Pip and the Wood Witch Curse

by Chris Mould

  The city folk believed that the carnival, with its dances and chants and wild costumes, was a way to ward off the evil of the forest. They mocked the creatures with their beast costumes and played out small acts in the street in which they overcame them with swords and spells.

  But it was always such a risk. It tempted the forest creatures out from their holes and it was inevitable that trouble would boil. Often the beasts would mix in with the crowds, wearing cloaks and shrouds, as if in costume. And then they might tear into the people, attacking wildly. Or they would prey on vulnerable revelers as they walked home in small numbers or break into houses, knowing they were empty.

  So the guardsmen secured the streets and alleyways on horseback, safeguarding throughout the night and patrolling the inner quarters of the city where the carnival was held. A ring of footmen and mounted guards circled the area. Fires were lit where the forest met the city to ward away evil.

  It was early in the evening and the streets were still quiet.

  In the shadows something lurked, waiting to emerge. It kept still, concealing its presence.

  Hot breath spilled small clouds of nervous fog from its mouth. The hairs on its back were frozen to the touch and the brush of its tail trailed in the snow beneath. Its monstrous head moved shiftily from side to side, baring huge white teeth, and from within it made a sound.

  “Are you all right, Pip?”

  “Yes, I’m all right, but I’d rather have been at the front.”

  “You’re too small to go at the front. The head needs to be higher than the back end.”

  “Shush,” hissed Pip. “Someone’s coming.”

  A handful of revelers rounded the corner, but were too rowdy to notice the beast lurking in the shadows. They ambled past, laughing and cheering and making merriment.

  Pip and Toad would wait for the big parade, and when it came they would merge in and join the festivities, walking alongside the costumed city folk unnoticed.

  They would stick with them until they reached the Firefly Bridge, and then break off when they hit the clock tower. They clung on to the hope that Frankie Duprie would be there waiting for them.

  From atop a tall roof, Esther was on the lookout, determined to win favor with her master. She had seen something that did not look right. It was the legs. They were too short under that wolf costume. They could only be children!

  She drew closer, landing on a nearby post. She would wait until she knew where they were heading, and then she would seek out Jarvis.

  Noise came through the darkened streets: clashing of cymbals and banging of drums, voices singing, shouting, laughing. A peer around the corner revealed a gathering crowd, people emerging from their doorways and joining the revelry, torches leading the way. Louder and louder, closer and closer until the narrow streets were crammed with people in every possible disguise to ward off the spoils of winter.

  The long snaking shape of a dragon, with what must have been a hundred feet, was walking the street like a huge caterpillar. Toad and Pip sneaked alongside unnoticed, lost in the thrashing of drums and instruments.

  They passed through the main square and into the theater courtyard, meeting the procession from the Stage Fright Theatre Company. Pip sneaked a look. He recognized the voices, the storytellers, and a tall woman he had seen, all of them dressed in their costumes.

  They continued through the maze of streets and alleys, sometimes struggling to pass through the walkways. As they turned corners others joined them until soon the whole city was walking with them. The noise was deafening.

  The boys were jostling for position, struggling along without being able to see, and sweating under the skin of the beast, despite the freezing cold around them. By the time they reached the clock tower they were ready for a rest. Up ahead a square border of stone framed a squat archway, announcing their arrival at their destination.

  “Move over to the edge,” shouted Pip. “Then we can disappear.”

  “Harder than you think!” yelled Toad. He was growing tired of steering through the crowd. At times they were almost lifted off their feet by the surge of bodies.

  But good fortune came their way when it mattered. A fight broke out, a small scuffle that turned into a brawl, and all eyes were diverted. Some man in a dragonskin had disagreed with a skeleton and they laid into each other awkwardly. Laughter broke as they tipped into a nearby water trough.

  All the pushing and shoving had allowed the hogtoothed beast to ease over to the opposite side of the costumed mob. They merged into the shadows of the arches that told them they were right beneath the clock tower.

  It was going well. Too well, in fact.

  Three figures in gray hooded cloaks and plague masks were following them. Something glinted beneath one of the cloaks. While all about them roared with song and laughter, they simply moved along with the crowd. Not dancing or singing, just waiting for the right moment.

  The boys’ feet echoed as they moved toward the steps that led up to the clock, shedding the skin of the hog-toothed beast and dragging it along behind. It was a steep climb, hundreds of wide shallow steps that left their knees aching and sore before they were even halfway. They stopped and looked out through a small window. The procession was still passing below them. It looked magical to Pip. Glowing torchlights, costumes, and color and the snow all around them.

  But there was no time for admiring the view. “Come on,” said Toad, puffing and panting. And they hurried on up. They reached a heavy, low wooden door. It was locked.

  “Here,” said Pip. “Let me have a go.” He drew a small spike of metal from his pocket and scratched at the barrel until it came free.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” asked Toad.

  Pip stared back with raised eyebrows and said nothing. Instead he turned the handle and a sure smile crossed his face as he felt the lock release and the door slowly open.

  So eager was he for the hooded followers to catch up that Captain Dooley sat bolt upright in his old cloth sack. “Quickly!” he shouted, his voice rusty and still only half awake. “Not a moment to lose!”

