by Lari Don
They walked round the house, looking for a way in. But every window was locked and every door was bolted. The courtyard of the ruined castle was easy to get into, but there were no doors from the ancient building to the old one.
They returned to the heavy front door and looked at the small diamond-paned windows either side of it.
Innes said, “I could kick the glass in.”
Molly said, “I know it’s not stealing to take the star iron, because they stole it from northern tribes, but I’m not sure about damaging—”
A small stone hit the ground in front of her.
She jumped back. Another stone bounced painfully off her shoulder. More stones clattered on the steps beside her.
She linked her hands over her head to protect her face and looked up. Above her, three small grey figures were perched on the gutter, chucking stones down.
“What are they?” asked Molly.
“Fungus fairies,” said Beth. “They work with us in the woods, decomposing and recycling.” Molly realised she’d seen them rooting in the earth the day before. They were three or four times the height of flower fairies, and much bulkier.
Beth yelled up, “Manky, Minging and Mawkit? What are you doing up there?”
The largest of the figures on the roof called back, “Hello, Beth. What are you doing down there? You seem to be choosing the wrong side. We’ve chosen the right side.”
“What side, Manky? What do you mean?”
“Corbie and his curse-hatched are building a curse-empowered army. And we’re joining them.”
“The curse-hatched aren’t building an army!” Beth looked round. “Are they?”
Theo shrugged. “They’re still afraid of my power. At least, they were…”
Manky waved a glittery object. “This is proof of our loyalty to Corbie. We’ll present it to him soon.” He glanced up at the clouds.
“Are they on their way, Manky?” asked the shortest fairy.
“Be patient, Minging.”
“Is that the star iron?” asked Molly. “I didn’t see it properly when I was a mouse.”
Snib said, “Yes, that’s the star iron he’s holding, isn’t it?”
Theo and Innes looked at each other and nodded.
“We have to get it from them,” said Molly, “before whatever they’re waiting for arrives.”
“Crows,” muttered Beth. “That’s what they’re waiting for, the daft mushrooms. Perhaps I can talk some sense into them.” She called up again. “You’re not curse-casters or curse-hatched. Why do you want to work with Corbie?”
“Because fungus thrives on darkness, death and decay, on everything curses leave behind them,” replied Manky. “If we join Corbie’s curse army, our fungi will grow on juicier food than fallen trees in your little grey wood.” His squelching laugh was clear four stories below.
“They’re not going to see sense.” Innes frowned at Theo. “We have to try to stop them, don’t we?”
Theo nodded.
“Just try to stop them?” said Molly. “Let’s aim higher than that, and actually succeed.”
“How can we stop them?” asked Beth.
Molly said, “I thought you weren’t getting involved. I thought you were staying with your trees.”
Beth shrugged. “If Corbie’s building a curse army, we all have to take sides. And if he’s poaching my wood’s fungus fairies, I’m already involved.”
“Let’s get to the roof and grab that rock before their feathery taxi arrives,” said Molly.
“How can we reach the roof?” asked Snib. “We don’t have a key to get in.”
“We don’t need to climb up the inside,” said Innes. “We can climb up the outside.” He ran to the castle courtyard, to the ruins that led right up to the roof of the house. “Race you all to the top!”
“Not everything is a race,” said Beth.
Innes laughed and started to climb the wall nearest the tower.
Molly didn’t rush to follow him. She looked at the tumbledown walls. Would it be useful to shift to her hare self?
The ruined walls weren’t smooth and flat. There were steps, ledges and arches, so perhaps the ability to leap from one stone to another would be helpful. She could see a route where she could get more than halfway up in a series of jumps. But eventually, she’d have to climb straight up, which wouldn’t be possible without fingers. And the narrow top of a wall wouldn’t be a safe place to create a boundary and shift back to human.
So she should climb as a girl.
She ran to the wall that Innes and Snib were already scrambling up, but started further from the tower. She didn’t want to get caught in a vertical traffic jam.
