“The hocus pocus kind,” answered Nettle, tucking a long lock of hair behind her ears.
“Oh… right…” Jazz found it hard to keep standing. She sunk to the porch, leaned against the railing, and propped her elbows on her knees so she could support her heavy head, which felt so befuddled by everything. She looked up at Nettle and repeated weakly, “Witches?”
Nettle threw her arms into the air and exploded, “Shouldn’t I have known that? Like really? They were too good to be true. Far too good!” She half-crumpled to knead her face with her hands, her voice feeble and muffled. “How could I have been so, so, so utterly stupid?” Righting herself, she finally noticed Jack. He was casually leaning against the railing watching their interaction with a relaxed air.
Bram watched Nettle spin around on him, her expression surprised. “What are you doing here?!” Without waiting for an answer, her mouth twisted cruelly as she yelled at the spriggans and stalked toward the goblin. “GET HIM! He works for the witches!”
Jack sprung back lithely just as Sandee and Roq pushed forward with their weapons. Jack held up his hands in compliance. “Easy, please.” He frowned at Nettle. “Yes, I work for them, but it’s not what you think.”
Nettle shoved him in the shoulder. It wasn’t a gentle shove either. “Certainly looked like it to me.”
Jack gave a weary sigh. “Do you mind if we talk about this inside. I’m famished and I wouldn’t mind something to eat.”
“Yes,” Jazz agreed, openly gawking at Jack in appreciation. “I’m rather hungry too.” Nettle shot her a disbelieving look - it didn’t sound like Jazz was referring to food at all. With a little huff she turned back to Jack with a childish pout and crossed her arms. “You know what – you can starve until I’m satisfied with your answers.”
Jack squared his jaw, his eyelids dropping sullenly. “I’m warning you, I’m pretty darn hungry.”
Nettle chose to remain silent.
Jack exploded, “What were you thinking, going into their kitchen?!”
Nettle’s eyes flared wide with indignation, flecks of gold sparkled in their irises. “That’s it - I wasn’t thinking! All I had in my head was that I need to talk to someone – YOU – and you went into the kitchen, so why shouldn’t I?”
“Because they’re witches!”
“How was I supposed to know that?!” She retaliated, her expression fierce. “Besides, you were the one who told me to find out what they were up to!”
“Find out subtly, not going in guns ablaze!”
“Stop fighting!” Bram shouted. He wiggled between them like a boxing referee, pushing his sister and the goblin apart with his arms. “Calm down. Both of you.” He directed this at Nettle who looked like she wasn’t going to back down. He eyed her sternly until she relaxed, giving her little brother a maddened okay-okkaaay look. He delivered a glare that declared I’m-in-charge-so-just-deal-with-it. “Right then, let’s clear this up. You,” he pointed to Jack, “explain yourself.”
“I’m spying on them,” the goblin explained to Bram, then shooting Nettle a sour look, said, “that’s why I ignored you in the kitchen. I couldn’t exactly give myself away. If they knew that we’d met before, they’d be suspicious and I couldn’t have that. And I didn’t know what you’d say to them about me.”
“Well you kind of blew that by helping me.”
“Indeed.”
She sullenly glanced away as she said, “Thank you.”
He cupped an ear, as if he hadn’t heard. “Pardon?”
Her head whipped around to meet his innocent gaze with her own provoked glare. She ground out between clenched teeth, “I said, thank you.”
He grinned his infuriating smirk. “You’re welcome.”
Jazz suddenly popped into the proceedings, “Why are you spying on them?”
He grinned grimly. “Because they’ve set up their little tourist attraction on my family’s hill.”
Nettle was genuinely surprised. “The goblin mound belongs to you?”
“It belongs to my family – the Bedden-Troggs’ – I’m its present custodian.”
At first Nettle didn’t understand. Olde Town was built on a goblin mound, she knew that, but he was saying it belonged to his family. At her bemused expression, Bram leaned in, hooking a thumb Jack’s way to loudly stage-whisper, “Goblin.”
