by Lari Don
“Thank you,” said Snib. “It feels better already.”
Molly buttoned Snib’s cardi to hold her arm close to her chest.
Theo said, “Now let’s get the star iron.”
“But the star iron has gone,” said Molly.
“No it hasn’t,” said Beth. “These two idiots have something to tell you.” She waved her hand at Innes and Theo.
Theo looked embarrassed. “That shiny rock wasn’t the star iron. I sort of pointed at the wrong rock in the cabinet, as a bit of misdirection.”
Molly rubbed her bruised shoulder. “Did we all just climb up and fall down a ruined castle for a rock we didn’t need?”
“Yes. Sorry. The fungus fairies were actually holding a lump of fool’s gold.”
Molly sighed. “Did you know we were chasing fool’s gold, Innes? You’d seen the star iron before.”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “I tried to correct toad-boy in the tower, but he kicked me. Quite hard. Then I worked out what he was doing, so I shut up.”
“Who else knew? While I was climbing past slimy sneezing fungi, who else knew?”
“I knew by then,” said Atacama, “and we had to tell Beth eventually.”
“That’s why we were all shouting at you to come down,” said Beth. “But you didn’t pay any attention.”
“I didn’t pay any attention, because I thought I was trying to get the object that could save all those curse victims from the Promise Keeper. But if the fairies had the wrong rock, why did any of us climb up?”
“By risking ourselves for it,” said Theo, “we convinced the fungus fairies they had the right stone. Now they’ve escaped with the fool’s gold, we can get the real star iron. I kept saying ‘We have to try’, but you didn’t realise what I meant. Sorry.”
“And why…” asked Snib in a small voice at their feet, “why did you lie about it at all? Why did you think ‘misdirection’ was necessary? Who were you trying to fool with that fool’s gold? When I had Molly-mouse in my pocket, saving her from that clawy cat, did you think I was about to run to Corbie and tell him everything?”
Innes said, “Someone told Corbie we were on a quest for that glittery rock. That’s why the fungus fairies had the wrong one.”
Snib held her arm and sniffed. “You think it was me?”
Molly crouched beside her. “I don’t think it was you.” She looked up at her friends. “It could have been the fungus fairies. They could have been hiding in the tower. We talked about the star iron outside too. Any bird flying overhead, any creature hiding in the shadows, could have heard us. There’s no reason to think it was Snib, and every reason to think it wasn’t. Look at her! She risked herself as much as any of us, and injured herself more, trying to get that rock from the fungus fairies.”
Molly helped Snib to her feet. “We need to get the star iron, before someone recognises the rock as fool’s gold. And this time, we’re all going to trust each other, aren’t we?”
No one spoke, no one moved. No one agreed with her.
“Oh come on! We’ve all seen how miserable Snib is about the crows’ link to curses, how scared she is for her brothers and sisters. So I choose to trust her.”
Atacama nodded. “Lots of other creatures could have spied on us. I’ll trust the crow-girl.”
Innes said, “She was as brave as the rest of us climbing that wall. I’ll trust her.”
Beth shrugged. “I’m not sure if I trust her, but she can’t do us much harm with that injured arm, and whether I trust her or not, Molly’s right, we have to get that star iron now.”
“Fine,” said Theo. “When I pointed to the wrong rock, I was just being cautious.”
“We can’t climb the slime wall again,” said Molly, “so I’m going in the front door.”
Everyone followed Molly round to the carved door.
Innes grinned. “Great. I’ll kick it in.”
“No, you won’t. I’m going through that hole there.” Molly pointed to a tiny gap at the base of the door, where two planks curved away from each other. “I’ll get in as a mouse, then shift back and walk up the stairs.”
She held her hand out. “Cabinet key please.”
Innes stared at her for a moment, then handed her the key. Molly zipped it into her coat pocket, knowing that anything she put in her pockets before becoming an animal would still be there when she shifted back to human.
“And what does the star iron actually look like? Now we’re all being honest with each other.”
Theo said, “It’s grey, knobbly and slightly burnt.”
