Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters

by Winter Woodlark

  Behind her uncle’s back, Jazz gave Nettle a smug look. Nettle’s thin lips hardened and her green eyes narrowed into slits.

  “We’re waiting,” said her father.

  Nettle turned reluctantly to her cousin. “Sorry, Jasmine,” she said knowing fully well what kind of response she’d elicit from her cousin.

  “Jazz,” shrilled Jasmine. “You know it’s Jazz!” She turned to her Uncle. “Squashed up in this tin-can may suit you, but I am in need of a bed, a real bed. Uncle Fred, you promised us proper beds and proper showers.”

  For the longest time Fred was silent. He looked over at his children and niece. His decision made, he took a deep breath, his slumped shoulders straightened and a determined glint re-entered his gaze. “OK, we’re going in. But there is one thing you must promise me. All of you, including you too, Jasmine.”

  “Jazz, Uncle Fred.”

  “OK, Jazz.” He stared hard at each of his children. Nettle felt a lecture coming. “Do not leave the house. Do not go into the woods.”

  Huh, Nettle wasn’t expecting her father to deny them the woods. The forest wasn’t exactly inviting, but they were kids, and up for adventuring. Why bring them home if they weren’t allowed outside?

  Bram was snappy with his questions. “Why, what’s in the woods? Is it dangerous?”

  “It’s just not a safe place to be. People have gone missing in there, it’s easy to get lost and…” Fred looked into the distance, lost in thought.

  “And what?” This time it was Nettle asking.

  “The woods are home to some very dangerous creatures.”

  “What kind of creatures?” asked Bram, a little too curious for Fred’s liking.

  “Ah, well, you know, the usual kind…” The three children stared at him, demanding a precise explanation. “Silver-moss springs, grenick-vines, toadstools…”

  “Springs and toadstools?” Nettle echoed with disbelief.

  Fred flushed and changed tactic. “Just don’t leave the house,” he said firmly.

  “What if we need something from Bessie?” Bram asked.

  “Yes, of course, you can get whatever you need from Bessie.”

  “So we can go outside?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, yes,” Fred flustered. “You can go outside. But just stay in the yard OK.”

  “How big is the yard?”

  “Big enough, just don’t go into the woods, OK.”

  “How far away are the woods? How do I know if I’m playing in some trees, that it’s OK, and not the woods?”

  “Bram, you’ll know,” answered his father with thinly veiled vexation. “Now promise me, you’ll stay in the yard, and not go into the woods.”

  Bram nodded, like Fred knew he would. He was a good boy and reliable. Jazz agreed with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders and toss of her coppery hair, and Nettle said nothing. “OK?” He pressed.

  “OK, whatever,” said Nettle still smarting at having to apologise to Jazz.

  “Right, then,” said Fred heaving a sigh. “Blackthorn Cottage it is.”

  Bessie advanced forward once more. It wasn’t long before they broke free of the woods and drove into a clearing of sorts, for most of it was an overgrown yard of weeds and broken picket fencing.

  To call Blackthorn Cottage a ‘cottage’, was modest. The precarious stone house was tall and narrow, and three stories high. Thatch clad the roof of the house, including the tower that jutted slightly above its peaked gables. The years had aged the thatch to light silver. A rampant white rose bush had twisted itself around the porch balustrade, pushed between its wooden floorboards, and crept up the cottage’s stone walls, around window sills, and through a broken window pane, as well as beneath the gap in the front door.

  “This is it?” Jazz asked. Her tone and imperiously arched eyebrow flaunted mockery. “Blackthorn Cottage?”

  Nettle nodded, her mess of long black hair bobbed. “It’s exactly how I remember it, except for the broken windows.”

  “The yard could do with a tidy up,” Fred mused.

  Nettle cast a glance over waist-high grass and tussock. “You think?” They both broke into grins.

  “I’ve got dibs on the bathroom!” Jazz lithely leapt from Bessie. Bram scurried after his cousin as she skipped up the rickety porch steps.

  “Hey,” called Fred, leaning out the driver’s window. “You’ll need the key.” He produced an old fashioned brass key from the glove box and held it aloft.

