13 Curses (15 page)

The man shook his head. “No point in leaving now.” He motioned to the cottage window. “It’s getting dark. We’re best to stay here for the night, eat, and take whatever supplies we can. If we stay, it’ll give us the chance to prepare properly.”

“But surely it’s dangerous,” Red argued.

“No more dangerous than being out there,” he replied. “And now that thing in the cellar is dead, the main threat is out of the way.”

“You haven’t forgotten about me, have you?” Eldritch called from below. “Hurry, find that key!”

“You get the key,” said the man. “I’ll throw this away and make something else to eat.”

Red nodded and stood up. She waited for the man to walk outside with the pot and heard him scraping the contents out.

“I’m going to the stream,” he called through the open doorway. “Back in a minute.”

As soon as he vanished, she played her fingers over the brickwork of the chimney above the fireplace. For a moment she thought the witch had lied and that there was no loose brick, but then she found it, moving slightly in its place. Deftly she began to nudge it with her fingers. It was wedged tightly in place, and it took her several minutes to remove it. Sure enough, when she did, there was a hollow cavity behind it, containing several small objects. She cast her fingers over them, withdrawing and examining them one by one. Just then, the man came in from outside with the newly cleaned pot.

“You found the brick,” he said. “Is there a key there?”

“No,” Red answered. “There are lots of other bits and pieces, but no key. The witch lied.”

The man’s face fell. “It must be somewhere. We’ll have to keep looking.” His eyes scanned the caged animals in the cottage and rested on a small hutch containing some rabbits. He strode over, and took one out. It was large and fat. Red suddenly felt sick as
she realized he intended to kill it. He caught her eye and collected the small knife from the hearth.

“Sorry,” he said. “But we need to eat something that’s substantial. We don’t know when we’ll next be able to find food. It’ll be quick, I promise.” He moved toward the door once more with the rabbit under his arm, then hesitated and turned back. “Perhaps you should go and tell Eldritch about the key, and let him know we’re still looking.”

Red nodded again, not trusting herself to speak. Steeling herself, she clambered back down the steps to the cellar, choking on the smell that she’d become so accustomed to only a short while before.

Eldritch glowered at her. She could smell him, rank with sweat and grime.

“What are you doing up there?” he hissed. “Why haven’t you unlocked me yet?”

“There’s a problem,” said Red. “The Hedgewitch lied about the key—it’s not where she said it would be.”

Eldritch threw back his head and gave an anguished howl.

“You should have checked first!” he yelled. “Now it’s too late! What if we never find it?”

“We’ll keep looking,” said Red. “It has to be somewhere.” She eyed Eldritch’s wrist, hanging in the manacle. It looked red and sore, and was clearly causing him discomfort. Evidently her thoughts showed in her face, for Eldritch spat on the ground suddenly.

“Iron,” he said. “This is what iron does when it
comes into contact with fey skin.” He looked at her, almost accusingly. “It
burns
.”

“Like I said, we’ll keep looking,” Red answered curtly. She turned and made for the stairs again, eager to escape the rancid smell of the cellar. “There’ll be some food soon. We’ll bring some down to you when it’s ready.” She scrambled back up the steps, and was tempted to slam the trapdoor shut. It would be easier to forget that way that the cellar was now housing the dead Hedgewitch and the remains of the other poor creatures who had been her victims. But even though she did not like or trust Eldritch, it would have been unforgivable to shut him in the darkness. So instead, she turned her back on the trapdoor and began exploring the rest of the cottage.

Through the mesh of their cages, the animal captives watched her, their eyes distrustful. She walked over to the nearest cage, which held a fox. It growled as she knelt next to it but shrank back, away from the door. Readying herself, she knocked the peg out of the latch and quickly stepped back as the door swung open. The fox was out in a flash, bolting through the open door of the cottage and away, out into the night.

