Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (39 page)

Nettle
hesitated. “Shouldn’t I get this to the old woman.” She didn’t want
to use the name Margot gave.

“The
Crone can wait.”

Nettle
stepped behind the counter, and just as she passed Margot, stopped
to look up at the tall sleek sister. “Who is she?”

Margot paused
for a moment, her head slightly askew as she thoughtfully
considered her. “We’re not exactly sure. She appeared early on when
we were rebuilding the village. She’s always been here, skulking
around in the shadows, harassing our guests,” Margot admonished,
her ruby red lips twisted unpleasantly. “It’s going to get her into
trouble.”

“
What do you think she wants with the place?”

Margot gave a
slight shrug of an elegant shoulder. “Who knows. We’ve not been
able to catch her since she turned up.”

“
Catch her?” Nettle caught the gasp before it escaped her
lips. Margot made it sound like the old woman was merely vermin to
be ensnared and dealt with, without feeling or mercy.

Margot’s
bronze eyes flashed dangerously. “I’d be very careful of the Crone,
if I were you.”

Nettle had a
burst of fresh anxiousness. “What do you mean?”

“
Claudine did say she’d been following you. She was
worried.”

“
Claudine told you?” A thrill ran through her. It gave Nettle
pleasure to know Claudine was concerned with her welfare and even
spoke about her to her sisters.

“The old
woman’s obviously chosen you - for some reason I can’t fathom - to
do her bidding.” Nettle didn’t like the way Margot said bidding, it
wasn’t the word or the meaning behind it, but she pronounced the
word as if she found the whole thing rather distasteful.

“Has she said anything?”
Margot asked, looking slightly
concerned.

“
Like what?”

Margot was
rolling her quill back and forth between her palms - the gold
striped feather whirled - it was hypnotising to watch. Her voice
had grown lower and softer and suggestive. “Oh, I wouldn’t know.
Maybe something about... us...”

Nettle shook
her head. She’d mentioned nothing.

She spoke
slowly and carefully. “Just heed my warning, be wary around that
old hag and her mumblings and absurd rants. She’s completely mad
and possibly dangerous.”

Nettle nodded, not able to speak, her mouth
bone-dry.
Could the old woman really be that disturbed?

Margot stepped
aside and held open the black swing-door that separated the store
from the back of house. As soon as Margot pushed open the door, all
thoughts of the Crone were vanquished as a thrum of excitement
coursed through her - she was going to see where the Balfrey’s
lived! She stepped forward into a stairwell where she could either
go through a door to the right that led to the kitchen, or up the
stairs to the living quarters. There was a hum of noise coming from
behind the kitchen door, an industrious muffled clanging and
shouting. Margot pointed up the staircase. “You’ll find Claudine in
her bedroom with Jasmine.”

Nettle climbed the
wooden staircase to the second floor and pushed
open a heavy oak door to reveal a pristine kitchen with rustic
charm. She wandered in, admiring the copper pots hanging above the
wood-burning stove. On the heavily nicked wooden bench was a steel
basket full of fresh farm eggs and lemons nestled amongst a
collection of tea pots. A small dining table and four high-backed
chairs were tucked into the corner of the kitchen.

It was
eerily quiet in the living room, apart from the ticking of a
grandfather-clock, which delighted Nettle with its thirteen hours -
not the usual twelve. The furniture gathered in this room was an
eclectic collection spanning centuries. Wingback armchairs and
ottomans, striped cream and pastel peach; a differing pair of
armoires displaying pottery and china plates; and art-deco
side-tables. Decorative blue and white tiles, their motif a faded
looping leaf pattern, trimmed the cast-iron fireplace. An oil
painting hung above its oak mantle. Nettle stepped closer, her
footsteps softened by the deep pile carpet, and a playful smile
brightened her expression. The painting was of three children,
girls – the Balfrey sisters in old fashioned dresses, much younger
and carefree - lounging beneath a tree.