  A bright moon shone through the large clock face, aiming a pool of light into the lofty space. The timber floor was dry and dusty. Huge cogs and machine parts filled the void they stood in and the children had to crouch and climb to pass through.

  A dove fluttered up from the floor, surprising them and making them jump back.

  Toad called out gently. “Frankie Duprie, are you there? It’s Toad. Sam’s boy from the tavern.”

  There was only silence, but Pip’s keen eye spotted her in the corner, behind the turning shapes of cogs and hammers, her eyes shining. As they drew closer to her she spoke not a word. “Come out, Frankie. You’re safe now,” said Pip, holding out his arms.

  With startled eyes she was curled up tight like a spring and wouldn’t move.

  “It’s all right,” said Toad. “We’ll look after you now. Are there any others?”

  She remained silent and shook her head.

  Just then the three gray figures burst in. Such a dreadful sight that the young girl screamed out loud.

  “Well, well, well. What have we here?” said the first in a rasping male voice.

  “How nice,” cackled the second. “There’s one each.”

  The first figure pulled back his hood with a hooked hand and showed his scarred face.

  “Jarvis!” said Toad under his breath.

  “You take the girl, Hogwick,” instructed the hook- handed thug. “I’ll take the fat one.”

  The second unveiled herself. A sharp-faced old crone, a wood witch if ever there was one. She grabbed Frankie, who was too terrified to move.

  Jarvis moved quickly, yanking Toad by the scruff of his neck and pulling him close to his steel hook so that Toad couldn’t move without being sliced.

  The third didn’t speak. He simply removed his cloak so that he could retrieve Pip, but as he did so the children saw that he had a second pair of arms that joined benea
th the first. He used a cane but as he prepared to go to work, he seemed agile.

  He snaked eerily on his belly into the workings of the clock and inched toward Pip, clutching and grasping at his feet. His face edged closer: one eye pale and silvery, the other deep and dark. Pip sat tight, hoping that the creature wasn’t small enough to climb all the way into his hiding place. But the thing managed to circle his cane around Pip’s ankle and began to drag him out by his boot.

  “Come to Papa Roach, dear boy, don’t be frightened.”

  Pip scraped along the dusty floor, yelping and kicking. Pulling on the cane with two hands, the spidery man swung out a grasping hand. Pip ducked and the thing yelped in pain as his hand struck a vertical timber, the fingers making a cracking sound. With only a second or two of freedom, Pip took a chance and headed up into the workings of the clock, disappearing fast.

  “Leave it. Bolt the door and we’ll come back for him,” yelled Jarvis, and Roach worked some trickery with the lock before the three of them thundered down the steps with Frankie and Toad held fast.

  “Call the others. We need help. Don’t let the little one get away,” Roach insisted.

  Pip listened carefully, trying to calm his breathing, and found a spot where he could spy the street. The man with the cane was in trouble. His hand looked broken.

  As they disappeared out of sight Pip sat helplessly, knowing that the hooded gray figures would disappear into the now-empty streets with his comrades concealed beneath their filthy cloaks.

  Toad and Frankie felt themselves being shuffled along, Frankie beneath the witch’s cloak and Toad beneath Jarvis’s, with the hook held so near to his face that he only dared move his legs. They could hear a horse and two sets of footsteps approaching, but when Jarvis pulled the hood from his head they stood back and let him pass. They neglected to notice that beneath their disguises his companions were forest dwellers.

  Round corners, down darkened alleys, up a small rise of steps and onto the flat again. Then out from beneath the cloaks and bundled upward, shoved and dragged awkwardly until their feet found a platform and they passed through a small opening into a damp-smelling space with a rotted seat. The clang of a door. The turn of a key.

  Their eyes adjusted. It was immediately obvious to Toad that they were in Jarvis’s black carriage. Above the locked handles on the doors were windows barred with cold hard iron.

  Frankie began to weep, but Toad was too furious to be frightened. He leaped to his feet and pulled hard at the bars.

  “Let me out, you freaks.”

  The carriage rolled along, slipping through the dark streets, and Toad pulled so hard on the iron bars that the whole thing shook from side to side. Jarvis’s grin grew wide. He had what he wanted, and he knew there was at least another child on the move, something to make his searches more exciting. He had been right all along. They were there: You just had to know where to look.

  “It’s all just a matter of time,” he said to Roach. “I always capture them in the end. Nice work, Esther,” he added, and she sat proudly at the front of the carriage, preening herself.

  But Roach wasn’t happy. He nursed what he was sure were broken fingers, tucking them under his arm and wincing in pain.

  “Not to worry,” grinned Jarvis. “You still have three hands left. I only got the one!”

  And they rolled along, the pumpkin rocking from side to side and Toad’s cries going unheard by the city folk.

  The procession moved on, back to the market square where the stalls poured out their drinks and handed out their food. Jarvis stuck to the outside edge of the city. He was a traitor and the biggest of cowards.

  Toad watched helplessly as they passed through the rusted broken gate into the forest. The streets and houses became pathways and trees. The silence of the streets became the echoing call of crows and the haunting howl of wolves through the spiny winter trees.

