Beginner's Guide to Curses (Kelpies)

by Lari Don

  But Beth couldn’t ask, because she was being flown to her death. Could someone else ask the wood for her?

  “Innes?” Molly croaked. “Innes? Can you talk to wood?”

  But the kelpie couldn’t hear her, as he changed between a boy shouting and a horse kicking, then back again.

  So Molly crawled forward on her belly, her covering of crows pecking and whacking her, and she placed her bleeding right hand on the edge of the hurdle. “Please,” she whispered. “I’m not a dryad, but Beth is. I don’t want her to get hurt or killed when the crows drop her.”

  Molly could see crows releasing Beth’s clothes and hair, one by one. She patted the hurdle, wondering how to wake it up, accidentally smearing her blood on the woven wood.

  “Please. I know there’s still life in you. And I’ve seen how much Beth cares about her trees. Please, wood, if you can move like you used to move in the wind, please catch Beth when they drop her.”

  She looked up. More crows were letting go. Beth was now held by no more than a couple of dozen birds, who could barely carry her weight.

  Molly gasped, “Please, branches and twigs and bark. Please! Save Beth. Save the dryad.”

  The hurdle quivered under her fingers. She lifted her hand away.

  The hurdle rose off the ground, then the rectangle of woven wood sliced through the air, aiming for the empty space under Beth.

  The last few crows let go.

  Beth screamed as she fell.

  The hurdle flew under her and she landed hard on the wood. Beth grapped the edges of the hurdle, as it spun out of control, and tumbled towards the ground.

  Molly saw Beth speak to the woven twigs, then the hurdle slowed its dive. It floated gently down to land exactly where it had been when Molly asked it to help.

  Innes yelled, “Under cover, everyone, under the hurdle.”

  Beth stumbled off the hurdle, then dragged it up against the newly built wall, under the first level of scaffolding. The sphinx, the kelpie, the dryad and the girl all squashed under it, Atacama snarling and biting at any crows who tried to follow them.

  Now, with the wall on one side, the hurdle canted above, and all of them facing inwards so the crows were flapping at their backs, not their faces, Molly felt almost safe.

  “Are you ok, Beth?” asked Innes.

  “I’m scratched and shaking, but I’m fine. Is everyone else ok?”

  They nodded.

  “What about the toad?” asked Molly.

  “There are plenty of dark corners near the outhouse, so if the toad had time to hide, I’m sure it will be safe,” said Atacama. “And if the toad isn’t hiding, it’s too late for us to help.”

  No one said anything for a moment.

  Then Innes spoke. “So. We’re all dying to know, Molly. What in the name of the good green earth did you just do?”

  “Indeed,” purred Atacama. “Are you really a magical being, hiding behind pretended human ignorance?”

  “No, I just put my hand on the hurdle and asked it politely to save Beth. I explained that Beth was a dryad and needed help. I asked nicely and it did what I asked.”

  “Wow,” said Innes. “You just asked?”

  “I asked nicely.”

  “With that hand on the wood?” Atacama stroked her right wrist with his soft black paw.

  She nodded.

  Beth said, “Did you say you were my friend and that’s why the wood helped?”

  “No. You haven’t treated me like a friend and I didn’t think lying would work. So I just said you needed help.”

  Beth looked away. “Thank you.”

  “Perhaps it was the blood,” said Atacama. “If you bled on the wood and asked selflessly for someone in mortal danger, both of those actions are powerful spells. Friendship is another powerful magic, but you didn’t need to call on that too.”

  “Next time you can call on friendship,” said Beth. “I know I can be as prickly as a bramble and as rude as a rhododendron, and I know I haven’t hidden my dislike of humans interfering in our world, but you saved me, Molly. I’m sorry I’ve never been as polite to you as you were to the wood. And I’d be proud to call you my friend.”

  Beth held out her hand and Molly shook it.

  Innes said, “Isn’t that nice and cosy and sickly sweet? Now we’re all friends. All except the crows, who really don’t want us to build this farm. So who has powers that can fight them off?”

