by Lari Don
“Are you any good at climbing trees, Molly?”
“Not stone ones.”
“Not even with a rope?”
Molly smiled. “A rope would help. Do you have one?”
“I brought the bark rope I made at Cut Rigg Farm, just in case. It’s in the pannier of my bike. Take it, if you like.”
Molly walked over to the bike, opened the bag and pulled out the coil of thin brown rope.
“It’s strong, it will hold your weight. Good luck.”
Molly nodded to Beth and ran back into the tunnel, which didn’t seem as dark or as long now she knew how close the door was and what she would find beyond it.
She saw Innes and Atacama, still slipping down the smooth trunks, still failing to climb them.
She searched for a tree of her own, nowhere near the sphinx or the kelpie, with nests on the lowest branches.
Soon she found one with a short spiky branch about two metres above her head. There were a couple of nests balancing in forks of a thick branch just a little higher up.
Molly tied a loop at the end of the rope, whirled it like a lasso and threw it up towards the spiky branch.
It missed and fell onto her face.
She tried again.
It landed over the branch, but slid right off.
Molly took a step back for a better angle and threw one more time.
The rope fell over the branch and stayed there. Molly tugged and it held firm.
She hadn’t thought to tie knots in the rope before she threw it, and she’d never mastered gripping a rope with her feet to climb up, so she just hauled herself upwards, her hands pulling on the rope and her feet walking awkwardly up the tree trunk.
After a bit of inelegant scrambling, she was sitting astride the thick forked branch. She glanced at the dozen crows perched above her, but they were fast asleep in the topmost branches.
So she shuffled along and looked into the nearest white nest.
It was filled with eggs. Seven eggs. All smooth and shiny. All different muted colours: cream, grey, pale blue, green… Some spotted, some plain, some faintly striped. All the same size, just a little smaller than hen’s eggs.
She reached out and touched a pale green egg with chocolate-brown speckles.
The egg was made of stone. Cold, hard, slippy, polished. She tapped a fingernail against it. Tip tap. It didn’t sound hollow. Then a tiny answering tap came back. Tip tap. She jerked her hand away.
She heard another sound close by. A soft peeping squeak. She leant over to look in the other nest, further along the branch.
In the middle of the nest, surrounded by a yellow jigsaw of broken eggshell, was a baby bird.
The tiny bird, with knobbly pink wings and huge dark eyes, looked up at her. It was almost naked, with just a few faint pencil lines of skinny dark feathers.
The chick opened its beak wide, the bright orange mouth seeming bigger than its head. As it wobbled towards her, asking for food, it stretched out its short wings. On one wing, Molly could see a clear image.
A hare.
A long-legged brown hare, leaping across the pink skin of the bird’s wing.
She remembered the wyrm on the wing of the dead crow at Cut Rigg Farm. This must be the crow linked to her curse. The baby crow that had hatched out of a stone egg the moment she was cursed.
This was her own curse-hatched.
This baby bird, gazing up at her, opening its beak and jerking its wings, was connected to the curse that could kill her the next time she was chased by a fast dog or ran across a busy road.
Molly wondered whether the curse would break if the curse-hatched was killed. She stared at the baby bird, who was gazing back up at her, peeping quietly. And she realised she wasn’t prepared to harm this chick to find out.
The serpent had escaped its curse while the curse-hatched crow was still alive. The bird fell from the sky when the curse was lifted. Presumably the curse kept the crow alive, not the other way round.
If she lifted her curse, would this baby bird die?
She looked at the red marks on her hands where she had been pecked by crows last night. This little pink nestling would grow into a vicious crow, ready to hurt and kill to keep its curse alive.
But right now, as it cheeped at her, she reached her hand out and touched its naked head. The chick pushed warmly against her hand and opened its beak again. It wanted her to feed it.
“I don’t have any worms for you, sorry.”
Then she heard a scraping noise below. Molly lifted her hand away from the nest and looked down.
