by Lari Don
Beth said, “You can’t invite people to your party just to get presents from them.”
“Why not?”
Innes smiled. “Why not indeed? I’d be delighted to come, and I’ll definitely bring you a present.”
Rosalind grinned. “Molly, will you come too?”
Then the dog howled in frustration, and started to chew on a stick.
But the stick wasn’t fallen dead wood. The stick was a living birch tree. The dog wrapped his jaws round the slender trunk and shook his head violently.
Beth yelled, “Stop that! Now!” She sprinted through the final birch archway and attacked the huge green dog.
She ran up behind him. “Leave that tree alone, you horrible brute!” The furious dryad grabbed the dog’s scabby left ear and hauled down on it hard.
The dog opened his jaws and backed away from the tree, then he whirled round and bit at Beth.
Chapter Six
Molly was a hare again. The moment the dog howled, Molly had shifted. She sat up on her haunches and saw the huge green dog spin round to savage her friend.
But Beth wasn’t standing beside him any more. She was standing in a tree, balanced on the black branch of one of her tallest birches.
“Sit!” she called. “Stop biting and sit down, you trespassing beast.”
The dog snarled at her.
And every tree in the wood turned to look at the dog.
Molly knew that the trees didn’t have eyes, or fronts and backs. The trees didn’t even move. But suddenly it was clear that every single tree was watching the dog, that the massive weight of all the solid timber in the wood was focussed on him.
Beth leapt down from the tree. “I said sit.”
The dog sat.
Molly started to feel anxious, as she watched the dog and the dryad staring at each other. She wasn’t worried about Beth, who looked more powerful and confident than Molly had ever seen her, backed up by all these trees. Molly was becoming anxious just sitting in the wood.
In the trees’ world, everything was static. Everything was rooted, stuck down, held tight by the earth.
Trees don’t run or even walk. Trees don’t have escape routes. Trees just stay where they are and take whatever comes at them: violent wind or violent dogs or even fire. Trees don’t run.
But Molly needed to run. Even when she was sitting still, she needed to be sure which way she could run if she had to. Here in the trees’ world, safe beside Atacama and Innes, with Rosalind laying out a mosaic of twigs and pinecones by her paws, Molly still needed to know the way out. But Beth had closed the last arch as she ran through it. There was no way out.
Molly felt her heart pounding faster. She was starting to panic.
She tried to concentrate on Beth, standing tall and dignified in front of the huge green dog. “You have bitten one of my friends. You have injured one of my trees. You are not welcome here. I banish you from this wood forever.”
Molly watched the suddenly pathetic-looking Crottel-dog nod.
“You will promise never to damage a tree or threaten one of my friends again. Or by the power of these trunks and branches and roots, I will return you to where you came from, back to your roots.”
The dog whined and sank at Beth’s feet in an apologetic heap of mouldy green hair. Then the heap shook itself into the form of a cringing man.
Mr Crottel whimpered, “No! Don’t send me back…”
“Then get out of my woods and promise to leave my trees and my friends alone.”
Beth leant over him, her body bent like a tree in the wind. Molly saw all the trees in the wood bend with her. All curving towards him, all threatening him.
“Yes! Alright! I’ll go now.” He stood up and stumbled towards the edge of the woods, all the trees watching him go.
“Promise me,” boomed Beth, her voice echoing off the trees, “or I will send you back to your roots.”
“I promise.” He started to run. “I promise I won’t bite a tree again.”
“And my friends.”
“I promise I won’t bite your true magical friends either.”
He ran out of the woods. As soon as he was beyond the reach of Beth’s branches, he laughed. “But your human friend is still fair game!” He dropped to all fours and loped towards the snow-topped mountains, running on his human arms and legs, still wearing his greasy suit.
Beth wrapped her arms around the broken birch and leant her head against it.
Innes stood up and walked forward. But his steps didn’t take him anywhere. He couldn’t get past the nearest tree. “Rosalind, how do we get out?”
