Box into the gown’s pocket. I’m going to get rid of you once and for all.

  Suddenly, a horrendous noise suddenly shattered the quiet peaceful morning. Nettle could hear the ruckus coming from the kitchen, all the way in her bedroom on the third floor. A cacophony of high-pitched squealing and cackling laughter, metal clashing and the kind of shrieks and screaming only a fourteen year old girl could make. Jazz!

  Nettle flew into the kitchen brandishing her sword, completely unsure of what she’d be facing. More faerie? Felons? Inside, the once tidy kitchen was strewn from ceiling to floor with dollops of lumpy batter and broken egg; food-scraps and coffee grindings were splattered against the walls; drawers and cupboards were pulled out or swung open, and it seemed every single pot and utensil had been dragged out of their homes and ti
pped onto the wooden floor.

  Nettle gawped, the sword slowly lowering in her limp hand. The spriggans were in the midst of an uproar of utter wickedness. Jazz had been put to task, judging by her frantic efforts to stir several pots boiling over on the stove and flip pancakes encrusted with fried insects. She was caked with dough and clumps of batter had dried into clumps in her hair.

  Quary perched on her head brandishing a wooden spoon. He smacked her about when the mood struck. Her left cheek bore the brunt of his ire being much redder than the right. “Come on you lazy snippet. I want me BREAKFAST!” He thwacked her again, guffawing wickedly.

  Jazz shrieked with each strike, while Sandee sat on her shoulder bellowing her own instructions. “Stir them eggs girlie! Yer pots boilin’ over! You burn me rock-cakes and I’ll burn yer hair right from yer head!”

  Egnatius sat in the fruit-basket being too old to join in, but he was cackling hard as Roq and Spix leapt about the kitchen bench flinging themselves at Jazz as she passed. They pinching her hard, or scratched at her arms, or slapped her face. Even Quary’s rooster was getting in on the action by pecking at Jazz’s bottom. Jazz wept as she frantically tried to keep up with Sandee’s commands, earning herself several more thwacks and pinches for her clumsiness.

  Spix struck her bottom hard making her squeal. “Where’s me coffee!” He demanded.

  They were all yelling over top over each other, ordering her about, it was hard to make out exactly what each one wanted from her, but it was clear they wanted their breakfast and they wanted it now.

  As yet, no one had noticed Nettle had entered the kitchen. In some small way it was delightful to see lazy Jazz getting a little comeuppance, and she secretly relished watching her cousin’s misfortune, letting it go on a little longer than she knew she ought to. But after a lingering moment stretched as long as she could afford, Nettle couldn’t let her cousin be treated in this manner.

  She straightened, holding her sword aloft and bellowed, “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!”

  Over the appalling noise in the kitchen she wasn’t surprised no one heard her. With a deep sigh of grievance, she strode up and swept the spriggans from the kitchen bench, catching them completely unaware, and dropped them into the potato draw shutting them inside.

  She backhanded both Quary and Sandee, knocking them from their perch to land unceremoniously on top of the dining table. Sandee had the wind knocked out of her, but Quary quickly recovered his footing and spun around to strike back. Nettle’s sword in his face, stopped him.

  Jazz threw herself at Nettle, rocking her slightly. She clung to her sobbing. “Thank you… thank you… thank you…” Her face was red and faintly bruised where the spoon had repeatedly struck her and she rubbed her bottom from all the pinching she’d received. “They’ve been so nasty and horrid and they’ve hurt me…” she wailed, sniffing.

  Nettle had never seen her cousin so vulnerable before, it kind of shocked her. Shame at the enjoyment she’d experienced watching Jazz’s punishment coursed through her, filling her with a ghastly guilt. She hugged her cousin tightly, keeping the sword’s point threatening Quary.

  A moment later, Jazz drew away to look at her with big puffy red-rimmed eyes in astonishment. “Are you holding a sword?”

  Nettle shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah.”

  “What are you doing with a sword?” Bram asked, entering the kitchen rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Like Nettle, he was dressed in his pyjamas, but his slippers were bunnies with big floppy ears.

  “Dad gave it to me. It was Briar’s.”

  “Oh,” he nodded, still sleepy.

  “Can’t you ever call her Mum?” asked Jazz, on one of the rare occasions she was sincerely curious.

  “No,” answered Nettle, her brow furrowing deeply.

  Bram yawned, stretching his arms above his head, rolling his neck from side to side. Upon surveying the kitchen, he abruptly awoke. His eyes flashed wide. “Ooooh…”

  “Watch where yer pointing that thing,” Quary barked at Nettle. He reached to push the sword away from him when Sandee unexpectedly slammed into him. “Don’t Captain!” she cried, knocking him from his feet. She landed on top of him with a heavy grunt.

  Quary was flat on his back, the breath punched out of him. It was a long moment before he could growl, “Oi, what you think yer doing?” Then realizing for once he was in close proximity to his lovely Sandee, he gave a leery wink. “Now if yer in mind to steal a kiss, you coulda just asked.” He puckered his lips, his eyes at half-mast.

