Nettle shook her head mortified they were on to her. Think, think, she urged herself. What possible reason would I have to just blindly stampede into the kitchen without asking for permission? The boy, Jack. Of course. Surely they would understand her wanting to talk to their kitchen-hand, if they thought she had a crush on him. She attempted a shy-embarrassed kind of smile, hoping the sisters would buy her act. “I’m sorry, I just came through to see...” and was just about to let her gaze pointedly linger on their dishwasher when at that precise moment she saw behind Margot, the boy with the wild hair shaking his head, his sullen mouth silently mouthing, “No.”
Nettle froze, letting her words drift apart. She had no idea what to do now.
“Well?” Margot barked. “Speak up.”
With no response from Nettle except for a blank sort of gaze, Margot heaved an exasperated sigh and pursed her dry wrinkled mouth together in annoyance. Dolcie cracked her wooden spoon against her palm. “Let me handle this.” She swept over to a metal shelf that held rows and rows of small glass jars. She selected one that contained a shocking-pink powder and shook a small amount into the palm of her creased and worn hand. She approached Nettle with a gloating smile as she raised the palm of her hand to her mouth.
“What are you doing?” Nettle scrambled back but she was against the bench and both sisters had penned her in.
Dolcie blew a short sharp breath at her palm. The current of air picked up the pink powder and it soared in a cloud of roiling dust right at Nettle. It happened so quickly Nettle didn’t have time to react. A second later she sneezed.
She scrabbled at her nose, pawing at the tip of it with her fingertips. Her nostrils itched and burned, not like fire, but like an ice-burn. What had they done? What is this... some kind of drug? Had she stumbled into some sort of drug cartel?
Suddenly every part of Nettle’s body felt heavy, her thoughts grew more and more muddled. The room began to swirl around her. Strange, she thought distantly, almost outside of herself, it felt as if cool fingers sifted through her mind, pulling her thoughts apart so she couldn’t think clearly. Then an almighty crushing pain bore down on her brain. It felt like slivers of ice had pierced her head and glacial water poured into her skull. She staggered, her hands reflectively cradling her head. What was happening to her? The two sisters had crowded together and were looking at her like she was a science experiment.
Claudine’s shrill voice, cut through the pain. “What is going on here?”
Nettle instantly felt the sensation of bitterly cold fingers squeezing her brain, retreat. She shook her muddled head and her thoughts unscrambled. The pain subsided, but she felt weakened with the onslaught. She swayed, dazedly blinking, and almost fell but for Claudine’s firm grip on her arm. The spinning room stilled and Claudine’s worried expression came into focus. Nettle couldn’t help but gasp. Claudine had aged considerably. Her neck was crinkled like crepe paper and the skin hung off her cheek bones and jowls like a gathered curtain.
Claudine gave Nettle a piercing look, scrutinized her intently as she led her to a small stool near the kitchen bench and sat her down. Nettle was deathly pale, her lips pinched blue and she felt weary as if her bones had turned to lead. She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead. “I don’t feel well.” She found it laborious to speak. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think to ask, I just came in here. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.” It took what little strength she had left to offer a weak smile, hoping to cover her reaction to Claudine’s appearance.
Claudine smiled reassuringly. “Of course not.” She knelt down beside the girl, patting her hand. “Please forgive my sisters’ earlier rudeness. You see, no one is allowed back here, ever.” She gave a delicate trill of her fingers, indicating the kitchen. “This is where all the magic happens, the tea house’s trade secrets we fiercely protect.”
“Sure, I understand. Sorry.”
“No harm done.” But Nettle knew there was, at least with the two younger sisters. They hadn’t seemed pleased with her walking into the kitchen at all. And Nettle knew that if Claudine was honest, she was also unsettled by her presence.
A snort came from across the room. Margot was glaring stonily at Claudine. “Are you completely mad? She just walked right-”
“Margot!” Claudine snapped, rounding on her sister with a thunderous expression. The children had drawn together in worried clusters, their duties forgotten as they warily watched the sisters. Even the sous-chef had come to a stand-still, blatantly gawking.
