by Lari Don
Atacama slashed out with his claws and the crow swerved away. It perched above the window on a wide ledge, which was white with crusty bird droppings on top of smooth marble.
Theo said, “We won’t harm you if you leave now and don’t come back. Tell Corbie that his crows are banned from the Keeper’s Hall, and that he must stop interfering in curses. Tell him I will be keeping an eye on him.”
The crow changed into a skinny girl in a ragged black jacket, crouching on the ledge, “You’ll be keeping an eye on him? Your own eye? You might regret that! But I’ll tell him.”
She somersaulted forward and fell headfirst out of the wide window.
Then they saw a crow fly up, swoop towards a dark line cutting across the sky, and vanish when she reached the line.
Theo said, “That’s the crowgate leading to Speyside. I must close them both, to protect the baby Promise Keeper as she grows up.”
Theo took the glossy black plait out of his pocket and laid it round his neck.
He blew out of the window, one gentle puff of breath, as if he was blowing fluff off a sleeve. As he blew, Molly heard a flurry of wind brush the outside of the tower.
Theo counted quietly, “Three, two, one…”
Then they saw the dark slit in the sky narrow and close, and heard a distant thudding slam.
Theo smiled, then said, “Take three steps backwards, please. Fast!”
As they all moved into the middle of the round room, a gust of wind blew into the tower and started to whirl round the circular wall, getting faster and faster and stronger and stronger.
Molly could see it picking up dusty feathers from the edge of the floor, whipping them along and ripping them to shreds. But in the centre of the room, just a few steps away, her hair was barely ruffled by a breeze.
The wind raced round and round, gaining momentum and speed. Then in one howling burst it slammed both shutters closed with a crash like thunder and sparks like lightning.
Molly ducked away from the storm of noise and light. When the wind died down and the echoes quietened, she looked up. The shutters were no longer shutters. The hinges were gone, the latches and chains were gone. The window was sealed with one smooth solid curved piece of metal.
Theo, who was now lighting the room with a pale yellow flame floating above his left hand, put the plait back in his pocket and nodded. “There’s no longer a crowgate leading from Speyside to the Keeper’s Hall. So my mission is complete. I can return to my family now, tell them what caused the imbalance and that I’ve fixed it. If I choose to admit that I was transformed into a toad—”
“And a skunk and a worm and a rat,” added Innes.
Theo grinned. “If I choose to tell them that, it will be from a position of strength, having completed my mission, rather than a position of weakness, asking for help to fix my mistakes. But I’m in no rush to have that conversation with them, so I’ll keep you all company a little longer. You’ve done a lot for me; I may be able to help you.”
Innes picked up a broken black feather and pulled it apart. “No one can help me with my dad’s curse. And he’ll be released from the stone for the first time today, so I’d better go up to the moors and talk to him.”
“We’ll come with you,” said Molly.
“I don’t need you,” he muttered. “I can do this myself.”
“Of course you can,” she said. “But we’ll come anyway, just in case.”
***
They said a cheerful goodbye to Mrs Sharpe and the Promise Keeper, and a wary goodbye to the mosaic men in the corridor.
Then they stepped through the outer door into the chilly brightness of a Scottish sunrise.
“You’ve missed a busy night,” said Caracorum calmly. “Dozens of magic users came out of the door. Was that your doing, Atacama?”
He smiled. “Perhaps I’ll explain later, if you feel brave enough to show a little bit of curiosity about what we guard.”
As they walked away from the door, Molly said, “I suppose I’d better shift into a hare then cross a non-magical boundary, to see if my curse really has gone back to normal.”
Beth said, “You don’t have to! You could just decide not to shapeshift, ever again. Then it won’t matter if Mr Crottel’s worsening has crumbled or not.”
“That makes no sense, Beth. I don’t just choose to change, remember. When I hear a dog bark or growl, I change whether I want to or not, and if I don’t know how to change back I could get into real trouble. There won’t be many magical boundaries in Edinburgh, for example.”
