Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters

by Winter Woodlark

  Giving up, he flung his arms up in defeat and stomped away. Nettle watched him search through the scrub until he found what he was looking for. He worked the crowbar underneath and began to lever it out from its buried position, all the while mumbling angrily.

  Nettle shook her head slightly, he is seriously losing it.

  As she walked up behind her father, she saw he was trying to move a huge gray rock studded with moss, from where it lay half buried in the ground. Glancing around the rest of the backyard, she saw there were several of the same sort of rock, placed about the cottage in a rough sort of circle. “Dad, what are you up to with those rocks?”

  Fred flinched and spun around, holding the crowbar much like Jazz held her hockey stick, only a little while ago.

  “Woah, Dad,” Nettle waved her hands before her. Is he crazy? “It’s me.”

  He let out a puff of breath and visibly relaxed. “Sorry, you startled me.” He lowered the crowbar to the ground to lean against. “I’m just tidying up. They were something, your mother put around the cottage. I just thought, I’d better herd them back into place.”

  “Herd?”

  “Oh,” Fred’s olive eyes looked like they were going to pop from his skull. “Ah, you know,” he flexed a rather pitiful muscle in his forearm, giving her a wink, “Move back.”

  “Is that why you were talking to it, hoping it would move for you?”

  For a long moment he said nothing, until he spluttered an outburst of awkward laughter. “Nettle, you’re so funny.”

  Nettle thoughtfully considered her father. He was purposefully being evasive and just plain weird. Well, even weirder since arriving back at the cottage. And what was there to be afraid of, besides toadstools and, what else did her father say, silver-moss springs?

  A boisterous BANG, came from the back door.

  Bram and Jazz, who was moaning as usual, dragged a dusty blue rug outside. To Nettle’s amazement, her cousin actually appeared to be helping, albeit grudgingly.

  Bram immediately spied Fred and his sister, and called out, “Dad, where’s Willoughby?!” He quickly made his way toward them. Jazz, annoyed at being left with the rug, dumped it on the porch and using a hockey stick – she’d packed plenty of hockey sticks along with her luggage - hacked her way through the backyard.

  Fred’s stance changed as Bram approached. He moved slightly uneasily and Nettle watched one cheek puff out before expelling it slowly. Nettle gave her father a shrewd look. “Yes, Dad, where is Willoughby? We found his birdcage, but no bird.”

  Bram arrived. His golden face and trusting blue eyes looked expectantly up at his father. “Where is he, Dad?”

  Fred said it, as gently as he could. “I let him go.”

  Both siblings were stunned. “What? But why?” asked Bram.

  “This,” Fred replied, looking around at the trees. “Is his home.”

  Bram’s confused gaze slipped from his father to Nettle. “But he’s been with us forever. What if he’s forgotten how to live in the wild?”

  “He’s a bird, a wild bird, he’ll remember. I couldn’t keep him locked up in a birdcage any longer. Not once we got back here. It wouldn’t be right,” their father answered.

  Nettle slipped an arm around her brother, feeling his shoulder slump beneath her hand. She shot a sharp glare at her father. He should have discussed it with them both, before going ahead and letting their family friend go. Sometimes he was a right idiot.

  She gave Bram’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Dad was doing what was best for Willoughby.”

  “Besides,” jumped in Fred, in a desperate attempt to cheer up his son, “I have a feeling he’ll be back soon.”

  “Why?” Bram’s face crumpled on the verge of tears. He said with a plaintive tone, “Surely he’s just flown off and forgotten us.”

  “He hasn’t, OK. So trust me on this, Willoughby will come home.”

  Bram still didn’t look as if he truly believed his father.

  Knowing her brother, Nettle tried a different tactic. “It’s better for him to be free, isn’t it, and visit us from time to time?”

  Bram chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Guess so.”

  Jazz, huffing and puffing and walking with a decided air of disgust at having to deal with the unpleasantness of being outdoors, arrived. “What’s going on?”

  “Dad let Willoughby go,” said Bram, his bottom lip pouting.

  Jazz gave a scornful laugh. “Is that all?”