She saw Innes climbing fast and efficiently up the bark rope towards her.
Molly wondered if she could unhook the rope, so the kelpie would fall. But if she couldn’t hurt a baby bird that carried her curse, she certainly couldn’t injure a boy who’d nearly become her friend.
She couldn’t let him take all the stone eggs though. She needed one for herself.
She shoved her hand into the nearest nest. Her fingers wrapped round two eggs. She glanced at them – one pale biscuit brown, one lilac – then slipped them both into her fleece pocket and zipped it up.
Innes pulled himself onto the branch.
He was shaking his head. “Oh dear, Molly. You’re not ruthless enough to win this task. You should have pulled the rope up after you so no one could follow. Or you should have loosened it once I started climbing. But you didn’t. So, get out of my way, while I find my egg.”
Molly didn’t move.
Innes shifted along the branch, closer to her. “Let me past and no one needs to get hurt.”
She looked at his face. He wasn’t smiling at her, but he didn’t look angry either. He just looked determined.
She’d hesitated about dropping Innes to the ground, but she was sure he wouldn’t hesitate to push her off if she didn’t give him what he wanted.
“There are enough eggs for all of us,” she said calmly and leant out of the way, so he could stretch past her.
“Thanks for being sensible,” he said, as he chose a watery-blue egg. Then he saw the other nest and leant further over. “A baby curse-hatched! Someone’s curse is feeding that chick.”
“Mine,” whispered Molly. “It’s my curse. There’s a hare on its wing.”
“Really?” He looked at her and frowned, then he looked at the bird again. “I wonder what would happen if…”
“No!” she said quickly. “I don’t want to try that. I think the crow needs the curse, but I don’t think the curse needs the crow.”
“You’re probably right. But if I find the crow that carries my father’s curse, I will wring its neck. Just to see what happens.”
Then he smiled. “So, I have the first egg!” He slid off the branch and jumped to the ground, bending his knees for a steady landing.
He looked up. “I’ve very kindly left you the rope, so you can get down safely. But don’t try to catch up with me, Molly. And keep your hood up and your head down for the next few minutes, it’s about to get nasty in here.” He grinned and ran towards the door.
Molly half-jumped, half-slid down the rope, and as she crash-landed on the moss, she noticed Atacama trying a new tactic. The sphinx was clawing his way up a soft peaty wall, then once he was high enough, he was swiping at nests in the nearest trees.
As he swiped and slid and fell onto his paws, a nest fell down with him. Molly nodded. Now Atacama had an egg too.
Then she heard a shout. The first loud noise in the hall since she’d arrived.
Innes was standing by the white double doors. “EGG THIEVES!” he yelled. “Someone is stealing your eggs!”
Then the kelpie ran out, slamming the open door behind him.
Molly heard a sleepy cawing and flapping above her. The crows were waking up.
Chapter 20
Molly heard the echo of the slam as she sprinted towards the door. When she reached it, there was no handle to pull and no carving to persuade.
She flinched away from a bl
ack shape suddenly appearing at her side. But it wasn’t a crow. It was Atacama, his normally sleek fur filthy with peat, carrying a pearly grey egg in his mouth.
“I can’t believe Innes shut us in,” Molly muttered.
Atacama placed the egg on the ground. “Can’t you? Then you don’t know him very well.”
Molly looked up. She saw the crows, clacking their beaks, shaking their wings open, flapping groggily upwards, gathering and circling in the high roof-space.
“How can we get out?” she whispered. “They’ll notice us any minute.”
“The door isn’t completely shut. Look…” The sphinx pointed at a hairline crack between the two white doors. “That vicious little kelpie slammed it so hard, it bounced back a little. I’ll try to hook my claw in there to pull it open, if you stand sentry.”
Molly looked up. The crows were circling in greater and greater numbers, shrieking at each other like they were planning an assault.
