by SJB Gilmour
‘It!’ protested the hobgoblin in a squeaky voice. ‘I’m a he, damn it! You werewolves think you’re sooo superior!’ He sneered. ‘Turn off that light! Let me go!’ The hobgoblin began struggling for all he was worth. His smock gave a sudden rip and he fell out of it onto the forest floor. His matted hair covered his entire body. Without his smock, he was clad only in a filthy loincloth that looked more like a nappy a toddler would wear.
Benjamin chuckled as the horrible little creature scurried away back out into the forest. As he ran further away, the mysterious light above Sarah’s head faded to a dull glowing orb that hovered about a metre above their heads.
‘Give me back my clothes!’ the hobgoblin hollered at them. ‘I demand that you give me back my clothes!’
Benjamin laughed and chucked the grubby little smock out into the forest. The hobgoblin rushed to cover himself then appeared just at the edge of the light.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing much,’ replied Benjamin urbanely. ‘Just testing a hex, that’s all.’
‘Hex!’ cried the hobgoblin. ‘That’s no ordinary hex your Golden Mane’s got there, Silver Shroud! It’s an elemental hex! You should be very careful with that. It could burn down this entire forest!’
‘Never mind, little fellow. We’re leaving now, unless you’d rather stop us,’ Benjamin said menacingly. Then he changed form and nodded at Sarah to do the same. Then the two wolves bounded away.
‘What’s an elemental hex?’ Sarah asked Benjamin as they ran.
Benjamin paused near another enormous elm. As he sat down, a friendly little tree sprite appeared above his head and flew around in a small circle. The dim light she gave off provided just enough light for them to see more clearly.
‘An elemental hex summons the power of the four elements. Earth, wind, fire and water. In your case, when a troll approaches, water is summoned. When light-fearing creatures threaten you, fire appears.’
He then thanked the tiny tree sprite and they loped back towards the campsite in silence. When they arrived, Benjamin padded up to a spot near the fire, walked around in a circle a few times, and then lay down. ‘You should get some sleep,’ he told Sarah. ‘Tomorrow is likely to be a busy day.’
Sarah thanked her uncle. She was still a bit shaken by the whole experience she had just had out in the forest. She changed form and went into her tent and snuggled into her sleeping bag and was soon fast asleep.
Sarah awoke as dawn was rising to breathe life once more into the dew-laden forest. The others would be sleeping for another hour or so, she thought to herself. So she decided, for no other reason than she felt like it, to run through the forest. She rejoiced in the boundless energy her wolf form gave her. Rabbits and birds and even the occasional deer all scattered and watched her pass with a strange mixture of fear and respect. All creatures, she realised, gave way to the wolf. The wolf certainly was ruler of the forest!
‘Yes, Golden Mane,’ the trees whispered. ‘Rule you may! Great potential lies in your future.’
She gazed up at the trees. Thank you, she replied.
‘Our blessing is with you, Sarah Kopernik!’ whispered the trees. ‘Beware! Danger lies ahead,’ the trees warned. Then they became silent.
What danger? She asked.
There was no answer. Feeling a little less sure of herself, she made her way back to the campsite. When she arrived, the others were eating breakfast.
Angela was up and dressed in hiking gear with her hair tied in braids. Though obviously much better than the night before, she had still not yet fully recovered from the effort of summoning the spirits of Castlerigg. She was poking at her breakfast with her fork. Ronny came up to her and put one grey palm to her forehead.
‘You need more rest,’ he told her in a professional tone. He took her plate away from her and gave her a mug from which a strange pink mist wafted along with a smell of something really quite horrid. ‘Drink this,’ he advised. ‘Then back to bed.’
Angela looked at the mug suspiciously. ‘What is it?’
Ronny crossed his stubby little arms across his chest. ‘Just drink it, Mistress Harding,’ he told her more firmly. ‘I’m not in the business of poisoning people…’ He paused, smirking. ‘Well, not today anyway,’ he added with a sly wink.
‘If you say so,’ she replied in a resigned tone. She shut her eyes, took a breath and downed the mug in one long gulp. When she had swallowed, her eyes went wide open and she gasped. ‘Eck!’ she spat. ‘That’s foul! What is that stuff?’
