Pip and the Wood Witch Curse (10 page)

The boys were jostling for position, struggling along without being able to see, and sweating under the skin of the beast, despite the freezing cold around them. By the time they reached the clock tower they were ready for a rest. Up ahead a square border of stone framed a squat archway, announcing their arrival at their destination.

“Move over to the edge,” shouted Pip. “Then we can disappear.”

“Harder than you think!” yelled Toad. He was growing tired of steering through the crowd. At times they were almost lifted off their feet by the surge of bodies.

But good fortune came their way when it mattered. A fight broke out, a small scuffle that turned into a brawl, and all eyes were diverted. Some man in a dragonskin had disagreed with a skeleton and they laid into each other awkwardly. Laughter broke as they tipped into a nearby water trough.

All the pushing and shoving had allowed the hogtoothed beast to ease over to the opposite side of the costumed mob. They merged into the shadows of the arches that told them they were right beneath the clock tower.

It was going well. Too well, in fact.

Three figures in gray hooded cloaks and plague masks were following them. Something glinted beneath one of the cloaks. While all about them roared with song and laughter, they simply moved along with the crowd. Not dancing or singing, just waiting for the right moment.

The boys’ feet echoed as they moved toward the steps that led up to the clock, shedding the skin of the hog-toothed beast and dragging it along behind. It was a steep climb, hundreds of wide shallow steps that left their knees aching and sore before they were even halfway. They stopped and looked out through a small window. The procession was still passing below them. It looked magical to Pip. Glowing torchlights, costumes, and color and the snow all around them.

But there was no time for admiring the view. “Come on,” said Toad, puffing and panting. And they hurried on up. They reached a heavy, low wooden door. It was locked.

“Here,” said Pip. “Let me have a go.” He drew a small spike of metal from his pocket and scratched at the barrel until it came free.

“Where did you learn to do that?” asked Toad.

Pip stared back with raised eyebrows and said nothing. Instead he turned the handle and a sure smile crossed his face as he felt the lock release and the door slowly open.

So eager was he for the hooded followers to catch up that Captain Dooley sat bolt upright in his old cloth sack. “Quickly!” he shouted, his voice rusty and still only half awake. “Not a moment to lose!”

A bright moon shone through the large clock face, aiming a pool of light into the lofty space. The timber floor was dry and dusty. Huge cogs and machine parts filled the void they stood in and the children had to crouch and climb to pass through.

A dove fluttered up from the floor, surprising them and making them jump back.

Toad called out gently. “Frankie Duprie, are you there? It’s Toad. Sam’s boy from the tavern.”

There was only silence, but Pip’s keen eye spotted her in the corner, behind the turning shapes of cogs and hammers, her eyes shining. As they drew closer to her she spoke not a word. “Come out, Frankie. You’re safe now,” said Pip, holding out his arms.

With startled eyes she was curled up tight like a spring and wouldn’t move.

“It’s all right,” said Toad. “We’ll look after you now. Are there any others?”

She remained silent and shook her head.

Just then the three gray figures burst in. Such a dreadful sight that the young girl screamed out loud.

“Well, well, well. What have we here?” said the first in a rasping male voice.

“How nice,” cackled the second. “There’s one each.”

The first figure pulled back his hood with a hooked hand and showed his scarred face.

“Jarvis!” said Toad under his breath.

“You take the girl, Hogwick,” instructed the hook- handed thug. “I’ll take the fat one.”

The second unveiled herself. A sharp-faced old crone, a wood witch if ever there was one. She grabbed Frankie, who was too terrified to move.

Jarvis moved quickly, yanking Toad by the scruff of his neck and pulling him close to his steel hook so that Toad couldn’t move without being sliced.

The third didn’t speak. He simply removed his cloak so that he could retrieve Pip, but as he did so the children saw that he had a second pair of arms that joined beneath the first. He used a cane but as he prepared to go to work, he seemed agile.

He snaked eerily on his belly into the workings of the clock and inched toward Pip, clutching and grasping at his feet. His face edged closer: one eye pale and silvery, the other deep and dark. Pip sat tight, hoping that the creature wasn’t small enough to climb all the way into his hiding place. But the thing managed to circle his cane around Pip’s ankle and began to drag him out by his boot.

“Come to Papa Roach, dear boy, don’t be frightened.”

Pip scraped along the dusty floor, yelping and kicking. Pulling on the cane with two hands, the spidery man swung out a grasping hand. Pip ducked and the thing yelped in pain as his hand struck a vertical timber, the fingers making a cracking sound. With only a second or two of freedom, Pip took a chance and headed up into the workings of the clock, disappearing fast.

“Leave it. Bolt the door and we’ll come back for him,” yelled Jarvis, and Roach worked some trickery with the lock before the three of them thundered down the steps with Frankie and Toad held fast.

“Call the others. We need help. Don’t let the little one get away,” Roach insisted.

Pip listened carefully, trying to calm his breathing, and found a spot where he could spy the street. The man with the cane was in trouble. His hand looked broken.

As they disappeared out of sight Pip sat helplessly, knowing that the hooded gray figures would disappear into the now-empty streets with his comrades concealed beneath their filthy cloaks.

Toad and Frankie felt themselves being shuffled along, Frankie beneath the witch’s cloak and Toad beneath Jarvis’s, with the hook held so near to his face that he only dared move his legs. They could hear a horse and two sets of footsteps approaching, but when Jarvis pulled the hood from his head they stood back and let him pass. They neglected to notice that beneath their disguises his companions were forest dwellers.

Round corners, down darkened alleys, up a small rise of steps and onto the flat again. Then out from beneath the cloaks and bundled upward, shoved and dragged awkwardly until their feet found a platform and they passed through a small opening into a damp-smelling space with a rotted seat. The clang of a door. The turn of a key.

Their eyes adjusted. It was immediately obvious to Toad that they were in Jarvis’s black carriage. Above the locked handles on the doors were windows barred with cold hard iron.

Frankie began to weep, but Toad was too furious to be frightened. He leaped to his feet and pulled hard at the bars.

“Let me out, you freaks.”

The carriage rolled along, slipping through the dark streets, and Toad pulled so hard on the iron bars that the whole thing shook from side to side. Jarvis’s grin grew wide. He had what he wanted, and he knew there was at least another child on the move, something to make his searches more exciting. He had been right all along. They were there: You just had to know where to look.