‘Or a warlock,’ said Tick, an excited smile on his face.
The festival reminded Cora of the traders in Urt. Except it was much bigger and . . . cleaner.
Then there was a crackle of magic and the dragon above her shimmered before disappearing. In its place emerged a giant gold bird. Cora had never seen one like it. It had huge wings, large talons and a sharp beak. It squawked into the air then flew above her before shimmering and disappearing, only to be replaced by a two-headed serpent.
Cora was so busy looking around that she almost didn’t hear the sharp TOOT from behind her. She looked back to see a group of creatures all dressed in matching blue outfits with pointed hats. They came up to her knees and had long, white beards. Each of them held small, gold instruments in their hands.
‘Excuse me,’ squeaked the one in front.
‘Sorry,’ Cora said, quickly stepping out of the way.
‘Gnomes,’ said Tick as they walked past them and down the street.
‘No patience,’ said Tock, shaking his head.
Banners and streamers were strung up in the air from stall to stall and building to building.
Then suddenly there were three large bangs, one after another. Cora, Tick and Tock whirled around before looking up to see red fireworks exploding in the blue sky above them.
Then music filled the air. Cora saw that it was coming from the gnomes. They had set up their band on a space of the pavement nearby and were playing a tune that made Cora want to tap her feet.
Happily, Cora, Tick and Tock stepped in time with the festival crowd. They walked past stalls selling soaps that sent shrieking bubbles up into the air, stalls that sold wands that fizzled and sparked, stalls that sold replacement mermaid scales, stalls that sold floating and spinning umbrellas.
As she looked at a spinning umbrella, Cora couldn’t help but stare at a man nearby with very beautiful, long, shiny, blond hair.
‘Elf,’ said Tock by her side.
‘Don’t worry, we already crossed elf off the list,’ said Tick. ‘You’re not an elf.’
‘We think,’ added Tock.
‘Not enough hair,’ said Tick, tilting his head at her.
‘I already think I know what I am,’ Cora mumbled, remembering Belle the hobgoblin’s words. She wished she was an elf. They walked past a stall selling different kinds of wigs and watched as a short red wig changed into a long curly one.
‘You know what you are?’ replied Tock questioningly.
‘I’m a Jinx,’ she said softly.
There was a pause from the fairies. They stopped flying in the air next to her and stared at her. Then they burst out laughing.
Cora stopped. ‘What?’ she asked.
Tick was bent over in a fit of giggles. He held onto his stomach.
Tock wiped a tear from his eye.
Cora looked around. What had she said? Some of the people nearby in the crowd around her turned in her direction. Cora glared at the fairies until they stopped laughing.
‘Sorry,’ said Tock.
‘But you can’t be a Jinx,’ said Tick.
‘I can’t?’ replied Cora. ‘But the hobgoblin said . . .’ Cora felt herself go red. She watched as Tick and Tock shook their heads, trying to hold back their laughter.
‘You’re not big enough,’ said Tock.
‘Or scary enough,’ said Tick.
‘And you don’t eat people enough,’ said Tock.
‘So I’m not a Jinx?’ Cora asked. She suddenly felt lighter.
‘Well,’ said Tick, ‘at least, not yet.’
Cora groaned.
‘How would that work?’ asked Tock. ‘If you’re jinxed and you are a Jinx?’
Tick stroked his chin in thought. ‘Would you . . . eat yourself?’
Then both of the fairies burst into laughter once more.
Cora rolled her eyes. ‘I’m going to look around,’ she said. She walked down the festival street, leaving a still-laughing Tick and Tock behind her.
So maybe she wasn’t a Jinx. But if she wasn’t a Jinx . . . then what was she? What had the hobgoblin seen inside her? Whatever it was . . . it had scared her. She hoped Belle was okay.
Cora walked past a stall that sold beetles and another that sold detachable wings, until eventually Cora came to a stall that was empty. She stopped. A woman without any hair stood behind a table with nothing on it. Nobody else was around the stall so Cora walked up to it. At least she thought the stall was empty. As she got closer, she saw some dainty objects glistening in the light. They were crystals. Crystals so clear you could barely see them. They had markings on them but Cora couldn’t quite make them out.