Ronny smiled at her. ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘That’s my grandmother’s patented fix-me up. Recipe’s secret I’m afraid, but I must advise you to get to bed as soon as you can. You’ll probably be asleep in about thirty seconds.’
Angela’s eyes were already starting to become un-focused.
‘You know,’ she slurred, ‘Think you’re right.’ She lurched to her feet and staggered back to her tent where, if the thud was anything to go by, she simply collapsed onto her sleeping bag.
‘I’ll put her to bed,’ Roberta said to nobody in particular and followed Angela into her tent. Moments later, she came out, chuckling. ‘Would you believe she’s snoring already?’ She gave Ronny a congratulatory nod. ‘My compliments, good sir. She’s out like a light.’
The next day the group packed their tents and assembled around a new nonagram Angela had drawn in the damp, dew-covered loam of the forest floor.
‘Why aren’t we using the circle up there?’ Mel asked, pointing at Castlerigg.
‘We need permission from the spirits to do that, Melanie,’ Angela explained. The solid night’s rest and whatever was in the potion Ronny had given her the evening before seemed to have done her a great deal of good. ‘They’ve been very helpful so far. I wouldn’t want to offend them by asking them to help me do something I’m quite capable of doing myself with these.’ She handed out the foul-tasting portal stones.
‘Where are we going?’ Sarah mumbled with the stone in her mouth.
‘The Columbian mountains,’ Angela replied. ‘Cousin James doesn’t just grow plants. He also grows coffee beans.’
Moments later, Sarah took the awful portal stone out of her mouth, wiped it and popped in into the leather pouch Angela held open for her. Then she stepped out of the nonagram and gasped. She was not prepared for the sudden change in climate. The weather at Castlerigg had been cool and moist. The heavy air outside the front gates of Sundew Farms was just as moist but it was stiflingly hot. She almost reeled from the weight of the thick humidity.
To make matters worse, a very noisy and quite smelly bar was just next door. A large, battered sign was standing crookedly outside.
Sundew Stranglehops
Since 1406
Loud music was coming from inside, but that didn’t quite cover the raucous laughter and jeers from some of the patrons. Many were lounging at long benches outside being waited upon by quite scantily dressed young women. From the noise coming from the bar, Sarah guessed it was one of those places where there were probably more girls wearing even less.
‘Oh dear,’ murmured Angela. She deftly steered the group in the direction of Sundew Farms’ main gates.
Two large bushes in big ceramic pots sat on either side of the gates. These shrubs weren’t like any plants Sarah had ever seen before. Instead of leaves, they had giant long-toothed traps the size of bread plates. As she walked past the evil-looking plants, the traps snapped and snarled at her.
‘Be careful around those,’ Angela warned the group. ‘They’re venus mousetraps. They pack a nasty bite.’ To demonstrate, she held a pencil out to one of the vicious-looking leaves. It snapped shut on the pencil, snapping it in two. It promptly began munching on the piece it had bitten off. Splinters of wood and bits of pencil lead scattered around as it chewed.
‘Impressive,’ Nathan remarked nervously as he peered out of Sarah’s rucksack. Anything with teeth made Nathan nervous.
At the doors,
the group was greeted by two enormous ogres. The massive creatures were vaguely man-shaped, but they were roughly five times the size of a normal person. They stood about three metres tall and their shoulders and their bodies were about half as wide. Their great heads had very low, sloped foreheads. Large, dripping fangs curled up and out of their jaws.
The ogres had very small, pink ears, out of which protruded huge tufts of thick hair. In each left ear, wedged into the fur, each ogre had a large earpiece. They wore black sunglasses and white t-shirts under black jackets. Pinned to the lapels of their jackets were small black microphones.
One ogre had his hair tied back in a ponytail. The other had bleached blond hair, slicked back with what must have been at least half a litre of hair product.
‘Welcome to Sundew farms,’ the pony-tailed ogre rumbled in a thick Brooklyn accent. ‘I am Castor.’
‘And I’m Pollux,’ the blonde ogre rumbled in an even deeper voice and thicker accent. He then deliberately stepped in front of them to block their path. As Sarah got closer to the massive creature, she could smell expensive aftershave and onions.