“Why do you want to get out? It’s nice in here. Trees are kind and friendly.”
“It is nice in here,” said Innes, “but Beth is out there and she’s upset, so she needs her friends.”
Rosalind looked up. “Her tree is hurt. Poor Beth!” She spoke politely to a pair of rowans, which bent into a door.
Innes stepped forward. But Molly beat him to it. As usual. She was out into the greyer harder flatter world in two leaps.
This was her world. The earth no longer seemed like a generous depth, it was a surface for running on. The sky no longer seemed like a friendly height, it was an emptiness where danger could swoop down on fast wings. The trees were just trees, and the people were in sharp focus.
In this world, she had an exit strategy. She ran to the western edge of the wood, tumbled to the ground as a girl, and looked round.
Beth was crouched by the injured silver birch, sobbing. Rosalind was sitting beside her, patting the tree, then patting Beth, then patting the tree again. Innes and Atacama were standing supportively nearby.
Then Beth stood up, walked between two trees and disappeared. Rosalind followed her.
“She can heal the tree faster and more effectively from inside the trees’ world,” said Atacama. “The process is called… what’s it called…?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Innes. “First aid for foliage, perhaps?”
Atacama frowned, wrinkling his smooth black forehead. “There’s a word for it…”
“Beth doesn’t need to know the word to do the magic. Are you ok, Molly?” asked Innes. “How’s your hand?”
“I’m fine.” Molly looked at her hand. The lichen bandage had slipped off when she shifted. There was a red mark, but it didn’t hurt any more.
“So what will you do about your curse now?” asked Innes. “Mr Crottel won’t lift it unless you force him. And when he’s that huge dog thing he won’t be easy to defeat. What did you call him, Atacama? A faery dog?”
“That’s what humans used to call them, when they thought anything from another world was ‘faery’. They called them Cu Sidh, Dogs of the Shee, Faery Dogs. But can you imagine a glamorous faery queen taking a monstrous matted lump like that for a walk? They’re not really faery dogs. There’s a more accurate name for them…”
“You also called him a deephound,” said Molly.
“Deephounds, yes. They’re from the deeper layers, under the earth. They guard what humans call the… the underworld. They guard it, but they’re also trapped there themselves. They’re only allowed to enjoy sunlight once a year. At mid… At mid-something…”
“So, Mr Crottel is really an escaped deephound,” said Innes. “Can they all take human form?”
“I’ve never heard of it before,” said Atacama.
Innes shrugged. “Perhaps he stole the power to shift between the two forms, or perhaps someone trained him. Maybe he prefers his human form to his original dog shape. He certainly didn’t want to go back home, did he? He went all whiny when Beth threatened to return him to his roots.”
“Why wouldn’t he want to go home?” asked Molly.
“I think he’s small, for a deephound,” said Atacama. “Maybe he’s the littlest in his family, the… em… Maybe he got bullied…”
“The runt of the litter, you mean?” said Innes. “If he’s a runt, I wouldn’t want to meet his brothers and sisters.
”
Molly looked at the tree damaged by the deephound. It was straightening, very slowly. The bend in the trunk, the splinters of wood, the rips in the bark, were all easing back into place.
Molly asked, “How long will Beth need to fix the tree?”
Innes shrugged. “We saw her fix a whole tree once before, didn’t we Atacama? She only has a wee while until the wood hardens and can’t be repaired. Do you remember how long it took?”
Atacama shook his head. “I don’t… Are you sure I was there?”
Molly stared at the sphinx. She thought about his half-finished sentences and odd answers in the last five minutes. She knelt down beside him and asked gently, “What are you guarding these days? Are you guarding the Promise Keeper’s door behind the distillery?”
“No, I’m guarding a lesser door. But… where? I was there yesterday. But I can’t remember…”
Innes crouched down too. “Atacama, what’s going on?”
