by Ruth Chew
He wore plain brown clothes and seemed to be a servant. He jumped to his feet and grabbed his horse’s reins. “If you ask me, Nell Fisher is up to her tricks again.”
A tall man in a beautiful red and gold jacket said, “How is that, Tom? I thought they found she wasn’t a witch, so she’s not to blame for all our troubles.”
Tom pulled a lock of his hair. This made his head duck. “Beg pardon, my lord, but Nell’s body was not found. She could be anywhere around here.”
“If she is,” the lord said, “we’ll find her and take the proper steps. The hounds are baying again. Maybe they’ve picked up the scent.” He galloped after the dogs. The rest of the hunting party followed him.
Holly and Matthew crawled out from under the bushes and raced back to the fork in the path. They took the path that led to Nell Fisher’s campground.
Nell was waiting for them. “Hurry up! Cat has promised to take me for a boat ride.”
The boat was right where they had left it on the bank near the willow trees. Nell Fisher helped Matthew and Holly push it into the water.
The cat jumped into the front of the boat. Nell Fisher took her place on the seat. Matthew and Holly sat one on each side of her and picked up the oars.
“Nell,” Matthew said. “You’d better get down low in the boat, so no one can see you.”
“I’ve a better idea,” Albert said. “Nell could change herself into a frog.”
“You forget I don’t have any of my magic mixtures,” Nell Fisher reminded him.
Holly patted the side of the boat. “Maybe Slipper can help.”
The boat quivered as if a little breeze had come up. A sweet voice said, “What’s the matter with my hands?” Matt and Holly looked to see who had spoken.
A beautiful young woman was seated between the children. She had light brown hair that shone like gold in the sunlight and dark blue eyes with long lashes. Her hair was in two thick braids that reached to her waist, and her long blue gown was embroidered with daisies.
The woman was looking at her small white hands. “Very pretty,” she said. “I hope they’re as strong as usual.”
“I don’t think anyone will know you now, Nell,” the cat said.
Nell Fisher raised one foot in the air. She looked at the soft pointed shoe that was tied to her foot with leather thongs. “I’m not used to these things.”
A branch of a willow tree hung over the boat. Nell Fisher stood up, grabbed hold of the branch, and swung herself up to sit on it. She stood up and held on to the branch above. “This gown is a nuisance.” She tucked the hem of it into her belt. Now her dress was not so long and she could walk along the branch without holding on.
Holly was afraid she’d fall into the water, but Nell turned and came back. She slipped down to the lower branch, and from there dropped into her place between Matthew and Holly in the boat.
“I never knew you to be such a showoff, Nell,” Albert said.
“I was just testing to see how I could move in these fancy clothes,” she told him.
Holly looked down into the water beside the boat. She could see the leaves overhead and the blue sky and even her own face in the still water under the willow tree. “Trade places with me, Nell,” she said. “And take a look at what’s in the water here.”
Holly moved to the middle of the boat. Nell Fisher looked down into the still water at the side. For a minute she didn’t say anything. Then she whispered, “Who’s that?”
“That’s you, Nell,” the cat told her. “Who did you think it was?”
Holly and Matthew were both astonished to see Nell Fisher blinking tears from her eyes. “What’s the matter?” Matthew asked.
“It’s just,” she said, “that I always wanted to look exactly like that.”
Before any of them knew what was happening, a pack of dogs burst out of the forest, followed by a group of riders on horseback. Albert slid down into the boat and hid under the skirt of Nell Fisher’s gown.
“Row, Holly!” Matthew whispered.
The two children started to row out into the middle of the river.
“Stop!” a voice commanded. “In the name of the lord of these lands.” It was the voice of the groom who had fallen off his horse in the woods.
“Do as he says,” Nell Fisher advised. “There are men with longbows ready to shoot their arrows at us.”
The children stopped rowing.
The tall man in the red and gold jacket rode his horse into the water. When the man saw Nell Fisher, he took off his red velvet cap and bowed low over his horse’s neck. “I am Robert, Earl of Garrick,” he said. “Who are you, fair lady, and how do you come here?”
“My name is Eleanor of Fiswell,” Nell told him. “My friends and I have travelled far and heard of your noble deeds. I pray you to allow us to continue our journey.”
The earl stared at Nell Fisher. “I cannot permit you to continue alone and defenseless,” the earl said. “You must come to my castle where you will be safe.”
“My lord,” Nell Fisher said. “These children are in my care. I must not leave them.”
“If there were room for them on my horse, I’d take them with me.” The earl leaned over and pulled Nell out of the boat. He placed her in front of him on the big horse. “As you see, there’s only just enough room for you here.” He smiled. “But your friends will be most welcome at Castle Garrick. It’s five miles down the river.” He pointed in the direction from which they had rowed earlier in the day. Then he put spurs to his horse and rode back to the riverbank.
When the earl was back on shore again, he took a little curved hunting horn from his belt and blew two sharp blasts. Nell Fisher sat on his horse in front of him. She held her head high and seemed to be enjoying herself.
At the sound of the horn, the people on horseback lined up behind the earl. The dogs followed.