  “Shapeshifting won’t help,” said Beth. “Unless either of you can shift into an eagle and fight them in the air.”

  “I’m land and water only,” said Innes.

  “I can just do a hare,” said Molly, “and I can’t even control that.”

  “Beth’s torches defended us against the smaller flock of crows,” said Atacama. “Could we use lots more torches, to scare off lots more crows?”

  “We don’t have enough hands for lots more torches,” said Beth.

  “We don’t need hands,” said Molly. “You can control wood in the air. You floated a torch up the scaffolding.”

  Innes asked, “Could you persuade all the wood you’re not using for scaffolding to whirl around and whack the crows off us? Could you make us a shield?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose I could create a barrier of moving sticks to keep the crows out of the worksite, with a few torches to deter them even more. But it would take a lot of effort, and I’d need to concentrate on the wood. I couldn’t build at the same time.”

  “That’s fine. If you protect us, I’ll send stones up, and Atacama and Molly can settle them in place. We can finish before dawn if you all work at kelpie speed…”

  So Beth built a small shield of airborne sticks, and expanded it branch by branch until it covered the house, then the barn, then the whole site. Soon the team were completely covered by a dome of whirling wood and flaming torches, safe in the crow-free area underneath, listening to the angry cawing of crows outside.

  Molly called, “Toad, if you can hear me, you can come out now!” But there was no answer.

  So Beth sat cross-legged on the highest wall, murmuring and chanting to the sticks that were spinning above her head. Molly and Innes moved the scaffolding and the plank round, then Innes started flicking stones up again, while Molly and Atacama shoved them into place.

  They found a fast and efficient rhythm, and built the walls high and strong.

  “We should use a kelpie to build all the time,” Molly said as they moved the scaffolding round the next corner. She had to yell to be heard over the clacking of sticks and the screeching of crows.

  “This is why humans forced us to build for them,” Innes called back. “But your ministers and lairds didn’t ask nicely. They forced kelpies to build fancy houses by stealing kelpie children and threatening them. Ministers preached against belief in magic while their manses were being built by labour stolen from magical creatures. So most kelpies don’t like to build, it brings back memories of those old stories.”

  He looked up at the new walls. “But this is quite fun: building for a good reason, with people I like.”

  He pointed to a gap in the line of stones on the ground. “This is the wall with the door. I’ll build a doorframe and lintel as I send the stones over.”

  So they built a wall with a door and windows almost as fast as the other walls. Soon the farmhouse was built and the barn half-built too.

  “What about the roofs?” asked Molly, as they were moving the scaffolding round for the last time. She rubbed her shoulders. She could feel the work she’d been doing in the stiffness of her muscles, but she wasn’t tired.

  Innes frowned. “We’ll need Beth and her wood for the roofs. Perhaps the crows will give up and go away by the time we’ve finished the stonework, so she can let the barrier down.”

  But the crows didn’t give up. As Innes, Molly and Atacama built the last wall of the barn, they could still hear the birds screeching and see the occasional tattered black feather fall through the barrier of whirling burning
wood.

  When both the main buildings were finished, they walked round the barn to start on the outhouse, which Molly assumed had been the farm’s toilet.

  But the outhouse was already complete. A building no bigger than a bus stop, with four walls, a doorway and a roof. And the toad squatting in front of it.

  Molly ran over. “I’m so glad the crows didn’t attack you! Are you alright?”

  The toad croaked once.

  “Did you finish this yourself?”

  The toad croaked again.

  “Well done. How did you do it?”

  The toad was silent.

  Molly turned to Innes and Atacama. “Now we have to work out how to build the roofs without leaving ourselves unprotected.”

  The toad jumped into the outhouse.

  “Do you want to shelter in there while we do the other roofs?” asked Innes. “Fair enough, you’ve done lots of work already.”

  The toad croaked twice, crawled surprisingly fast out of the shed and round their feet and paws, then back in.