Nettle’s startled gaze snapped around to lock with Bram’s, who nodded. For a moment she was flummoxed, then a moment later burst into hysterical laughter – the maniacal kind – the kind that went on far longer than was comfortable for everyone else. She laughed a good long while, leaning against the balustrades until the guffaws finally subsided. “Of course you are,” she spluttered. At Bram and Jazz’s hesitant look she threw her shoulders up. “Why should anything ever be a surprise anymore? Goblins, witches, spriggans - whatever.” She turned a wry look upon Jack. “So the Balfreys’ have taken over your family’s mound. Well, you’ve utterly failed there as caretaker.”
Jack’s mouth thinned. “Yes, thank you. I’m quite aware of the fact.” He blew out a puff of breath through one side of his mouth, bulging his eyes slightly. “Never in all my family’s history has anyone lost its ownership. My parents are livid.”
Jazz waded in, batting long lashes at Jack accompanied by one of her prettiest smiles. “I don’t get it. What do you mean, goblin mound? And how do you two know one another?” Jazz had missed out on the afternoon the siblings had with the spriggans, so Bram quickly filled her in what they’d learnt about Olde Town being built on a goblin mound.
Nettle considered Jack with her hands on her hips. “I overheard the sisters talking about some kind of machine mining the mound. They’re after whatever you’ve got buried there, aren’t they?”
Jazz hadn’t taken her eyes off of Jack and now waved a finger at them both. “And you two?”
Nettle was just about to answer that they’d first met when he pushed her over, when Jack said, “She tried gaining my attention by barging in where she shouldn’t have been. And then turned to stalking me in bookstores.”
Jazz’s face lit up in delight and she smirked at Nettle. “Stalking you? Well I never.”
Nettle rounded on Jack. “I was not stalking you! You just happened to walk into the bookstore when I was there already - hang on - I thought…”
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t have seen you lurking in the corner of the O’Grady’s Bookstore, did you?”
“Well, yes, I did actually,” she said meekly. Then flashing a look of irritation, “Anyway, we’re getting off track. What’s buried under Olde Town?”
He delivered a lazy smile. “Do you really think I’m going to tell you?” At Nettle’s exasperated look, Roq cheerfully prodded him with his axe. Jack swatted at him crossly. “Can you please call them off?” Nettle merely tapped her booted foot waiting for him to explain. He pulled a weary face. “I really am hungry, can’t we eat while I explain? I did run all the way here to see that you were okay.”
“No!” She snapped. “We’ve got to go and rescue Dad. Right now!”
Bram interjected, his tone calm, trying to mollify his sister, “I want to rescue Dad as much as you. But we need to be prepared.”
“He’s right, lass,” Egnatius agreed, coming over to stand beside Bram. “That’s where we oft’n go wrong, wading in without a plan.”
“What do you mean, without a plan?” squawked Quary strutting up.
“Pointing at an inn and declaring we’ll rob it at midnight, is not a plan,” Sandee teased.
Egnatius looked Jack up and down, his pipe caught in the corner of his mouth. “If he’s trustworthy enough, and says he’d been spying on the witches, he’ll know what we face and how best to avoid it.”
“We?” Quary groused.
Egnatius took his pipe out of his mouth, cradling the bowl and poked its mouthpiece into Quary’s shoulder. You struck a deal, Quary Gravell. Look after the youngsters until their father returned.”
Quary huffed,
but he doffed his hat in agreement. “Aye, that I did.”
“We need to learn as much as we can. So we’re going inside and having something to eat while you both explain everything that’s going on.” Bram turned on his heel and marched inside the cottage.
Nettle gave Jack a dark look, silently warning him to behave, then nodded to Roq and Sandee to escort the goblin inside.
To get to the kitchen, they first had to go past the living room. Jack glanced about, taking note of the family home, its homely rugs and well-worn armchairs; wooden carvings of pigeons and hummingbirds; oil paintings of rolling meadows; framed pressed-foliage. At first his look was mild interest, a little disdainful, but when he took in the silvery scorch marks scoured across the wall, his eyebrows shot up and he stopped walking so suddenly that Nettle almost bumped into him. He turned around, the soles of his boots making a squeaky noise on the wooden floor.