  But Jazz had already twisted the door handle and the cottage’s front door swung open. She entered; Bram right behind her.

  Fred jumped out of the driver’s seat, “Hey,” he yelled. Fear urged him to sprint toward the cottage. “Don’t go in there!”

  Nettle hurriedly pulled on her sheepskin lined boots, pushed open her door, and slid out of Bessie. She caught up to her father at the porch steps. “Dad! What’s wrong?!”

  “I locked the door before we left.”

  Fred bound up the steps and into the cottage. Nettle ran after him, the wood groaning beneath her weight.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Return to Blackthorn Cottage

  Nettle left the front door open, stepping over the thorny branches to enter a large open room comprising the kitchen and lounge. The once white plastered walls were now yellowed with age and lack of cleaning. There was a small section walled-off for the bathroom, washhouse, and pantry. In the very centre of the room was an enormous fireplace, built from river stones. The enormous chimney spread its girth through the next two floors, the heat of the stones warming the upper levels on cold nights.

  The rampant rose bush had pushed under the front door and through a broken window pane quite some time ago, Nettle concluded. The creeping green tendrils had rambled up the room’s front wall, its shoots twisting around crooked paintings, latching onto rustic curtain rails and slinking over shelves, making it seem as if the wall itself was part of the wild garden outside.

  A curved entrance opened to the tower that housed the spiral staircase leading to the upper levels, from which Nettle realized, the sound of thumping feet and doors slamming were coming from. Nettle supposed it was her father, hurrying from room to room. As to why her father was in such a panic to search the cottage was blatantly obvious to her now. The room she had entered was a mess. Blackthorn Cottage had been ransacked. Every draw and cupboard had been opened and their contents strewn over the floor. But who? And why? Great slashes of silver scorch-marks scoured the walls. Nettle leaned close to inspect what looked to her like silvery glitter still imbedded within the pock-marked walls where the paint had been blistered by intense heat. Yet nothing obvious had caught on fire.

  Jazz opened the bathroom door startling her. She escorted Bram out, a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been robbed.” She patted his back in a manner she hoped convey her sympathies, but to Nettle, resembled more like the pained grimace of someone unused to bothering with other people’s problems. “But luckily the bathroom’s OK. So… I’ll test it first.” With a little push, she had Bram out of the bathroom, and shut the door on his surprised expression.

  Bram turned to roll his bright blue eyes at Nettle, who shook her head in shared disbelief. Their self absorbed cousin had no idea the world didn’t revolve solely around her.

  Fred made his way down the staircase, his boots making a racket on the wooden steps. He stumbled off the last step, hunched over and out of breath, a fire-poker held limply in one hand. “It’s... OK... I thought...” he huffed and puffed and wheezed, “No one here.”

  “Dad, are you OK?” Nettle asked. He looked as if he’d run a marathon. He nodded, sucking in air, gave her a thumbs-up, and slumped into his old armchair. A cloud of dust billowed from the cushion as he sank into it. He regained his breath.

  “Who could have done this?” asked Nettle, her dark brows drawn together as she surveyed the destruction.

  When her father didn’t answer she glanced up. He was deathly still, the colour drained from him. His fingers gr
ipped the armrests like claws. He gazed around at the room at all the upturned and smashed furniture and scorch-marks on the walls.

  “Dad?” Nettle asked concerned. It must have only just sunk in for him. He was too busy running around making sure no one was here. “Dad?”

  He started, obviously forgetting she was there. She held his gaze, then allowed it to slip away as he gave himself a sharp shake to release the tension. He relaxed back into the chair expelling his breath. When he shrugged, he smiled, his mood lightening. “I guess it could have been anyone really, we’ve been away for ages.”

  “Have they taken anything?”

  It was a reasonable question to ask, she thought, except her father glanced away, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip, the tell-tale sign he was thinking how to avoid the truth. What is going on?

  “I don’t think so, though it’s impossible to tell with the state the rooms are in.” In a brighter tone, he turned to her with a comforting smile. “Kids more like, just out to make a mess.”

  Nettle didn’t believe him, he was acting really weird. Only a week ago he abruptly decided to take a family trip back to the cottage, then, when arriving, he didn’t want to enter the property. She was positive he had the same thought as her. Someone had been searching for something in particular. But for what?

