by Lari Don
“That’s not fair,” said Molly. “You take Beth. I’ll lend Theo a bike and cycle there with him.” She turned to Theo. “It’s my aunt’s rickety old bike, but it’ll get you there.”
“Thank you, Molly.” Theo bowed slightly.
Innes snorted. “Oh for earth’s sake, don’t be charming as well.” And he changed into a horse.
Innes galloped off, with Beth on his back, then Molly and Theo walked through the piles of casks towards her aunt’s cottage.
“Sorry about that,” said Molly. “Innes isn’t normally so aggressive.” Then she remembered his tentacles dragging her underwater. “Though he can be dangerous if you get in his way. It’s probably best not to annoy him.”
“I’m not trying to annoy anyone. I’m trying to protect everyone, by fixing the magical helix.”
“Why don’t you ask your family to fix it? You can’t store power, but presumably they can. Why are you doing this on your own?”
“Why don’t you tell your aunt about the curse-hatched? Why don’t you phone your mum and dad about turning into a hare? Why are you coping with this curse on your own?”
“Because… Oh. Ok. Because I don’t want to admit what an idiot I’ve been. Because I want to deal with it on my own. Because I don’t want to get anyone else into danger or trouble.”
“Yes. Precisely. Someone ambushed me, shaved my hair, stole my power, then transformed me into a toad. It will be easier to admit those failures to my family once I can tell them about a success too.”
Molly led Theo into the cottage and shouted, “Hi, Aunt Doreen!”
They walked into the kitchen, where her aunt was peeling tatties at the sink. Molly glanced round, but there was no salt on the floor and they’d moved the furniture back before they left. There were no signs that the kitchen had been a temporary magical prison.
Molly asked, “Can my friend Theo borrow your bike, please?”
Her aunt turned round and smiled. “Of course.”
Theo said, “Thank you very much, Miss Drummond.”
“And I won’t be back tonight,” said Molly. “We’re off for a sleepover with Beth.” Molly realised she had no idea how long their quest would take. “I might stay with Beth tomorrow night too. So if you don’t see me, don’t worry about me.”
“Two nights at Beth’s? Is her Aunt Jean happy with that?”
Molly nodded.
“Is this polite young man sleeping over too?”
“Yes. So is Innes.” Molly stared at her Aunt Doreen, daring her to say anything.
Her aunt frowned, then took a deep breath. “I suppose we all need to move with the times. So I’m sure that’s fine. Just be sensible. Don’t light any fires in the woods, or do anything else dangerous.”
Molly gave her aunt a hug. “I’m sure we won’t do anything dangerous at all.”
Chapter Eleven
The sun was setting as Molly and Theo arrived at the farm, but light was glowing at the farmhouse windows.
“We built this house.” Molly grinned, as she leant her bike by the door.
“The toad didn’t,” said Innes, standing in the doorway. “He built the toilet.”
Molly pushed past him into the fire-lit room. “Atacama! You got here before us! Are you alright?”
“Yes. The big bosses hissed and spat at me for half an hour, but I got off quite lightly. I should have admitted earlier that you’d helped create my riddle and therefore knew the answer. But because you spoke the answer before I let you in, I got off on a technicality. Until I receive a new riddle, I’m off the rota, then I’ll be on probation, with Caracorum as my supervisor. She’ll love being my boss…”
Theo said, “But if you’re not guarding the Keeper’s door, we have no way back into the Hall.”
Beth said, “We don’t have anything to take through the door yet, so let’s not worry about that now.” She pointed at a linen bag. “We stopped off at my house for food. While we eat, let’s work out how to find the first toy.”
Innes pulled out bottles of water and paper bags filled with baking. They sat in front of the fire, and ate sandwiches and scones.
Atacama asked, “So what did the old lady tell you about the object we’re searching for?”
“It’s the first toy, a rainbow-maker,” said Beth. “Nan told us it was made by the first snake.”
“Does it have power of its own?” asked Atacama.
Beth shrugged. “It’s just an antique toy. That wee one loves her toys. She has a huge room full of them.”
“She wanted Molly as her new cuddly toy,” laughed Innes. “Bunny!”
Molly shoved at his knee. “I’d better stay human next time I see the Keeper, so she doesn’t dribble on my ears or wipe her nose on my fur.”
Beth muttered, “You’d better stay human from now on, because you might never turn back.”
Atacama said, “So, this is all you know: it’s a toy, it makes rainbows and it belonged to the first snake.”
They nodded.
“Have you heard of it, Atacama?” asked Beth.
“No. We have ancient mouse toys and old varieties of catnip at our ancestral home, but no rainbows or snakes.”
Theo said, “I could research the first snake in our archives, but the curse-hatched are taking over so fast that I don’t have time to go home, search through thousands of scrolls, then come back.”
Atacama said, “We’ll have to think our way round it.”
Theo nodded. “There are myths about a snake creating the world, or circling the world, or becoming a rainbow in the sky. So, a snake creating a rainbow-maker as the first toy is plausible. But an ancient toy from the very start of the world will probably still be treasured and guarded.”
Molly sighed. “This won’t be easy.”
“If it was easy, Nan would have got it herself,” said Innes.