The bald woman behind the table looked at Cora interestedly. ‘Heart stones,’ she said.
Cora reached down and picked up one of the crystals. The marking looked like something she had seen before. She held it closer to her eye, so that it glistened in the sunlight. Then the heart stone nearly fell from her hand when she recognised the marking etched into it. It was the same marking that was burnt into the wooden spellbox she had found in Urt. The one that had summoned the Jinx. The one that had cursed her.
She peered down at it, intrigued.
‘Cora,’ said Tick and Tock as they flew over to her side. ‘Try this!’ The pair of them held a bouquet of fairy floss that popped and crackled in their hands.
Hesitantly, Cora grabbed some of the sticky floss and popped it in her mouth. It zapped and buzzed all the way down.
‘Fairies,’ said a voice from behind them. Cora and the fairies turned around to find a man with pale skin and dark, shaggy, dripping wet hair. His leg was bent awkwardly and he looked like he could barely stand as he held on tightly to a wooden walking stick. His dark brown eyes flicked from the fairies to Cora.
‘I’m Artemis,’ he said, breathing heavily. It looked like it had taken him a lot of effort to mutter two words.
Tick and Tock looked the man up and down. He looked familiar. Then Cora remembered where she had seen him. He’d been in line to see King Clang at The Hollow. Cora, Tick and Tock had pushed to the front of the line ahead of him. Then the Jinx . . .
‘I need you to deliver a message,’ Artemis said. Then he paused and took a breath. ‘I need you to,’ he rasped, ‘. . . it’s of great . . . great importance.’
Then the man fainted.
Cora, Tick and Tock peered down at him sprawled on the ground.
‘Do you think the message is fainting?’ asked Tock.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
‘Quickly,’ said Cora.
‘He’s heavy,’ said Tock.
‘And smelly,’ said Tick, wrinkling his nose.
The fairies struggled to keep the man up, holding onto him by his clothes, as they flew through the air. The man bobbed up and down, his hands dragging limply along the ground behind him.
They made their way through the streets away from the festival as fast as they could, which was to say, not very fast. There were people and stalls everywhere. Magical beings looked at them questioningly as they pushed past and Cora did her best to smile and nod politely as if two fairies dragging an unconscious man through the air was a perfectly normal thing.
Carrying his walking stick, Cora led the way through the city, searching for somewhere to stop. ‘What about here?’ she suggested, pointing down an empty alleyway. There was a rustle from a nearby box and then someone or something let out a giant BURP. A strange smell wafted towards them.
Tick and Tock shook their heads.
They moved on.
‘Here?’ asked Cora motioning to a small park. Then Cora saw something slither through the tall grass. Something big.
Tick and Tock shook their heads.
Eventually they came to a row of homes. One of them had a sign out the front of it that read VACANT DUE TO PIXIE INFESTATION.
Cora looked over at Tick and Tock. They nodded, the strain from carrying the man obvious on their faces.
At the back of the house, a rusted door
sat ajar. Cora pushed it open and walked inside. Tick and Tock quickly flew in after her. But forgot about the man they were carrying.
BANG!
Artemis’s shoulder hit the doorway.
‘Oops!’ said Tock. ‘Tick!’
Artemis groaned.
‘Sorry,’ said Tick.
‘Be careful,’ said Cora. She held the door open for the fairies as they pulled the man, this time, more carefully, inside.
The home had all its furniture; couches, cupboards, mirrors, clocks, curtains. It reminded Cora of the houses in Urt that were abandoned in a hurry. Yellow tape stretched from one end of the house to the other. They ducked underneath it.
‘Place him here,’ said Cora, motioning to the couch in the living room.
Tick and Tock were struggling to keep Artemis up in the air until Tick couldn’t carry Artemis any longer and let go of the man’s legs just as Tock let go of his arms, and Artemis fell onto the couch with a THUMP.
Tick, Tock and Cora looked down at the stranger as he lay still.
