Beginner's Guide to Curses (Kelpies)

by Lari Don

  Mrs Sharpe glanced upwards. “Do the crows know you’ve been lifting curses on your own?”

  “Yes,” said Atacama. “We just clipped Corbie’s wings by the river.”

  The witch smiled. “Oh dear. He’ll be angry. But if I only lift one curse myself, he’ll have to accept I stuck to our agreement, so my farm will be safe. Well done all of you for using everything you learnt so effectively and for outwitting the curse-hatched.”

  Molly jumped off Innes, landed on her feet and held her egg out to Mrs Sharpe. “Here’s my stone egg. I used it to save a fairy’s sack of heather blossoms.”

  “Let’s do this properly,” said Mrs Sharpe. “In the barn, where it all began.”

  They pushed open the red door.

  And there, squatting on the front desk, was the toad.

  Molly groaned. “How could we forget the toad? The toad can’t carry an egg, so it had no chance of completing the final task. But the toad helped us dig the tatties, the toad built the outhouse, and the toad saved our good deed at the fairy village.” She slumped down on the nearest chair. “We don’t even know what the toad’s curse is. It could be as life-threatening as yours, Innes. But my curse doesn’t have to be life-threatening. I can cope. When I’m a hare I’m faster than you, Innes, and better camouflaged than you, Atacama. I can survive my curse, if I have to.”

  She stood up again. “Mrs Sharpe, I wonder if—”

  Beth grabbed her arm. “Molly, don’t do this!”

  Innes said, “No, Molly! You’ve worked so hard to lift your own curse. Don’t give it away.”

  “Molly, this is a big decision,” said Atacama. “Think about it carefully.”

  “I’ve thought about it and I know what I have to do. Mrs Sharpe, here’s a stone egg, charged with a good deed. Please use it to lift the toad’s curse.”

  Mrs Sharpe took the egg carefully in both hands. It glowed, shining and coppery, in her fingers. “There is a good deed in here, a slightly tricksy one by the feel of it, but the egg is also charged with teamwork and an unbroken promise. It has power. Stand back, everyone.”

  Molly, Beth, Innes and Atacama moved to the other side of the room.

  Mrs Sharpe put her left hand gently on the toad and held her right hand out with the egg standing upright on her palm. She muttered seven soft sing-song words and threw the egg on the floor.

  The egg shattered and a puff of silvery-blue dust rose into the air.

  And the large sandy toad turned into a small green frog.

  Innes said, “A frog, cursed to turn into a toad? That’s not a very ambitious curse.”

  “Wait,” said Mrs Sharpe. “It’s not finished.”

  The frog turned into a weasel.

  The weasel turned into a ginger cat.

  The ginger cat turned into a swan, which flapped off the desk onto the floor.

  The swan turned into a goat.

  And the goat turned into a boy. A tall dark-skinned boy in a sand-coloured cloak, with his bare scalp covered in raw scrapes and small cuts, like he had been badly shaved.

  He bowed towards Molly. “Thank you. That was a very kind thing to do. I hope you never regret it. And my apologies to you, brave sphinx, for any trouble I caused you. It was a pleasure to dig and build and steal with all of you this week. Farewell.”

  The boy vanished inside a pillar of golden sand, which whirled out of the open door, past the frowning sphinx.

  “Who was that?” asked Innes.

  “I have no idea,” said Mrs Sharpe, “but he was under an incredibly complex curse, with lots of layers. It needed all the power of your good deed, your teamwork and your promise to break it. Whoever cursed him must be an extremely powerful magic user.” She glanced around nervously. “I’m definitely not holding any more of these workshops. It’s becoming far too complicated and risky.”

  “You don’t have to hold any more for us,” said Molly. “You’ve taught us everything we need to know about curses already.”

  Mrs Sharpe smiled. “Don’t assume you know everything. That was just an introduction to the world of curses.” She left the classroom, still looking about anxiously.

  Molly turned to Atacama. “I’m sorry I seem to have un-cursed the person who cursed you.”

  “That’s ok. I think you made the right decision.”

  “I know you made the right decision,” said Innes. “Now you’re still a part-time hare, I’m going to start training and build up my speed so I can beat you in a fair race.”

  “Racing isn’t the priority,” said Beth. “We must search for other ways to lift your curse.”

  “In the meantime, we should create a map of local boundaries,” suggested Atacama, “to help you shift back more easily and safely.”

  “Those are all great plans,” said Molly. “You all think about training and searching and mapping. I’m going out to stretch my legs.”

  Molly went outside.

  She growled softly. She felt the familiar warmth up her spine. She watched as her pale hands became long paws. Her vision widened and her hearing got more sensitive.

  She became herself. Her hare self.

  And she ran.

  As she leapt into the nearest field and sprinted across the grass, she heard, in the far distance, the croaking of crows waking up. But she didn’t care. Not today.

