Rise of the Ragged Clover

by Paul Durham

  “Buggle snug?” Lottie asked, tucking Mona Monster, her hobgoblin rag doll, tight under her arm. Mona’s polka-dot fabric was more gray than pink these days.

  “Of course, Lottie,” Rye said. “We can do snuggle bug.”

  Rye wrapped her own arm around Lottie and pulled her close, Lottie burying her head in Rye’s shoulder. Lottie had allowed Rye to tame her unkempt hair into a long red braid after a colony of ants had taken a liking to some sap stuck in her locks. It still smelled like pine pitch and cook smoke, but Rye didn’t mind. She just held her little sister tight until they both settled into a rhythmic breathing and eventually fell asleep wishing Abby was there with them.

  Rye woke disoriented by the first voice of the night’s choir. Lottie’s eyes were still shut, her mouth open and drooling on Rye’s chest. The voice came again. But this was no growl or slither of an unknown beast. She recognized it as the sound of a far more ordinary animal—the whinny of a rather unhappy horse.

  Pulling her arm free, Rye rushed out onto the tree house porch. From the shadows of the oak tree’s boughs she looked down upon the Hollow. To her disappointment, it was neither Abby nor Harmless. Instead, on the opposite side of the Rill, four hooded men struggled with a horse laden with packs. In the light of their lanterns, she saw the frightened animal buck and rear back as one man tried, unsuccessfully, to yank it by the reins across the shallow stream.

  “Worthless mule,” he cursed, splashing through the shallow water and onto the banks of the Hollow to improve his leverage. The others pushed at the horse’s rump without success, and nearly got kicked for their trouble.

  “Who are they?” Rye whispered to Mr. Nettle, who had joined her at the railing.

  “I don’t know. Surely they’ve come down the Wend. But I don’t like their manner one bit.”

  The man in the Hollow lowered his hood and raised his lantern, peering up at the branches.

  “Who’s up there?” he called. “I can hear you warbling. Come down this instant. We seek shelter for the night.”

  Rye and Mr. Nettle stepped away from the railing, deeper into the shadows. They exchanged uneasy glances. Lottie stumbled out to join them, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Mona Monster was still tucked under her arm.

  “Come down, I say,” the voice bellowed, “before I burn you out of your tree.”

  The man’s ashen face reflected in the lantern light, his dark eyes squinting as he struggled to see them.

  Rye heard Mr. Nettle suck in his breath.

  “What is it?” Rye asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But these men smell of danger . . . and death.”

  Rye dared to return to the railing, trying to get a better look at the four visitors.

  “Wait here,” Mr. Nettle ordered urgently. “And be absolutely quiet. You too, Miss Lottie.”

  Lottie turned an imaginary key at her lips.

  “Innkeeper!” the hoodless man demanded, his black lips curling. “I’m readying the torches!”

  “Coming,” Mr. Nettle called. “One moment!” He gestured again for Rye and Lottie to stay put as he hurried off to the winding stairs.

  Rye leaned over the railing. The man in the Hollow had smudged black face paint running from his lower lip, over his chin, and down his throat, where it split and curled at the end, like a long tongue. He gestured to his companions, two of whom left the horse and slogged through the Rill. In the light of their own lanterns Rye saw that, under their hoods, their faces were also pale and ashen, eyes and lips streaked black. She gasped.

  “Mr. Nettle,” she called in a desperate whisper. “They’re Luck Uglies!”

  Or to be more precise, they were Fork-Tongue Charmers.

  But Mr. Nettle didn’t hear her. He had already climbed down to meet them.

  “What are you, some sort of troll?” the Fork-Tongue Charmer asked, as Mr. Nettle padded out onto the Hollow. He thrust his lantern in Mr. Nettle’s face, and Mr. Nettle shielded his eyes with his hand and adjusted the horns on his skullcap.

  “No . . . ,” the man went on, a look of recognition in his dark eyes. “I’ve seen your kind before. I didn’t know there were any Feralings left. I thought you’d all been boiled by superstitious woodsmen and eaten for good luck.”

  “Fortunately, I’ve proven to be unappetizing so far,” Mr. Nettle said with mock cheer and a shrug. “Here, allow me to assist you with your steed. I think she’ll be more agreeable with the help of this.”

