13 Curses (11 page)

“Nell, what on earth are you doing?” said Fabian. “Have you gone barking mad?”

“Help…” Nell panted. “Make them stop!”

“Them?”

“She’s not alone,” said Tanya, knowing that Fabian was oblivious to Nell’s odd companions. “She’s under some kind of enchantment.”

“What do you see?” said Warwick. “Describe them.”

Tanya glanced at him in surprise. She had assumed that Warwick would be able to see the fairy revelers, for although she knew he did not have the second sight, she was aware that he used the same eye tonic as Fabian in order to allow him to see fairies temporarily.

“I used some eyedrops earlier,” he said, reading her thoughts. “They’ve worn off now, and I’ve run out.”

Tanya nodded. Now she understood why Warwick had allowed her and Fabian to accompany him into the woods—he needed Tanya as a lookout.

“There are three of them in there with Nell,” she said in a low voice. “They’re playing instruments and dancing along with her. One has a fiddle. He’s as tall as Fabian, and looks like he’s half man, half goat. He has goat’s legs and cloven feet, and two little horns growing out of his head.”

“What are you? What are you?” Nell was gasping.

“A faun,” said Warwick, his eyes narrowed. “And the others?”

“A goblin,” Tanya said with certainty. “Knee height, grubby-looking. It’s beating a dish with a spoon.” As she spoke, the goblin eyed her sneakily
and grinned, showing the characteristic large, yellowing goblin teeth.

“The third is a little old man, wearing old-fashioned clothes. He looks a bit like the brownie in the tea caddy, but skinnier. He’s playing a tin whistle.”

“Anything else?” said Warwick.

“They’re dancing around an empty flask.”

“How can you tell it’s empty?”

“The flask is on its side and the cork is beside it.”

“Drunk,” said Warwick disgustedly, but there was a measure of relief in his voice. “It’s likely that they’re just mischief-makers, but they could be on their way to the fairy realm. We need to get Nell out of there.”

“How do we do that?”

“I’m going to reach in and pull her out,” said Warwick.

“Will that work?” Fabian asked doubtfully.

“As long as I keep one foot out of the circle and grab hold of her firmly, it should.”

“Do something!” Nell shrieked, now hopping madly on one foot.

Warwick planted a foot heavily in the soil of the forest floor, ready to leap at the right moment.

“Stand back,” he ordered Fabian and Tanya. Then to Nell, who was about to lap the circle again, he added, “Get ready. On the count of three. One, two—”

As Nell came almost level with Warwick, she reached out to take his hand. Warwick placed one foot inside the fairy ring and leaned toward her. Their fingers
brushed briefly, but then Nell stumbled and tripped over Warwick’s foot. Staggering forward, she almost went over completely but somehow managed to right herself at the last minute. The effect of this was disastrous. Hot on Nell’s heels was the faun, who quickly reached out and took Warwick’s hand in place of Nell’s. His momentum caught Warwick off guard completely, propelling him headlong into the fairy ring with Nell and the rest of the revelers. All he could do was dance helplessly to the enchanted fey music.

“Dad!” Fabian yelled, rushing forward. Tanya grabbed him and yanked him away.

“Stay back!”

“What do we do?” he cried. “How do we get them out?”

“Don’t try anything!” Warwick shouted. “Go back to the manor at once!”

“But—”

“Just go!
Now!
”

“Come on,” said Tanya, pulling at Fabian’s arm. “We need to get help. We can’t take any more risks—they could pull us both in as well.”

They backed away from the circle, taking care where they placed their feet. After they had taken a few steps, the tune being played by the fairy revelers shifted and went off-key. The dance changed, and before Tanya and Fabian’s horrified eyes, the revelers leapt from the fairy ring into another that was alongside it, continuing their dance there for a minute or
two. Then once again, a key shifted and they moved on, into another nearby fairy ring, gradually moving farther into the woods and away.

“Where are they being taken?” said Fabian, his breath coming in short bursts.

“I don’t know,” Tanya answered. “But we need to go, and quickly.”

As she spoke, the revelers, Nell, and Warwick vanished from sight, swallowed by the woods.

“Which is the way back?” Fabian asked, panicking. “I can’t think—I can’t remember which direction we came in from!”

Tanya reached into her pocket and pulled out the compass. “This way,” she said, reading the needle and pointing calmly.

Fabian stared at the compass in confusion. “But this morning… we were going to return it to Mad Morag….”

Tanya shook her head. “I know. That’s what I was coming to tell you when you found the first trap. It’s a good thing we didn’t manage to return it—it’s still working.” She glanced into the trees at the space where Warwick and Nell had last been visible. “Which is just as well, because we’re going to need it.”

Eldritch’s words echoed in Red’s head.

“Her new…
disguise
?”

“Sounded that way to me,” came the sly reply. “She’s been the old beggar woman for some time now—”

They both flinched as the trapdoor above was flung open and, with a triumphant shriek, the Hedgewitch threw another body down into the cellar with them. It landed beside Red with a grunt. In the seconds before the trapdoor was snapped shut again, Red was able to glimpse the new captive.

It was a man. He looked to be no older than her father had been, which would make him around forty, and there was nothing about him that suggested he was fey. He was dressed scruffily in outdoor clothes: a long, dark overcoat and thick corduroy trousers. They were mud-spattered, like his black boots. His hair was
dark, although gray in places, and was long, just past his shoulders, and unkempt. His face was contorted with pain—with good reason.