Atacama chose the route Molly had considered as a hare. He leapt from stone to stone, flapping his tiny wings and swishing his long tail for balance.
Beth and Theo were climbing a route on a different wall.
Molly knew that, unlike the climbing walls in her local sports centre, these handholds and footholds weren’t guaranteed safe, so she tested each one before putting her weight on it.
She took a break on the sill of a high window and looked round.
Atacama was already higher than her, but he’d run out of ledges and steps. He was stretching up the featureless wall above him, but he couldn’t find anywhere to put his front paws.
The blobby grey fungus fairies had moved along the roof of Ballindreich House to stand above the castle walls. They were amusing themselves by waggling their bottoms and kicking small pebbles down.
The loudest and tallest of them, Manky, was waving the star iron and shouting insults at Innes. The smallest one, Minging, was dancing above Atacama and shouting, “Here kitty kitty, here kitty kitty!” The third fairy, the plumpest and squashiest, was dropping gravel and making farty noises above Molly.
She ignored him and kept climbing, searching for jutting corners of grey stone and trying not to think about the hard landing below her.
She was halfway up. To her left, Snib and Innes were climbing steadily too.
But on the wall to her right, Beth and Theo had stopped. Theo shouted across, “We can’t see any more reliable handholds. We’re going down.”
Molly could see Atacama leaping from one ledge to another at the same height, searching for any route that would get him to the top. He shouted, “I can’t get higher either. Sorry.”
Molly stretched up to the next handhold, and the fairy above her squealed, “I’ve run out of pebbles. And this long bony person is getting too close to me.”
“If you’re scared, Mawkit, walk round to me,” said Manky. “They won’t catch us, don’t worry.”
“Won’t we?” shouted Innes. “You can see us getting closer. Can you see your crow friends yet? Maybe you should worry, fungus-face! Maybe you should just drop the star iron now, then we’ll climb down and leave you alone.”
“Don’t be rude to them,” called Beth as she reached the ground.
“Why not? They’ve been waggling their bottoms at us.”
Theo shouted, “Innes, Molly, Snib. We’ve tried to rescue the star iron, that’s the important thing. Don’t put yourself at risk, it’s not worth it.”
Molly yelled, “Yes, it is worth it, for all those curse victims!”
The three fungus fairies gathered in a pale grey huddle on the roof. Molly heard them whispering and chanting.
Molly wondered if she could beat Innes at vertical races as well as horizontal ones. She glanced over, to see if he was ahead of her.
And her left hand slipped off the stone.
“Concentrate,” she muttered. “It’s not really a race.”
She put her hand back on the stone and it slipped again. Molly realised the stone didn’t feel gritty. It felt smooth and fleshy.
Then she felt something moving under her right hand, and saw little white shapes growing between her fingers. Molly reached up for a new hold, but the stone edge broke off in her hand and crumbled into soft lumps.
It wa
sn’t stone; it was mushroom.
The wall above her was sprouting mushrooms and toadstools.
“Careful!” yelled Innes. “It’s growing really fast.”
The whole wall was covered in fungi growing as speedily as time-lapse photography on a nature programme. Molly couldn’t see any safe holds.
Beth shouted from below, “Knock the growths off, then grab the stone underneath before more can grow.”
Molly looked up. She couldn’t see any grey stone, just smooth domes of creamy white and nut brown and bright yellow.
Molly stretched up and scraped a patch of wall clear of fungi. She looked for handholds past the instant regrowth of new caps, and when she saw jutting stone, she grabbed at it and held on tight, despite the fungi pushing against her fingers. She kicked at the mushrooms round her feet until she found footholds. And she kept climbing up.
Innes and Snib were still climbing too, helping each other clear space and spot handholds.
She heard Beth below, calling out instructions: “Molly, there are good holds to your left, about forty-five degrees from—”
Her voice stopped suddenly. Molly glanced down.
Theo was whispering to Beth.