A strange noise startled her. It came from above, the third
floor. A scuttling and scratching and clicking noise that surged
directly above her, across the ceiling from one side to the other,
then ebbed away. A ripple of unease ran down her spine. The noise
sounded weirdly odd, like a roomful of typewriters being softly
tapped at once. She flicked her hair over her shoulder as she
looked upward at the white ceiling in consternation,
what is up
there?

She’d reached the sister
s’ living quarters by way of the staircase
that ended at the second floor, and as there wasn’t another flight
of stairs, she’d assumed there would be another staircase somewhere
inside the apartment. But there was nothing besides the hallway
which opened up from the living room.

Nettle
approached the hallway and called, “Hello?” When no one replied she
ventured into the small passageway. It wasn’t very long and there
were four wooden doors. She guessed each door led to each of the
Balfrey sisters’ bedroom, and one might be to the bathroom, as so
far she hadn’t seen one. As to which of the doors belonged to
Claudine, she wasn’t sure. She was just about to call out again
when Claudine left a room through a fifth door she hadn’t noticed.
“Oh, hello,” she called out, happy to finally have found
Claudine.

Claudine
started, seeming incredibly surprised to see her there, and stood
for a moment caught-off-guard, while Nettle blatantly peered around
her to see what was behind the door. Nettle caught a glimpse of a
wall of books. Her eyes lit up with curiosity. “What’s in
there?”

Claudine
leaned against the door and it closed with a snap of finality. “It
leads to our Atelier.”

Atelier,
sounded foreign and intriguing. “Huh, what’s that?”

“
An Atelier is a workroom,” explained Claudine. “It’s where we
experiment with new ideas for the tea house.”

Nettle’s mouth
formed a silently impressed ‘O’, and when Claudine walked down the
hallway beckoning to her, she followed.

Claudine’s bedroom was everything Nettle had imagined. It
was luxurious and decorated in soft muted greens and pale gold. A
sumptuous four poster bed with gauzy curtains took a regal position
near the window and a gold-striped chaise stood at the foot of the
bed. A duchess with a large gilded mirror reflected the light that
flooded in from the window.

Jazz sat in front of the duchess mirror and a beautiful
white dress sheathed a dressmakers dummy nearby. Jazz didn’t
acknowledge Nettle when she entered, too enrapt with her
reflection. She’d scribbled something down her inner arm with a
black pen.
Probably something she didn’t want to forget,
Nettle
thought,
like don’t forget to ask the mirror who’s the fairest of
them all,
then quickly chided herself for her meanness.

Claudine
smiled, patting her bed. “Sit here while I finish Jasmine’s
hair.”

Nettle
sat on the bed, she ran her fingers over the luxurious quilt. It
was very old, perhaps a family heirloom, and was a mixture of
different fabrics - silks and cotton, linen and taffeta, all in
different shades of pale green.

Claudine poured a cup of tea and handed it to Nettle,
refilled Jazz’s cup, then her own.
The smell of fresh lemon and ginger and
something that Nettle didn’t recognise wafted through the room.
Nettle was thirsty and finished her cup quickly. Only too late did
she think,
how unladylike,
and wondered if Claudine had marked that against
her. She adjusted her position on the bed, attempting to sit a
little more primly, and wished she’d worn something more girlish
like a skirt.

Claudine looked weary. In fact as Nettle furtively studied
her reflection she realised there were fresh wrinkles at the sides
of her mouth and her lips were puckered with creases, and squint
lines ran from the corners of her eyes.
The sisters must be running
themselves to exhaustion, ensuring Halloween was going to
plan.

Jazz wore a wig, a
thick mane of dark red hair that reached her
waist. Claudine ran her fingers through the hair, loosely teasing
out the locks.

Now was the time to take Bram’s advice and ask.
“
Er,
I saw you with a
man the other day.”

“
Hmmm,” Claudine replied, lifting locks of hair and imagining
what sort of hair-do she could create.

“
Well, I was wondering, since you seemed quite intimate with
him. If you were involved, you know, like boyfriend and
girlfriend.”