He had been bound; his arms were pinned to his sides and his ankles were positioned in a way that looked both uncomfortable and unnatural. In places she could make out a hint of something glistening, almost invisible to the eye, something that looked like a spider’s web. As she stared, she caught sight of the same glistening material around the man’s mouth.

She recognized it now. Tiny precise stitches, sewn with spidertwine. Red’s own mouth formed an “o” of revulsion: the man’s lips had been stitched together.

The man began to moan, as if attempting to speak from behind his sewn up lips. All that was audible was a low humming sound, coming through his nose.

“You’ll have to speak up,” Eldritch said. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“You’re despicable!” Red hissed, unable to tear her eyes away from the man’s lips. The sight was truly gruesome. Something inside her ignited then—some primal instinct for survival. She began struggling again, fighting to maneuver her bound hands from behind her to in front. Using the last ounce of her strength, she fought to push her hands past her skinny hips, praying that her boyish figure would be her savior. On the fourth attempt her wrists slid past her hips, and, with a low cry of joy, she slipped her numb hands from behind her heels to in front. It was a small triumph, but a triumph nevertheless. She lay back, shiv
ering on the freezing stone floor, trying to regain some of her strength. Her respite did not last long; the prickling sensation at her ankle was back, and even worse than before.

Wriggling her fingers to encourage some semblance of life back into them, she probed along her lower leg, over the top of her trousers. It was not long before her fingers came into contact with something small and hard, the added pressure of her hand sending a twinge of discomfort into the skin below the fabric. Wincing, she used her crooked fingers to hook the hem of her trouser leg up. There had to be some bramble or thorn caught in her clothing from the woods, pricking her. But it was not a bramble or thorn caught beneath her clothes.

A tiny pair of ornate silver scissors was tangled up in a loose thread in her trousers. They were open, and one of the points was digging into her skin, a dark smear of blood visible where it had punctured the surface. Her heart soared with hope at the sight of them. These, she knew, were no ordinary scissors. They belonged to Tanya and would cut anything except metal, wood, or stone. Edging her thumb and forefinger into them, she twisted them and snipped at the thread they were caught in.

“What’s that you have there?” Eldritch said, suddenly alert. “Show me what’s in your hand!”

“Quiet,” said Red, concentrating. To her immense frustration she was unable to position the scissors in a way that would let her free her hands. She attempted
for several minutes, eventually giving up as her fingers cramped and the scissors clattered to the floor for the third time. With a growl, she crawled over to the man with the stitched lips. He eyed her, and the scissors in her hand, warily. His eyes were pale, she saw, gray or blue—it was hard to tell which in the dim light.

“I’m going to cut the stitches in your mouth,” she whispered fiercely. “And then you’re going to talk. You’re going to tell me how you got here. If I believe what I hear, then I’ll free you, on the condition that you return the favor by cutting the ropes on my wrists. Understand?”

The man nodded vigorously, his eyes wide and bloodshot.

“All right,” said Red. “Now keep still.”

“What about me?” Eldritch whined. “I’ve been here the longest! See if you can help me!”

“Shut up,” Red snapped. “I’ll come to you in a minute.”
If you’re lucky
, she added silently. She reached forward, straining in the dim light. The gossamer-like appearance of the spidertwine was helpful in one respect: the stitches glistened, enabling her to see them. Leaning over the man, she edged the tip of the scissors beneath a stitch that looked to be the loosest. A dot of dark red appeared on his skin as the scissors nicked him, but the man did not make a sound. She snipped, and the spidertwine separated. Removing the scissors, she repositioned them again, beneath a second stitch. This one was tighter. The man’s eyes clamped shut as he tried not to jerk away instinctively.
Beads of sweat were forming on his lined forehead. She cut again, and then again and again, until every stitch had been broken.

“It’s done,” she said finally. “You can open your mouth now.”

Tentatively, the man separated his lips.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, thank you…”

Red allowed him a moment to compose himself before moving on. There was no time to waste. The Hedgewitch could reenter the dungeon at any moment.

“Who are you, lad?” the man asked.

The word “lad” momentarily confused her, before she remembered her appearance. She looked like a boy now, with her short, spiky hair and men’s clothing. With everything that had occurred since arriving in the fairy realm, she had completely forgotten about her disguise. She lowered her voice before answering.

“You can call me Red.”

She thought she saw a spark of something behind the man’s eyes then, a fleeting glimpse into whatever was going on in his mind. But before she could attempt to read it, it had vanished.

“I see,” he said, coughing suddenly. “I forgot about the thing with names in this place. I’ll have to think of one for myself, some kind of alias for you to call me.”

Red was instantly alert. “What do you know of the fairy realm?”

“Enough to know not to give my real name away,” said the man. “But clearly not enough to have escaped
the clutches of whatever that thing is upstairs.” He eyed Eldritch, then turned his gaze back to Red. “How long have you been here?”

“Less than a day,” she answered, keeping her voice low and boyish. “Only hours, in fact.”

The man regarded her silently, but again she had the feeling that something was going on behind those pale eyes—that he knew something about her. It made her uncomfortable.

“Enough about me,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “How did you end up here?”

From his corner of the dungeon, she sensed rather than saw Eldritch lean in closer to hear the man’s answer.