Molly said, “Can you ask me your new riddle, for your new door?”
The sphinx didn’t say anything.
Innes shook his friend’s furry black shoulder. “Atacama, what’s your riddle?”
“I can’t remember my riddle. I can’t remember anything…”
Molly looked at Innes. “It’s his curse. It’s come back.”
Atacama roared in despair and threw himself to the ground.
And Molly turned into a mountain goat.
***
Molly didn’t realise she was a goat. She knew she was balancing on four hooves, but she didn’t know exactly what she was.
Atacama knew what she was. The sphinx looked up and she saw a flash of recognition in his eyes.
And Innes knew what she was. He laughed. “A goat? Really?”
Then her friend Atacama – wise, sensible, kind Atacama – leapt at her.
So Molly ran.
The goat form was fast and nimble on the root-strewn paths. But not fast enough.
Molly felt a crunching weight land on her back.
She bleated with panic, but she didn’t slow down, despite her terror and the extra weight over her back legs. She sprinted to the edge of the trees.
Just as the weight shifted forward and she felt the hot breath of a hunting cat on her neck, she rolled to the ground as a girl and knocked the sphinx off with a hard swipe of her elbow.
Atacama gasped. “Molly? Is that you? Did I chase you?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry! But I saw a goat. And that’s what sphinxes hunted in the old stories. I forgot you were my friend. I forgot I shouldn’t…”
“You forgot you shouldn’t eat her. Whatever shape she is.” Innes pulled Molly up. “So, we have a girl who changes into all sorts of inconvenient prey, and a sphinx who can’t remember his friends or his riddle. Is that a fair summary of how weird our day has been?”
Molly nodded, as they walked back to Beth’s tree. “It’s as if both our curses have become more powerful. I used to shift to a hare when I heard a dog, now I shift to prey when I hear any predator. Atacama forgot one riddle last autumn, now he’s forgetting—”
“Everything,” moaned Atacama.
Innes sighed. “And my dad being a rock became him splitting into gravel.”
“You’ve already lifted his curse,” said Molly, “so it can’t do any more damage. Mr Crottel won’t lift my curse, unless I learn to defeat him. But it should be easy to get the curse-caster to lift Atacama’s—”
“Of course! We never broke Atacama’s curse, just found a way round it. We can fix this, Atacama. We’ll ask your curse-caster to lift it!”
“And I’m sure he will lift it,” said Molly, “because he apologised to you for setting the curse, then saved our lives several times last year—”
“Don’t give him all the credit!” Innes grinned. “We saved his life, too.”
Atacama looked at them. “But who… who cast…?”
Molly could see confusion and fear on the sphinx’s normally calm face as his memories slipped away.
She gave him a hug. “Don’t worry. When we all met on the curse-lifting workshop, we didn’t bother lifting yours, because it was easy to get round. We made up a new riddle, remember?”
Atacama shook his head.
wInnes added, “With his great big brain and great big ego, I’m sure he’ll also have lots of fancy theories about why this is happening.”
Molly nodded. “He might even suggest a way to stop it.” She stroked Atacama’s ears. “We’ll get your riddles back, and everything else. Where is Theo? Anyone know?”
Atacama shook his head again.
Innes said, “Last time I heard from him, he was—”
Beth stepped out from behind the bent tree, her eyes red from crying. “I couldn’t heal her completely. She was too damaged by that vicious hound. She’ll live and grow, but she’ll always be scarred and crooked. And it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have offered my trees as sanctuary. I shouldn’t have led that beast here. I shouldn’t concern myself with the world outside the wood.”
“I know it hurts," said Innes. "I suffer when my rivers are blocked or polluted. But now we have to leave your woods, so we can find Theo and ask him to lift Atacama’s old curse, because Atacama has started forgetting things.”
Beth said, “No. My duty is to my trees, not to anyone else.”