Innes added, “It’s the most boring-looking rock in there. It’s on the bottom shelf, between a fossilised fern and a tarnished medal. But are you sure you should go in, Molly? What about the cat?”
“If he makes a noise, I’ll become a mouse, make a boundary and jump over it. It’s fine. We don’t want any watching crows to know we’re breaking in. And a mouse is quick and quiet. Who’s going to miaow for me?”
“Don’t anyone dare miaow!” said Beth. “This is ridiculous. It’s far too dangerous.”
Molly said, “A curse army is slightly more dangerous than a Siamese cat. This is the simplest way to get one of the few objects on the planet that can stop Estelle and whatever monsters and victims she’s creating with her charged-up curses. I’m going in. Atacama?”
The sphinx purred.
Molly became a mouse.
Instantly nervous of the wide sky and huge landscape, she darted between paws and boots and trainers, and dashed through the mouse-sized hole at the bottom of the gigantic door.
She was back in Ballindreich House. On her own.
Molly couldn’t draw a boundary line on the stone floor of the corridor, so she darted along beside the skirting board, into the first room with a wooden floor. She used her sharp claws to score a line in the varnish, imagining the speed and power of her hare’s back legs. Then she looked at this wood and that wood, and lifted her paw up.
She jumped.
And she rolled, just missing the metal stand supporting the golden rope.
She was a girl again. With a key in her pocket. After breaking the line with her thumbnail, she moved fast through the house, past the family portraits and leather-bound books, then ran up the stairs.
She reached the tower room, ducked under the rope and walked to the cabinet of curiosities. It was like an old bookcase, with four shelves behind a glass door. But it didn’t contain books. It contained an odd mix of objects; each one sitting beside a faded label.
There was a jagged hole in the glass. The fungus fairies weren’t tidy burglars.
On the top shelf, she saw a sword hilt with a broken blade, a yellowy scrap of lace labelled from the last dress worn by Mary Queen of Scots and a gap in the light dust beside a label that said: Fool's gold, or iron pyrite. Perhaps fungus fairies couldn’t read.
On the next shelf, her eye was caught by a long toothy jawbone labelled from the last wolf in Scotland.
On the second bottom shelf, she noticed a delicate bracelet of cowrie shells, and a long thick leather collar, studded with iron nails, labelled A faery dog collar, can control hounds of the Sidh.
On the bottom shelf, there was a slate marked with a ghostly fern, a medal on a stripy ribbon, and a fist-sized lump of dull grey rock. It wasn’t labelled ‘star iron’. The label read A meteorite from inside the Arctic Circle, discovered by Lord Fergus Algernon Hamilton Duff.
Molly unlocked the door and opened it, stepping back when a slice of broken glass fell out and crashed to the floor.
She lifted out the meteorite. “It’s not stealing,” she whispered to herself. “We’ll send it back to the people who really found it.” She put the star iron in the left pocket of her coat and zipped it up.
Her eye was drawn to the beautiful little cowrie bracelet. She stroked it, thinking Rosalind would love it. But she couldn’t take a stolen present to a birthday party.
She looked again at the object beside it. The faery
dog collar. The collar that could control a hound of the Sidh.
Molly wasn’t sure she believed that the lace was from Mary Queen of Scots’ dress, or that the jawbone was from the last wolf, and she knew that Lord Fergus Algernon Hamilton Duff hadn’t discovered the star iron on his own. Could she believe that this collar would control a faery dog, a deephound? That it would give her power over Mr Crottel?
She touched it. The leather was cold, greasy and almost scaly, with raised diamond-shapes along its length. It was much longer than an ordinary dog collar, coiled up like a snake or a whip. The nails were driven right through the collar: wide heads on the outside, sharp points jutting through the inside. The buckle was plain and square. A vicious collar, for a vicious dog.
Molly couldn’t steal for a birthday present. Could she steal to save her own life? Was her safety more important than tourists glancing at a collar they probably didn’t believe in anyway?