  Mr. Nettle gathered the rowan-wood platform and laid it over the Rill. The other Charmers watched him with grim faces under their dark hoods, towering over the smaller man as he gently took the reins and coaxed the reluctant horse over the makeshift bridge and onto the Hollow.

  “My name’s Nettle,” he said, affecting a steady voice. “And what should I call you and your companions?” he asked the hoodless man.

  “I am Lassiter,” the Fork-Tongue Charmer said, lifting his arm so that his lantern light might catch the boughs of the oak above. He eyed the old buildings suspiciously. Rye was still watching from the porch, and stepped in front of Lottie, easing her back into the shadows.

  “These are my brothers, doom, despair, and destruction,” he added, flicking his chin over his shoulder. “They ride with me wherever I go.”

  The other Charmers laughed at his quip, although Lassiter’s attention remained focused on the guesthouse built in the tree. He squinted upward through the shadows.

  “Whose establishment is this? Are you the only one here, Feraling?” Lassiter asked with a crooked glance.

  Mr. Nettle hesitated. “Yes . . . just me at the moment.” He stroked the nervous mare’s muzzle with his hand. “The master of the inn and his hunting party should be returning shortly.”

  “Master of the inn?” Lassiter said, his black lips curling into a smirk. “And what is this innkeeper’s name?”

  “Ab—that is . . . Able,” Mr. Nettle said, catching himself midsentence. “You may have heard him called Able the Imposing. Or Able the Awe-Inspiring,” he added quickly. “He’s a legend. A giant among men.”

  Rye cringed as she listened. Too much, Mr. Nettle. He was not a practiced fibber.

  “I’ve never heard any such names,” Lassiter said, glowering at Mr. Nettle. “I’ll look forward to meeting this master of tree houses upon his return. This is the shabbiest flophouse I’ve ever seen, but we’ve traveled far and long. Fix us a room and a hot meal while we wait.”

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, but there’s not much I can do to help. We’re all out of food.”

  “A guesthouse without food?”

  Mr. Nettle bobbed the horns on his head with a nod.

  “Are you out of rooms, too?” Lassiter looked up at the smaller cottages nestled in the boughs of the oak.

  Mr. Nettle chewed his beard for a moment. “Yes, yes, full up.” He gave Lassiter and the other glaring Charmers an apologetic smile.

  “And yet you just told me you were all alone,” Lassiter said flatly.

  “Right,” Mr. Nettle said slowly. He pursed his lips. “I did. What I meant was . . . well . . .”

  “Pigshanks,” Rye whispered to herself.

  Lottie must have recognized the severity of Rye’s expression. She didn’t say a word about Rye’s colorful language, just crossed her index fingers and rubbed them together in Rye’s direction. Tsk tsk.

  Rye put her own finger to her lips, reminding Lottie to keep hushed, and led her quietly inside, where she began helping her with her boots and cloak. The voices below were muffled, but Rye could make them out through the gaps in the treehouse floorboards.

  “Perhaps you meant to say that the guests are all out with the hunting party?” Lassiter snarked.

  “Yes, exactly,” Mr. Nettle said enthusiastically. Rye could hear the misguided relief in his voice. Life in the forest had made Mr. Nettle resourceful, but he had no ear for sarcasm.

  “Do you know who we are, goat boy?” Lassiter demanded, his voice rising.

&n
bsp; Rye threw her arms through the sleeves of her coat, and was still pulling on her boots as she ran back to the porch railing.

  “Certainly,” Mr. Nettle said, blinking his eyes. “You’re Mr. Lassiter, and that’s Mr. Doom, and Mr. Gloom and . . .”—he tapped a finger on his chin before waving at the fourth man—“Mr. Desperation, was it?”

  Lassiter unsheathed a blade from the scabbard at his hip. He clutched a handful of Mr. Nettle’s vest.

  “We’re Fork-Tongue Charmers—and no greater nightmare than us roams this forest. We have searched this forsaken wood far too long in pursuit of our quarry, and now, at long last, he’s been found and we are on our way home.”

  Rye bristled. Their quarry? Surely he meant Harmless.

  “But at the moment we are tired and starving. If you truly have no food, we’ll just have to test the old superstitions.” Lassiter pressed the tip of his blade against Mr. Nettle’s chin. “After all, everyone can use a little extra luck.”