  Nettle gave Jazz a blistering glare. Jazz caught her look and silently returned - well-it’s-true. Nettle sighed softly. Jazz really was a block-head at the best of times. She needed to change the subject fast. Her father saved her the trouble.

  “So has everyone finished their schoolwork?” asked Fred.

  With the endless travelling the Blackthorn’s did, the two siblings completed their work by correspondence. They missed out on the school experience and making friends their own age, but quickly finishing their schoolwork in the morning and having the afternoon to explore the latest town they’d found themselves in certainly made up for it.

  Bram answered, “Dad, it’s the school holidays. Besides, you told us to tidy the cottage.”

  “Oh, right, right. How’s that going?”

  “Forced child labour is illegal, Uncle Fred. Just so you know,” Jazz said twisting her hockey stick around in her hands.

  Bram rolled his eyes. “You haven’t exactly done much, Jazz, just moaned a lot.”

  “Did too!” She fluttered a hand in front of him. “I chipped two nails dragging that awful rug out of the house.”

  Nettle pulled a face behind Jazz’s back that made Bram laugh. Jazz quickly spun around, but only caught Nettle’s quick change of expression to commiseration. She glared at her cousin suspiciously.

  “Come on,” urged Fred. “You three back inside, there’s plenty more work to be done in the cottage.”

  All three groaned and gave Fred varying looks of annoyance. Nettle led the way across the backyard toward Blackthorn Cottage. As Bram was turning to follow Jazz, he stopped. “Hey Dad, where’s that path go? That one, right there. It looks like it goes right into the woods.” Bram ran to the trees.

  Nettle’s ears pricked, as did Jazz’s. Both girls turned around, curious. They followed Bram’s lead and caught up just as Bram made it to the forest’s edge. In the cool shade of the quiet trees, Nettle still had that tingling feeling she was being watched. She pushed a fern’s frond apart and peered through.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Path Through the Wilds

  The wind’s cold fingers whipped through the Wilds, ruffling leaves and smacking branches. A sound much like wooden sailing ships, their ropes groaning to be freed from the cleat, rippled through the woods.

  It was like looking into an ink sketch. All dark shadows with motes and tiny fluffy seeds floating in the pale silver light that managed to filter through the forest’s thick canopy. A carpet of dark green moss was tucked like a blanket around the foot of each tree, with gnarled roots like horribly crooked feet extending out over the undulating ground littered with fallen leaves. It was magical.

  The blood in Nettle’s veins thrummed like a plucked cello with excitement. There, right in front of her, was the beginning of a path.

  The dirt path cut through the forest, meandering along with the natural flow of the forest floor, in bends and bumps, heading inward to be swallowed up by the gloomy woods, until she could discern it no longer.

  The path was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and strangely, not a single bit of forest litter, not one crisp dead leaf, nor a single tree root, blemished the pathway. The trail was so pristine, it was as if someone had taken to it with a broom.

  The path was also incredibly inviting.

  Her skin prickled with anticipation and she was overcome with an overwhelming urge to run through the trees. There was something about being outside, surrounded by nature which had always made her feel at home. Since be
fore she could remember, forests and woodland were comforting.

  The idea of finding where the path led enticed her. She gravitated without thought, pushing past the fern and the long spiky grasses. She desperately wanted to enter the cool moist shade of the woods. Her foot wavered above the earthen path. As she was just about to take her first step, a voice stopped her.

  “Nettle, come away from there.”

  Fred’s voice was like the sharp snap of fingers, gaining her attention instantly.

  She took a deep breath and struggled to shrug off the insistent impulse. It was terribly difficult to let go of the urge to walk beneath the forest’s lush canopy. But she remembered her promise to her father.

  She slowly turned around with guilty eyes.

  Her father looked deadly serious. He stared hard at her. She gulped uncomfortably, feeling as though she’d been caught doing something naughty, which she supposed she had. Her voice was whispery, “Where does it go, Dad?”

  Fred glared a little longer at his daughter, watching her shift uneasily under his gaze.