Then Beth yelled up, “It’s not safe! Molly, Innes, it looks really dangerous from here. Come down now!”
“What do you think, Molly?” asked Innes.
“I’m going up, not down.”
So they kept climbing the fungus-covered wall.
Molly could feel the fungi pushing out from the stone, all down her body, trying to knock her off the wall. But she kept swiping at the spongy growths above her, flicking tiny toadstools away with her fingertips.
Snib called over, “Careful, I think some of them are poisonous.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to stop for a snack.” Molly dug her fingers into a cold crevice and moved up a few more centimetres.
Then she heard Snib say, “Watch out Innes, that’s not—”
She heard Innes say, “Ooops, that wasn’t—”
Molly turned round to see Innes holding on with just one hand, the other hand and both feet flailing.
He hung for a moment, then he fell.
The kelpie yelled in anger and shock, then landed in a nasty heap on the top step of a broken staircase.
“Are you ok?” called Molly.
“Ouch! That was extremely… ouch. Careful, both of you. Some of those mushrooms are the same colour as the stonework. If you can’t get up safely, leave those nasty slimy fairies with their stupid shiny rock and come down.”
Snib and Molly looked at each other. They were at almost the same height, with an expanse of fungus-covered wall between them and a whole ruined castle below.
“Do you want to keep climbing?” asked Molly.
“Absolutely!” said Snib. “You?”
Molly nodded. “See you at the top.”
“They’re not stopping, Manky,” called Mawkit. “They’re unstoppable monster things…”
Molly grinned. She was about ten times as tall as the fungus fairies. Perhaps she did seem like a monster to them. She broke off more fungi and grasped another corner of stone.
“They’re not monsters. They’re just children. We’re the powerful ones,” yelled Manky. “Are you ready, Minging?”
Then something sneezed at Molly. One of the fastgrowing fungi sneezed a puff of smoky dust in her face. Molly jerked her head away, jerking her hand off the wall at the same time.
She flailed and grabbed, and as her hand found a grip, her right foot slipped off. But she held steady with both hands until her foot found a secure space again. She yelled, “Beth, what’s that smoky stuff?”
“Spores. Sort of like mushrooms’ seeds. Don’t breathe them in. Please come down, Molly.”
Molly coughed and kept going.
Then Snib was surrounded by a cloud of spores, and she speeded up to climb out into clear air.
Molly shouted, “Careful! Don’t rush!”
“But I can’t see…” Snib’s foot slipped and her hand snatched at the air.
There was nothing Molly could do, as she watched the crow-girl fall back from the wall and tumble through the air.
She didn’t land on a step, like Innes, she fell all the way to the courtyard.
“Snib!” yelled Molly.
Snib didn’t answer.
Molly saw Atacama and Theo sprint to the grey heap on the ground.
“Is she ok?”
Theo shouted, “I don’t know yet. It’s too dangerous, Molly. Come down.”
Molly looked at Snib crumpled on the ground. She looked at the fungus fairies grinning at her from the top of the wall. She saw the star iron glittering in Manky’s fist.
She kept climbing.
Then she heard Minging mutter again.
Suddenly, the fungi started to sag and slide into liquid around her fingers.
The hat-shaped mushroom in front of her nose turned black, and she could feel the wall oozing, and her feet and hands slipping. The fungi were decaying faster than ice melting in a hot drink. The wall was covered in soupy rotting gunk.
She tried to grasp the handholds above her. She could see them more easily now, as the fungi rotted and slid down the stones. But she couldn’t grasp them. Her fingers were slick with slime.
She jammed her left hand into a crevice and tried to pull herself up.
Her fingers slid out.
Her left foot slipped.
Her right hand slithered down the wall.
Molly knew she was going to fall a second before it happened. But she was as powerless to help herself as she had been to help Innes or Snib.
She started to slide downwards. She grabbed a handhold she’d already used, but her weight and speed wrenched her fingers off.
