Nieve

by Terry Griggs

  Since the window was too far overhead for Nieve to reach, she scouted around for something to stand on. After checking out a fallen birdbath and a broken chair – a surprising amount of litter was scattered around – she settled on a small wooden crate, first testing it for sturdiness. Overturning it beneath the window – it was a bit wobbly – she climbed up and grabbed the sill, stretching herself to her full height. Standing on tiptoe, Nieve peered into a huge gloomy drawing-room, the only light source being a couple of fat candles flickering in tall ebony stands beside the . . . the . . . there was a coffin! But to her horror, she saw that it contained not one body, but . . . six or seven, it was hard to tell how many. They were carelessly heaped one on top of the other, this way and that, like a haul of fish in a basket. The topmost body she even recognized . . . Theo Bax!

  Several people were casually milling around, drinks in hand, chatting and laughing, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about partying near a pile of corpses. Dunstan Warlock, grubby fingers clasping a sweaty glass and cowboy hat pushed back on his head, was sniggering at something he must have said to a young woman who was standing beside him. Even in the dimly lit room, with juddering shadows cast on the walls from the flickering candles, Nieve recognized her as the woman she’d seen going into the pharmacy. So she was here . . . and there was Sophie, not working at all, but standing near a cold marble fireplace talking with a man who was dressed in a white tuxedo with black fur trim on the cuffs and lapels. Mortimer Twisden. Nieve recognized him from newspaper photos. He sort of resembled a ferret, she realized now, with his pointy face and small eyes. He and her mother appeared to be deep in conversation, while her father . . . where was he? She cast around and finally located him seated off to one side of the coffin, almost lost in its shadow. He looked lost, dry-eyed and stunned.

  Nieve felt stunned herself, horrified by what she was seeing. She had no idea what it all meant, or how she was going to get her parents out of there. She was still staring at her father, when the tall, veiled woman stepped out of a darkened entranceway. As she glided regally toward the centre of the room, all talking, all laughing, all motion stopped; even the shadows froze on the walls. The woman inclined her head minimally, this way and that, acknowledging those assembled. Most bowed or smiled nervously back, except for Dunstan Warlock, who beamed goofily at her as if they were the best of friends. She turned toward the coffin briefly and gave a faint nod. Then she turned toward the window. She stood very still, lifting her chin slightly, and Nieve caught a silvery flash beneath the veil.

  Quickly, she ducked below the sill. Which is when something – something with sharp teeth – seized her by the leg and yanked her off the crate.

  –Eleven–

  Skin & Bone

  Nieve tumbled backward and landed hard on the ground. Before she had a chance to jump to her feet, to kick or strike out at her attacker, she heard a subdued whimper and felt something chamois-soft and wet land on her chin. A dark shape was leaning over her, some sort of beast silhouetted against the weak light from the window, and it was licking her face. She couldn’t see clearly what it was, but she could smell its breath – an unmistakable and not entirely fabulous smell.

  “Artichoke?” she whispered.

  Maybe not. It might be a guard dog after all, although not a particularly effective one.

  But then, the dog gave a clipped bark, an identifying and anxious yip, that told Nieve it was indeed Artichoke. And now he was dancing around her urgently, tugging at her sweater, nudging and pulling at her. There was no time for hugs and a happy reunion. She could hear voices, low and chill, coming around the side of the house – one voice in particular, ice-cold and imperious, slid like a knife into her heart. Which didn’t stop it from beating faster, faster.

  “I want her.”

  Nieve didn’t need to hear more. She leapt up, and with Artichoke streaking ahead, fled toward the back of the house. Here she encountered even more jumble, an obstacle course of objects that had evidently been chucked out the back door. The light that dribbled through a muzzy porch window fell on an upended deep-freeze, an electric fan, and an old cabinet Hi-Fi, a jagged crack streaking through its walnut veneer. She had no time to wonder at the weirdness of this, but ducked down behind the deep-freeze before her pursuers could spot her. As they approached, she heard a low laugh, followed by an amused command.

  “Go fetch Gowl. He’s my most efficient rat-catcher.”

  Someone grunted in response and shortly the back door opened and slammed shut.