“You’d be surprised,” murmured Theo.
“I need to know if the curse has gone back to its original form. I need to know which boundaries will work. And I need to know if I’ll shift back fast or slow. So I’m going to try it now.”
“Good plan,” said Innes. “Why don’t we race to—”
“No. This is not a game,” said Molly. “I need to do this, but I’m taking the risk that if the curse hasn’t returned to normal, I might never change back.”
Molly didn’t want to look at Beth’s pale worried face. So she turned her back on her friends.
She growled.
And she shifted into a hare, fast and hot, sudden and perfect, just like she always did.
As Molly darted between her friends’ feet and paws, then sprinted towards the gate between the cooperage yard and the public road, she wondered if she’d just shifted shape for the last time.
And she wondered what grass tasted like.
Chapter Twenty-five
Molly ran. And she loved it. But she was terrified too. Terrified of all the predators that wanted to chase her, catch her, rip her and eat her, in this tiny tasty vulnerable form. Terrified of a slow change, of her body struggling between two shapes. And terrified of waiting, over the boundary, for a change that might never come.
She jumped onto the road.
And landed, hard, on her hands and knees.
Molly had never been so glad to feel grit graze her hands.
She scrambled back onto the pavement, and saw her friends running slowly towards her. She grinned and ran towards them just as slowly, on two long clumsy legs.
“It worked! I shifted back at a human boundary, and I shifted fast! Thanks so much for helping me return my curse to normal.”
Everyone was smiling. Everyone except Beth.
“Your curse isn’t normal. No curse is normal. You still need to get rid of the original curse.”
“Yeah, well. Not today. Today we’re going to help Innes talk to his dad.”
They left Craigvenie and climbed into the hills. Atacama and Theo chatted about ancient scrolls. Molly and Beth discussed how trees feel about autumn. Innes didn’t say much at all.
“Where exactly is your dad?” asked Molly, as they reached the top of another small heathery hill.
“He’s trapped in a pool about a mile to the west of Stone Egg Wood,” said Innes, “so we aren’t that far away.” His steps were getting slower and slower, as if he was wading through deep snow or soft sand.
“What are you going to say to him?” asked Beth. “What are you going to do?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me exactly what I should do, with lots of detailed descriptions of how rotten I am inside?”
Beth sighed. “No. I’m going to support you whatever you decide. That’s what friends are for.”
“Even if you think I’m doing something wrong or daft or dark?”
“Then I’d support you, and also nag you just a little to change your mind.”
Innes managed a small smile. “That sounds more like it.” He took a deep breath, and started to stride ahead.
The others followed.
Soon, Molly heard the sound of water rushing over rocks ahead. Fast water, falling water.
Then she was falling.
They were all falling. Together.
Into a pit.
***
The heather gave way under them and they all fell into a deep hole. They hit the
soft floor together, in a heap, the thin layer of heather that had hidden the pit falling on top of them.
Molly stood up, looked at the dark walls around them and started to say, “What—?”
Then the walls closed in.
But it couldn’t be the walls that were moving. Because walls don’t have eyes.
A ring of bright eyes had appeared, all round the pit, then moved in closer.
Molly and her friends were surrounded by people in dark clothing, with mud on their faces. People who had opened their eyes and stepped forward.
As Molly was grabbed by lots of hands, she heard a thud and a moan behind her.
Then a man in a crow-black coat wrapped a rope round Molly’s wrists, tying her hands in front of her. Beside him, Molly recognised the thin girl from the tower.
The crow-girl leant forward and whispered, “This rope is elastic. It will hold you even if you shift to a hare. So don’t bother trying to escape.”
A dark shadow swooped down, grabbed Molly’s shoulders in huge hard claws, then lifted her out of the pit. The giant bird dropped her onto the ground between the pit and the river.
She was still surrounded. There was a circle of black-clad people with fringed sleeves around her, and above her swooped a ring of gleaming crows. Molly struggled to her knees, her tied hands making movement awkward.