“You know,” he said wagging a finger at her, with an inquisitive glint to his violet eyes. “You get more and more interesting.”
Nettle took a wary step back. When Jack raised a finger, it usually resulted in her being flicked in some manner. “What?” she asked, uncomfortable.
He pointed to the scorch marks on the wall without taking his eyes from her. “Who did that?”
At first Nettle was confused then realized where he pointed. She shrugged petulantly. “I don’t know. They’re just marks. I can’t get them off the wall.”
“Of course you can’t get them off,” he scoffed. “They’re caused by magic.”
Bram, who had already gone into the kitchen, quickly returned. “What do you mean, caused by magic?”
“Exactly that.” Jack considered the wall. “Fireball? Plasma charge? Maybe even ice-lightning.” He snapped his fingers. “Yes, ice-lightning!” A pleased expression flitted across his features as he spoke his thoughts aloud. “Had to be someone quite powerful, someone from the Wilds.”
Nettle’s eyes thinned to slits as she stared hard at Jack as if he were jesting her. “The Wilds? Are you saying someone from the Wilds did that?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” he said slowly, as if exasperated on being asked the same thing countless times by an idiot, “Is that so hard to believe? This house obviously has some security, but look at where it’s situated – nowhere is safe, really.”
Nettle rounded on the spriggans, glaring at Quary. “How come you never said anything?”
Quary just shrugged. “I thought you knew.”
“To be fair lass,” Egnatius said, leaning on his walking stick, “it looked like it happened quite some time ago.”
Then Nettle remembered the first time she’d walked into the cottage, less than a week ago, the overturned furniture, smashed shelves, broken glass, the room looking like the remnants of a fight… Someone from the Wilds was in this house…
Bram gently took her hand. “I think you’d better sit down.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
That’s a Curse
Five minutes later, Jazz had actually made herself useful by slathering together some jam and peanut butter sandwiches and steeping tea in a bright yellow teapot. At Bram’s look of amazement she merely answered, “St. Miriams curriculum.” When he continued to stare at her, she gave an irritated sigh. “They need to ensure if ever our house-staff went on strike we wouldn’t starve to death and could pour a decent cup of tea if we had visitors.” Bram continued staring at her a little longer. His spoilt cousin never ceased to amaze him.
While Jazz had been busy fixing them something to eat, Nettle had explained everything that had occurred in Olde Town: Pippa’s warning, the confrontation with the sisters in the tea house’s kitchen and her escape from the Atelier, which in particular had caused a little ripple of interest from the spriggans.
At the beginning of her tale, she and Jack sat across from one another, locked together in a hostile stare-down. But the more she spoke, Jack’s harsh expression softened until it melted to a reluctant look of admiration.
Jazz pushed a plate toward Jack, who prodded the sandwich suspiciously. She and Bram shared a look – he’s-never-encountered-peanut-butter-and-jam-sandwiches? Jack took a tiny bite, rolling the sandwich around in his mouth. A grin slowly spread across his face. “This is really quite weirdly good...” He wolfed down the sandwich and reached for another, swiftly finishing it.
Nettle was a bundle of nervous energy. All she wanted was go back to Olde Town and rescue her father - right this minute - but she understood Bram’s need to learn as much as he could to make an informed decision as to how best they could accomplish this. It was hard to wait - she couldn’t stop tapping her foot, all she could think of was lost time.
“Do you mind?” Jack said, tossing an annoyed look her way. Nettle scowled back at him, but stopped her restless foot-tapping.
Bram sat at the head of the dining table, smoothing open his journal. “Before we rescue Dad, I need to know exactly what we’re facing.” Spix sat cross-legged on the tabletop, carefully placing a row of odd-sized pencils in front of him. He passed Bram a red and black striped pencil, and the youngest Blackthorn wrote at the top of the page – Balfrey Sisters Are Witches - and underlined it twice. Bram looked up expectantly at Jack, his pencil poised. “Right, let’s start with the witches. How does one become one?”