  Nieve wasn’t tempted to peek around the side of the deep-freeze to see who remained, awaiting the arrival of the “rat-catcher.” She knew well enough who it was, if not why the woman was after her. She felt Artichoke nudge her. Hunkered down, he’d crept up from behind, and now gave her sleeve a quick tug with his teeth, trying to pull her deeper into the concealing dark. Nieve pivoted slowly on her heel, and, still crouched, followed as quietly as she could.

  “The night will deliver you into my hands,” the woman called out, her voice seeming to come from all directions at once. “There is no escape, none whatsoever. Everywhere you turn, I’ll be there.”

  While she was broadcasting her sinister threat and clearly relishing every word of it, Nieve and Artichoke snuck into the overgrown garden that stretched out behind the house. Keep on talking, Nieve thought, and we will escape. She was determined to put up a good fight no matter what, although her hand trembled as she reached out for Artichoke, her guide dog in this blind flight. In the depths of the yard, beyond the scant smattering of light from the porch, visibility was nil. She had a vague idea of where things were, having snuck into the grounds once with Malcolm before the house had been sold. She recalled the stilled fountain, the ancient gingko trees and twisted rhododendron bushes, the high hedges and tangled flowerbeds, the abandoned apiary boxes piled in a back corner by the crumbling stone wall . . . but she didn’t know what else she might encounter. A minefield of junk to trip her up? Or weeds with grasping, long-fingered leaves and hydra-headed flowers with sharp, snapping jaws?

  Artichoke’s fur felt dull and powdered with grit. In trying to get a secure handhold on his coat – his collar hung loose as a necklace – she realized how skinny he’d grown while running wild, searching for Dr. Morys. Yet, even in this absolute dark, he seemed to know exactly where he was going. He led her deftly through the garden without once faltering, the ground spongy underfoot, the smell of decayed leaves rising up as they dodged through.

  Then abruptly Artichoke came to a standstill, the hackles on the back of his neck rising.

  Nieve heard the woman say something, but not in English, not in any language Nieve had ever heard before. A harsh, guttural tongue. The only word she recognized was “Gowl.”

  No sooner had she spoken its name than the creature was hurtling through the darkness making a clattering noise like bones hitting rock. All Nieve could see of it were its luminous, ghost-white eyes getting closer and closer. Not blind, it charged straight at them.

  “Go! Don’t stop,” she implored Artichoke. “The wall, we can–”

  Artichoke wasn’t having it. With a low, rumbling growl, he turned toward Gowl and lunged forward, slipping out of her grasp. A vicious snarling erupted, followed by a savage, ravening noise as the two met head on.

  Terrified, Nieve began to scrabble around in the dark searching for a weapon to club the beast with – her flashlight was gone, lost when Artichoke had pulled her off the crate. Her hands flew through the dark in search of a rock, a fallen branch, anything, before Gowl ripped Artichoke apart. In her desperate scrambling search, she knocked over a pile of wooden boxes, sending them cascading to the ground. She lunged at one of these, running her hands over the rough surface to quickly assess its size, then grabbed it in both hands. It was one of the apiary boxes, a bee box, empty, but heavy enough to do some damage. She ran at Gowl with it, taking aim at his cold, blank eyes.

  But something happened that caught her off-g
uard, and she hesitated. The box had begun to glow. Tiny beads of light appeared within and were swirling around and around, expanding rapidly, soon filling the box entirely with light. It glowed like a lamp in her hands, casting a revealing light on Gowl. He flinched and recoiled from the sudden brightness, and Nieve flinched, too, crying out, shocked at the sight of him.

  She hadn’t known what to expect – an ugly and vicious dog bred to kill rodents? – but she would never have expected this. Gowl was a living nightmare, a creature with a human head on mastiff’s body. His hideous face was squashed and broken, his dog’s body raw and burnt. The flesh on his legs and feet was completely gone, bare bone only remained.

  Nieve stared at him in horror as he advanced toward her, snarling and baring wolf’s teeth.

  Artichoke leapt up and knocked the bee box from her hands. As it crashed to the ground, the light inside spilled out – or rather, what spilled out was a shifting, incandescent cloud, buzzing and crackling. What had emerged appeared to be a mass of swarming, angry insects, but ones that were as fiery as sparks, flaming, white-hot sparks that surrounded Gowl and began settling on him like a searing, radiant cloak. He let out an unearthly, heart-rending moan, then turned and tore back toward the house, shrieking, filling the night with a wail of torment that was half-human, half-animal.