  Mr. Nettle pinched his eyes tight.

  “Let him go right now!” Rye yelled from the darkness above them. She wrapped her white knuckles around her cudgel in anger.

  Mr. Nettle opened his eyes and, along with the Fork-Tongue Charmers, looked up.

  “So there is someone else here.” Lassiter nodded his head at one of his companions. “Gibbet, go get whoever’s in there and bring them down.”

  Rye’s heart climbed into her throat.

  The Charmer named Gibbet moved in the direction of the oak but paused at a sound from the surrounding woods. The night choir had come to life—the first voice, a gravelly growl, took up its song on the other side of the Rill.

  Lassiter loosened his grip on Mr. Nettle’s vest. “The denizens of this forest are relentless,” he said in exasperation. With his blade, he gestured for the other two Charmers to watch the trees opposite the Rill. They unsheathed their own weapons and moved to the edge of the little stream, angling their lanterns so their light might penetrate the shadows.

  The chorus grew louder, their throaty warbles and wicked ramblings calling to one another, excitement in their mysterious tone.

  “Gibbet, to the tree,” Lassiter ordered again. “And you two, cut down any creature foolish enough to trifle with us.” He gave Mr. Nettle a hard shove toward the two Charmers by the Rill. “Feed the Feraling to them if need be.”

  One of the Charmers took him by the shoulder.

  “No!” Rye yelled. She pressed herself over the rails, her eyes flaring at them. “Stop it!”

  As suddenly as it began, the night chorus fell silent. Mr. Nettle and the Fork-Tongue Charmers froze in surprise, none of them more shocked than Rye herself. Then she heard it—a thumping plod followed by slithering through the dried leaves outside the Hollow.

  Mr. Nettle caught her eye, then glanced at the rowan-branch platform still lying across the Rill.

  “Oh my. Shriek Reavers,” he observed quietly, but when his eyes briefly met hers again they were wide with fear. “Climb, Miss Riley!” he bellowed. “Climb!”

  4

  Shriek Reavers

  Three long shapes, low to the ground, scurried over the rowan platform with remarkable speed. Sharp fingers clawed the soil as they dragged their legless, serpentine bodies behind them, black tails undulating like eels through water. The first Shriek Reaver reared up, and Rye saw that its head was elongated like a stag’s, its skinless skull charred the color of soot. Two jagged, multi-pronged antlers jutted menacingly from its head.

  The Hollow echoed with the sound of clacking bone. Dozens of oversize teeth chattered not from cold, but purposefully—with hunger.

  Like a cornered badger, Mr. Nettle lurched forward and buried his own teeth into the nearest Fork-Tongue Charmer’s shoulder. The Charmer growled in pain, but before he could move to strike Mr. Nettle, a Shriek Reaver’s whip-like tendril slashed the Charmer’s arm and sent his lantern flying.

  “Climb, Miss Riley! Go!” Mr. Nettle called out again, and she saw him dart across the Hollow, a hand on his head to keep his skullcap from flying.

  Rye tore back into the tree house and grabbed Lottie by the hand. Lottie’s eyes were wide as Rye dragged her through the main room, to the opposite landing at the top of the spiral staircase. She looked at the enormous oak ascending above them as far as her eye could see.

  “Lottie,” she whispered, crouching down to face her and placing her hands on Lottie’s shoulders. “You love to climb trees, right? But Mama won’t always let you?”

  Lottie nodded suspiciously.

  “Well, now’s your chance. We get to climb the tallest tree of them all. I promise not to tell.”

  Lottie gave her an uncertain smile.

  “Really. Go ahead. I’ll follow you.”

  Lottie’s eyes drifted down the staircase to the base of the oak. The Hollow was filled with the pained shouts of the Fork-Tongue Charmers as they called to one another; the hacking sound of metal into what sounded like damp, rotting wood; and the relentless gut-churning clack of bony teeth.

  Rye put a finger on her sister’s chin and gently lifted it so she was looking into Rye’s eyes once again. “No looking down, Lottie. And don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you.”

  Rye saw Lottie swallow hard. She knew Lottie must be as frightened as she was, but the little girl was doing a remarkable job of hiding it. Rye gave her a boost onto the tree house roof, from which the thick trunk of the oak towered upward like an endless chimney. Lottie clung to the moss-riddled shingles on her hands and knees, and Rye moved to join her.