Now that they were away from the festival, Cora could see that Artemis’s hair and clothes were wet with sweat. His face was red and the leg that was bent in an odd way was soaked with something sticky. Cora touched his leg with a finger and pulled it back to find that the something sticky was blood. He also had red scratches across his hands and neck. They looked like claw marks.
‘Everyone,’ Artemis muttered. ‘All . . . nothing . . .’
‘See if you can find some water,’ said Cora. Dot had always said water helped when someone was sick.
With a POP!, Tock disappeared.
Cora pulled out the other half of her scarf from her pack and wrapped it around Artemis’s injured leg.
Then Artemis started to shake. Cora pulled a curtain from the window and placed it on top of him.
‘What do we do, Cora?’ Tick asked.
‘Can we take him to the Fairy Fountain?’ Cora replied.
Tick shook his head. ‘The Fountain can only help fairies.’
With a POP!, Tock appeared. He held a bucket of water in his hands.
‘That’s for —’ But before Cora could tell Tock what to do with the bucket of water, the fairy threw half of the contents right on top of Artemis. The water splashed all over him.
‘Drinking,’ finished Cora.
‘Oh,’ said Tock. ‘Oops.’
They waited for the man to wake up, spluttering in shock. But he didn’t. Then with a POP! of magic, Tock dried him. They waited some more but the man’s eyes remained closed. And it wasn’t long until Artemis was wet with sweat once more.
‘Should we find someone to help him?’ Tock asked.
‘We don’t know what he is yet,’ said Tick, looking down at the man. ‘What healer do we take him to?’
‘He said he needs our help,’ said Cora, trying to think. She felt a pang of guilt. ‘And I remember him. He was at The Hollow waiting to see the king before the Jinx . . .’
‘Do you think this is from the Jinx?’ asked Tick.
Cora swallowed. She really hoped not.
They waited. Hours passed and Artemis stayed the same. If anything, he got worse.
‘We’ll get food,’ said Tick. And with two POP!s, Tick and Tock disappeared.
Cora looked down at Artemis. He tossed around in his sleep, breathing slow, heavy breaths and murmuring words Cora couldn’t quite catch. What happened to him? she wondered.
Heat radiated from his skin. Perhaps he had a fever? She thought about checking the way Dot had checked her once before. Gently, Cora reached down towards him and placed a hand on his head. It was hot.
Then suddenly Cora felt a shock go through her entire body. It sparked and sizzled like a bolt of lightning, ricocheting from her toes to her nose. She snatched her hand away and stumbled backwards.
She shook her head. It felt like something was slowly filling her up inside.
Her head spun. She looked over at Artemis. He had stopped stirring and mumbling. His breathing had become softer.
What was that? Whatever it was, it crawled inside her. She felt dizzy. She looked down at her hands. They looked different. Or was that her eye? She could hear herself breathing heavily. Or was that someone else? She felt . . . strange.
Just like she had felt before.
Just like after she faced the Jinx at The Hollow . . .
Uh-oh.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
There were two POP!s and Cora whirled around to find Tick and Tock carrying armfuls of food.
‘We found . . .’ began Tock. He stopped when he saw her.
‘What happened?’
‘What . . . I . . . nothing,’ said Cora. The vision in her eye was blurry. She tried to blink it away as panic crept through her.
‘Cora,’ said Tick. The fairies dropped the food they were carrying. Bread and fruit fell to the floor.
‘I . . . I just touched him and . . .’ She looked down at her hands. A feeling squirmed inside her. But it wasn’t the same as the one she had felt after The Hollow. Not really. The feeling inside her was different somehow. Instead of a pool of water, it was like wind. A gust of it, swirling around inside her.
Tick and Tock flew in front of her, worried looks on their faces.
Then there was a groan from the floor behind them. They looked over to find Artemis, a hand clutching his head as he struggled to sit up.
‘Where . . .?’ he croaked.
Tick and Tock flew over to him and helped him up.
‘Here,’ said Tock, pushing what was left of the bucket of water towards him. ‘It’s for drinking.’