  “Where’s Jazz?” Fred asked.

  “Bathroom,” answered Bram. He was sifting through a pile of dusty items near the fireplace. “Hope you don’t need it, she’ll be in there forever.”

  “What do you have there?” inquired Fred, he thought he recognized the wooden toy in his son’s hand but couldn’t be sure.

  Nettle decided to do some investigating herself. While her father joined Bram, squatting down beside him, she ran up the staircase.

  Bram had discovered a small cluster of wooden toys within the mess on the floor. “Wow. Are these all mine? When I was a baby?” He’d found a spinning top, a rattle and a donkey.

  Fred beamed, “I carved them myself.” When Bram handed his father the toy donkey he’d been holding, coated with a strange splattering of red and green paint, his father added, “Ah well, your mother painted them... somewhat.”

  Over the past few years, the Blackthorn family had traversed the country from market to fair, utilizing Fred’s natural talent with wood to support their travels. They’d park up at a new camp ground and he’d poke about the surrounding woodland finding the right kind of twig or broken branch. “It sung out to me,” he’d say, and then spend the evening hours whittling, wood shavings littering at his feet, deep in thought as the wood took shape, almost of its own volition.

  A series of nicks and scratches caught Fred’s attention. “Over here Bram,” he urged going over to crouch by the wall near the stairwell. He pointed to a faint pencil line and a name scribbled beside it. “This was how tall Nettle was the day you were born.” Fred pointed to another measurement. “See here, this was how tall you were, when you were only six months old.”

  “Cool.”

  Fred grinned. “There are so many things to show you. Your first baby-shoes, the tree-house, old photographs of your mother we couldn’t take with us....”

  The smile on Bram’s face quavered, becoming more forced, like an uncomfortable mask he wore. Fred noticed. “Hey buddy, what’s the matter?”

  Bram scuffed the floor with the tip of his worn sneakers. He frowned, annoyed and frustrated that his father didn’t understand. He finally sighed heavily knowing he was going to hurt his father, but unable to avoid it. “I don’t remember this place, or those toys or even getting measured. I don’t remember anything.”

  “Of course not, you were so little when we left.”

  “That’s it, Dad, I’m not going to remember this place am I? I don’t even remember Mum. I was a baby when she left.”

  Fred’s throat pinched tight. How could he be so oblivious? To Bram, this cottage they lived in for a brief time as a happy family, even his own mother, were strangers.

  Bram placed an arm around his father’s shoulder, wishing he hadn’t been so tactless. Fred cleared his throat noisily and clasped his son’s hand. With his wide mouth, honey locked hair and heart-shaped face, he looked so much like his mother. The only concession to himself were the spectacles. “Yes, you’re right. But it’s not to say these things, these memories of you growing up here, didn’t happen.” He squeezed Bram’s hand until a smile crept over his son’s lips. “Humour an old man, huh, let me tell you some tales.”

  Dim light filtered through the dirty bay windows of the staircase and its tower as Nettle made her way up to the second floor. She was a tall and lanky girl, with a long narrow face and thick dark eyebrows that feathered upwards, above nondescript green eyes and angular cheekbones. Her nose, like her fathers, was slightly hawkish. Her lips were thin like his. Her complexion was olive, however, unlike her father’s vibrant hue, hers was dull and had a rather dusty depth to it. She, in her own description, considered her looks, like her skin tone, dull and exceedingly uninteresting. She wore her usual uniform of woollen tights – today, her favourite grey and black striped pair - teamed with khaki shorts and a comfortable hoodie. Normally, she had a hat pulled over her long messy black hair. Hats were her thing and she had stacks of them. Baker Boys and Gatsby; fleece lined Trapper hats; pretty berets and skull clinging beanies; Chullo or Ushankas, especially good for blustery winter days or a Chilote with their pom-poms. But today she’d left her cat hat with its bristly whiskers in Bessie when chasing her father inside the cottage.