One by one she released the caged animals: rabbits, more foxes, stoats, and a box full of moths and butterflies that she took outside prior to opening, for fear they would fly toward the light of the candles or the fire in the hearth. Upon her return to the cottage, one creature remained, a rabbit huddled in the corner
of its cage. It was lame—its back leg crushed from a trap. Otherwise it was fat and healthy. Regretfully, Red bolted the cage. It would not survive in the wild. Now she knew it would be an ideal candidate for the pot.

The man returned to the cottage then. He set the pot over the fire, stoked it, and then began to move around the cottage, poking into various sacks and corners. Red caught him glancing at the empty cages.

“I freed them,” she said unnecessarily.

“So I see.” He made no other comment, just returned with a few potatoes and a couple of old-looking carrots, which he then peeled, chopped, and threw into the pot. That done, he got up and began rooting around again.

“That key has to be here somewhere,” he muttered.

Red got up and followed him into the corner.

“Be careful what you touch,” he said, running his hands over a large wooden chest. It had no lock, and so he threw the lid back. Red gasped.

“My bag!”

She snatched it and checked her belongings. Everything was there, packed in just as she’d left it. Beneath her bag were countless other items: bags, shoes, watches, clothing. Each had belonged to someone. Most would never find their owner.

The man reached in and took something out as well. It was a knife twice the size of Red’s, and she eyed it warily.

“This is mine,” he said. “It’s made from iron.” He
slipped it into the empty holder on his belt and continued digging around in the contents of the chest.

Red moved away, looking over a table at the back. A pile of books caught her eye. She picked up the one on the top and opened it. In the topmost corner was a handwritten name:
Agnes Fogg.
Red wondered if it had belonged to one of the Hedgewitch’s victims. As she began to flick through the book, some of the phrases and notes jumped out at her.

Remedy for warts: apply dandelion milk by light of waning moon. Repeat for three nights….

“What’s that?”

The man’s voice next to her ear made her jump, and she dropped the book onto the table. It hit the surface, bounced, and then fell onto the floor. As it did, a strange thing happened. Tiny black insects scurried from the book and spread out over the floor, rushing into the dark recesses of the cottage. Red frowned and picked the book up.

“It looks like a book of remedies, or spells,” she began, opening the book. One of the insects ran up her arm. She made to brush it away and then stopped and leaned in closer. For the insect was not an insect at all. It was a tiny letter “A.”

“What on earth…?”

“Bewitched,” the man said. “There must be a spell on it to destruct if the wrong hands touch it.”

Red flicked through the pages of the book. Every one of them was now blank; the words had run away, letter by letter.

“There was a name written inside,” she said. “Agnes Fogg. Do you think she was another victim? Or maybe the Hedgewitch stole her book for the magic it contained?”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” the man said slowly. “I know of an Agnes Fogg. She lived around two hundred years ago in Tickey End. She was a wise woman—a healer and a midwife—and was befriended by Elizabeth Elvesden, the first lady of Elvesden Manor, who she began to teach about natural remedies. But after a child Agnes delivered died and then a sickness spread throughout the town, the people of Tickey End accused both women of witchcraft. They drove Agnes out and banished her to the woods. Elizabeth Elvesden ended up dying in a lunatic asylum.”

“So you don’t think the Hedgewitch got Agnes Fogg?” Red asked.

The man shook his head. “I think the Hedgewitch
is
Agnes Fogg—or at least was once.”

Red placed the book back on the table.

“How do you think she came to be known by that name?” she asked. “ ‘Hedgewitch’ sounds so sinister.”

“It doesn’t have sinister origins,” the man said. “The word ‘hedgewitch’ simply means ‘solitary witch.’ It comes from olden times, when a witch often lived on the farthest outskirts of a village, close to a bordering hedge. The hedge would often be part of a garden of the herbs and plants used in their craft. Until now, I’d always thought of it as a gentle term.” He moved back
to the fire, stirring the pot. The aroma of the food made Red’s stomach cramp with longing.