  “I wouldn’t go in there,” Bram quickly interjected as his father’s thick brows knitted together with irritation.

  “Good. No one should.” Fred hoped that his answer was enough until he saw that all three of his charges were looking at him expectantly. He sighed. “That path cuts into the Forgotten Wilds, deep into the woods. The Forgotten Wilds, well, it’s just that - wild and dangerous and not a place for any one of us.” He looked as hard and stern as he could at each of the children. He even had Jazz’s attention.

  “What’s in there?” breathed Bram softly.

  “Creatures who will tear you apart and pick tiny bits of your flesh out of their teeth with your bones and save it for later.” Fred saw that while Jazz and Bram were wide eyed and slack jawed, Nettle looked dubious.

  “What kind of creatures?” Nettle asked. This was different, not quite the springs and mushrooms of earlier.

  “Mangy wolves, feral cats, toxic spewing slugs, plants that spit venom at you… the woods are lurking with things that can kill you in an instant. People go missing in there, all the time, it’s so easy to lose your way, and get lost, and then become someone’s dinner.”

  Bram and Jazz had paled and were looking at the forest in horror.

  “So, I don’t want any of you entering the Wilds, or following the path.”

  Jazz and Bram readily nodded.

  “Nettle?” pressed Fred.

  Nettle crossed her fingers behind her back. She smiled. “Of course, Dad, whatever you say.”

  “Alright you lot, back to work then.”

  Bram and Jazz quickly made their way through the backyard, Jazz in the lead swinging her hockey stick like a machete. Nettle went to follow and was stopped. Her father grabbed her arm, twisting her hand back to reveal her fingers still crossed. Fred wasn’t surprised. “Nettle, you look like me, but you’re your mother’s daughter.”

  Nettle chewed on her inner lip, ashamed and a little annoyed at being caught. She wondered what her punishment was going to be.

  “Jazz is far too self absorbed to bother going into the Wilds and Bram’s entirely trustworthy. You, on the other hand,” he wavered, his tone growing softer. “Well, you’re impetuous like your mother, but entirely capable.” Fred eyed Nettle hard. There was a long quiet moment before he added, “However, if by some reason, you do happen to enter the Forgotten Wilds, keep to the path and never, ever, stray from it... OK?”

  Nettle nodded, her eyes round. It was almost an invitation. Almost.

  “OK?” her father urged. “I need to hear you say it.”

  “OK, OK, Dad.”

  “OK then.” Fred broke out into a grin and playfully slapped his thigh. “Good, now I’ve got things to do, so I’ll be in later for lunch.”

  Nettle watched her father go back to one of the rocks he was trying to relocate. She wondered why he made up those ludicrous creatures to warn them away from the Forgotten Wilds. Her father really was behaving very, very strangely, and she needed to find out why.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Accusations

  The next morning, Nettle was abruptly woken by the jarring sound of Jazz’s bellow of fury. Jazz’s blotchy complexion was the hue of her hair, a vibrant red. Utterly enraged, she grabbed the brightly patterned quilt and hauled it from the bed, leaving Nettle and Bram - who had crawled into her bed during the night with whisperings of talking rats once more - exposed to the crisp autumn morning. At the touch of cool air, goose-bumps rose in a rash of prickled skin across Nettle’s chest and exposed arms.

  Bram sat up, blinking and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, wondering what was going on, Nettle was beside him, looking just as surprised.

  For the moment it was highly amusing. Dressed in silk floral pyjamas, Jazz stalked up and down the bedroom, her hands flying about in agitation as she snarled and spat and roared.

  “What’s going on?” Nettle asked, her voice slurred from sleep. She ran a hand through her dishevelled mess of locks. Nettle couldn’t make out too much, apart from the words “gone,” and “ruined,” as well as “destroy you!”

  “What’s going on?!” shouted Jazz, “WHAT’S GOING ON?!” She stomped up the side of the bed so she could lean down close to the siblings.

  Bram flinched.

  “As if either of you don’t know. Stop playing dumb, and just tell me, WHY!?” Jazz flicked Bram on the sensitive tip of the ear. Nettle could tell her cousin wanted to do more than just flick his ear.