Margot shook her head in disbelief, her mouth puckering. The air near-crackled with hostility between the two sisters as they stared one another down. Finally Margot relinquished, though her caramel eyes remained narrow. Between thinned lips she ground out, “As you appear to have this all in hand, I’d better tend to our guests.”
“Yes, you should.” Nettle shivered as Claudine spoke. The woman had replied quietly, but each word was enounced with a tone that promised swift retribution if it was not carried out.
Margot softly huffed and swept by, casting a wintry glance at Nettle, who kept her head down but caught her spiky look through downcast lashes. She snapped, “Pippa, Pip, come, there is much to gather and little time!”
Pippa cast a sad glance Nettle’s way before she disappeared into the dining room. When the swinging doors had finally shut on their departure, Claudine turned back to Nettle. She felt Nettle’s clammy forehead. “Oh you poor wee thing. Quick Dolcie, we need something to perk her up with. Make her that little concoction mother used to give us as children. You know the kind, the tea that made the world a brighter place and loosened our lips.”
“Sink!” snapped Dolcie at her sous-chef. “Rosemary, pinkerton and mud-eye tea leaves!” The big man dropped the pastry onto the bench and lumbered over to the pantry, pulling a series of small silver canisters from the shelves. Dolcie’s nose, no longer button-like but thickened and piggish, wrinkled. “What is that smell?” Something was burning on the stove. Dolcie smacked her wooden spoon down on the kitchen bench with a whoomph that exploded within the confines of the kitchen. The children jumped at the noise. “You lot, back to work! Our customers aren’t going to feed themselves!” Everyone, including Jack got stuck into their tasks while Dolcie busied herself with preparing the ingredients for the tea, grumbling and griping under her breath.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A Tea to Loosen the Tongue
As they waited for the tea to steep, Nettle drew in deep breaths of air, feeling slightly better. She stole a glimpse at the boy washing dishes. He had his back to her and remained that way. Her eyes narrowed unkindly, why doesn’t he speak up, help me out here? He could have easily covered for her, but instead he dropped her in it. And now she was in deep trouble with the Balfreys, it was just yet another reason for her to loathe him.
Though the younger sister politely handed over the cup to Nettle, Dolcie refused to look at her. She could tell the curly-headed woman was quietly simmering with resentment. She was hesitant to drink the tea, her thoughts returning to the pink powder Dolcie forced her to inhale. But what was she to do? Claudine did stop her sisters, whatever they were doing to her. Surely whatever Margot and Dolcie are up to, has nothing to do with Claudine...
The vapour smelt heavily of rosemary. She took a tentative sip and was pleasantly surprised. It tasted like liquid sunshine. Warmth poured through every part of her body, erasing the weariness. Her spirits lifted. Her lips curled into a bright smile. Everything was going to be all right. Her turning up unexpected and uninvited into the kitchen and upsetting Claudine’s sisters was just a silly misunderstanding that would naturally correct itself over time. She had nothing to worry about. There was nothing wrong here. I must have fallen for some silly stirring from that boy, out to cause trouble where there is none. Nettle stretched out languorously, arching like a cat. She sighed with contentment. “I feel wonderful. What is it?”
“Just a little something our mother used to make us when we were l
ittle and unwell.”
“It’s delicious.”
“Isn’t it just. Now tell me, why did you enter our kitchen?”
For a startling moment, Nettle couldn’t remember why she’d come. She indulged in the lethargic sensation of the tea, trying to remember. She knew she was staring vacantly at Claudine but she couldn’t help it. Her brain was addled. Her gaze slipped over Claudine’s shoulder as she tried to think but before she was able to decipher exactly why she wanted to talk to Claudine, something over on the far wall arrested her attention. There was a place on the wall, a little nook where you might hang keys, except on these hooks there were things of personal interest. A tie, a bracelet, and handkerchief, a watch - It looks like my Dads she fleetingly thought - a ring, a pair of cufflinks. Her eye swivelled back to the watch, the watch-face was broken. It is Dad’s! I thought Claudine was going to get it fixed? Maybe she hadn’t gotten around to it. But all those things hanging on the little hooks, it looked a little like a lost and found box.
“Nettle?”