“Did she only save you from the crows so you could go on this quest?” asked Atacama.
Beth shook her head. “It was Molly’s idea, bringing a toy to distract the Keeper while we free the curse-casters. Nan’s just a nice old lady who changes the Keeper’s nappies and washes her teddy.”
Innes passed round a bag of scones. “So, assuming the first snake has shed her skin for the last time and is no longer alive, who would have the rainbow-maker now?”
Molly lay on the hard-packed earth floor and looked at the wooden roof. “We could ask the wyrm.”
“What?”
“The wyrm we freed from a curse the night we built this farmhouse. I know it was a sort of dragon, but it was also a sort of serpent. A snake. It might know stories about the first snake that none of you know. And it owes us a favour. Why don’t we ask the wyrm?”
“Because we have no idea where it is,” said Innes.
“It only left here a few days ago and it was huge. Can’t we track it?”
“I could try,” said Atacama. “My nose is more sensitive than a human nose.”
“We won’t need to smell the wyrm,” said Beth. “We can just look for broken branches and crushed plants. With its full weight on the ground, it must have left a trail.”
Innes nodded. “We’ll need daylight to follow a trail. Let’s start first thing in the morning.”
They agreed a sentry rota, then took turns sleeping by the embers of the fire and standing at the doorway staring at the starry sky.
***
Molly was woken by Beth speaking far too loudly in her ear. “Wakey wakey! Rise and shine! First light, time to get going!”
Molly moaned. “It’s still dark outside.”
“There’s a glow on the horizon. Time to get up.”
“No need to be so happy about it,” grunted Innes.
“Come on, everyone! We have a wyrm to hunt!”
After Beth bullied them cheerfully to their feet, they ate dried-out sandwiches for breakfast, then washed their faces and filled their bottles at the nearest burn.
They started to follow the wyrm’s trail, a subt
le line of squashed and bent vegetation leading from the farm towards the Cairngorms. Whenever they lost the visible trail, on rock or springy heather, Atacama sniffed delicately and led them forward until they saw another crushed plant.
They walked and they walked and they walked.
“We only freed this wrym last week,” said Molly. “How far can it have travelled?”
“It could have gone all the way to the English border,” said Innes. “But it has no reason to go that far. It’ll have found food, then somewhere to sleep. It could be round the next hill.”
Molly thought of the wyrm’s huge jaws. “Do we want to wake a sleeping wyrm?”
“Will it recognise us?” asked Theo.
Innes laughed. “It won’t recognise you, toad-boy, so you’d better keep back.”
But it wasn’t round the next hill they trudged up and over, or the three hills after that.
“This is hard work,” said Beth.
“If it’s work,” said Molly, “can your kelpie work ethic help us, Innes? Can we walk faster, like we built faster and dug faster last week?”
“Some people do this for fun, so it doesn’t count as work.” He sighed. “Do we have any scones left?”
“No.”
So they walked and walked and walked.
Then they walked higher, up steeper slopes. The air grew colder and clammier.
“We’re almost into the foothills of the Cairngorms,” said Innes. “I didn’t think we’d have to come this far.”
They climbed the next rounded hill, into cold grey mist. Molly shivered, wishing her fleece was thicker. “Can we still follow the trail in this?”
Beth nodded. “The wyrm has been heading southwest on a fairly straight course for the last few miles.”
They climbed higher. The mist got thicker.
Molly shivered again and the skin on the back of her neck tingled. “I feel like someone’s watching me,” she murmured to Beth.
“Me too,” said Beth. “Are we being followed?”
Innes turned round. “There’s nothing behind us.”
So they climbed higher, into the mist, following the wyrm’s trail.
Molly heard a faint chuckle.
Beth said, “Stop. There’s definitely something else here.”
They gathered close together on a broad heathery hilltop. Despite the mist, they could see the ground all around them. And there was no one there. No one in front, no one behind. No one following them.
Molly said, “Are we just imagining this?”
Atacama, the hair standing up along on his spine, whispered, “I feel watched. I feel spied on.”
Theo said, “Let’s keep moving.”
As they walked forward, the mist in front of them swirled and thickened and became a huge grey man, his mouth wide open as if he was laughing, empty blackness behind his grey teeth.
But his laughter was silent. And Molly heard a squeaky chuckle from their left.
They all stepped away from the misty giant towering above them.
“Back the way we came,” said Innes.
As they turned, the mist swirled behind them, thinning in places, thickening in others. And a misty man blocked that way too.
Molly whirled round and saw two more giants, blocking more routes down the hill.
All their wide-open mouths were laughing silently, with great black voids behind their teeth. But Molly could hear soft chuckles from lower down.
“They’re big, but they’re not solid,” said Innes. “You can see the hills behind them. They can’t hurt us. We can just walk through them.”
He walked confidently towards the grey giant blocking the wyrm’s trail. He strode at the man’s wide left leg. And he banged into it, fell back and sprawled on the ground.
The misty giant bent over and picked Innes up in his see-through fist. Innes dangled from the grey fingers, his arms and legs hanging down. The huge man raised the boy towards his open mouth.
Innes shifted. But the giant’s fist stretched to keep hold of the white horse.
