Jack gave an arrogant wink, as he rubbed his hands free from the fire-ball he’d just thrown. Nettle heaved an exasperated sigh, piled a few more heftier logs onto the fire, then stomped back to her seat to glare at the goblin from across the table.
Sandee was sharpening her sword’s blade with long leisurely strokes. “There’s some witches who’re able to conjure a maelstrom, and some can bend nature to their will,” she said casting a suspicious look at the goblin. “And there’s some who can even persuade you that there’s a bridge to safely cross a ravine, when there is none.”
“Aye,” Egnatius quietly agreed, lighting his pipe. “There are those.”
Bram frowned, looking up from his notes. “And that kind of magic comes from who?”
Jack placed the cup back on the table to lean back, an arm slung casually over the back of the chair next to his as if idly chit-chatting about the weather. “Normally, one parent is a witch or warlock and the other is either a ysar or goblin or even one of the rarer elder families.”
“So what kind of magic do the Balfreys’ possess?” Bram asked intently. Spix was now busy lining up a row of stones beside his sling.
Jack gave a small shake of the head, his broken nose crinkling a little as if the knowledge defied him. “Most of the witches and warlocks the Balfreys’ have collected have minor powers, like your little spriggan friend here described - nothing much to worry about. But in the Balfreys’ case, their mother’s a witch, making them just a little bit more dangerous than the average. And while I’ve learned Lysette was incredibly powerful due to her sire - whom I’m assuming has to be from one of the elder families - her younger half-sisters come from a mortal father.” His eyes darkened to a deep purple as he said quietly, as if talking to himself. “But they’re displaying quite the talent for magic.” His gaze locked with Nettle’s. “Someone from the Wilds must be helping them.”
Nettle’s brow had furrowed. Why is he talking about Lysette’s sisters as if they’re alive? Her gaze fell to the table top where she’d absentmindedly been gouging the surface with a fingernail as the memory of the O’Grady’s Bookshop tugged at her. The book about Lysette… Her death was attended by her mother Lucinda and her siblings... Lucinda had to be the Crone, she knew that, but there was something more obvious staring her in the face. She thought back to the Crone and her threadbare cloak, the old woman’s ragged nails digging into her arm - They never cared for me, neither of ‘em. Embarrassed is what they are. Just stuck me with a name to suit them, an’ hope I go away, or die, whatever comes first.
Me and my fair girls…
Nettle mentally groaned, really was she that stupid she hadn’t seen what was plainly obviously. “The Crone,” she said slowly, raising her green eyes to meet his violet ones. “Is Lysette’s mother... and the Balfrey sisters...”
Jack opened his mouth to speak when Jazz interrupted. “What do you mean, Lysette’s sisters?” She pulled an absurd expression. “Ah… how could they be? They’d be, like, hundreds of years old. How could they even live that long?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Dryads Breath, amongst other things. It’s a life extender. And of course, stealing life-essence from the mortals visiting Olde Town.”
Everyone had stilled. Even Quary stopped half-way through a mouthful of Nutella to turn a wide-round eye on the goblin. The atmosphere in the kitchen grew anxious. They hadn’t bothered to light the lantern or any candles, on this dreary morning, so the fire was the only warm light in the room.
“They’re stealing life from the visitors?” Bram asked, his expression aghast.
Jack’s posture tensed and he leaned forward, his expression serious. “The whole town is rigged to steal life-essence from whoever comes to stay. Every drink and every morsel is drugged with a powder that leeches life from the mortals and is gathered in the orbs about the town, above, as chandeliers, or as gas lanterns along the path.”
Nettle shook her head, stunned, fleetingly remembering the book store and the exchange of orbs between the goblin and Smilla. “And everyone is in on this?”
Jack gave a terse nod. “Many of the Balfreys’ witches and warlocks in the village are well over a century old. In exchange for collecting this life-essence they gain credit at the tea house so they can purchase Dryad’s Breath. And if they don’t need any, they’re able to purchase ingredients for their spells.”
“They’re stealing life from us, to live longer…” She recalled the family at the tea-house, the mother who complained to her husband about her wrinkles.