Artemis reached down and scooped up a handful of water before gulping it down. Then he splashed some on his face.
Cora squinted over at him. Her vision was blurry but he looked better. Much better. She shook her head and her vision cleared a bit. She could see that Artemis was no longer pale or sweating. His leg was still injured but he no longer looked as ill as he had a few minutes ago. That was quick . . . wasn’t it?
Cora suddenly felt hot. Her head pounded. A dizziness came over her. Flashes of images filled her mind. Feathers floating in the air. A forest at night-time. Screams. Endless screams. She fell to the ground, holding her hands to her head to try to shut out the images.
‘Cora?’ said Tock, flying over to her.
Tick followed. He looked at Artemis. ‘What did you do?’
Artemis stopped, his eyes on Cora. Then he stood up, grabbed his walking stick from the floor and dragged himself over to where she sat. He looked down at her.
Cora felt pain. Sadness. She felt loss. Guilt. It all washed over her in waves. She saw a castle on a hill. She felt cold. She saw a man with long silver hair that glowed. She felt scared.
‘I . . .’ said Cora, unable to put it all into words. It was too much.
Artemis knelt down in front of her.
‘Look at me,’ he said.
Cora opened her eye. She saw the man’s brown eyes peer down at her. They were kind, an understanding in them. Just like Dot’s were when she found her.
‘Breathe,’ Artemis said.
Cora breathed in and then out, focusing on the man’s eyes.
‘Close your eye. What do you see?’
Cora could see feathers spattered with blood. The castle was empty, smoke billowed from all the windows. The forest was destroyed. An evil laugh echoed in her ears.
‘I see a . . . castle . . . I think,’ she said. ‘Up high on a hill or a . . . a mountain.’
Artemis paused. ‘A castle?’
Cora nodded.
‘Does it have a large dome made of glass in the centre of it?’ Artemis asked.
Cora opened her eye. How did he know that? She nodded. ‘And feathers. Everywhere. Blood. Everywhere. A forest. And . . . a man with silver hair and . . . white eyes.’
Artemis stood up and stepped back away from her, his eyes wide, his thoughts elsewhere.
Tick and Tock pushed in front of him.
/>
‘What is it?’ asked Tick.
‘Cora, what do you feel?’
‘I feel like something is inside,’ she said. ‘Again.’ She had trouble breathing. The feeling was like air this time. It flew around inside her. It was heavy.
Tick and Tock looked at each other.
‘You must control it,’ said Tick.
‘Just like before,’ said Tock.
Cora tried to grab the feeling but it moved too quickly. Then she remembered what the hobgoblin had taught her. She stopped trying to fight it. She let the images wash over her. The castle. The forest. The feathers. The man with silver hair and white eyes. She waited. She focused on her breathing like Artemis had told her to do. Then the air got lighter. She let it disappear into her. Then the images in her mind dissolved. And the feeling was gone.
She sat up. Her head slowed its pounding. Her vision became clearer. She looked down at her hands. They looked the same.
Tick and Tock helped her stand.
Artemis stood behind them. He looked over at her as he rested on his walking stick, his eyes assessing.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Tock.
Cora nodded. Though she wasn’t sure.
There was silence in the room.
‘Did you feel her?’ came Artemis’s voice. It was soft. Cora almost didn’t hear him. Cora, Tick and Tock looked over at him.
‘Who?’ asked Cora.
‘The princess,’ said Artemis. He looked at her. Cora could see hope in his eyes as he searched her face for an answer.
Cora didn’t know what to say. She tried to remember the images.
‘You have her magic now, don’t you?’ Artemis added.
Cora stared at him, not understanding.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve never met someone like you in person. I’d heard stories but I’d never thought . . .’
‘Someone like me?’ asked Cora, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She looked at Tick and Tock. They shrugged.
Artemis took a step towards her.
‘A syphon.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘A what?’ exclaimed Cora, confused.
‘A syphon,’ said Tick and Tock at the same time. There was a POP! of magic then they both suddenly held their notepads in their hands. They flicked through the pages.
Jinxed!: The Curious Curse of Cora Bell Page 13