Holly and Matthew sat in the boat and watched until the company of horsemen and the dogs went back into the forest, taking Nell Fisher with them.
“I suppose now we can go home,” Matthew said. “Nell Fisher seems to have found her Prince Charming. Only somehow I don’t like the guy.”
“He’s awful,” Holly agreed. “What do we do now, Albert?”
The cat was still on the bottom of the boat. “Lucky the earl didn’t notice me. Everybody around here knows I’m Nell’s cat.”
“Maybe the slipper could turn you into something else,” Matthew suggested. “Wouldn’t it be fun to be a bird for a change?”
“What makes you think it’s fun to be a bird?” Albert said. “Watch one sometime. They’re always on the lookout for danger.”
Matthew laughed. “Slipper might turn you into a boy.”
“Or a girl,” Holly told the cat. “We have fun.”
The cat shudderd. “I’d have to wear clothes, and eat with a fork.”
Holly bent down to pet the cat. “It would only be for a little while, silly!”
“Don’t be too sure,” Albert said. “Magic is dangerous. I might get stuck the way Nell is.”
Holly stopped petting him. “What do you mean, Albert?”
“How is Nell Fisher stuck?” Matthew asked the cat.
Albert jumped onto the seat. “A witch cannot weep,” he told the children. “They can pretend to cry, but they cannot really shed tears. When Nell looked at herself in the water, tears came into her eyes. Because of that she is no longer a witch and cannot go back to being one.”
“But I thought she was tried as a witch, and found innocent,” Holly said.
“She didn’t drown,” Matthew reminded his sister.
“You tricked us, Albert,” Holly said. “You never told us she was a witch!”
Albert stood up and stretched. “I never said she wasn’t. But, witch or not, she’s still my friend, and something tells me she still needs help.”
Holly stroked the cat’s back. She picked up an oar. “On to the castle, Matt!”
The boat followed the current going downs
tream. Matthew and Holly didn’t have to row much. Most of the time they just steered.
The sun was high in the sky now. Albert stayed in the bottom of the boat. Now and then he peeked over the side.
They passed a number of sheep in the fields on one side of the river. A man holding a long stick with a curved end was watching over them.
When the boat came to a burned patch of ground, the cat said, “That’s where Nell Fisher’s cottage used to be.”
“She told us it was her neighbors who burned it,” Matthew said. “I don’t see any neighbors.”
Albert hid under the seat of the boat. “She meant the people in the town we’re coming to.”
Matthew and Holly rowed the boat around a bend of the river. Ahead of them they saw a number of houses with roofs of woven straw or slabs of slate.
Beyond the town a huge rock rose high out of the river. A gray stone castle with round towers and notched battlements was built on top of the rock.
“If nobody has knocked them down in my absence,” the cat said from under the seat, “you should be looking at Garrick Town and Castle Garrick.”
“You’re in danger here, Albert,” Matthew said.
“If you wrap me in your shirt and let Holly carry me, people might not know I was a cat.” Albert gave a cry that sounded like a baby’s wail. “If anybody wants to know why you’re without a shirt, tell them you’re using it to keep me warm.”
Holly and Matthew rowed the boat to the shore. They took off their shoes, tied the laces together, and hung them around their necks. Then they rolled up the legs of their jeans and stepped into the shallow water.
Matthew took off his T-shirt. Holly pulled the cat out from under the seat of the boat, rolled him in the baggy shirt, and carried him ashore.
Matthew put both hands on the boat. “Slipper,” he whispered, “I know Albert claims to be Master of the Magic, but after all, you are my slipper, so would you please return to your old size, so I can put you into my pocket.”
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then Matthew found that he was holding the red corduroy slipper in his hands. He stuffed it into the side pocket of his jeans.
Holly was busy making sure that Albert could breathe under the shirt.
“I can’t see,” the cat said, “but it doesn’t matter. My nose tells me where we are. There’s a path above the riverbank that leads to the town.”
Matthew and Holly took turns holding the cat while they put on their shoes.
Holly looked around. “Matt!” she whispered. “I can’t see the boat anywhere! It must have drifted away and sunk.”
“The boat’s safe, Holly,” Matthew said. “It’s here in my pocket.”
Holly poked a finger into his pocket and stroked the soft corduroy. Then she took the cat and climbed after her brother to the top of the bank.
They followed the path leading to the town. As they walked, the houses became closer together. From the path the children could look down and see docks along the waterfront with boats next to them. Beyond the docks the river curved around the castle rock.
On the other side of the river was the forest. Matthew pointed to where a horseman was galloping his horse across the river to a ramp near the docks. “It must be shallow there.”
As Holly and Matthew watched, a pack of hounds came out of the forest and waited on the shore until another rider followed and ordered them into the water. Then the dogs swam across.
A gray-haired woman walking along the path stopped to watch. “You’re strangers,” she said. “That’s the hunting party from the castle. And there’s Earl Robert.” She stared at the sight of Nell Fisher riding proudly in front of the earl. “He seems to have caught something other than a deer. Well, it’s none of my business.”
The rest of the hunting party came out of the forest and splashed across the river. The sun began to go down behind the trees of the forest. The sky turned pink and then gray. A cold wind began to blow.