Claudine
gave Nettle a quick perplexed look, before a realisation dawned on
her. “Oh. That man.” She gave a light-hearted titter. “No. There’s
nothing between he and I.” She shook her head a little as if not
quite sure how to explain. “He’s not quite right, if you know what
I mean. He thinks I’m someone else.”

“
Alice?” Nettle said, offering the name the man called
her.

“
Yes. That’s it.” She sighed as if saddened by the man and his
problems. She gave Nettle an intuitive glance. “Did it worry you?
That I might have been involved with another man?”

Nettle began
to shake her head, and changed her mind half way through and nodded
instead. She pulled a disparaging face. “I kind of have high-hopes
for you and my Dad.”

“
If it makes you feel better. I do like your father, a
lot.”

Nettle’s smile
began to widen to a maddening grin. She felt immense relief. It had
troubled her to think Claudine was involved with someone else and
it had hurt to think the elder sister might have misled her on
purpose. Bram was right. She was glad she’d taken his advice and
cleared up the misunderstanding.

Claudine gave Nettle a sideways look, her gaze
intense.
“You’re a little different, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a
question. Nettle felt her cheeks warm slightly.
Does that mean she’s found
something disagreeable about me?
Instead, Claudine completely blindsided
her with, “You’ve never told me about your mother.”

Nettle glanced away, her lips pinching tight.
How am I going to
worm my way out of answering that?

Claudine
started backcombing the wig, creating a puff of volume at the
crown. “Who is she? What happened to her?”

Nettle didn’t reply. She just didn’t know what to
say.
I mean,
where do I begin, what do I say? She ran away?
It would be so easy to spill
everything she felt about Briar to Claudine. But right now, for
some reason something held her back.
A sense of loyalty? No... surely
not…

The silence in
the room grew lengthy.

Jazz moved
sluggishly, her brow furrowing. “I was just thinking about your
mother.”

Nettle almost gawped. Jazz had never before spoken about
Briar to her. That was the one redeeming feature of her cousin.
Jazz, no matter their differences, had been thoughtful and mindful
not to mention Briar… up until now. “I remember visiting the
cottage when I was very young. Your mother, she was lovely… so
beautiful.” She gazed at Nettle’s reflection in the mirror. “You
remind me of her, but you don’t look like her at all, not one
bit.”
There
it is
,
Nettle thought wryly,
that back-handed compliment
. “But there’s something about
her in you. In your eyes, the way you look at things and make
decisions. You’re so confident. And you’re kind, like she was
too.”

Nettle
had no idea how to respond to Jazz. Aside from the things she was
saying about her mother, Jazz had actually said something nice to
her. It was unsettling.

“
Did something happen to her?” Claudine asked, still
concentrating on Jazz’s hair.

“I don’t know for sure,” Jazz said. “
My mother only told me that
she’d gone.” Claudine cast a sympathetic glance Nettle’s way. “She
never used the words,
left,
only
gone
. Though my mother had been expecting it. She’d
always said there was a hint of the Wild about Aunt Briar, and she
was bound to break Uncle Fred’s heart. It was
inevitable.”

Nettle felt her throat begin to close up, and warm salty
tears threaten.
Why did Jazz have to tell Claudine that?
She would have
kicked Jazz’s ankle if she’d been able to get away with it. She
blinked away the tears, curling her fingers into fists to dig her
nails into the soft fleshy part of her palms.
Why on earth do I
care
, she
berated herself fiercely. But it wasn’t nice to hear their family
never had a chance. Nettle didn’t know what to do apart from change
the subject.
So she just blurted it out. “Dad’s not come
back.”

“
Hmmm?” Claudine pulled a heavy section of hair and twisted it
up, securing it with a bobby-pin.

“
Dad,” Nettle repeated, tugging at the frayed cuff of her
jersey. “He’s not come home yet. I mean, I guess he’s got all day
to get home. But what if he doesn’t?”