  And now the witches came flocking to look at the caged animals. They swarmed around the carriage, pulling on the bars, and peering in.

  “Ooh look, there’s a pretty one and an ugly one,” they cackled.

  “Let us go,” growled Toad. Frankie had stayed quiet all along, petrified into silence. She pulled her shawl tightly around herself and leaned away from the barred window.

  Gnarled fingers clung to the bars and hands reached in.

  “Such beautiful hair and soft skin. These will make good prisoners.”

  But Toad just yelled louder. “Let us out, Jarvis,” he yelled, and pushed harder against the sides of the carriage until it almost tipped over.

  Frankie lifted her head and she was about to blurt something out, but a jolt of the carriage stopped her and the words trailed off into a scream. The coach crashed down on one side and Toad saw the rear left-hand wheel go rolling past.

  “Ahh, curses,” grunted Jarvis, and his grin turned quickly upside down as he fell from his seat and he and Roach ended up on the ground tied in a knot, not knowing whose limbs were whose.

  Toad’s weight had sent him hurtling through the rotten base of the carriage and he landed on the forest floor with his head still inside the cab. His eyes lit up at the opportunity.

  There was much commotion as the witches found their feet in the darkness, pulling each other from the thorns and thickets.

  “Quick,” Toad whispered to Frankie. “It’s our only chance. Follow me.” And they squeezed their way out from under the carriage into the dark depths of the woods.

  It had not entered the mind of the forest dwellers that the children could have escaped. Quite some time passed while they pulled at the broken wheel and struggled to lift it onto the axle, all with no success. It was only a sudden realization that Toad had stopped hurling insults that made Jarvis look inside … to see that his catch was missing.

  “Aaaargh … they’ve escaped. Those disgusting little city rats have escaped!”

  As Jarvis’s scream echoed eerily into the trees, the carriage was soon forgotten and the searchers dispersed. But by now Toad and Frankie were already far from the scene of the accident, spilling into the thick of the forest.

  Pip had no idea what Roach had done with the lock, but after minutes of trying he was sure that he couldn’t release it. Brute strength was out of the question. The solid wooden door was too much for Pip’s tiny frame. And if he hung around much longer they would return and snap him up.

  Pip’s mind began to turn. When they had arrived, Frankie was in there but the door was locked. How had she gotten in there? There must be a way. He flustered around nervously, feeling the walls in the half light. And there it was, in the far corner, caked in dust: a small hatch in the floor with a lip to grab hold of and pull.

  As Pip lowered himself down he found himself back on the staircase that led up to the locked clock tower doorway. Within moments he was creeping through the hollow. There was a hum of noise from the celebrations in the distance and every now and then someone would come skipping by or a group would wander past in a drunken fashion. But forthe most part it was deathly quiet.

  Up above, shapes were circling. Word must already have filtered into the forest of Pip’s narrow escape, and the scouts were out. Without Toad he wasn’t entirely sure which drain holes were useful to him or indeed where they would take him. But on foot he could find his way.

  He slipped up an alley that he was sure would take him back to the theater courtyard. From there he already knew the route to the tavern, and if he could get there, he could find the forest gate.

  In his head he was already there, but he had not planned to stumble into someone. His eagerness had tripped him up.

  At first the man apologized and tried to move past, but on realizing it was a child he grew shocked and anxious and immediately eager to help him.

  “What are you doing? It’s not safe to move at night, you should know that. Where are you from?” As they passed into the light at the corner of the theater courtyard the face of a kind old man became clear.

  He too
k Pip’s hand. “Quick,” he pleaded. “To safety!”

  Pip knew the scouts would be circling above and felt he had no choice but to follow, stumbling awkwardly in the dark.

  The man pulled Pip through a door and into a small low cottage with a rounded window, where he yanked on the shutters so that Pip could not be seen from outside. Inside there was a small table and a rickety chair, a fire burned gently in the hearth, and a pot bubbled over the flames. The smell was delicious.

  “There, you see. Safety at last!” the man announced. “Oh, do forgive me, I have not introduced myself. My name is Crumb … Jed Crumb. Or Old Jed, as they often call me. And you are?”

  “Pip, sir. My name is Eddie Pipkin, but my friends call me Pip.”

  “In that case, young man, I shall consider myself a friend of yours and address you accordingly. You must be starving, Pip. All that escaping is hungry work, yes?” He returned with a plate of cakes and buns so big it dwarfed the table. And then hot drinks and more food seemed to appear from nowhere, accompanied by delicious smells that made Pip think of Sam’s food at the tavern.

  “Eat up,” the man said. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  “Thank you most kindly, sir. But I don’t have much time for food,” said Pip. “My friends have been taken by Mister Jarvis and his kin. I must reach them.”

  “You mean the forest people?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How many are there of you? Where did you spring from?”

  Suddenly Pip became aware that the man might not be on his side. Of course, he seemed friendly enough, but what if … No, surely not. He had helped him get to safety. But he was asking Pip for information he did not want to give. What if it meant that Sam got into trouble?