“Yes. But the Balfrey’s are stealing a lot more life-essence than is warranted for extending the lives of themselves and their little gang of elderly thugs.”
“What are they up to?” Nettle asked breathlessly.
The goblin jerked his head back, surprised. His eyebrows arched upward and he looked at her askance. “I thought you knew.”
She shook her head slowly. She hadn’t known. I should have though, she berated herself, back at the kitchen they’d practically screamed it at me.
He eyed her keenly, waving a hand distractedly. “I didn’t know for sure. Their flustering has always been centred around All Hallows’ Eve. But that’s a particularly powerful night, so no clues there. I knew what they’re mining my family’s mound for, but not why they need it. That is until,” he said wagging a finger at Jazz, “your cousin arrived and everyone began clucking around her like a clutch of mad chickens.”
Nettle felt a little ill. She’d discovered the sisters were after Jazz, but not exactly what for. She and Bram stared apprehensively at their cousin.
Jazz started to pale, looking from Nettle, to Bram, to Jack. She gulped. “Me?”
Jack’s gave a look as if to say - Well it’s a little obvious isn’t it?
Quary was still keeping a safe distance from the table. He was finishing off a jar of Nutella. He poked a chocolaty finger at Jazz. “Ol’ shorn-sheep here. What they want with ‘er?” Jazz still had enough spitfire left in her to deliver Quary a blistering glare. He shrank a little and said, “Just asking.”
Jack swept a long lingering look about those gathered at the table, meeting each of their inquiring gazes, finally resting on Nettle’s. “I believe they’re going to try to resurrect their dead sister.”
At first the surprise of it all had to seep through Nettle’s mind. “Lysette? Bring her back from the dead?” Her stomach sunk. Now the goblin had said it aloud, it was utterly obvious and she didn’t know why she hadn’t considered that possibility back at the kitchen. She’d been so blind. All their fussing over Jazz and she hadn’t pieced it together.
“They want me?” Jazz asked, feeling weird about the whole situation.
“They want your body.”
Jazz made a half-strangled sound.
When Nettle spoke it sounded distant, as if she was listening to herself from another room. “I was up there, in their Atelier. I saw something. It was like a spell or a list of things needed for a spell or directions or something, I don’t know exactly what. I remember it said something like… a vessel named.”
Even while Jazz had been speaking Jack’s, gaze hadn’t left Nettle’s. He didn’t need to ask, she knew he was saying - What else was on the list?
She shook her head, splaying her hands wide and raising her shoulders. “I don’t know, I can’t remember. Maybe something about calling the dead to you, and…” Her eyes widened as a memory flashed through her mind. “Find the bones of those you seek.” She snapped her fingers. “And Smilla and Bristol, it was the Gadfinch Crystal Claudine was after.”
Jack's jaw flexed, but he said nothing.
“What’s that?” Bram asked. He hadn’t been taking notes for some time.
Jack turned to Bram, his violet eyes troubled. He spoke carefully and distinctly. “The Gadfinch Crystal has been lost for centuries, for very good reason.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“You’re right. The Gadfinch Crystal has the ability to suck
the life-essence out of every living thing within its proximity. Every single last drop.”
“Every, every, last drop?” Jazz’s expression was queasy.
Jack gave a firm nod, his mouth a thin line. “They’ve been rolling in mortals by the busload. No one’s leaving apart from the fortunate ones who’ve survived working in the mines and only because they’re barely alive and not worth harvesting.” Nettle’s mouth dropped open in surprise. So that explains that weird encounter on the bus. No wonder no-one spoke to me, they were probably ensorcelled. “The sisters don’t have the resources to leech the life-essence from the large crowd they’ve gathered, unless they have something like…”
“The Gadfinch Crystal,” Nettle answered for him, her voice barely a whisper.
Jack violet eyes glittered darkly. “I fear the sisters are going to do something quite despicable.”
Bram said quietly, “They’re going to kill everyone, aren’t they?”
Jack gave a grim look. “I expect so.”