“How do you think she ended up in the fairy realm? Doing such evil things?”

“Who knows?” he answered darkly. “She wasn’t evil to begin with, from what I’ve heard. Perhaps she was tricked into coming here. Or perhaps she grew bitter and resentful of the way she’d been treated, and found a way to escape and have her revenge.”

“She did that all right,” said Red. She began to move around again, feeling restless and twitchy after being held captive in the cellar. Ducking under a collection of drying animal pelts, she saw a fox-skin coat hanging from a stand in the corner. The sight of it disturbed her, but at the same time she needed a coat. She reached for it and threw it around her shoulders, fastening a small catch just below her chin.

She felt immediately odd. The room around her loomed suddenly huge, and the man towered over her. Every hair on her body stood on end for a split second, then her senses sharpened. She could smell the thick stew, and her hearing was impeccable, magnifying every bubble of the cooking liquid. Looking down at her hands she saw they were gone, replaced by two red-brown paws.

The man’s face was etched with astonishment.

“It’s amazing,” he breathed.

“I’m a fox!” she gasped.

The man’s mouth dropped open. “You can still talk!”

Then Red panicked.

“If I’ve got paws instead of hands how do I get it off ? How do I unfasten the catch?” Her claws scrabbled uselessly at her chin.

“Calm down,” said the man. “You still have hands, not paws. Remember, it’s a glamour. An illusion.”

Red forced herself to be calm. In her mind’s eye she pictured her hands and held the image of them in her head. Then she lifted them to her chin to find the hook. Her fingers found it, and with relief she slid the coat off.

“Eldritch told me the Hedgewitch’s powers go beyond the ordinary,” she said, remembering. “He said these were no surface glamours, that they’d fool even fairies. If that’s true, then I’m guessing humans with the second sight wouldn’t be able to see through them either.

“Try it,” she said, offering the man the gruesome garment. He took it and, after a moment’s hesitation, threw it around his shoulders and fastened the hook. Nothing happened. He stood there waiting while Red watched expectantly. Still, he remained just a man in a fox-skin coat, looking vaguely ridiculous peering out from beneath the fox’s ears.

“It’s not working,” she said, disappointed not to witness the coat’s power. “Why did it work for me and not you?”

The man took the coat off and handed it to her.

“I don’t know. Maybe the coat can only work for one person—the person who wears it first of all. How did you feel when you tried it on?”

“Weird. All sort of… hairy. It felt as though the fur wasn’t just on me, but that it was part of me, actually growing out of my skin.”

The man’s eyes widened. “That’s it then. The coat has fused itself with you. It has to remain yours now, it’s useless to anyone else.”

“Maybe we could find one for you,” said Red. “A different disguise.”

But after they searched the rest of the cottage, none of the other garments wielded such power, though there were plenty of furs and skins, which they gathered and piled up in front of the fire to sleep on.

“It can only mean one thing,” said the man. “That coat has been made to order. Someone will be coming for it, and soon. We need to leave this place at first light.”

It was a sobering thought. They busied themselves eating the stew the man had cooked. It was thin and the meat was fatty, but Red was glad for it. It was nourishment and she did not dare to take it for granted.

She was spared entering the cellar when the man took down some of the stew to Eldritch, along with some furs to wrap around him. Red heard him whining from below, demanding to know why they hadn’t yet found the key. She huddled into the thick furs, her knife at her side once more. With food in her belly and the flames of the fire warming her thin body, she dozed a little in front of the fire every so often, but every knock of the shutters and rattle of the door jerked her awake. Soon the man returned and settled
a little way from her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him staring into the flames of the fire, as if lost in thought.

She closed her eyes, determined to rest as best she could, but she was just too jittery.

Next to her the man’s breathing slowed, and soon she felt certain he was asleep. She was surprised, then, when she glanced over and saw his blue-eyed gaze fixed upon her.