  His mistress, livid at being so unexpectedly balked, shrieked even louder. Words, however unrecognizable, that needed no translation.

  Nieve and Artichoke didn’t waste a moment. They clambered swiftly over the rubble tumbled from the garden’s broken wall, and, squeezing through a gap in it, disappeared into the blackness of the forest behind.

  –Twelve–

  Lias

  It was hard to say who was more surprised when they stumbled through the door of Gran’s cottage. Everyone spoke at once.

  “Nievy!” Gran jumped up, knocking over her chair. “Artichoke, too? Bless me!” She’d been sitting by the hearth, jabbing at a smouldering log with a poker. As she rose the poker slipped from her hand and fell to the floor with a ringing clatter.

  “You!” chimed in a stranger, also seated by the fire. The speaker, glaring at her, was a boy about Nieve’s age with a mass of auburn hair that sprang up from his head in flame-shaped tufts. He also had a badly bruised and swollen jaw.

  “Gran!” said Nieve, confused by the boy’s presence, but deciding to ignore him. She rushed into her grandmother’s arms and received the warmest and most welcome embrace she’d had in weeks. She longed to stay glued to Gran forever, safe as a nub of wool on her comfy old cardigan, but broke away almost instantly. “Artichoke’s hurt. ”

  “No wonder, if he was with you.” The boy stood and strode over to the dog, who was still standing by the open door, grinning uncertainly and barely able to wag his tail. “A gyre carline, eh, auld Shock?”

  Artichoke neither agreed nor disagreed, but sank down gratefully at the boy’s feet.

  The boy crouched beside him and placed a hand gently on his head as he assessed the sores on the dog’s body, his emaciated state, his lamed paw, the cuts and slashes freshly inflicted, and the one eye, closed and rimmed with congealing blood. “You’ve had a rare tangle, my friend.” He looked up sharply at Nieve. “What with?” A fair enough question, and yet he managed to imply that whatever had happened had been her fault.

  Nieve returned his accusing look, but gave no answer. She was alarmed herself to see how badly hurt Artichoke was, wounds that had not been visible during their flight through the forest. Incredible, how brilliantly he’d navigated in the complete dark, and she had relied on him totally, clutching his collar the whole way. How she regretted now not making him slow down, not taking better care of him. This stranger on the other hand, this intruder . . . she didn’t regret in the least that he was the one she’d clobbered.

  Gran meanwhile had already secured a handful of healing ointments and scrolls of bandage from her medicine cupboard. “Nieve, bring the quilt from my bed, will you, dear?” Before kneeling down beside the boy to minister to Artichoke, she closed the front door firmly and looped the blue thread from her wrist around the latch. “And let’s keep the night and its wandering spirits out.”

  Once Artichoke’s wounds had been cleaned and bandaged, they wrapped him in the quilt and moved him carefully onto the hearth rug. A chill had taken hold of him that wouldn’t let go and he’d begun to shiver uncontrollably. While the boy piled more logs onto the lacklustre fire, Gran spoon-fed Artichoke one of her potions that smelled of cinnamon and bilberries and wild roses. “Good for heart and soul,” she said. Which it did seem to be, for after she got some of it into him, he stopped shivering and fell into a sound sleep. Nieve stroked one of his ears, wishing him a sleep so sound that no dream terrors would be able to find him. The night had been full of terrors enough, and real enough, too. Without him, she would never have made it to Gran’s, let alone Twisden’s back garden.

  When Gran went off to fix tea in the kitchen, declining both offers of help, Nieve and the boy took seats by the fireplace, as far away from one another as possible. Alternately they stared at Artichoke, who was lying on the rug between them, and at the pile of still-smouldering logs.

  After a long moment, Nieve addressed a weak flame that had spurted up. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I thought you meant to hurt me.”

  “Should have.” This comment was also directed at the flame, which began to flutter erratically.

  “You’ve been spying on me,” Nieve said, recalling those footprints under her window. She glanced slyly at his bare feet, which were dirty and disfigured, the little toes on each foot missing.

  “Trying to protect you.”

  “I don’t need protection.”