“Oh,” she shook her muddled head trying to clear her thoughts from her father’s watch and remember why she had come here. She glanced down, her brow creased in concentration, why am I here? Rather distractedly she saw that the floor was dusted with flour and strange footprints strewn throughout. She’d seen those footprints before… out in the dining room…
She tilted her head, an almost imperceptive movement, to consider the odd imprints. They appeared to have been made by animals, with only three or sometimes six toes. Some imprints were tiny and others were extremely large. Bewildered, Nettle was just about to look about the kitchen for the animals that made the footprints when Sink walked uncomfortably close by. He and the wait-staff wore long aprons that reached the ground and covered their feet - it was peculiar she hadn’t noticed that before - and as the giant man walked about she saw why. Flurried footprints followed his movement in the flour, but they were a hoofed animal’s footprint, like a goats. Nettle blinked, her mind working slowly but efficiently. She realised his other peculiarities, nostrils, but no nose to speak of, squinty wide-set eyes and a broad mouth with dangerously sharp pointy teeth.
He didn’t look human…
The incredulity of it all awoke her from her muddled state, like a jolt of adrenalin.
Several wait staff zipped in and out of the kitchen so gracefully it seemed as if they were dancing. They wore no shoes on their feet as their toes - Nettle counted six of them - were incredibly long and knobbly and they spent most of their time balanced on their toes rather than their heels. They’re faerie! The sisters have faerie working for them…
It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt it out when Claudine leaned back, her brow pinching together as she regarded her impassively. “There,” she declared to her sisters, “she’s gone.” And to Nettle’s surprise, they began to talk about her, as though she wasn’t even in the room.
Dolcie rolled a fingertip in the temple of her forehead as if coming down with a headache. “Really Claudie, I just don’t understand your interest in this... girl.” Nettle almost flinched. The way she said girl was spoken with such hostility.
Margot returned to the kitchen, her expression frosty. She was carrying a large decanter with a cork stopper. There wasn’t wine inside the glass vessel, nor even water, but smoky golden light swirling around in a lazy eddy.
Nettle remained still, her mind racing, her heartbeat quickening. Though it was warm in the kitchen, a chill settled over her and she felt as if the blood in her veins had crystallised to slush. Orbs filled with filament... Dad’s watch... The Gadfinch Crystal and troll... What was she missing?
Margot came up to a machine, much like the coffee machine with its French horn pipes, pistons and brass levers, and unstopped the decanter quickly feeding into its neck a slender pipe. She pulled a lever and the machine started up, whirring, nice and low; clanking and grinding as its cogs and wheels turned. The filament got sucked up inside the machine’s big-barrelled chest with a fffff-pp and a bell rung, just once.
Nettle was turning the pieces of the puzzle over in her mind - mining the goblin-mound like Lysette before them... Jazz in danger...
Margot sidled up beside Dolcie, staring at Nettle as if she were a bug. She absentmindedly twirled her quill beneath a thumb, rolling it up and down her palm. She spoke to her elder sister. “She simply walked right in here. Nothing stopped her, nothing at all.”
Claudine gave Margot an imperious glance. “I can see that.”
Margot’s lips took on an unpleasant pucker as she shot an irritated look Claudine’s way. “But it shouldn’t be possible. She’s a-”
“What Margot? A mortal? Is that what you were going to say?” Claudine flicked her low slung pony-tail over a shoulder. “Clearly, she’s anything but.”
Dolcie tapped her wooden spoon against a shoulder as she peered at Nettle, looking at her as if it was the first time she actually saw her. “But Claudie, how is it possible for her to enter?”
“I’ve told you before, there’s something different about her,” snapped Claudine. “Neither of you bothered listening.” Dolcie sniffed, casting an aggrieved glance at her sister. Claudine continued in a more charitable tone, “Her family live in the Wilds.”
Nettle’s gaze was vacant as she looked through Claudine, her thoughts racing ahead. A mortal? The spriggans called us that, why would she too?
The pieces of the puzzle were slowly beginning to fit together. Lysette burned at the stake, left behind her younger siblings – sisters - and mother Lucinda. What did the Crone say? Me and my fair girls...