Now Molly wasn’t holding onto anything.
All she could do was fall.
Chapter Seventeen
Molly landed hard on the high window sill.
Her breath was knocked from her chest and her teeth rattled in her jaws, but she managed to grab the gritty edge of the stone ledge with her slimy hands, to stop herself tumbling and falling the rest of the way.
She looked up. The wall above her was dripping with decay.
The fairies higher up were giggling.
Even higher, six black shapes were swooping towards the fairies.
Molly watched the three pairs of crows stretch out their claws and pick up the three fungus fairies.
Then the crows carried Manky, Minging, Mawkit and the star iron into the clouds.
***
By the time Molly stumbled to the ground and wiped her stinking hands on the grass, Snib was sitting up between Atacama and Theo, cradling her left arm against her chest.
Her face was paler than ever, and her nose and cheekbones looked even sharper. But she was conscious and she was talking.
Or at least, she was listening while Innes was talking.
“It was a perfectly logical decision,” he said to Beth, over Snib’s head.
“It was unbelievably dangerous!” Beth yelled back.
“Stop arguing,” said Molly. “We have to see if Snib’s ok. Is your arm hurt?”
Snib nodded and winced. “Are you alright, Molly?”
“Bashed and bruised, but everything’s still working. Are you fine apart from your arm? Is your head ok?”
“Yes. And Innes hasn’t stopped arguing since I sat up, so I think he’s fine too.”
Innes shrugged. “We have to get the star iron. There’s no time to waste.”
“The star iron is gone,” said Molly. “But Snib is right here and she’s injured. We have to help her first.”
Innes sighed and looked at Beth. “You heal trees, can you have a look?”
Beth muttered, “I suppose so,” then knelt beside Snib and pulled the crow-girl’s cardigan sleeve off, to show an arm already purpled with bruising.
“It’s not bent,” said Molly. “Is that a good sign?”
Beth nodded. “It’s not broken, but I’ll need a splint so I can use the energy of the wood to help her heal. Someone find me a branch, please. Fallen wood only, from a naturally healthy tree, not these tortured ones.”
“I’ll go,” said Molly.
“I’ll come with you,” said Innes. “I want to see if any bits of me fall off when I move.”
They walked out of the castle courtyard, towards the nearest patch of leafless winter trees.
“Are you really ok?” asked Molly.
“More embarrassed than sore,” replied Innes. “I was the first to fall. You fell further than me, because you climbed highest. Are you sure you’re fine?”
Molly rolled her shoulders. “I’ll have a few bruises tomorrow morning, that’s all.”
They reached the trees and Molly scuffed her feet through the undergrowth. She picked up a long straight stick. Innes took it and snapped it between his hands.
“Hey!”
“If it’s that easy to snap, it won’t be any use. Not flexible. No life left.”
They found crooked sticks, short sticks and thorny sticks. Then Molly found a smooth branch, just longer than Snib’s forearm.
Innes flexed it gently. “That’s fresh enough.”
They walked back to the ruins and Beth smiled at the stick. “Perfect, thanks.”
“How do we tie it onto her arm?” asked Molly. “Does anyone have bandages or a sling?”
Innes laughed. “Don’t be daft. No one carries that sort of thing around.”
Molly said, “Should we rip up someone’s t-shirt?”
“You’re not wrecking any of my clothes,” said Innes. “You can have my socks.”
“I don’t want your smelly socks on my arm!” said Snib, with a tinge of pink in her cheeks at last.
“He’s right,” said Molly. “We don’t have anything else.” She pulled off her boots, then her long warm socks. She put the cold hard boots back on her bare feet.
Beth laid the branch along the outside of Snib’s arm. The dryad ran her hand carefully along the branch towards Snib’s elbow, then ran it back again along Snib’s skin. Snib gasped, then sighed.
Molly held the branch steady while Beth tied Molly’s stripy socks round Snib’s elbow and wrist, and one of Innes’s socks in the middle of her forearm.