  Molly knew exactly why she was running like this. This incredible fast leaping flight, feet barely touching the ground. She was running because it was the right thing to do, the best thing to do, the only thing to do, with these legs, and this blood pumping through her veins.

  She felt she could run like this forever.

  She didn’t feel cursed at all.

  Chapter 1

  Molly’s curse got worse early on Sunday morning.

  Molly expected to become human as she leapt through the air.

  She expected to beat Innes to the finish line as a hare, change shape when she crossed the stone wall into Aunt Doreen’s garden, and crash-land on the ground as a girl.

  That’s what always happened.

  She always beat her friend Innes when he challenged her to a race. She always controlled her curse by crossing a boundary and becoming human again, just in time to accept his grudging congratulations.

  But this time, when she landed on the ground, she didn’t fall and bash her knees. This time she stayed on all four feet. All four paws.

  She was over the wall, over the boundary, and she was still a hare. Still small, vulnerable, defenceless. Still unable to speak.

  Innes thumped down on his heavy hooves, shapeshifted from white horse to blond boy, then said, “Well done. Again. Though I don’t know how you do it. I was the fastest thing in Speyside until you arrived. You weigh less than one of my hooves, you don’t even train, and you still beat me every single time. It’s not… fair. But, obviously, well done, again.”

  Molly couldn’t answer.

  Innes sighed. “Why have you shifted back to a hare already? Do you want another race? I will beat you eventually, but I’m not giving it another go until I’ve had one of your great-aunt’s biscuits. So bounce over the wall and become a girl again. You’re easier to chat to when you can talk back.”

  Molly turned and jumped over the wall, hoping it had been some kind of magical blip, hoping the rules of her curse would work as usual this time.

  She landed in the field neatly and elegantly. She was still a hare.

  Over the past week, Molly had got used to being a part-time hare. She enjoyed the speed and the strength of her long hare legs and she loved beating Innes in races. But she didn’t want to be a full-time hare.

  She’d learnt to manipulate this curse, with the help of her new friends. She’d discovered that, as well as becoming a hare unwillingly when she heard a dog bark or growl, she could choose to shift from human to hare by growling like a dog herself. She also knew that she always shifted back from hare to human when she crossed the boundary between one owner’s land and the next: a garden
wall, a playground fence, a road cutting between two farms. So why wasn’t it working now?

  She leapt the wall again, still enjoying the power of her legs and the precision of her senses, but also starting to feel trapped inside this small fragile shape. She landed, on all four paws. She was still a hare.

  Molly looked down at her delicate brown paws, wondering if she’d ever see her pale human fingers again.

  Innes was frowning. “Why are you still a hare?” He crouched down and placed a hand gently on her back.

  With his warm palm on her spine, Molly was suddenly aware of her fast jerky breathing. Stuck inside this hare body, she was beginning to panic.

  “Calm down, Molly. We’ll work this out. Maybe this wall is, I don’t know, broken or something. Let’s try other boundaries…”

  Innes wrapped his hands round her ribcage, about to pick her up. Molly flicked her ears in annoyance, slid out of his grasp and sprinted across her aunt’s garden. She leapt over the hens’ wire run, hurdled the wooden fence into Mr Buchan’s weeds, then jumped a white wall onto the Websters’ lawn.

  She was still a hare.

  She swerved round in a tight circle and ran back. Over the wall, over the fence, round the confused chickens, back to Innes.

  “So walls don’t work and fences don’t work,” he said, “even though they worked yesterday. We’ll have to change you back another way.” He paused. “I shift by thinking about the shape I want to be. Why don’t you try that?”

  Molly’s ears drooped. Innes changed easily because he was a kelpie, a born shapeshifter, able to become human or horse or fish or monster at will. She’d been cursed to change from human to hare, so she had much less control over her shapeshifting.

  “I know,” said Innes, “it’s probably not as easy for you. But see if it works.”

  Molly closed her wide-vision eyes and pictured herself. Her girl-self. The self she had been every minute of every day until Mr Crottel had cursed her. She saw freckles and fingers. She saw bruised knees, poky elbows and short brown hair. She focused and she wished and she hoped.

  And it made no difference at all. She was still a hare.

  “This is beyond us,” said Innes. “Let’s ask Mrs Sharpe. She knows a lot more than she taught us on that curse-lifting workshop. If your curse has got worse somehow, she’ll know what to do. Let’s go to Skene Mains farm.”

  They walked down the narrow garden, through the back door into the kitchen, then crept through the bright cottage. As Innes opened the front door, Molly heard her Aunt Doreen call from the living room. “I’m off to Elgin soon to get some messages, so I’ll not be back until teatime. See you later, Molly.”

  Innes muttered, “Alright. Bye,” and dashed through the front door before Molly’s aunt could identify his voice.

  He shut the door and put Molly down on the pavement in front of the row of houses between the distillery and the town.

