Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters (43 page)

Nothing.

She shook her head, giving herself a silly grin.
I am tired. I must
be seeing things.
Though
she tried hard to reassure herself that it must be all in
her mind, she couldn’t shake Jack’s voice –
they’re not who they’re
pretending to be
– and the feeling that something very wrong was at play
here.

The book – The Accursed Witch of Olde Town - elaborated on
what she’d learned from Grandfather Benedict’s diary and in part
was based on the account of
an elderly priest, Linus Plinchett, and his days
working as a young pastor in Caddland.

Young Linus had been sent from Caddland to Olde Town after
the clergy had received a troubling letter from one of their own.
He was accompanied by the Arbiter
, Jedidiah Boon, and his companion, a
foreigner, described by Linus as having “
a chilling sort of
beauty.”

When we arrived in the small hamlet, we discovered the
priest who’d sent the letter had died only a week before. Olde Town
was an eerie place to be and filled me with a great dread - and I
wished, not for the first time, nor the last, that it wasn’t I who
had been called upon to accompany Arbiter Boon - for I found the
villagers
’
behaviour most troubling. They were quiet and subdued and there was
something vacuous about their gaze as if they weren’t present in
this world. They would not speak to us at all, scuttling off to
slam doors in our faces rather than talk to us. From the way the
paint had flecked and chipped, we could tell they’d decorated their
doorways some time ago with pagan symbols and wardings to protect
themselves from the pestilence that was rife, but this alone would
not save them.

What troubled
me most, was the silence. There was no talk, no laughter from
children. In fact there were no children to speak of.

Under Arbiter Boon’s instructions, I rummaged rather
reluctantly through the priest’s belongings, finding his personal
journals. Within them I discovered Olde Town had suffered a series
of unfortunate incidents, beginning with the death of a young girl
earlier that year. Soon after, there were a rash of departures,
mainly young men and woman supposedly leaving for the allure of my
own village of Caddland. Later, their bodies were discovered,
murdered in macabre rituals, hidden amongst the forest that had
encroached upon Olde Town. The villagers began to whisper of
Devil-Worshiping and it was hard for the priest to dissuade them,
for in his heart he saw this as the truth.

As mid-summer arrived, a devastating blight struck the
crops of the villagers, poisoning leaves, and rotting roots. There
was little to sustain the villagers through the winter
months
,
which proved to be incredibly harsh. Not only did many of the town
folk starve to death, along with their livestock, others were
struck by a sickness that brought boils and bloody pustules, and
killed indiscriminately.

When young children, who had not died from this sickness
began to disappear, murmurings of witches grew rife amongst the
priest’s flock and some spoke out against the
one family that flourished
amongst this utter ruin and devastation. Their crops grew, their
livestock fattened, the plague didn’t touch them.

Before long,
the priest dispatched a letter to the clergy with
his suspicions.

That was when
I realised the importance of Arbiter Boon’s companion and why we as
a group had been sent here to Olde Town. He was a Witch-Hunter.

Soon after our arrival to the village and the unearthing of
the priest’s journals, Arbiter Boon declared Olde Town under the
nefarious spell of a witch. It didn’t take Arbiter Boon long to
point the finger at the only family surviving – the
Balfrey’s.

When the girl
was brought before Arbiter Boon, it was hard to look upon her and
see her for the witch she was accused of being. She was young and
beautiful and her face angelic, and I had a deep desire to protect
her. How could someone so beautiful be accursed?

At only seventeen years of age Lysette was accused of
witchcraft and heresy, and Arbiter Boon condemned her to judgement
in a trial of Witchcraft tests governed by his companion, the
foreigner.

I was not
admitted to these trials, and I daresay I was glad not to be there.
The dreadful sounds coming from the barn in which the tests were
performed can never be forgotten and most nights, even now in my
dotage, plague my dreams and turn them into nightmares.