She glanced down again. Atacama was lying on the moss, stretching his paw out, trying to fit his claw into the crack without pushing the door completely shut.
She was meant to be the sentry, so she looked up again. Straight into the eyes of a crow on a branch in the nearest tree.
The crow opened its beak.
“Atacama, they’ve spotted us!”
As the crow screeched and swooped towards Molly, she looked down to see Atacama knocking his egg through the gap he’d opened, then sliding sinuously through himself.
Molly slid after him.
Once they were both in the tunnel, the sphinx said, “We should leave the door open, in case Beth or the toad are still inside.”
Before Molly could say that Beth was already out safely, he’d picked up his egg and sprinted away.
Molly heard cawing behind the door and considered slamming it shut, but she didn’t know where the toad was, so she left it ajar and ran up the tunnel.
When she saw the arch of light ahead she screamed, “Beth, if you’re still there, hide! The crows are awake!”
She fell out into the daylight, just in time to watch:
A white horse galloping north far in the distance;
A black cat running after him;
A purple-haired dryad stepping between two crooked birch trees and vanishing.
Molly turned round to see crows billowing out of the high ground above the archway, from every hidden split and gap in the fragile peaty land. Crows rising out of the earth in sudden sharp lines of black.
Molly growled, shifted, then slipped into the nearest dip in the ground and crouched down. She lay there, ears flat to her back, paws tucked in.
Hidden and still.
She could hear the crows shrieking above her.
More birds flew out of the earth, diving up into the sky to join the circling rings of crows, calling and screaming. Then a line of crows peeled off and chased after the sphinx and the horse. The remaining crows flew down to search the land, the river, the trees.
But Molly stayed still.
Her girl self wanted to run, but her hare self knew that if she stayed still she would blend into the earth.
In the chaos of noise and feathers, Molly kept her nerve and kept still.
Without moving her head, she could see the birch trees to her left. She was sure that the tree nearer the water was taller and straighter since Beth stepped between them. Was Beth inside that tree?
The crows swooped in lines and gangs and swirls. Crows skimmed up and down the river. Crows dived between the two trees. Crows flew in and out of the tunnel mouth.
But they didn’t see Molly on the ground and they couldn’t find Beth among the trees. So after five minutes of searching and screaming, they circled high above once more, then went suddenly silent.
Molly felt a moment of skin-tingling fear. Had they noticed her? Was that the signal to attack?
Then she saw the crows flying off in a black arrow, following the smaller group that was chasing Innes and Atacama.
As the black birds became indistinct in the distance, Molly stood squarely on all four paws, stretched her long legs and arched her back. Then she ran at the river and leapt over it.
She landed in the middle of the water, soaking her jeans again.
She stood up and turned round, to see Beth step out from between the trees, both of which were low and crooked again.
Molly clambered back onto the bank. “Did you hide in the tree?”
Beth nodded. “It was a bit cramped.”
The dryad sat by the river, looking warmer and stronger than when Molly had dragged her from the tunnel. Molly sat down beside her.
Beth asked, “Did you find an egg?”
Molly unzipped her pocket and checked inside. She nodded.
Beth almost smiled. “Good for you. You have as much chance as anyone else now. Speed and aggression won’t help Innes or Atacama with a good deed. They’ll have to slow down and think.” The dryad sighed. “I’d better go home and tell my family I’ve failed.”
Molly pulled her hand out of her pocket. “You haven’t failed. Not yet. I didn’t get one stone egg. I got two. You can have one.”
Beth gasped. “Why would you give me an egg? We’re meant to be rivals. Only one of us can complete Mrs Sharpe’s task and get our curse lifted.”
“I know, but I think you should have the same chance as the rest of us.”
Molly looked at the two eggs. A biscuity brown one with coppery glints, and a lilac one with silver veins. She gave Beth the purple egg.
Beth held it gently in her hand, stroked it and smiled at Molly. “Thank you very much. I hope you don’t regret it.”