  Along the curved wall were a series of pictures. She lingered to rub a hand over the dusty glass, revealing a miniature landscape crafted from cleverly layered leaves and two children made of twisted twigs playing beneath the boughs of a tree. A sudden image crowded her mind, of her, as a child, sitting at her mother’s long-toed bare feet, sorting through a wicker basket of green grasses and crisp dead leaves. The memory so vivid, she even felt the warm sunlight striking her forehead as she squinted up at her mother’s face.

  Nettle reeled slightly under the intense recollection. Her fingers curled into fists and she dug her short nails into the soft flesh of her palms. I don’t want to remember. Briar doesn’t deserve it! She’d hardened herself over the years, suppressing such memories, resolving to forget about Blackthorn Cottage and everything to do with her mother. She ran up the rest of the steps to the second floor, intently keeping her gaze downward.

  She found the doors open to the rooms, no doubt by her father, and in a state as her father described, barely disturbed. This floor housed their playroom, a small study and library. Nettle wandered into the library, the wooden floor creaking beneath her footsteps, dust motes stirring with her intrusion. Her father’s favourite armchair with an opened book cresting the worn leather armrest, stood beside the stained glass window, a leadlight image of birds taken flight in various hues of blue.

  When she was young the room seemed enormous. Books lined every inch of wall space, reaching for the vaulted ceiling, a dizzying height for a six year old. Now, nearly thirteen, Nettle found it to be just a small pokey room, with a low ceiling, full of dusty old books.

  Four bedrooms took up the entire top floor. Nettle purposely didn’t look into her parent’s bedroom as she passed by. She tentatively entered her own bedroom, which overlooked the back garden now rife with weeds. It was exactly how she remembered it, although a lot smaller. It’s strange being back here, she thought, as if the room belongs to some other little girl. The pale lemon plastered walls were adorned with pictures cut from her favourite story books, though now, Aladdin’s brightly coloured clothes had faded with age. A thrush and robin, carved by her father, hung from the ceiling on a mobile.

  She smiled, wandering over to her dresser. Little Judy Carbunkle and Tonks! Two dolls, leaning against one another, stood on top of the dresser: Judy Carbunkle, a delicate southern belle with golden ringlet hair and bright red cheeks and lips, and her beau, Private Tonks, a moustached soldier, proudly
standing at attention with his bayonet rifle, lovingly carved by her father for her for her fifth birthday. There once was a time when she’d barely been apart from these dolls, tucked under an arm, joining her on daily adventures.

  A small four poster bed stood in the centre, unmade. Nettle paused at that, her set of drawers were pulled open, as well as the wardrobe doors. Her childhood clothes had been rifled through, and some spilled over the open drawers, coated in dust. The disturbance here was isolated pockets, and she surmised, had been made by them, not an intruder.

  She only had vague memories about the day they left. It was too long ago, nearly seven years. She had fragmented images of being woken in the middle of the night and carried somewhere, by someone who wasn’t her father, their unfamiliar scent too earthy, their height too short.

  Before that memory, the last thing she remembered was being tucked into bed by her mother. Briar had been crying. She’d been confused as to why her mother always seemed to be so sad back then. The next morning, when Nettle awoke, she realized that comfortable feeling of being rocked, was from being jostled around in the back of an old car. She and Bram had been placed on the back seat, tucked under a crocheted rug while they’d slept. Her mother wasn’t there. “She’s gone,” Fred had said, and he’d refused to say anything further. With confusion and gradual unease, Nettle became aware that they were travelling away from the only home she’d ever known, and things wouldn’t ever be the same again.

  And now, seven years later, they’d returned to Blackthorn Cottage. The strangeness of her father’s behaviour filtered through her mind as she made her way back downstairs. Something didn’t feel quite right. She couldn’t quite place why he was out of sorts. She understood about Briar, but there was something else, and she wondered if it had to do with whoever had ransacked the place.

  She found her father and Bram where she’d left them, rifling through the mess on the floor. As she descended the last few steps, she froze. A sudden chill made the soft hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end. From this viewpoint, looking down, she saw the room quite differently. This wasn’t the work of squatters going through their stuff, intent on chaos. The side tables were pulled over, their drawers thrown across the room, a side table splintering against the wall, the plastered walls cracked and indented where something or someone had fallen against it. This was the scene of a struggle, a fight. But between who? Mum and Dad?