Roq stood on-guard behind Jack with an enthusiastic air of one desperately wishing for the least likely provocation to poke a hole in the goblin. Jack gave the spriggan a displeased glance before addressing Bram, his features softening toward the boy. “You can’t just become a witch or warlock, you’re born one,” Jack explained, dusting breadcrumbs from his jacket sleeve, and unwinding his scarf to carefully lay on the back of his chair. “They’re the offspring between fae and mortal. Not one of the Folk like the Hags - they’re wild and feral and so very, very ugly-” He stopped himself with a shake of the head and a self-deprecating grin. “Let’s not get into them just yet, but witches and warlocks come under Kin-Folk and other such peoples of the Wilds, who aren’t of the Wilds, but related to it.”
Nettle mentally sighed, she wasn’t hungry. She picked at the crust of the sandwich, glancing at her brother and the way he furrowed his brow in concentration. Bram was busy scribbling down the information in note form. He didn’t look up when he next asked. “What sort of magic do they have?”
Jack leaned his elbows on the table and pressed his fingers together before him as he thoroughly contemplated the question. “Folk from the Wilds, well, magic is in our blood. Witches and warlocks are half-breeds, and are more like alchemists.”
Nettle stopped picking at her sandwich to look at Jack. From her encounter at the tea house, that made a lot of sense. The sisters hadn’t cast the type of spells she was used to reading about, but had used powders and gases and liquid against her. Her shoulders writhed with the memory of being engulfed within the fire-ball and its scorching heat.
“Huh?” Jazz said, her nose wrinkled in confusion. She slipped into a chair beside Nettle and started pouring cups of tea. Steam rose, permeating the air with the smell of chamomile.
“It’s like an olden-time scientist,” Bram enlightened, wisely choosing to explain in a rather rudimentary simplistic term for his cousin.
Jazz’s mouth pursed in an impressed, silent “O.” But Bram wondered if she actually understood.
Jack began rapping a distracted beat on the table-top with his fingers as he considered the siblings. “They know instinctively what’s needed to be brewed together to make spells and potions. But their personal powers, or magic if you like, is dependent on their lineage.”
“Like, who their parents are?” Jazz asked. She’d half risen to slide a tea cup across to each of them before sitting back down again. Nettle, not interest in the tea, distractedly prodded hers. The sisters may very well have put her off that kind of drink for life.
Jack nodded, “Precisely.” Jazz squiggled a little in her seat, casting a thrilled look at her cousins as thou
gh she’d passed her exam with top marks. Jack took a sip of his tea, smiling a little in appreciation. Nettle mentally groaned, rolling her eyes at her cousin, as Jazz simpered back at the goblin.
The kitchen had grown chilly - with everything going on in the last few hours, the fire had been completely forgotten. With restless energy, and wanting to do something, anything, Nettle rose, padding over to the wood-burner to tend to the fire. If they were going to be discussing the witches a little longer, it would be more pleasant if they were warm.
Jack casually rotated the cup of tea around in his hands as he explained further. “Since they’re the offspring between mortals and fae, witches and warlocks normally have very low level magic.”
Nettle caught on quickly. “But obviously, that’s not always the case.” She was crouching before the wood burner, sifting around the ashes and embers with the poker, when she unearthed something. She reached in and pulled it out, dusting off the layer of grey ash.
Nettle gasped. It was the Box. She’d tossed it into the fire a day or so ago. It should have been burnt to a cinder. But it was in pristine condition. Not even a scorch mark.
“You’re right, lass,” said Egnatius.
“Huh?” she said a little dazedly, looking at him over her shoulder, lost in her thoughts. How on earth did this Box survive a fire? Nettle slyly pocketed the Box. Until they rescued Dad, the mystery of the Box could keep to until another time.
Egnatius shot her a quick curious glance. He was sitting on the kitchen bench pressing more shredded leaf into his pipe’s bowl while keeping a cagey eye on the goblin. “Most witches are able to heal quickly or give you an itchy-eye or brew up a mug of stink-love.”
Nettle stoked up the embers in the burner and threw a few dry sticks and pinecones on. Something fizzed past her shoulder and she rocked backward, barely suppressing a shriek of fright as the kindling burst into flame.
Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters Page 36