Then the fist began to tighten and squeeze.
Molly heard the horse scream, a high-pitched neigh of pain.
The misty man threw the horse to the ground, hard, like a ball he wanted to bounce. Innes smashed onto the heathery hill and lay still.
The giant raised his foot above the white horse and stamped down.
Chapter Twelve
Innes shifted back to a boy, rolled out of the way of the huge grey foot crashing down, and scrambled towards the others, clutching his ribcage.
“Ok. They can hurt us. So we need a different tactic.”
The four misty giants stood still, thick arms hanging by their sides, cloudy white eyes staring at the group huddled on the hilltop.
Innes said, “They’re big and strong, so they probably aren’t fast. If we all sprint, even on human legs, we can run between them and escape. On three… One, two, three!”
As they ran towards the open misty spaces between the men, that mist swirled and gathered. And four more grey giants stood there, laughing soundlessly, creating a complete circle around the hilltop.
“Between their feet,” yelled Innes.
Molly ran for the gap between the nearest giant’s feet, her head not even reaching his knees. But his right foot moved swiftly and she felt a soggy thump in her side as the grey man kicked her back into the middle of the circle.
She landed with a thud and saw another misty man kick Atacama in the belly. The black cat soared through the air, yowling, to land in a messy heap beside her.
Innes, Beth and Theo were nearby, breathing hard or groaning. They’d all been kicked into the centre.
“They’re fast too,” said Atacama. “Do we attack? With hooves and claws and teeth?”
Innes said, “If they can double in number whenever they want, we can’t defeat them with a simple attack. This is strong magic. This is toad-boy’s area of expertise.”
Theo shook his head. “Not today. I don’t have enough power.”
“They only attack us if we try to get away,” said Molly. “Maybe they just want to keep us here. Should we find out why? Should we talk to them?”
Beth nodded and called out: “Greetings, men of the mist. We are merely travelling through these hills. We don’t intend to stay long or do any damage. Please let us pass.”
The men answered. All of them, opening their mouths and roaring silently.
But Molly only heard one voice. Not a booming voice from high up; a lighter voice from low down, over to her right.
The little voice said, “You may not pass over our hill without our permission.”
“So we’ll ask for your permission,” said Beth. “We are a dryad, a kelpie, a sphinx, a magician and a human, on our way to ask advice from a wyrm. We mean you no harm. If you let us pass, we will be off your lovely hill in moments.”
“No.” There was a high-pitched giggle. “It’s too late to ask permission. You’ve already trespassed.”
Innes muttered, “But there’s no law of trespass in Scotland—”
“Shhhh!” hissed Atacama.
Beth said, “We would happily return to the base of the hill, ask permission properly, then climb up again.”
“No. You have offended us. You have crossed our hill without our permission. So you will stay on this hill forever. You will become part of the hill.”
“Become part of the hill? How?” whispered Molly.
“Die and rot and become fertiliser for heather, I assume,” said Innes.
“You will stay here forever. There’s no point trying to get away,” giggled the voice, as another ring of giants materialised out of the mist, forming a tall wall round the summit of the hill.
“Anyone got any ideas?” murmured Beth. “Anyone even know what they are?”
“They might be the Grey Men of Ben Macdui,” said Atacama. “People who’ve encountered a Grey Man often mention a feeling of dread and the sensation of being followed. But I’ve n
ever heard of so many at once, so far from the Cairngorm plateau, nor of them trapping people forever.”
“You wouldn’t hear about it,” said Innes, “if the people they trap never get away.”
“If I shift and run low, they might not notice me. Then I could fetch help,” suggested Molly.
“No!” said Beth. “You’d risk being stuck as a hare for the rest of your life!”
“If I don’t, then we’ll all be stuck here for the rest of our lives. Quite short lives. It’s worth the risk. I’ll run back to Craigvenie and tell your families.”
“It’s not worth it,” said Beth. “There’s nothing our families can do that we can’t do ourselves. Do these grey men have a weakness?”
Theo was sitting on the heather, staring at the first grey man. “The mist swirled as they were created, so they’re probably formed from tiny water droplets, which should follow the basic laws of physics.”
Molly muttered, “I’m not sure anything I’ve met in the last week has followed the basic laws of physics.”
Theo frowned. “We could try heat to evaporate the water droplets or cold to freeze them.”
Innes said, “Beth, can you make a fire here?”
“There’s no wood, just this scrubby heather, which wouldn’t burn high enough to affect creatures that size.” Beth turned to Theo. “Can you make fire?”
He shrugged.
“Of course you can,” said Molly. “You made flames dance round Innes’s head, just to show off. And don’t say there isn’t enough power here, we’re surrounded by hills.”
“But to create enough heat to alter the state of that monstrous quantity of water, I’d need to channel so much raw power that I risk damaging myself. Normally I store power before I use it, so I can tame it and control it. Using elemental power in its raw form is very dangerous. I’d probably harm myself more than them.”
“Coward,” said Innes. “We all face a slow boring death, and you’re worrying about yourself.”
“Stop whispering and mumbling,” said the voice. “We want to hear the wind on our hillside, not your moans.”