She picked up the coiled collar, put it in her right pocket, and zipped the pocket closed, feeling an instant sweat of guilt down her back.
As she locked the broken door and slid the key into her jeans pocket, she looked at the gap on the shelf. Should she put the collar back? Was it right to commit a crime to escape a curse?
Then, behind her, she heard the cat miaow.
Chapter Eighteen
Molly flung herself under the cabinet as she shifted, and cowered there in her shivering mouse form.
She saw the cat, stepping slowly and elegantly towards her.
Molly wanted to run and hide. The base of the cabinet wasn’t low enough to keep her safe. She wanted to squeeze into a hole in the wall or a gap in the floorboards – into any space too small for a cat’s paw.
But if Molly hid in a mousehole, she would be trapped as a mouse. She needed to find a space big enough to shift in, with enough time to draw and jump a boundary.
However, there was a cat between Molly and clear space. And that cat was stretching his claws under the cabinet to drag Molly out.
Molly decided to fight the fear shaking her body. The fear that every mouse feels when faced by a cat. The fear that forces every mouse to run away. The fear that every cat relies on.
Molly decided not to be afraid. She wasn’t a mouse. She didn’t have to think like a mouse or act like a mouse.
So Molly bit the cat’s approaching paw. One swift nip with her tiny teeth.
The cat jerked his paw away.
Molly ran out of cover, right at the cat.
The cat backed off.
Molly ran straight towards the cat, leapt at him, scrabbled up over his surprised cream-and-brown face, jumped between his ears and scampered along his spine. She jumped off the cat’s skinny tail, and ran right out the door.
Molly leapt down the stairs. Her mouse body was light and nimble, her judgement of speed and distance had been honed by months of racing as a hare. So she bounced fast and accurately off each step.
Behind her, she could hear soft paws on the stone steps. The cat was racing after her.
But Molly didn’t lose races. Not to anyone. Not even as a mouse.
She altered her line, to take her to the outer edge of the curved staircase. She slowed down, to let the cat catch up.
She tempted the cat to pounce at her.
As soon as the cat pounced, Molly turned as sharply as a dodging hare, and ducked into the nearest doorway. The cat missed his footing and tumbled down the next couple of steps.
Molly ran into the nursery. She saw a stripy red-and-yellow rug. She pulled her paw along the nearest red woolly stripe, remembering her straight run at the cat and imagining the wool on either side coming from different sheep, then she lifted her paw and leapt the line.
She landed on the rug as a girl, her first soft landing for days. She somersaulted and leapt to her feet.
And saw a surprised Siamese cat in the doorway.
Molly bent down and looked the cat in the eye. The cat stared at her. Molly stared back. The cat blinked.
Molly smiled. “Yes. I’m a girl, not a mouse. And I can do magic. So I think you should run away now!” She clapped her hands, and the cat ran to hide under a cot in the corner of the nursery.
Molly walked briskly down the stairs, with the star iron in one pocket and the faery dog collar in the other.
As her heels drummed along the corridor, she realised that if this collar could control Mr Crottel, then she could finally force him to lift her curse. If this really was a magical collar, she wouldn’t have to keep asking politely, knowing he would refuse every time. She might now have the power to be free of her curse.
But did she want to be free of it?
She frowned as she hung the cabinet key back on the rack. Did she want to lose her curse, or keep it?
She didn’t have to decide yet. First she had to get this star iron to the Promise Keeper, to force her to take the extra power out of charged-up curses.
Molly strode to the front door. It was locked.
She laughed, then miaowed loudly, wondering if that would work. And it did.
Because Molly was now completely in control of her curse.
She could become a hare whenever she chose. She could shift back to a girl by creating a boundary. She could even, if she wanted, shift to and from other animals. She now controlled her curse, rather her curse controlling her.
So she would probably never need this collar.
Molly left the house the same way she’d entered – as a tiny mouse – then created a quick boundary on the ground and leapt over it.
She stood up, in the middle of her friends, with a big grin.
“You didn’t meet the cat then,” said Atacama.
