Nettle Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters

Nettle
Blackthorn

and
the

Three
Wicked Sisters

PART ONE

By
Winter Woodlark

For
Nigel, Henry and Arthur

my
mother Marilyn

and
niece Lily N.

Nettle
Blackthorn and the Three Wicked Sisters – Part One

Copyright ©
2015 by Winter Woodlark.

All rights
reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner without written permission, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely
coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE

A
Forest with no Name

Nettle
Blackthorn propped her long legs upon Bessie’s dashboard
and wiggled her toes against the flow of hot air blasting from the
air vents. The large map spread across her thighs gently billowed,
as she
busily traced a finger along the thin black line marking
the stretch of highway running parallel to an expansive forest that
took up much of the map. Bessie, the Blackthorn’s motor-home,
gently jostled Nettle about as she rode shot-gun beside her father,
driving alongside the very forest that she was frowning at on the
map. She tapped a finger absentmindedly against her pursed lips and
cast an askew glance out the window to the great wall of
trees.

They’d been
travelling along the long, long, straight road for well
over an hour now, and had hardly come across another vehicle, nor
seemed to gain on the craggy mountain ranges ahead. The scenery was
the same. On one side an immense tussock grassland, on the other a
swathe of swampy marshland hugging the forest’s
tree-line.

The forest was
ancient and pressed so tightly together she could
barely tell oak from poplar from ash. Its trees and shrubs and
vines were so thickly knotted about one another, Nettle assumed it
had never been threatened by loggers or woodsman. She wondered if
anyone would ever dare to approach it with an axe. Even from inside
Bessie, Nettle felt the forests disquieting presence, an unsettling
feeling: ignore it, keep to the road, travel onward, best forget
the forest even exists. Yet, she found she couldn’t.

The
forest reached high into the murky sky and its long shadow
cast a gloomy light across the road, so it seemed to Nettle they
were travelling in never-ending twilight. Enormous twisted roots
plunged into the mire, like a line of roman soldiers marching
forward on a deadly rampage, while gnarled branches stretching
skyward threatened to engulf the sun, if it ever dared to peer out
from behind the clouds. Perhaps it was afraid to, perhaps it had
good reason to hide.

It was peculiar
- earlier, when they’d slowly descended the
treacherous mountain, now well behind them with its tight twisting
roads slick with morning ice, Nettle’s breath had caught in her
throat as a tingling anticipation thrummed through her body while
gazing upon the immense valley below. The forest promised
adventures. As far as Nettle could see, the vista was a thick
carpet of trees caught in autumn’s clutches, awash with fiery hues
of golden copper and burgundy. Rolling hills erupted from within
the forest, and she could see in part a river winding through, yet
nothing on the map indicated these natural features.

“You OK?” asked
Fred, noticing yet again she was rubbing her back
like a farm cat against a wooden post.

Nettle
shrugged, scouring her spine against her backrest. The annoyingly
persistent itch had returned. “Just irritated is all.” She frowned
flicking the map with a finger. “I don’t get it. There’s nothing on
this map that shows what’s in that forest. Not a hill, or a river.
They haven’t even put a name to the forest.”

Fred
’s glasses had slipped slightly and he pushed them back up
his hawkish nose before replying. “It’s called the Forgotten
Wilds.”

Nettle’s
thin lips curled into a lopsided smile. “Huh, funny Dad. I suppose
they forgot all about naming it on the map?”

“Something like that
,” Fred grinned in return, wiggling his thick
eyebrows up and down. They shared the same distinctive
smile.

Nettle rolled her eyes at her father and went back to
investigating the map. But there really wasn’t anything to
investigate, just an enormous wash of light green colour marking
the forest. She continued to squint at it, wondering if she was
going to spot something faintly named within the forest...
sorry, the
Forgotten Wilds
, she corrected with slight derision.

A wooden
cage latched to the wall directly behind her held a thrush perched
on a swing, preening his spotted chest with his little beak. He
stilled for a moment, cocked his head and chirped. Nettle twisted
around in her seat. She reached up and slid a finger through the
cage to scratch his head. “Hey Willoughby, not long now,” she
cooed.

Nettle’s younger brother, Bramble, sat cross-legged on the
couch reading his latest book on chess. Immersed in opening
gambits, he’d barely looked away from the book in the last hour. He
sat across from his cousin, Jasmine, who liked to be called Jazz.
She was rapidly typing a reply to a text on her cell-phone. No
doubt, judging by her smug expression, embroiled in slanderous
gossip with one of her friends from Sister Miriam’s School for
Girls - an elite boarding school her parents could no longer afford
to send her to. The
no-longer-affording
part was something Jazz demanded her relatives
never, ever, give away. Her friends had no need to ever know her
family’s vast fortune had been stolen. Jazz, despite Nettle’s
misgivings, was positive her parents would locate the accountant
that absconded with all their money and by the end of the month
she’d be reinstated back at Sister Miriam’s and out of her poor
relatives moving home.

At
first, Nettle didn’t notice Bessie’s momentum slowing. When it
finally registered, she turned from Willoughby, perplexed. “Are we
here?”