Molly smiled. “I won’t. Good luck.”
“Good luck to you too.” Beth stood up and walked over to her bike. “You were a hare when I was hiding. How did you transform without a dog scaring you?”
Molly shrugged, and waded over the river. “Maybe you were right about Mr Crottel not being a powerful magic user. The curse is quite easy to fool. It’s not about the dog scaring me, it’s about the noise the dog makes. See…”
She growled, and in one hot heartbeat she was a hare, all four paws braced to run.
Beth frowned. “You’re trying to lift your curse, Molly, not learn to live with it.” She wheeled her bike through the shallow water, then pedalled away over the uneven ground.
Molly overtook Beth easily, but she knew the dryad was right: speed alone wasn’t enough to complete the task first.
Mrs Sharpe’s map showed the homes of local magical beings, so perhaps Molly could find someone nearby who needed help. The next time she crossed a boundary and became a girl, she’d examine the map for an opportunity to do her good deed fast enough to win the task and have her curse lifted by the witch.
Chapter 21
Giant’s Chair
Dragon’s Knowe
Troll Moss
Molly frowned at the map. None of the beings with homes marked nearby seemed likely to need help from an eleven-year-old girl and a small smooth stone egg.
Now that she sat by the narrow road and thought about it, why would anyone need a good deed done with a stone egg? What are stone eggs good for?
She looked up and saw a few heavy clouds to the south, blurring the glow of the sun, but not hiding the sharp pale daytime moon just above the horizon. She looked down at her soggy trainers and damp jeans. She’d like to get her good deed done and her curse lifted before that rain got here and soaked the rest of her.
But what could she use a stone egg for? Molly’s first few thoughts – paperweight, doorstop, blocking a hole – all involved leaving the egg behind. But she needed to give the egg to Mrs Sharpe. So she had to find someone in need of help, who could be helped by a stone egg, and who would let her take the egg away afterwards.
She looked at the map again. Giants and dragons and trolls. She also wanted to find someone who wouldn’t eat her or grill her or squash her. Were there any small safe creatures on the map? She peered more
closely.
She saw a dot just past Craigvenie marked:
Gorse Village (Flower Fairy dwellings).
Fairies were little, and Molly assumed they were harmless. Then she remembered the fairy who’d cursed Innes’s family and realised that even small cute magical beings could be dangerous. Anyway, she didn’t want to go all the way past town. That would take too long. She wanted to find someone to help on the way back to Skene Mains.
So she ran her finger down the silver-inked road towards Craigvenie and looked at the symbols either side of it.
As well as magical beings’ homes, Mrs Sharpe had marked locations for collecting herbs. Close to where Molly sat was a green triangle marked Splendid nettle patch.
Molly decided it was worth a brief detour. She left the roadside and found the nettle patch easily, in the corner of a sheep field. The nettles were tall, leafy and a healthy deep green, vivid in the golden autumn landscape. For people who liked nettles, this probably was a splendid nettle patch.
But Molly didn’t see any little houses, nor a queue of tiny creatures with placards saying:
I need help from a stone egg!
She did notice something pale on the ground. A curved stone, like a shallow bowl, with faint green stains on it. Molly was reminded of the mortar and pestle for grinding ingredients, which were kept on a high shelf in Aunt Doreen’s kitchen. She pulled the stone egg from her pocket and placed it in the stone bowl. It could work for grinding spices, herbs or even nettles.
Then she heard a faint sing-song voice.
“Ninety-four leaves, ninety-five leaves, ninety-six leaves…”
Someone was in the nettles! Molly stepped back and looked around. Against the grey stone wall, she saw a neat pile of leaves: all big and juicy and jagged-edged. Someone was harvesting nettles.
The voice sang, “A hundred leaves!”
A little woman, dressed in dusty green, with bright white hair and skin so wrinkled she looked like a forgotten apple, stepped out of the nettle patch.
Molly stared at her and the old woman stared back.