The woman looked at Matthew. “Who are you, and what are you doing without a shirt?”
Holly answered for him. “His name is Matthew. I am his sister Holly. Matthew lent his shirt to Albert here, who has no clothes at all.”
The cat let out a little cry.
Holly patted the shirt. “Sh-h-h!”
“Where are your parents?” the woman demanded.
“We don’t know where our parents are,” Matthew told her. “We’re on our way to the castle. We’re friends of the lady the earl has on his horse. We don’t know the earl, but he has taken away our friend.”
“As I said before, it isn’t my business,” the woman said, “but I do know the earl, and I don’t like him. My name is Meg Turner, and I want to help you. You’ll have a better chance of getting into the castle if you have a shirt. My cottage is down the road a bit. I think I have something you can wear. Come along.”
Holly and Matthew followed Meg Turner to a small cottage. It was built of layers of mud and woven reeds and coated with white plaster. The roof was a thick thatch of mud covered with dry grass and leaves. The land around the cottage was separated from the neighbors’ fields by ridges of earth.
It was twilight now and getting darker every minute. Meg Turner opened her door. “Come in, children,” she said.
Matthew and Holly stepped into the house. It was just one room.
There was a small window in each wall. The windows were criss-crossed with strips of wood, but there was no glass in them. It was dark outside now. The only light in the room came from a small fire glowing on a stone slab in the middle of the floor. The smoke escaped through a hole in the roof.
Meg Turner took a two-foot-long reed that had been dipped in fat and lit it from the fire. It burned like a candle.
She walked over to a large wicker trunk against one wall. “Come here, Matthew.” She handed him the candle, opened the trunk, and took out a tunic. It was woven of unbleached black and white wool that looked speckly gray.
“This belonged to my son.” Meg Turner took the candle. “He was no taller than you. Put it on.”
Matthew slipped the tunic on over his head. It reached halfway between his waist and his knees.
“You’ll need a sash.” Meg Turner gave him one. Matthew knotted it around his waist. “Thank you, Mrs. Turner.”
“No fancy Mistress Turner. Everyone calls me Meg,” she said.
“Well, then, thank you, Meg. Now we’d better go to the castle.” Matthew walked to the door and opened it. Holly followed him, holding the cat, who was still wrapped in Matthew’s shirt.
They looked out at the blackest night they had ever seen. There were no lights in the houses and no street lamps. There was not even a moon.
Meg Turner closed the door. “It’s too late. You can go to the castle in the morning. You must be hungry. What have you had to eat today?”
Holly thought for a moment. “Waffles, fish, and blackberries,” she said.
Meg Turner put the candle in a holder on the table. She went to a cupboard on the wall and took out a loaf of bread, three rosy apples, a wedge of cheese, and a jug of cider and put them on the table.
Next she set out three pottery bowls and filled them with soup from a large pot steaming on the hearthstone. “Would the baby like a bowl of porridge?” she asked.
“I think he’d do better with a cup of milk,” Matthew told her.
“Is there something the matter with the baby?” Meg Turner asked. “Holly seems to be hiding him.”
“He’s afraid to have people see him,” Matthew said.
“Poor child.” Meg Turner poured milk into a pottery mug and handed it to Holly. “What happened to his mother?”
“We don’t know.” Holly held the mug under the shirt the cat was wrapped in. She felt Albert’s whiskers brush her hand as he lapped the milk. She had to keep tipping the mug as the cat drank.
“Put the baby to sleep on the bed over there.” Meg Turner pointed to a pile of straw in one corner of the room. “Then you can e
at your supper in peace.”
After Albert had finished his milk, Holly laid him down and came back to the table. Meg Turner cut thick slices of crusty bread to eat with the soup.
“Where is your son, whose shirt I’m wearing, Meg?” Matthew asked.
“Earl Robert dragged him off to war, along with my husband,” Meg Turner said. “They were both killed, but the earl returned with gold and spices and rich cloth he’d captured. He never helped the widows and orphans his war made. I could understand if his castle and our town were attacked. Then it would be our duty to fight. But this was a war that didn’t concern us. It was just to bring glory and riches to the earl.”
“I knew there was something about him I didn’t like,” Matthew said.
The three of them ate the rest of the meal in silence. The reed candle was getting short. Both Holly and Matthew helped Meg Turner clean the dishes and put away the leftover food.
They all took off their shoes and each found a soft place in the straw. Meg Turner blew out the light. In almost no time they were fast asleep.
Holly woke to the sound of a rooster crowing. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. The first pale gray light of morning was coming through the little square windows. She had to shake Matthew before he would open his eyes. Even then it took a moment or two before he remembered where he was. Then he yawned and stretched and reached over to pick up his shirt with the cat curled up in it.
Meg Turner was up and busy stirring something in a pot on the hearthstone. “There’s a well in the yard if you want to wash your face and tidy up,” she said. “You should try to look your best when you reach the castle.”
Holly put on her shoes, took the shirt and the cat from her brother, and went outdoors.
Matthew found his shoes and shoved his feet into them. Then he too went out into the yard.