  Sandee just rolled her eyes at him and got to her feet. Quary gave her a sad little face that she ignored. She helped him rise, dusting flour from his vest and rearranging his hat so it sat properly on his head once more. Pointing to the sword she said, “That blade is made from iron and woven into it are strands of moonthread.”

  “I aint afraid of no munthread,” mocked Quary, puffing his chest out. He gave her a look that suggested he found her lack of faith in him offensive.

  “Not munthread, you dolt,” Sandee said in exasperation. “Moonthread! It aint no ordinary moonthread either. It’s been stolen from a crescent moon. If it even touches a hair on yer head, it’ll burn you so fierce there’ll be nothing left of yer bones but ash.”

  Quary shrank from the sword, hiding behind Sandee. “Well you did right by saving me.”

  Burnt to ash, good to know, thought Nettle impressed. Suddenly she felt Jazz grab the sword hilt. “Hey!” She cried in protest. But her cousin was doing her utmost to wrestle it from her. The vulnerability was gone, replaced with the usual kind of Jazz Nettle knew intimately, the one that didn’t like to be trifled with. She wore a mean expression, one that smacked of retribution. She ripped the sword from Nettle.

  “Burnt to ash… excellent… and I hope it hurts like hell! Say your last goodbyes, pipsqueak,” Jazz threatened Quary. “No-one, and I mean no-one messes with me!” As she went to raise the sword it dropped to the ground with a heavy clang.

  Nettle exchanged a bewildered look with Bram. She had no idea what Jazz was playing at. Her cousin was holding the hilt with two hands and her face was colouring a vibrant tomato-red. The veins on her neck were bulging like ropes wrapped around a bollard, sweat glistened on her brow, and she was huffing and puffing with exertion. Yet the sword remained on the floor.

  Nettle took a wary step back. “Er, Jazz, are you OK?”

  Jazz stopped trying to lift the sword long enough to spit at her cousin, “No I’m not! I don’t know how you managed to hold this. But this is RIDICULOUS!”

  Nettle didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

  “Its like lead or something!”

  Bram took the sword from Jazz, lifting it up into the air like it was a feather. He waved it around a bit with one hand. “Interesting,” he murmured.

  “Huh?” Jazz gaped, astounded. She snatched the sword back from Bram and it fell to the ground and stayed there. Nettle didn’t like to think of the gouges it probably had made in the wooden floor, or the fact if it had fallen a couple of centimetres to the right it would have severed Jazz’s foot in half.

  “Well, would you look at that,” said Bram, thoughtfully. He stood with one arm on his hip while the other massaged his chin. Nettle shook her head at him, her mouth curving upward. He was so much like their father.

  Nettle leaned down and picked up the sword. She held it easily enough with one hand, flipping it over, back and forth. She gave Bram an askance look. “Dad did say only we could wield it.”

  Egnatius’s muffled voice from the potato draw called out, “Could you let us out now?”

  Nettle walked over and opened the drawer. “Hmmmm let me think,” she teased. “No.” And shut the draw. Squawks of protests came from Roq and Spix trapped inside. She opened the draw again. Roq looked up at her, contrite, kneading his hands in supplication. “We’ll do whatever you want.”

  “What I want is a clean kitchen.”

  A whirlwind of griping exploded from all
the spriggans. Even Egnatius who leaned against Spix’s shoulder grumbled his dissatisfaction

  “Listen girly,” huffed Quary, stomping about the kitchen table a safe distance from the sword. “I’m the only one who calls the orders.”

  Nettle had had enough. She was sick of the mess, the spriggans waywardness, the way Quary puffed about thinking he was in charge. No, they needed to learn who was in charge here. Me! She strode straight for the pantry and grabbed a jar of Nutella. She waved it over her head and headed toward the wood-burner, pulling open the door. The fire crackled, amber flames licking charred wood. Her other hand secretively stole into her dressing gown pocket.

  Quary’s good eye flared wide. He waved his hands at her, protesting. “Hey, girly, don’t do anything hasty.”

  Roq had pulled himself half out of the potato draw. “What’s she doin’?”

  Nettle didn’t say a thing. She just glared at the spriggans, turned and pretended to toss the jar of Nutella into the fire, and shut the door.

  Quary shrieked, a high-pitch squawk much like Jazz’s. Sandee thumped him on the arm. “Captain, you blockhead! Look what you gone an’ done!”

  Nettle waited, hands on her hips, bristling.

  Quary stumbled against Sandee and slid to his knees. His face had paled to a limestone grey. He finally asked in a strangled voice, “What are you playing at?”

  Nettle took her time answering, she’d crossed her arms and was drumming her fingers against her forearms. “If you think back to our agreement, you’ll remember that I’m in charge. Not you. Me. So from now on, you do as I say, when I say.” There were a few dark looks traded between Roq and Spix, who’d hauled himself out of the drawer and was balanced on the drawers edge. Like Roq he had a dusting of potato dirt over his face and hands. Nettle twisted her mouth as she stared at Quary unkindly. “And if not, then I’ll get rid of every single jar of Nutella we have in the house.”