“Oh yes. I met him, and I taught him to be more careful which mice he chases. And I got the star iron.” She unzipped the left pocket and handed the meteorite to Theo.
Molly thought about showing them the collar as well, but decided that it was her choice whether to use it or not, so she would keep it her secret for now.
Theo lifted the meteorite up and down, weighing it in his hand. He nodded. “I can feel something very slightly different…” He rolled the stone around in both hands. “A different vibration, perhaps. This definitely contains something not normally found on Earth. An element that will disrupt the Promise Keeper’s balance, force her to withdraw her excess power from the curses to protect herself.”
He smiled at Molly. “And you realise a hare couldn’t have got through that gap in the door? By charging up your curse, Estelle gave you the ability to collect the object that can stop her charging up everyone’s curses. I love it when magic moves in circles!”
They all turned towards the bike shelter.
The empty bike shelter.
“Where’s my bike? Where’s my aunt’s bike?” Molly looked round at everyone. “Did someone steal them while you were all standing here? Didn’t you notice?”
Beth said, “Sorry. We were concentrating on the house. Innes was ready to kick the door in if we heard anything worrying.”
Molly shook her head. “A cat catching a mouse at the top of a tower would have been a very quiet end to our quest. You wouldn’t have heard anything.” She sighed. “Now we’ve lost the bikes. Do you think the curse-hatched took them?”
“It doesn’t matter who took them,” said Atacama. “Presumably someone who doesn’t want us to weaken the Promise Keeper. Whoever it was, the bikes have gone, so we have to get back to Craigvenie without them.”
Innes said, “I can’t carry four of you at once. I could manage two, then come back for the others. Atacama can manage himself, of course.”
Theo said, “I don’t think we should split up. We should stay together, keep each other safe.”
“Keep an eye on each other,” muttered Beth, glancing at Snib.
Molly said, “It’ll take a while to walk back to Craigvenie. How far is it? About ten miles?”
“It’s not nearly that far, as the crow flies,” said Snib, with a small smil
e. “Over the moors, rather than by road, it’s half that distance.”
Beth looked at the sky. “Those clouds are heavy.” She blew a fast breath out and they all saw it whiten in the air. “And it’s cold enough that if the clouds open, it might fall as snow or hail.”
Innes looked round. “Everyone has coats or cloaks or fur. We’ll be fine.”
As they left the Ballindreich grounds and headed towards the hills, Molly asked, “How exactly do we weaken the Promise Keeper with the star iron?”
Theo said, “We have to make sure that Estelle touches it.”
“We’ll have to trick her,” said Innes. “We could offer to watch that nasty Curse TV with her, and hide the star iron in a bowl of popcorn, then she might dig her hand right down and brush against it.”
“Or we could play a game of catch, and throw it to her,” said Atacama.
“She doesn’t play games any more,” said Molly.
“We don’t have to trick her,” said Theo. “We could simply give it to her, as a present. As tribute. We could tie a ribbon round it.”
Snib said, “We could wrap it in shiny paper, so she unwraps it and is holding it before she works out what it is.”
They all agreed that Snib’s idea was the best so far, and Theo slipped the rock inside his tunic.
As they trudged across the winter heather on the hills between Ballindreich and Craigvenie, Molly noticed that the puddles of water on the path were freezing over. They walked faster to keep warm.
Then it started to snow.
Molly loved snow. In Edinburgh, snow was rare and exciting. Even a light snowfall was worth running around in, catching flakes on her tongue. Thick snow meant snowball fights, snowmen and maybe even a day off school. She loved snow on the hills too, looking at the white caps and blue shadows from the car.
But snow falling on her shoulders when she was miles from shelter seemed threatening and dangerous rather than fun.
Beth said, “Stay close together. Keep an eye on each other. And this time I don’t mean ‘watch Snib’. I mean take care of each other. Let’s not lose anyone.”
As they walked, snowflakes filled the air, settling like tiny diamonds on Theo’s glossy black hair and Atacama’s thick black fur, and covering the ground in icing-sugar swirls.