“I don’t remember everything,” said Atacama, “but I do remember that you promised to help Molly lift her curse.”
“What use is my promise when she clearly doesn’t want to lift her curse? Whenever we try to help, she backs away.” Beth glared at Molly. “You don’t want to break your curse, do you? You’d rather be a worm occasionally than lose your power to run and jump. You’d rather be a rat occasionally than lose a race to Innes. You’ve allowed the curse to become who you are, Molly Drummond, and I can’t put my trees at risk to keep a promise you don’t want me to keep. Anyway, you released us all from that vow last year, when Innes turned out to be a curse-caster.”
Molly didn’t want to argue with Beth when the dryad was clearly upset, so she nodded. “It’s ok, Beth. You don’t have to help me. But Atacama needs his friends right now, to go with him to ask Theo to lift the curse.”
“You don’t need me for that. Theo will be happy to help Atacama, however many of us go. But my trees do need me, so I’m staying here. I won’t lead any more monsters back here just to help a gang of curse-casters and curse-lovers. I can’t let you drag me any closer to dark magic. I must put my trees first.”
She sat by her wounded tree and folded her arms.
“That’s just silly and selfish,” said Innes. “We aren’t dragging you towards dark magic, we’re trying to free Atacama and Molly from dark magic.”
“Says the kelpie who cursed his own father, and is about to visit a magician who regularly uses curses as tools? You lot paddle in dark magic all the time. I’m not staying with you while you drown in it. And I’m not letting you flood my wood with it.”
Molly said, “It’s fine, Innes. We’re only going to see Theo, we can manage without her.”
Beth leant her head against the scarred trunk and closed her eyes.
Molly said gently, “And I will prove to you, Beth, even if you’re not there to see it, that I really do want to be free of dark magic.”
Molly led the way out of the woods, away from the faint sound of Rosalind singing, “Happy birthday to me…” and the even fainter sound of Beth sobbing.
Then they went in search of the most powerful magic-user that Molly had ever carried in her pocket.
Chapter Seven
As they walked away from Beth and her wood, Molly asked, “So where is Theo?”
Innes frowned. “I haven’t actually seen him since Hogmanay. He’s gone on some kind of retreat, researching an obscure magical project, and can’t be distracted. He’s written to me, though…” He pulled a crumpled parchment from his back pocket, flattened it and started to fold it caref
ully. “He’s mostly been writing to me from this library. It closed down, but still has shelves and a few books, so it’s handy for staying hidden and doing his homework.”
Innes showed Molly and Atacama the top right-hand corner of the parchment:
Lumpy mattress
Near the lavatory
Basement
Aberrothie Library (closed)
By Aberrothie Primary School
Speyside
Moray
Scotland
British Isles
Europe
Earth
Solar system
Milky Way
Universe
Multiverses
Infinity
Molly laughed. “I used to do that too, but I stopped at ‘universe’. So he’s nearby?”
Innes nodded. “I hope so. It’s less than half an hour at a reasonable canter. You can both run beside me.”
Molly glanced back at the edge of Beth’s wood. “I probably shouldn’t use my curse just for convenience.” She looked at Atacama. “Also, he might forget who I am and try to snap my spine again.”
“So you can ride and Atacama can run.”
Atacama looked up. “Run? To where?”
Innes sighed. “Never mind. Just stay close.” He whispered to Molly, “Make sure he doesn’t forget to follow. And watch out for a big grey stallion too, in case my dad is already healed and hunting me.”
Innes turned into a horse and Molly clambered up. They cantered across the fields and through a sudden shower of sleety rain. Molly had to call to Atacama a couple of times, reminding him to keep close.
When they reached the fence at the back of Aberrothie Primary, Innes leapt over, landing just beyond a big oval puddle on the cracked tarmac.
As Atacama scrabbled up the fence, Innes shifted back into a boy. He stared at the edge of the puddle and said, “Wet footprints.”
“I don’t see any,” said Molly.