She felt wings beating behind her and twisted round. The giant crow had lifted Innes out of the pit too. He was struggling and yelling in frustration, as the bird threw him to the ground.
“The rope’s elastic,” he called to Molly, “there’s no point getting bigger or smaller.”
“I know,” said Molly quietly.
The bird rose out of the pit again and dropped Theo on the ground. He was limp, and blood trickled from a new cut on his bare scalp. The curse-hatched knew he was the most powerful. They’d knocked him unconscious already.
The bird dropped Beth next. She curled up, hiding her face.
None of them spoke now. There wasn’t anything to say.
Atacama fell to the ground, wrapped in rope, but still hissing and spitting.
Then a cloud of crows flew out of the pit and joined the crowd around the captives.
Molly watched one glossy crow turn into the girl from the tower and the giant crow turn into a tall dark-haired woman. They stood beside a man in a ragged black coat.
Corbie.
He smiled. “Here you all are. Just as we expected. On your way to lift another curse. We can’t allow that.”
“I wasn’t definitely going to lift it,” said Innes.
“You certainly won’t lift it now. None of you will ever destroy another curse.”
“Can we kill them all?” asked one of the skinnier curse-hatched, wiping mud off his spotty face.
“No, you can’t kill them all.” Corbie hauled Molly to her feet.
“We can’t kill this one, because her curse keeps one of our babies alive. But she won’t get away unscarred.
“Our mother is dead. You will all suffer for that. And this meddling magician said he’d keep his eye on me. So every single one of you will lose your eyes to our crows’ beaks. Then four of you will lose your fingers and our younger hungrier crows will dig into your still-living bellies. After that there won’t be much left of you at all.
“This girl here,” he shook Molly’s arm, “will only lose her eyes. And we won’t peck deep into her skull, so she’ll live.”
Corbie stared down at Molly. “This is why you will live, girl.” He held up a tiny fluffy bird. “This is your curse-hatched, growing stronger every day on the power of the curse that torments you.”
The last time Molly had seen this baby bird it had been pink skin and bone, with a hare marked on its wing. It was already growing downy black feathers.
She glanced over at her friends, laid out in a line. She saw Theo twitch on the ground. She held out her hands to Corbie. “May I hold the bird?”
“Why would I trust you with one of our babies?”
Molly smiled. “I won’t hurt your baby bird. I like my curse. I like being a hare. I won’t hurt this wee one, because it’s a symbol of my speed and freedom. May I hold my curse-hatched?”
Corbie grinned. “A victim who loves her curse! That’s always amusing. Here.”
He gave her the bird. Molly held it cupped between her bound hands, and stroked the soft fluffy chick with her thumb.
It squeaked at her, she smiled at it.
“I must let you live,” said Corbie, “so this bird can live. But I’ll also let you keep your eyes, if you promise you’ll never try to kill your curse or your curse-hatched again.”
“I’ll happily promise that, when the time is right. First, can I choose the order in which these curse-breakers will die?”
Corbie laughed. “The darkness of the curse is working on you beautifully. But why do you want to choose that?”
Molly looked at the four figures lying on the ground. Theo furthest away, then Innes, then Atacama, then Beth almost at her feet. “Because they’ve bossed me about, forced me to carry sharp fangs and heavy babies, nagged me to lift my curse and lose my powers, and treated me like I was less important than them because I’m not magical. But soon I’ll be alive and they’ll be dead, and that’s the best magic of all.”
“I like the way you think,” said Corbie. “I’ll let you choose the pecking order. I’ll let you watch them die. And afterwards, if you promise to keep your curse forever, I’ll let you go free, with both your eyes. Then you can watch us put our mother’s plan into action!”
Molly looked along the line of her teammates, lying on the ground, tied up, ready to die. And she wondered if she was making a terrible mistake.
“So, girl, decide who dies first. The tree? The horse? The cat? Or the toad? We’ll watch that first death, then you’ll choose who’s next, and next, and last.”