  Molly nodded. “The toad wants us all to go in. It’s the only completed building. If we use the hurdle as a door, we can all take shelter in there, then we won’t need the barrier, so Beth can drop it down onto the house and barn as roofs.”

  Atacama said, “But Beth will need to come down from the wall into the outhouse, while she’s still maintaining the barrier.”

  “I’ll bring her down,” said Molly.

  Innes said, “I’ll fetch the hurdle.”

  As she and Innes dragged the scaffolding from the barn to the house, she could hear Beth singing to the wood above their heads. The dryad’s voice was hoarse, but she was still flattering the wood, keeping the barrier strong. Molly wasn’t sure how to get a message to Beth without interrupting that link.

  She scrambled up the scaffolding, then pulled herself onto the flat top of the wall, and saw a pale smudge of light on the horizon. The night was nearly over. There was no time to be subtle.

  Molly walked along the wall and stood in front of Beth. The dryad looked up at her, and Molly heard the chant become simpler, just a repetition of the seasons.

  “We need the wood for roofs.”

  Beth nodded and spoke a few encouraging words about sap and photosynthesis.

  “We all have to shelter in the outhouse.”

  Beth nodded again and described several different shades of green.

  “Come down right now.”

  Beth stood and stretched, chanting about dancing with the wind.

  Molly balanced along the wall to the scaffolding. Beth followed her, murmuring about roots and soil.

  As they climbed down, both of them concentrating on footholds and handholds, Beth murmured more slowly and Molly noticed a couple of sticks fall out of the air above her. The barrier was already weakening.

  When she and Beth reached the ground, she heard a caw of triumph and looked up to see a stream of crows pushing through a small gap in the barrier.

  “RUN!”

  Beth and Molly ran, as sticks clattered down around them, and beaks and claws crashed into them.

  Molly dragged Beth, who was wobbly and barely whispering about twigs and buds, round the barn to the outhouse. She shoved Beth through the outhouse doorway and fell in after her. Innes blocked the gap with the hurdle and Atacama held it in place with his claws.

  “Here we are again,” said Innes. “In a small space, with annoyed crows outside. But this time, we’re trapped in a toilet!”

  “It’s nearly dawn,” said Molly. “Beth, how fast can you turn that shield into roofs?”

  Beth coughed. “I need to see what I’m doing.” Her voice was overwhelmed by the noise of wood crashing down onto the outhouse. The barrier was falling apart.

  Atacama moved the hurdle over slightly. Beth put her face to the gap, but she jerked back immediately and a black beak stabbed the air where her face had been. Atacama slammed the hurdle back over the doorway.

  “If I look, they’ll peck out my eyes; if I don’t, I can’t build the roofs…” The dryad was shivering, though Molly couldn’t tell whether it was from the sudden fright or with exhaustion from maintaining the barrier.

  Innes said, “Beth, you know where the walls are, because you’ve been sitting on top of them. You know every stick out there personally. You don’t need to see. And if I help, you can call on my kelpie work rate for speed and efficiency.”

  Atacama said, “It’s less than ten minutes until dawn. We have to do this now.”

  Innes sat down and pulled Beth down with him. He held both her hands and said gently, “I’m going to describe the buildings and you’re going to place your wood on top to make the best roofs ever built in five minutes. You can do this.”

  Atacama, Molly and the toad watched in the dim torchlight, as Innes described the walls’ dimensions and Beth murmured to her wood. Soon there were caws of frustration outside, almost masking the calm whispering of the kelpie and the dryad, but not quite covering the firm thumps of wood linking together.

  After a few minutes, Beth said, “I think that’s it. But I have to look now, to check if the roofs look right as well as feel right.”

  “The roofs are fine,” said Innes. “Listen.”

  There was one thunderous screech of anger from the crows, then silence.

  “Is it safe?” asked Molly.

  Atacama nudged the hurdle over and they looked out cautiously, ready to leap back if any beaks jabbed at them.

  But the crows were swooping away to distant trees and fenceposts, and in the faint light of dawn, Molly could see two low wooden roofs on the farm buildings.