Pollux then held out one hand, hairy palm up, to halt their path while Castor put one finger to his earpiece to listen to instructions from someone, somewhere.
Sarah’s acute hearing could quite easily hear the instructions being shrieked to the ogre.
‘See what they want,’ a high-pitched voice instructed them.
‘What does youse want?’ Castor demanded.
Angela was about to say something when Ronny stumped forward.
‘The name’s Mason,’ he said curtly, ‘and what I want is none of your business. We’re here to see Isaacs.’
Castor took Ronny’s manner in his stride. ‘Dat’s too bad,’ he replied. ‘Nobody but nobody sees Master Isaacs widdout no appointment and youse don’t got one.’
‘So youse don’t go in,’ added Pollux.
Ronny nodded and then crooked one stubby finger at Castor to bend forward. The great ogre complied, bending down to dwarf Ronny in his shadow. Ronny stood up on the tips of his toes and whispered something in the ogre’s microphone.
While Angela and Mel probably couldn’t hear what Ronny said into the microphone, Sarah and the other werewolves could hear it quite clearly.
‘Medusa’s hair,’ Ronny whispered.
Castor stood up and pressed one enormous finger to his earpiece. There was a long pause but finally the squeaky voice relented. ‘Let ‘em through, boys,’ it told him.
Castor and Pollux calmly let everyone through without changing expression.
They filed into the front showroom, which was much cooler.
‘You’ve been here before, I take it?’ Angela asked Ronny.
Ronny shrugged. ‘His stranglehops is really good,’ the little gnome protested. ‘Do you know how hard it is to get that stuff?’
Angela stared at him with one eyebrow raised.
Ronny sighed. ‘I normally meet Master Isaacs next door,’ he admitted with a slightly embarrassed look. He nodded at Sarah and Mel. ‘Though I’m guessing that’s a place we’re trying to avoid?’
Angela chuckled to herself. She glanced at Roberta, who was none-too approving of this at all, then patted Ronny on the shoulder. ‘Wise move, Master Mason,’ she told him. ‘Wise move.’
Angela then walked up to the front counter. Behind the counter was a glowing, translucent faerie with terribly thick glasses, squinting painfully at a book. The faerie didn’t seem to notice them. Angela shook her head and rang the bell on the counter. The faerie looked startled and nearly dropped her book.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘Sorry! I didn’t see you there! I do apologise. I’m Mary.’ The faerie’s voice was certainly squeaky, but it wasn’t that of whomever had been giving the ogres outside their instructions.
Mel giggled and nudged Sarah in the ribs. ‘Mary the faerie!’ she chortled.
Mary looked over her glasses at Mel. ‘Yes, yes, it’s very funny, isn’t it? Go right ahead and laugh. I’ve never heard that joke before. I may be half blind, but I’m not deaf!’
Mel flushed and hung her head. ‘Sorry.’
Mary grinned and Mel realised the faerie had been joking. ‘That’s okay,’ she laughed and flew out from behind the counter with tiny, laced wings that sprouted out of her shoulder blades. ‘How can I help you all?’
‘I’m Angela Harding,’ Sarah’s teacher introduced herself. ‘I’d like to have a few words with my cousin, James.’
‘Of course!’ Mary replied brightly. ‘Follow me please.’ She tossed the book onto the counter and fluttered out of the showroom and down a long glass-walled corridor. On the other side of each glass wall, Sarah and the others saw in to enormous hothouses, full of all manner of writhing and snapping plants. Some had long tentacles that smacked against the glass as they passed by. Others had jaws like the venus mousetraps at the front door. Some had enormous leaves the size of banana leaves, covered with evil-looking slime. Sarah could make out dozens of carcases of insects and small rodents stuck in the slime. She shuddered with revulsion. There was also a faint hum that sounded like thousands of voices whispering to themselves that made Sarah’s ears tingle.
‘Yes,’ Mary apologised as she fluttered clumsily along the corridor. She wavered off course several times and bounced against the glass. ‘Some of these plants aren’t very pleasant, but they are all quite well-bred, I assure you. Their saplines are among the finest on the market.’