  “Mona?” Lottie asked, peeking down over the edge at Rye.

  “What?” Rye asked, and her eyes darted to the inside of the tree house. The pink polka-dot hobgoblin lay on the floor where Lottie had dropped her.

  Rye checked the spiral stairs. She saw a dark shape scuttle over the oak’s roots and disappear out of sight, the sounds of the calamity below still loud in their ears. She thought better of it but dashed into the tree house anyway, snatching up Mona Monster. She returned, showing the doll to Lottie before stashing it safely in the folds of her own coat.

  “Now get to the trunk,” Rye said, shooing Lottie on.

  Lottie disappeared from the edge and Rye took hold of the roof, digging her fingers into the shingles and pulling herself up. She steadied herself and climbed to her feet, balancing on the sloped pitch. She gasped in alarm as she looked down, where the Fork-Tongue Charmer named Gibbet met her gaze. He was just below her, on the tree house landing.

  But behind him was something even more terrifying.

  A Shriek Reaver was deftly climbing the spiral stairs on two long tendrils that looked more like knotted roots than arms. This close, Rye now saw its teeth: grotesquely oversize for its jaw, their edges chipped from their relentless clacking and grinding.

  Rye opened her mouth to scream but found her throat dry. Gibbet must have read her look of alarm, and pivoted on his heels.

  The slithering creature pressed itself up on its long, spidery arms as it reached the top of the platform, extending its torso so that it stood as tall as Gibbet. It cocked its hairless, antlered skull and warbled something deep in its mouth, like the stub of a tongue flicking against the back of its throat.

  Before Gibbet could attack the monster with his sword, the hideous creature lashed forward, pinning Gibbet’s arms to his side with its own. Its long body coiled through the Charmer’s legs, around his chest, and finally gripped his neck. They fell backward together, tumbling in a heap down the stairs even as Gibbet gasped for breath and struggled to free himself.

  Rye didn’t wait to see the outcome. She scurried toward Lottie, hurrying her up and onto the oak’s trunk. She was thankful that they’d both spent so many days scaling trees together in Drowning, and fortunately the oak’s branches were twisted and knotty—perfect for climbing. Rye followed her own most important rule whenever being chased: Don’t look back. Or in this case, down.

  Rye felt bark under her fingernails and scratches
on her face, but she was otherwise unscathed by the time they reached a fork in the trunk where they could sit side by side. She put an arm around Lottie to be sure her sister was steady. Rye risked a quick glance down. Her head swam—they were higher than even the tallest rooftops of Drowning.

  Only the faint flickering of scattered lanterns lit the Hollow far below, but in the shadows of the tree house, she could see the three black shapes weaving in and out of doors and windows, turning over every corner and cranny in search of some sign of life. One slid through a window only to emerge moments later from the crumbling stone chimney.

  Rye heard nothing more from the Fork-Tongue Charmers . . . nor Mr. Nettle. She didn’t know if the horrible Shriek Reavers would search the oak itself, and wasn’t inclined to wait and find out. That presented a problem. They could keep climbing, but eventually the only way left to go would be down.

  “Bingle-black!” Lottie huffed in a coarse whisper.

  Rye looked in the direction Lottie pointed. Two saucer-like eyes stared at her a healthy distance away from the tree trunk, as if hovering in midair. Rye looked more closely. It was a brindleback on a branch—several branches intertwined together—where the limbs of the oak had mingled with a neighboring ash tree that grew outside the Hollow.

  The brindleback blinked, then turned and scampered away along the branches, his long, ringed tail trailing behind him. That’s the answer, Rye thought. She was suddenly relieved that Mr. Nettle was so fond of procrastinating his chores.

  “This way, Lottie,” Rye whispered, and on hands and knees, they shimmied across the branches. Rye cried out as they bowed under their weight, but their bridge held true, and she watched the Hollow and Rill pass far below them as they reached the other side. Climbing down the neighboring tree was more difficult, and they both fell from a higher distance than they would have liked, Rye cushioning Lottie’s fall.

  She pulled Lottie tight in her arms and leaned back against the base of the ash tree. Only now, with her sister’s small warm body pressed against her, did Rye feel her own heart pounding like a desperate fist inside her chest.