It was
Lysette, herself, who after being tested and unveiled, exposed her
true nature. She proclaimed quite vehemently herself a witch –
amongst other profanities shouted at Arbiter Boon - and was
arrogant and conceited about having murdered those who had made her
childhood miserable. She had brought this darkness to Olde Town not
in the name of the devil, but for a love denied her. And it was for
this love she’d set in motion a wicked plan to re-unite herself
with her true love. Whoever this person was, I never learnt, as she
shielded his identity right until her end.

On March 9, 1793, Lysette was burned at the stake,
something that even I could not watch and had to turn away from.
She did not die willingly, nor quietly. Her death was attended by
her mother, Lucinda, and her siblings (sisters) much younger than
herself.

Nettle stilled. The Crone! The old woman couldn’t remember
her name, she’d tried hard to recall it, remembering it started
with L.
It
couldn’t be Lucinda? Could it? That would be impossible.
But the old woman
also made mention of,
me and my fair girls…

Nettle read on
hurriedly.

The broken
Balfrey family departed Olde Town as soon as it was over. Afterward
we buried Lysette’s bones in an unmarked grave near the summit of
Olde Town.

The only fortunate occurrence amongst all this
wretchedness, was that the foreigner made a terrifying discovery
and learned the whereabouts of the missing children. Lysette had
ensorcelled the villagers’ children and set them to mine the very
hill that Olde Town was built upon.

Many of the
children we freed were in a terrible state, starved, near death and
most did not survive our ministrations. What in particular Lysette
had set them to mine for, was never learned, for as soon as the
accursed Lysette had died they were set free from her spell and
with it the knowledge of what they’d been digging for.

Nettle rocked back in astonishment –
mine Olde Town?

“
Bristol!” Smilla suddenly exclaimed, diverting Nettle’s
attention. She peeped through the gap and discovered the rotund man
had obviously left while she was reading, and an old man dressed in
an oversized tweed coat, dirtied and torn, was behind the counter
engulfed within Smilla’s thin arms. They were about the same height
as one another. Bristol had a large head with a thinning comb-over.
He struggled to extract himself from his wife’s grip. “Easy,” he
grumbled. “Anyone would think you actually cared.”

Smilla batted
him playfully with a hand, but let him loose. “Of course I do, and
you know it.”

Bristol
brought out something small and slim from the inside of his coat.
He held it carefully in his hands. Nettle rose on tippy-toe,
angling to see what he was showing his wife. Smilla squinted,
taking a long moment to take in the leather pouch. Her voice was
thin and reedy. “You did it then.”

“
Course I did it,” smarted Bristol. “Have you no faith in me,
you old hag?”

“I don’t like it,” said Smilla, shrinking away from the
pouch. “I wish you heeded me from the first. We should never have
gotten ourselves mixed up in this.” Her voice sounded worried, yet
there was a certain kind of
told-you-so
in her tone.

“Heed you?” spat the old man, round spectacles perched on
the tip of his bulbous nose. “You were the one who egged me on.
‘Get in with them,’ you said. It was you who got us mixed up in all
of this. And look where it’s gotten us. Heeded you.
Ha!
I should have
heeded my mother. She warned me not to marry you.”

“
Never married me?!” near shrieked his wife, “Bristol O’Grady
shame on you. You can’t do anything right without me. You can’t
even find your hat.”

“My hat
is on my head, Smilla.” Bristol scowled, reaching up to grab it.
Except there was no hat on his head. His fingers pawed the air
where he’d assumed it sat. His wrinkled and chapped mouth puckered
in annoyance.

Smilla rolled
her birdlike eyes heavenward. “You’d lose your head too if it
weren’t for me.”

Bristol
couldn’t let it pass, he glanced away mumbling, “Would have had a
few more coppers to my name, that’s for sure.”

“
What was that?” Smilla snarked.

“
Nothing my dear,” Bristol lied.