  “Ouch,” Bram wailed, clamping a hand on his stinging ear, squiggling away from her. Jazz’s hand snaked out as quick as a whip and latched onto a handful of Nettle’s hair. She tugged down viciously, dragging her cousin close.

  Hot searing pain flared across Nettle’s scalp. She yowled, wondering if Jazz had torn a patch of hair from her head. Jazz’s snarling expression was mere inches from her own. “Stop it, let go!” Nettle grabbed hold of Jazz’s hand trying to extricate her from the nest of knotted locks. Jazz only tugged harder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t done anything.”

  Jazz snarled, “I am going to do to you exactly what you’ve done to me.”

  Nettle’s eyes pricked with tears, she tried to turn away, but couldn’t. Jazz had really, really, really, bad morning breath. “Oh come on… Why so cryptic? Why don’t you just come on out and say it.”

  Jazz let go. Nettle rubbed her smarting scalp, eyeing her cousin balefully.

  Jazz sneered. “I’m sorry you’re dirt poor, having to ride around in that scrap of junk, in second hand clothes and home-made haircuts. But don’t be jealous of me, and my family, and our money, and all that it affords us.”

  “Ah, technically, you don’t have any money,” piped up Bram, cleaning his lenses with the corner of the bed-sheet before putting on his glasses to look up at his cousin, owl-like in expectation.

  There was a tick in Jazz’s forehead that started to twitch. She stared at Bram as if he were a little bug she might squish beneath her shoes. “You know, when mum said she was sending me to you guys, for a moment I was excited. I remembered how much fun it was hanging out with you when we were little kids.”

  Huh? That was new. All she’s done since being here was complain and moan and roll her eyes at me, thought Nettle.

  “But then, I remembered, listening to all those stupid stories you used to make-up to impress me. Lies and fibs is what they were, just like you’re telling right now.”

  On top of the dresser were the little dolls her father had made especially for her. Nettle had found some time last evening to dust and polish Private Tonks and comb Little Judy Carbunkle’s golden hair. Jazz snatched up Little Judy by her ringlets. She dangled the doll between clenched fingers, while a little smile that didn’t reach her eyes played on her lips.

  It was Bram who recognized what was about to happened. “No, Jazz don’t,” he cried. Nettle caught on just as Jazz’s smile hardened. The older girl took h
old of Little Judy and ripped half her hair from her head and threw the scalped locks at Nettle.

  “Stop it! What are you doing?!”

  Jazz gleefully snapped the wooden doll in two and tossed the body parts at Nettle. Little Judy’s limp body flopped onto the mattress at Nettle’s feet. Nettle gathered up the broken doll, completely shocked. Her cousin had gone mental before, but she’d never done anything as monumentally malicious as this.

  “Have you gone insane?” Nettle cried. “Seriously, are you demented or something?”

  Jazz hurled Krankshaw Tattersfoot at Nettle who easily dodged the rabbit. “I’m doing exactly what you two did to my bedroom!”

  “We haven’t done anything to your room. We haven’t even left our own.”

  Jazz, near imploded. Howling, she became a whirlwind of destruction. Jazz swept her hand across the top of the dresser, sweeping hair brushes, the velvet lined jewellery box, money purse, hair ties and clips, photographs and sketches, strawberry and cherry flavoured chapsticks: everything went flying across the room and clattered across the wooden floor, rolling under the bed and side tables. The treasured perfume Nettle received on her twelfth birthday, smashed against the wall, spraying a heady cloud of fragrance throughout the room.

  Nettle and Bram could only stare in disbelief. Jazz was growling and grunting like a wild animal - and she wasn’t finished. She threw open the louvered closet doors and pulled out a random article of clothing. It was Nettle’s favourite navy striped jersey. Jazz tore at the knitted fabric attempting to rip the jersey. All she managed to do was pull it out of shape. Jazz shrieked in frustration and tossed the jersey on the ground to furiously pull things out of the closet and throw them haphazardly about the bedroom.