“We have to stop them,” cried Bram.
“We have to save Dad!” Nettle countered.
“That’s why I’ve come,’” Jack interjected pointing at Nettle. “You’re exactly what I need, to find out how they’re going to perform their ritual.”
Nettle blinked, caught off guard. “Me? What do you mean?”
He changed tack. “How much do you remember about the tea house and the sisters?”
“Everything. I know they were trying to make me forget about walking into the kitchen with the concoction they brewed.” She gave Jack a puzzled shrug. “But it didn’t work on me. I don’t know why though.”
He shook his head, his mouth half-upturned. “I don’t know either. And I have absolutely no idea how you survived that fire-ball. Or even how you managed to remove the Curse.”
“What Curse?” Bram asked, scratching his nose with the pencil.
Jack stood up and rounded the table. Roq followed in his wake. The goblin came to stand beside Nettle and took her arm. She gave a small growl. “Hey, be gentle.” But she was curious too. She’d fully expected to see some kind of sign stating: WITCHES CURSE BEWARE. Jack gave her a terse look, then lifted her arm up to present her forearm to everyone else.
Bram squinted behind his glasses, then shot a maybe-this-guys-short-a-picnic-sandwich look at Nettle. “Ah… with what? There’s nothing there.”
Bram was right, there wasn’t anything on her wrist.
Jack returned Bram’s glance with an irritated look as if the little boy were wasting his time. “Exactly. I saw them Curse her… and then she removed it.” His silver eyebrows drew down, hooding his violet eyes, as he turned a suspicious look upon Nettle. “You shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Nettle had no idea what he was talking about. She remembered the sisters had taken a lock of hair and a symbol being burnt on her inner arm. But she’d scrubbed it away, the symbol flaking off. At the time she hadn’t thought much about it, besides the fact that it clearly hadn’t worked as Claudine had anticipated.
Jack turned her wrist over, inspecting the corroding bracelet and the way her skin beneath was stained grey from the oxidization. His eyes became slits as he said, “Direct magic has no effect on you. Well, I guess not all magic, since you’ve been taken in with the whole Oldy-Worldy-Tourist-Trap.”
Jazz was rather pale and withdrawn. She went to ask Jack, “This Curse-” But his attention was focused on her cousin and didn’t hear her.
Nettle gave Jack a baffled look, not understanding how she could be immune to the sisters’ magic. He waved an impatient hand at her and brusquely said, “I’ll show you. Stand up. Go on. Quick. Quick.”
Nettle turned a blistering scowl on him. “Stop ordering us around like you own this place. Where’s your manners? Or don’t goblins have any?”
He returned her glare with one of his own. “I have manners. For the right kind of folk. Humour me, I’m testing a theory.”
“What kind of theory?”
He was wringing his hands together, his lips tugging into a mischievous grin. “Now don’t be frightened.”
“When someone says, don’t be frightened… I can’t help but be.” She stood up so quickly that the chair toppled over behind her. She held her palm out to him to stay back. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to do… but just don’t.”
Uneasy, Jazz slid out of her chair and edged away from Nettle, rounding the table to stand near Bram. Nettle scurried backward, hitting the far wall. Panic flared, sending her heartbeat skittering. There was nowhere else to run.
There came a sound of crackling, like energy building.
Quary was scraping an almost empty jar of Nutella with a long handled teaspoon. He looked up with a panicky jerk. “Oi!” He cried at the Goblin.
“Sandee – Roq!” Egnatius cried. “Stop him!”
Spix had sprung to his feet, deftly loading his sling, and flung a stone at the goblin. Jack ducked.
“Watch out!” Bram yelled. But it was too late. Without warning Jack smacked his palms together and as he drew his hands apart, a ball of white light expanded into the space created. Nettle only had a split second to admire the beauty of the plasma, its forks of lavender and amber crackling within.
“Oooo – Ligh-” was all Roq was able to utter while hefting his axe high above, intending to strike.
With a flick of the wrist Jack threw the ball of lightening right at Nettle.