“
Shush yourself.” Smilla swatted him on the arm. She nervously
glanced over her shoulder. “She’ll be here any moment.” She
retrieved a soft bundle of material and placed it on the
counter.

I bet that’s one of those strange bulbs again,
Nettle
wondered.

Bristol tucked
the pouch back into his pocket, and gave his wife a grim smile.
“Couldn’t be any sooner.”

Smilla didn’t
like the dark look in her husband’s eye. “Bristol O’Grady, what are
you up to?”

“
Never you mind.”

“
Bristol!” snapped Smilla, “If you’re dragging me into one of
your imprudent, no good ideas-”

“
I’m done with penny pinching,” bit her husband. “This will
afford us a very nice retirement, and if I have my way, youth and
another century to live. And you can thank me later.”

Nettle didn’t know what to make of that odd comment,
what a strange
thing to say.

“
Thank you later?!” Smilla yowled. “You stupid old
fool!”

Bristol
tisked
, but said nothing to defend himself, besides “I’ll find my
hat on my own, you old hag.” He trudged past his wife and
disappeared into the back room of the book store.

Neither the
O’Grady’s nor Nettle had heard the doorbell ring, and now Claudine
stood in front of the elderly woman, her wicker basket hanging from
an arm. “Smilla,” she admonished with mocking timbre. “Surely,
that’s no way to be talking to your husband.”

Smilla
started a little, and pulled her shawl about her shoulders with
gnarled fingers. “If you were married to him, I’m sure that’s the
least you’d be advising,” she mumbled, but she bowed her head
politely.

Nettle felt a surge of relief wash through her.
Claudine, she’ll
know what to do.
Just seeing the lovely Claudine brought a smile to her
lips. She went to greet her.

The laughter
that rang out was light-hearted enough but there was something
unkind in Claudine’s tone. “Yes, you’re quite right. Better you
than I, to be wed to Bristol,” and she delivered a contemptuous
look at the old woman, as if it baffled her that Smilla willingly
chose to marry the old fool.

Nettle
pulled up short, confused at the way Claudine mocked the old woman.
This wasn’t the Claudine she knew.

Claudine
unwrapped the bundle of fabric with long tapered fingers and lifted
an orb high enough to inspect the smoky content. It was indeed one
of those peculiar orbs like the one Smilla had given Jack a day or
so ago. Nettle’s whole body tensed. Inside the bulb was a golden
smokiness, just like the filament drifting from the portly man’s
head who came into the bookstore looking for a Radcliffe Brownlee
book.

Claudine gave a dissatisfied
tisk
. “It’s hardly full... not even half
full.”

Smilla kneaded
her hands, her voice tremulous. “We don’t have many customers-”

“No I
expect not, and you’re more the fool for it,” retorted Claudine
sharply. “I’ve told you before, Smilla, you need to have some of
those silly holiday-fluff books that sell so well in airports to
bring people in here.”

Nettle
hadn’t heard Claudine speak so harshly before, it gave her quite a
shock. She knew she should have made them aware that she was in the
bookstore straight away, but she’d hesitated a little too long, and
now she didn’t know what to do. If Claudine spotted her, she’d
instantly believe she was eavesdropping, and in truth, wasn’t that
what she was doing?

Smilla
cleared her throat and replied tentatively, “You know Bristol, he’s
very particular and refuses to stock those types of
books.”

“Well
that’s unfortunate for you, Smilla,” answered Claudine, one of her
feet making a sharp clack on the wooden floor as she stamped her
foot in irritation. She produced from the wicker basket a small
brown vial and handed it over.

The old woman
turned it over in her worn hands, her expression crestfallen. “I
thought we’d-”

Claudine’s sapphire eyes glittered dangerously. “You
thought what, Smilla? Earned enough to remove a few more wrinkles?
Take a few more years off your age?”

Nettle drew in a sharp breath.
Whatever did that mean?
Bristol made
mention of something similar earlier.