And they were blatantly talking about her, in front of her. They think I’m, what..? Under some kind of enchantment, like I can’t hear them? That would mean...
Surely not...
They’re witches..?
For a moment it seemed so utterly ridiculous she almost laughed out loud. A moment later her stomach pitched and her heart gave an erratic thud as Margot said, her eyelids heavy with disbelief, “Yes, but even Good-Folk can’t cross the kind of spells we’ve cast.”
There, she said it! Spells! The Balfreys’ really are witches!
Her heart began to pound so loudly she thought Claudine would surely hear it. She also knew, without a sliver of doubt, it was imperative she remained unnoticed, her life depended on it.
“Here, take another sip...” Claudine guided the cup of tea toward her lips. She took a sip, as small as she could get away with. She was terrified to let the liquid roll down her throat, but she had to trust that it wasn’t going to affect her. The tea tasted bitter and wrong, why hadn’t she noticed that before?
After a few mouthfuls Nettle felt confident the initial headiness the tea had wrought in her wasn’t about to happen again and so she drank more fully from the cup. In one way it was a welcome respite. A moment to gather herself. What should I do? They can’t know I’m aware of everything. Whatever they thought the tepid tea was doing to her, it wasn’t. And she needed it to remain that way.
Satisfied Nettle had drunk all the tea, Claudine handed the empty cup to Dolcie who dumped it with a porcelain clatter into the pile of dirty dishes beside Jack at the sink.
“You’re right, she shouldn’t have been able to trespass our spells,” Claudine replied to Margot before turning back to Nettle, her voice soft and silky and thoughtful. “There’s more to her than any ordinary girl. She could see the doorway to the Atelier. No mortal should be able to see that.”
Nettle held herself rigid, Claudine was gazing intently at her. It was an effort just to keep her breathing calm and even.
“Do they know they’re Good-Folk?” Dolcie returned. She absentmindedly rubbed her décolletage, the crinkled skin sun reddened and blotchy.
Claudine considered Nettle, her chin tilted haughtily. “I’m not sure. Her bumbling father seemed harmless enough.”
At her father’s mention Nettle almost revealed her duplicity with a slight clenching of the jaw. Stay still, she war
ned herself. Claudine’s eyes narrowed, her crows-feet crinkling even further, then after a brief pause, she relaxed giving Dolcie a side-long glance as her youngest sibling said, “Then why are we bothering with her at all?” She’d withdrawn to oversee the children toasting spices at the hot stove, and gave one of them a displeased smack with her wooden spoon, eliciting a small yelp.
“Isn’t it fortunate that I did,” Claudine said, taking umbrage. “We needed a thirteenth sacrifice and luckily for us, we found one in her father.”
Nettle’s heart skipped. Sacrifice?! Dad?! She almost recoiled giving herself away. Her stomach had pitched and was now roiling as a sickening feeling swept over her. They’re going to kill him...
Claudine wandered over to a large pan hanging from a hook. She inspected her reflection in its shiny bottom said loftily, “If I hadn’t bothered to investigate her family, we may never have found him in time.”
“In that regard, yes, of course. But we have all we need from her. What more can we ask? Like Dolcie, I haven’t understood your desire to get to know them better either. So why not simply dispatch her?” Margot suggested with an indifferent shrug.
“Kill her, you mean?” Claudine queried, turning so quickly her skirt made a swishing noise with the movement.
Kill me?! Nettle held herself together, just. Her hands began to tremble so she carefully tucked her fingers between her thighs.
Claudine expelled an aggravated breath. “Both of you are far too short-sighted! She may yet again prove useful. She provided us with her father and also managed to lure the Crone for us. Might I remind you, both are vital to our cause.”
Dolcie felt a need to remind her sisters, “Jasmine too. It was me who cast the spell to find someone suitable-”
Claudine gave a dismissive gesture with a hand, cutting her off. “We would have made do with anyone. No, Jasmine is not necessary, not like her father or the Crone. But now, I fear that what to do with this girl is no longer up to us. She needs to go to our Lady. There’s something of the Wilds about her and she will know what. But before we hand her over, I want some answers.”
Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters Page 32