Her
father had slowed the motor-home down to a crawl. To Nettle’s
surprise, they were approaching a road that cut from the highway,
over the marshland by way of a robust but basic wooden bridge, and
headed directly into the Forgotten Wilds. The dirt road looked
freshly constructed, as did the bridge. Whoever had created the
road had simply smashed through the forest with utter recklessness
and little concern for the resulting devastation. Much like a
snow-plough, broken branches and entire trees had been felled and
now littered either side of the road like mounds of rubbish. Nettle
felt quite ill gazing at such thoughtless destruction.

Bewildered,
Fred scratched his head, his long wavy black hair ruffled
slightly. He was well overdue for a haircut.

“Dad?”
Nettle prompted. She quickly searched the map, but as she well
knew, there were no roads that led from the highway into the
forest. Bessie moved slowly ahead, they were nearly adjacent to the
road. Her father stared at the new dirt road leading into the
forest. “Dad,” Nettle tried again. With no response Nettle jabbed
his forearm with her finger.

“Huh?”
Fred near jumped, turning her way. He stared blankly for a moment,
his gaze slipping past her, returning to the road.

Ugh
,
Nettle mentally sighed,
he can be such an absent minded professor.
“Dad, where does it
go?”

Her father
was silent for the longest time. She thought he’d forgotten
and was just about to ask about the road again when he finally
answered in a distant fashion, “I’m not sure...”

A sudden
noise erupted above the soft rumblings of Bessie’s engine: a shrill
horn blasted, startling Jazz and the engrossed Bram.

“What
was that?” Bram queried adjusting his glasses in the same manner
their father did. Nettle looked into her side mirror. Right behind
them was an old fashioned school bus with dark windows. The cream
coloured vehicle blasted its horn three more times. It sounded
agitated and annoyed and wanted them gone.

“What’s their problem?” Jazz
popped her shoulder with attitude as she
adopted a scornful glower.

“I guess
we’re in their way,” said Fred distantly.

Just as
her father spoke, the bus’s engine roared. Its powerful motor
rocked the vehicle from side to side. It gave one last long annoyed
blast, then drove right by, cutting sharply in front of Bessie to
turn off the highway and onto the mysterious road. Dust billowed
beneath the tires; the bus wasn’t about to slow down for the dirt
road and its numerous potholes.

As the tour bus passed by, Nettle tried to see through the
tinted windows. It was too dark. All she could make out were shapes
of figures. The bus appeared to be completely full of passengers.
Nettle took note of the logo on the side of the bus:
Olde Town
Tours.
In
smaller letters underneath, it read “
Take a Vacation Back in
Time.
”
The bus rolled over the bridge and into the Forgotten
Wilds. Soon enough, it was gone from sight. Take a Vacation Back in
Time?
Maybe
it’s one of those role-playing vacations, like those murder mystery
dinners.

Their
curiosity satisfied, both Bram and Jazz went back to analyzing
chess moves and sending snarky text messages.

“Olde
Town?” questioned Nettle. Despite her father’s natural olive hue,
he had paled. He looked extraordinarily uncomfortable, taking
Nettle by surprise. She was instantly worried. “Dad what’s
wrong?”

He
hesitated in answering her. “It’s just... I don’t understand why
anyone would be going to Olde Town.”

Why would that bother him? It was just a tour
bus.

Fred
carried on, “Olde Town was, and always has been,
deserted.”

“It’s a
ruin?”

“Kind
of. Abandoned more like. I went there once, when I was a little
older than you.” He grinned, and Nettle saw a flash of what her
father would have looked like as a mischievous kid. “Boy did I get
in trouble with your grandfather. He was furious to find me
traipsing around in the Wilds.” Nettle wished she’d known her
grandfather, but he’d died before she was born. Fred pointed down
the mysterious road. “You can’t see it from here, but Olde Town was
built on a hill. When I came upon the village, the homes were
mostly built from stone, and quite a few had withstood the
elements, even centuries later.” He tapped his finger against his
bottom lip, his brow furrowed in thought. “I suppose with some
work, they could easily be inhabitable once again.”

Nettle’s curiosity was piqued.
“What happened, why was it
abandoned?”

Her father
shrugged, “I’m not exactly sure, I was never able to find
out what happened from your grandfather. All I know is, something
sinister occurred and the villagers started vanishing.”

Nettle’s mouth had formed an
impressed ‘O’. She looked to the road,
dust hanging in the air. “Guess it’s not deserted
anymore.”

“No,” agreed Fred
, with one final concerned glance at the dirt
road, “It’s also not far from the cottage.”

Nettle’s
murky green eyes, the same shade as the swampy marshlands they
travelled beside, lit up. “Really?” She scanned the road ahead,
expecting to see some sort of neon road side sign flashing
‘Blackthorn Cottage This Way!’ Which was quite a ridiculous notion,
as she realized she hadn’t spotted any sort of electricity pylons
anywhere on the highway.

Fred
drove forward, leaving the new road to Olde Town behind
him. He drove at a slower pace. Like his daughter, he was scanning
the forest’s tree-line, not for a bridge and driveway as Nettle
presumed she should be watching for, but a pair of hawthorn
trees.

“
There,” he said triumphantly.

“What?”

“Right
there!” Her father gave her a wide grin. He tossed over his
shoulder, “Hold on everyone.” Fred took great glee in driving
Bessie off the highway. The motor-home lurched as she rumbled over
the embankment and into the marshland.