The ball of plasma fizzed across the kitchen. It struck her with such force that it knocked her to the ground and punched the breath out of her. The bolt of energy ricocheted off her, rebounding directly at Jack. He ducked, dragging Bram to the floor with him, but Jazz wasn’t fast enough. It grazed the side of her head, glancing sideways to smash into a lantern perched on the windowsill. The glass exploded into tiny fragments.
Jazz stood stupefied. A patch of cropped hair where the lightning had slid past had been burnt away. The remaining hair was singed black and smouldering, flooding the kitchen with that unique burnt-hair odour. There was stunned silence within the kitchen, broken by Quary’s guffaw, and then suddenly the spriggans sprung together around Egnatius and erupted into a flurry of excitable chatter.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Nettle shrieked. She’d fully expected the spriggans to retaliate on her behalf but they were too busy gabbing amongst themselves. She only had time to think – useless – before Bram ran over to her. “Are you OK?”
Jack approached and reached out a hand to help her to her feet but she shoved it aside. She rose, furious with him but he was too busy looking her over, impressed. “Not even a scratch…”
“You could have killed me!”
He gave her a funny look, as if she were jesting. “Not likely. I told you magic doesn’t affect you. That’s why the witches spells didn’t work on you, nor mine. Not even that time at the summit when I tried to get you to forget about the cave. It didn’t work then either.”
Her thick eyebrows crooked. No, he was right, she remembered the tapping of the forehead. “That’s what you were doing?”
The huddle of spriggans broke apart. Egnatius hobbled forward, his walking stick made a clacking noise on the wooden bench. He was just about to speak when Quary interrupted, pointing an accusing finger a Nettle. “You aint no ordinary mortal.”
“I know,” she said, recalling the name her father said. “We’re Good Folk.”
Irritated, Egnatius thwacked Quary with his walking stick. His expression became gentle as he addressed her. “No, lass, even though it bothers me to agree with this blundering block-head.” Quary pouted at this description, rubbing his stinging shoulder. “He’s right.”
“But Dad said…” and then Nettle remembered that her father hadn’t quite fully answered her.
“You’re more than Good Folk,” Egnatius urged.
“I’d bet my good eye you’re one of the Folk.” Quary’s pitch-black eye gleaming eagerly. “And I’m betting you ca
n get us past the Thicket.”
Bram gave Nettle a confused glance. “Can you?”
Nettle shifted uncomfortably. She hadn’t wanted to admit to that just yet. But maybe now was the time.
Before she was able to say anything, Jack spoke. “I expect you’re right,” He was considering her with a rather wondrous kind of look. “I thought there was something odd about you when I first met you up at the cave. But right this minute,” Jack said to the spriggans, “there’s little time to contemplate what family she comes from.” He took her arm, drawing her attention to the bracelet. “But what I do suspect is that this is what’s been protecting you. That’s why you were able to pass the spells woven around the barrier to the summit and the cave, why you could enter the kitchen, why they couldn’t force you to forget and why the Curse didn’t work on you either.” One side of his mouth tugged unhappily as he took in the dire state of the bracelet. “But, all of that might not last too much longer. If it is indeed this bracelet that’s been protecting you – it’s disintegrating, fast.”
Bram looked down at his own bracelet, still in good working order. He held his arm aloft. “Mine’s OK.”
A wave of relief came over Nettle. Even if hers was falling apart, at least Bram’s wasn’t.
Jazz made a choking sound. “I don’t have one of those…” She was still standing where she’d been struck, black smoke wafting from her head. The warmth had drained from her complexion, making her big blue eyes stand out even further. She looked years younger than her age.
Nettle felt a sudden twinge of guilt. Her cousin had been hurt and she was too busy arguing with the goblin to take any notice.
Bram shot Jack an infuriated glare as he walked over to his cousin. “She was about to ask something before you threw, whatever that was-”
“Lightning,” Jack answered, rocking back on his heels, trying to stifle a smug grin.
“Right - lightning - at my sister.” He tentatively touched Jazz’s arm and that seemed to snap her out of it. “Are you OK?”
Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters Page 37