Molly walked along the line, holding the warm bird in her hands. She stopped at Theo and kicked hard at the bottom of his sandals. “It’s tempting to choose him. He’s bossy, ungrateful, arrogant and far too pleased with himself.”
She walked to Innes. “It’s tempting to choose him. He’s moody, rude, reckless and he tried to drown me last week.”
She nudged Atacama. “This sphinx put his job before a promise to me and he sheds hair everywhere.”
Then she stood above Beth. “But this self-satisfied narrow-minded dryad has been nagging me about curses and dark magic ever since we met. She can’t forgive me for being descended from a witch and she can’t stand watching me enjoy my curse.”
Beth was staring up at her. Molly stared back.
Then Molly stepped away to stand beside Corbie, and said loudly, “I’ll watch the dryad die first.”
Chapter Twenty-six
There was a moment of silence after Molly’s announcement, then Beth gasped, “Molly! Please! I didn’t—”
“Shut up, Beth,” snapped Molly. “It’s only a matter of minutes, anyway. You’ll die first, then Innes, then Atacama, then Theo. Who goes first isn’t that important. Stop whining.”
“But…”
Molly glanced along the line again, and wondered if any other tactic could work, apart from picking which of her friends should die first.
She heard Corbie say, “The dryad. Peck the dryad first.”
Two curse-hatched women grabbed Beth’s wrists and ankles to stretch her out flat on the ground. Molly could see Beth bite her lips tight together as she tried not to scream, and screw her eyelids tight shut as she tried to stop tears escaping. Then Molly saw a dozen crows swoop down to fly in a figure of eight above the dryad. And she saw every beady eye in the circle turn to look at Beth, waiting to watch her struggle and scream and die.
So no one was looking at Theo, as Theo lifted his hands and ripped his ropes apart in a fizzing of flame. No one was looking as he stood up, pulled his plait from his pocket, wrapped it round his upper arm and called out, “STOP!”
Then they all l
ooked at him.
Corbie screamed, “Attack him!”
All the crows flew upwards.
Theo yelled, “Molly, get into the centre.”
Molly fell forward, cradling the baby bird in her bound hands, as the mass of crows dived at Theo.
Theo lifted both hands and the sky fell in.
The weight of the sky, the huge volume of air, the whole atmosphere, pressed on the birds and forced them to the ground.
Theo pushed his hands down, and the sky darkened from pale blue to bruised purple as the air and light was dragged down to earth. Every curse-hatched – human and feathered – was trapped on the ground, gasping for breath, unable to move.
“Leave these people alone,” said Theo calmly. “Leave curse victims alone to lift or break their curses if they can; leave curse-casters alone to regret and reverse their curses if they wish. You poor creatures must live on the power of curses, because you were cursed to do so by your own mother, but you must not extend your curses’ natural lives. I will, as I have said, be keeping my eye on you.”
He lifted one hand. The human curse-hatched were released. They leapt up and raised their arms to shift and fly. But Theo flicked a finger, and their fringed coats were dragged from their shoulders, then ripped by invisible knives of cold air. The curse-hatched wailed and grabbed at the fabric, but it was shredded into threads and drifted away.
“You will never fly again. You will be earthbound. It’s better than you deserve.”
Theo lifted the other hand. The sky brightened and the feathered curse-hatched rose from the ground. They all dived towards him, with beaks and claws ready to attack.
Theo laughed and drew an arch in the air.
A rainbow appeared in the sky. It didn’t hang motionless above the moor, but folded swiftly downwards. Almost faster than Molly could see, the bright satiny stripes of the rainbow split into ribbons, and the ribbons wove a net. The multi-coloured net wrapped round the cloud of furious crows, then tightened, gathering them together. A bag of birds hung in the air, beaks and wing joints and knobbly feet pushing out between the ribbons.
Theo repeated, “Leave them alone.” He flicked a finger and the ribbons rushed through the sky towards the north, black feathers and shocked squawks fluttering from the net as it whirled away.