  He asked, “Would you rather go to Skene Mains the long way round town on your own paws, or the short way through town under my coat?”

  She pointed her nose at the hills.

  He grinned. “Race you?”

  She shook her ears.

  He sighed. “Ok. I know. On unfamiliar territory you have to be sensible, you have to keep an eye out for predators and snares. No race then; let’s just meet at the farm gates. I bet I’ll get there before you!”

  Molly sprinted over the empty road, then into the fields that would take her in a long curve round the town of Craigvenie to Mrs Sharpe’s farm.

  As Molly ran at a comfortable speed, looking out for dogs, foxes and barbed wire, she realised Innes was galloping one field higher up, looking for more challenging obstacles to leap.

  Each time she pushed under a gate or leapt a wall, she hoped to hit the ground with a human-sized crash. But each time, she was still a hare.

  Then she ran into a grassy field and saw a moving shape to her left.

  Was it a predator? A fox?

  Molly dropped to the ground and lay flat, hiding her soft brown contours in the folds of the field. Then she recognised the shape.

  It was a hare. Three hares. Long-legged and long-eared, like larger stronger faster rabbits. Silhouetted clearly on the grass of the field.

  Molly had never met any other hares. She wondered if these hares would think she was a real hare, or only a pretend one.

  She watched them.

  They were grazing together, moving around each other, not too close, but clearly comfortable as a group.

  They were all female. Molly wasn’t sure how she knew that. But she did know it, even more clearly than she’d know whether a distant teenager in jeans and t-shirt was a boy or a girl.

  These were girl hares.

  So she moved towards them.

  She knew they could see her. Her own vision was so wide she could see almost everything around her, except just in front of her nose and just behind her head. The hares had stopped cropping the grass. They were all standing very still.

  Then the largest hare turned round to watch Molly approaching.

  Was there a hare language? Molly wondered. Would she understand it?

  Molly loped closer.

  The other two hares turned round.

  She moved even closer. Slowly. Not wanting to scare them.

  But they didn’t seem scared. They didn’t seem suspicious or puzzled. They just stared at her.

  The largest hare loped towards her. Molly tried to look friendly, with no idea what a hare would think was friendly. The hare reached Molly and stood up, showing her pale belly. Molly nodded a greeting.

  The large hare punched her. Just whacked her, right on the nose. And again. And again. Punching, boxing, hitting.

  Molly squealed, a noise she hadn’t known she could make, and backed off.

  She raised her own front paws, planning to fight back. Then she realised this hare was just defending her territory, or her babies, or her grass, or something else important to a real wild hare. Molly didn’t want any of those things. Molly didn’t want to fight her.

  So when the hare bobbed forward to punch her again, Molly turned and ran away. She ran as fast as she could, away from the hares, towards the witch’s farm, hoping with all her heart, for the first time, that she could lift this curse, and that she wouldn’t have to spend her life trying to make friends with hares who punched her before even getting to know her.

  She ran, knowing the only native animal in Scotland that could overtake her – a larger hare – was right behind her. But as she darted under the gate, the other hares were already nibbling grass again. Like she hadn’t even been there.

  Molly sprinted across the last few fields to Mrs Sharpe’s farm. And she thought about grass. She’d never eaten as a hare. She’d always changed back in time to eat human food. If she was stuck as a hare, would she have to eat grass?

  She stopped and looked at the grass under her paws. She bent down and sniffed the sour salad smell.

  No. She wasn’t hungry enough. She’d try eating grass later if she absolutely had to.

  As she ran through the last field, Innes joined her, sweating from his gallop and jumps.

  Molly knew that even though she was faster than Innes, she wasn’t a true shapeshifter like him. He was equally at home as a horse or a boy. She wasn’t really a hare. Perhaps it was time to accept that: to say goodbye to the speed and freedom of being a hare. Perhaps she really did have to find a way to lift this curse forever.

  She leapt over the fence into the road, and ran between Mrs Sharpe’s gateposts.

  She felt an unfamiliar fizzing in her bones, tumbled forward in an uncontrolled somersault and caught a wideangle glimpse of fur-covered paws stretching into long bony fingers. Then her vision narrowed, her hands hit the ground and her palms scraped painfully across the gravel.

  Molly was a girl again.

  But it had never happened like that before. She’d never seen herself shift from one shape to another; it usually happened
too fast.

  Molly shivered. Her curse had definitely got worse.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  Copyright

  Kelpies is an imprint of Floris Books

  First published in 2016 by Floris Books

  First published in the USA in 2017

  This eBook edition published in 2016

  © 2016 Lari Don

  Lari Don asserts her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be recognised as the Author of this Work. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced without prior permission of Floris Books, Edinburgh

  www.florisbooks.co.uk

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland towards the publication of this volume

  British Library CIP data available

  ISBN 978-178250-340-8