  “You can say that again.” One of the logs belched a plume of smoke, which began to drift toward them instead of disappearing up the flue.

  As he reached out to wave it away, Nieve glanced at him again. He was decent-looking, she had to admit, but odd, and it wasn’t only his feet. His clothes were odd, too, more like something you’d wear to a costume party if you were going as a peasant from the Middle Ages. A peasant who’d been in a fight. His woolen pants and tunic were muddied and ripped, and one sleeve had been torn entirely off his filthy linen shirt, exposing a trail of claw marks on his arm, as if he’d been swiped by a bear.

  Yikes, she thought. She hadn’t been the only one to do him harm. “Did that thing . . . what was it anyway?”

  “The Nelly? She got me, but not for long.”

  Nelly Long-Arms! She knew it (school projects weren’t entirely useless), but shuddered to hear her suspicions confirmed. “Look, I’m sorry,” she blurted. Nieve had a personal rule about not needlessly apologizing, but still, she’d acted too impulsively. As anyone would, she added to herself.

  Directing his attention away from the foundering fire, he studied her for some time before saying, “You can run.”

  “I’m not a coward.”

  “Didn’t say that, did I?” He smiled faintly, then winced. His jaw was a mess. “Where’s your torch?”

  “My what?”

  “Flashlight,” said Gran, setting a tray of tea and goodies on the table beside her chair. “Lias, if you won’t use an ice pack for that jaw, why don’t you let me fix a poultice? Goodness, I haven’t even introduced you properly to my granddaughter.”

  “Oh, we’ve been properly introduced,” Lias said, smiling again.

  “Nieve, don’t tell me that you . . . ?” Gran gave her a shocked look.

  “No, Grandmother,” he said, “she wasn’t the one who tried to rip my arm off. Though she did try to improve my looks.”

  “I didn’t–” Nieve began. Who was this person? And whoever he was, he had no business calling her Gran “grandmother.”

  Lias raised a hand, stopping her protest short. Having arrived at the cottage not long before she had, only long enough to receive sympathy and some salve on his arm, he now filled Gran in on how he’d come by his injuries.


  Gran shook her head. “Nieve, you were lucky to escape.”

  “How did you?” Nieve asked him.

  “Like this.” He snapped his fingers and a small bright coin appeared in his palm. He then flipped this into the fireplace where it landed on one of the sputtering and smoking logs, which instantly burst into flame. Soon the rest of the logs caught fire with a roar and an engulfing wave of light. “I warmed her up, cold-blooded creature.”

  “Tsk,” said Gran.

  Seeing as Gran was not much impressed with this performance, Nieve was trying hard not to be, too, but without much success. “How did you do that?”

  “You mean you can’t?” His eyes widened with mock-surprise.

  “Come, you two. Get your mouths busy with these before they go stale.” Gran handed around the plate of jam tarts and fat raisin-studded scones and buttery oatmeal cookies pressed together with a date filling. They both tucked in gratefully and hungrily, while Gran poured the tea.

  “We have to work fast,” she said. “And I don’t mean with the food, either. I was expecting you to come hours ago, pet.” She handed a cup to Nieve. “So tell us what happened tonight and all that’s been going on since I’ve been away. Lias knows some of it, because I asked him to keep an eye on you, but he has to be careful that no one sees him. Before you do, you’d better get those shoes and socks off, your feet are soaked.”

  “Mm,” Nieve bit into a scone. “Walked through a puddle.” After she’d polished off the scone and had a sip of tea, she took off her shoes and socks and set them near the fire to dry. Then she began to tell them about the Weed Inspector, and Genevieve Crawley’s jawbreakers, and Wormius and Ashe, and her parents’ dysfunction and forgetfulness, and the pinky rings, and all the changes in town, and Malcolm’s disappearance, and Alicia Overbury’s black tongue, and Mayor Mary’s abduction, and the truant officer, and the dead bodies piled at Twisden’s wake, and Artichoke’s fight with Gowl, and the bee box, and how they escaped through the woods . . . and everything. By the time she’d finished she was hoarse and had to gulp down her entire cold cup of tea to find her voice again. Everything that had happened in a few short days was truly frightening, and much of it unbelievable, but she was so relieved at finally being able to unburden the weight and worry of it that she unexpectedly felt a surge of happiness.