  “The roofs look perfect!” said Molly. “Well done! And the crows have given up at last.”

  She slid the hurdle aside and stepped out. Then she felt the earth move under her feet.

  Chapter 16

  As Molly stepped away from the outhouse doorway to let the others past, she felt a tickling vibration in the soles of her feet, like mild pins and needles.

  Innes burst out of the doorway. “The wyrm is waking! Get out of here! If we’re trapped inside its coils, we might be crushed.”

  He dragged Beth out with him. Molly reached into the outhouse and grabbed the toad.

  As they scrambled over the humped ring of earth, where the vibrations felt less tickly and more threatening, Atacama said, “Head for higher ground, so we can watch what happens and keep out of danger.”

  “Danger?” yelled Molly as she followed the sphinx up the field. “Danger? I kept asking if it was dangerous to set the wyrm free, and you all kept ignoring me, and now you want to run away…”

  “This isn’t running away,” said Innes. “This is a tactical redeployment to a less compromised location. We’ll see how big the wyrm is, how sleepy it is, how annoyed it is. And if it’s gigantic, wide awake and angry, then we’ll run away!”

  Finally they leant, gasping, against the fence at the top of the field.

  Molly put the toad down, then grinned. “Those look like proper buildings from up here.”

  Then she noticed that the ridge of earth they had clambered over was a clear circle even from this distance. And the circle was moving.

  The ground inside the circle and the ground outside the circle were still and solid, but a ring of land was moving slowly clockwise round the three new buildings. The earth was swirling, like a whirlpool.

  “It’s waking,” said Atacama.

  “It’s coiling,” said Innes.

  “It’s rising,” said Beth.

  The toad croaked.

  Then the earth started to fracture and fall away. Diamond-shaped fragments of soil fell from the swirling circle.

  Molly could see shining lines and zigzags of colour – purples, greens, golds, russets, greys – emerging from the dark brown of the earth.

  “Is it just going to stay there, winding round and round?” asked Molly. “Or is it going to…”

  A tail flicked up. A long pointed flexible
tail ripped up and out of the earth.

  “If that’s the tail,” said Innes, “the head must be…”

  And, out of the farmland below them, rose the massive rounded head of the wyrm.

  It was bigger than the outhouse they’d been sheltering in five minutes ago.

  The wyrm yawned, revealing a forked black tongue and curved white fangs. The space between its jaws was tall enough and wide enough for Innes in his horse form to fit inside.

  Then the wyrm turned and looked at them.

  Molly stared back.

  It was a snake and it wasn’t a snake. It was long and legless and scaled, so it looked like a monumentally huge snake. But it wasn’t just a snake. It had a frill of skin around its head, where the skull narrowed to the neck. As it looked up the hill, the frill flicked out into a spiny ruff, royal purple and poison yellow, like a frame of swords and silk around its massive mouth and dark gleaming eyes.

  It turned to look at the buildings, its head tipping to one side. Then it turned to the south and looked into the wildness of the mountains. The wyrm dragged its thick body out of the trench it had slept in, and began to move away from the farm buildings.

  As the wyrm slithered out of the ground, the last clods of earth sliding down its smooth scales, Molly got her first clear look at its markings. It had a zigzag pattern along its body, like lots of Ms nestled into each other, in all the colours of the Scottish landscape, but brighter and shinier.

  As it curved across the field, Molly noticed spines rising up along its backbone. “It’s not really a snake, is it? It’s almost like a dragon with no legs.”

  “It is a dragon,” said Beth. “‘Wyrm’ is the old word for wingless dragon.”

  “We just freed a cursed dragon?”

  “Yes. And now it’s leaving.” Innes sighed with relief.

  There was an echoing shriek like the one they’d heard just before the crows attacked last night. Then hundreds of crows rose from nearby trees and fences, and dived towards the wyrm’s head.

  The wyrm reared into the air, its head rising higher than the roofs of the buildings, snapping its massive jaws at the crows. The birds wheeled upwards in one smooth motion. The wyrm hissed, lowered its head and started moving away.