‘Saplines?’ Sarah asked curiously.
Mary smiled ‘Of course! Plants don’t have blood, now do they? They have sap!’ She stopped and hovered outside a large glass door leading into one of the glasshouses. ‘Here we are. Master Isaacs is in there somewhere. Just be careful where you step.’ Mary then fluttered away.
Sarah peered through the glass door. All she could see were dozens of rows of tiny seedlings sprouting up out of the meticulously tended soil. She opened the door and bravely stepped into the hothouse.
‘Watch where you’re going!’ an angry voice roared from the ground near her feet.
Sarah gave a startled shriek and instantly changed into her juvenile golden-haired wolf form. She looked about, desperately searching for the source of the voice. Then she found it. There, right beside the door, was a man’s head poking up out of the soil. He was bald and incredibly dirty. She sniffed at him curiously.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ the man demanded angrily.
Angela stepped into the hothouse and bent down and smiled at the filthy man. ‘Hullo, cousin! How have you been?’
Master Isaacs gave a startled exclamation and quickly wriggled out of the ground. When he was free of the fresh loam, he brushed himself off a little and quickly embraced his cousin.
‘Angelina! How are you, you old chook?’
Angela laughed and grimaced as she brushed the dirt off her clothes. ‘I’m very well, cousin. I’ve brought some friends to see you.’
James looked around at the group suspiciously. He relaxed a little when he saw Ronny.
‘Mason,’ he said casually with a nod. ‘You got past the boys okay I see.’
‘Yeah, Isaacs,’ Ronny replied in the same tone. ‘How’s your brewery going? The bar seems to be noisy enough.’
James shrugged. ‘The bar’s okay, but my brewer’s a fool. I give him the best ingredients but he insists on not letting it brew long enough. Stranglehops ale’s supposed to be dark red, not yellow.’ He squinted at Ronny. ‘But you didn’t come here to chat about recipes. What’s up?’
There was a loud ‘ding’ and if someone had struck a large triangle and a glowing spot appeared on the ground beside them all.
James gave a startled ‘Whoa!’ and fell to his knees at the base of the glowing ground. Then, there in front of him a glowing, robed figure of a well-rounded woman appeared. She was short, with close-cropped hair and a ruddy complexion, but there was no mistaking it: the group was in the presence of a goddess.
&nb
sp; ‘Mistress Demeter,’ James murmured respectfully.
Demeter smiled at him. ‘Rise, my old friend,’ she told him warmly.
James did as he was told and gazed at his goddess with love and awe.
‘See Sarah,’ Angela whispered. ‘This is Demeter. I told you you’d meet Her soon.’
‘You have a task, my son,’ Demeter told James.
James bowed his head. ‘As you wish, Mistress,’ he vowed.
‘These others have come to you for aid. I’ve no doubt you’ll help them, but in order for you to do that, I must also help.’
‘How?’ James looked bewildered.
Now Demeter smiled a little regretfully. ‘You may not thank me for what I am about to do, my son,’ She advised him. She reached out and put one hand on his shoulder. Though She did not say anything verbally, it was quite clear She had just told him something quite surprising. James blanched and began to shake with anger and hurt.
‘You’d curse me, My Goddess?’ he all but wept.
Demeter smiled. ‘Only for a short while, my son. There are those in this party who are not yet ready for your worldly ways. Bear the restrictions I have placed upon you for this time and then afterwards, when they are lifted, do as you see fit. You will not go unrewarded.’
James shook his head regretfully. Then his eyes became sly.
‘Prove it,’ he challenged with surprising boldness for a man to adopt when talking to his own goddess, Sarah thought.
Demeter smiled again and nodded at the seedlings he’d been caring for. ‘This crop you have sown troubles you, does it not?’
James glanced down at the seedlings and shook his head. ‘A new strain of Wolfsbane,’ he admitted. ‘I can get ‘em to germinate, but the seedlings don’t take well.’
‘Wolfsbane!’ Roberta burst out. Then, abashed, she hung her head respectfully. ‘Sorry, Holy Demeter,’ she apologised to the goddess.
Demeter smiled at her. ‘Pay it no mind, gentle guardian. This crop was not meant for use against you or your kind.’