Pip and the Wood Witch Curse (3 page)

Pip had no idea what to expect, except that he knew the snow was thicker here. He heard the crunch beneath the wheels and felt the slipping and sliding of the carriages.

Much winding and twisting followed. Perhaps they were close to stopping, most likely working their way down some back alley.

They halted abruptly.

A crunch and squeak of feet came through the snow and a soft glow was visible. Pip could hear a blur of conversation through the whistling wind.

A sniffing sound came close. Pip ducked his head and tried to quell the noise of his rumbling stomach. Something brushed against the canvas and then a slimy voice cut through the thin air.

“I can smell them. They’ve been here. I’d know that rotten stink anywhere. Mr. Van Delf, you have something on board!”

“Theater props, Mister Jarvis. Nothing but theater props. We go through this every time. Now if you don’t mind, it is the dead of night!”

“I’ll take a look, if you don’t mind.” Pip heard the canvas being untied at the corner and saw the light grow stronger as a lamp was lifted inside. He held his eyes shut tight and stayed as still as possible. A moan of disappointment was all that Pip heard before the canvas flap dropped back into place.

Jarvis turned away leery-eyed, snarling and mumbling to himself. He knew that something wasn’t right. That nose of his was too trustworthy to be wrong.

He walked away, his cloak trailing in the snow.

The train of carriages continued before coming to a stop nearby in a courtyard of tall timber-framed houses. Pip listened carefully as the horses were stabled and people moved around in the dark. What if they unveiled him right there and then? Whatever would he do?

But the noise died down and the voices petered out. The crunch of feet stepping into the distance was the last thing he heard.

Pip waited. For a good while longer he stayed where he was, but eventually the stiffness in his body was unbearable. His first few movements were painful as he lifted the flap and an icy wind rushed through him. He felt around in the dark, reached for the animal skin, and clambered out, knocking things here and there. Snowflakes were falling softly.

If you had been there as Pip emerged you would not have seen a small boy. You would have seen a dreadful creature with hog’s teeth and a wolf’s head, stepping awkwardly through the thick snow and laying the most frightening shadows across the doorways of the buildings as, for the first time, Pip discovered the wonders of Hangman’s Hollow.

Jarvis was long gone by now. If he had waited longer, he too would have seen the beast, creeping along in the snow with the drifts sweeping up around him. But he had grown tired and now he was slumped into his chair with his feet on the brickwork of the fireplace. Meager flames struggled and he held the flat of his right hand out to salvage what heat he could from the embers, his fingerless glove outstretched.

“I’m getting close, Esther. I’ll find them. Wherever they are,
who
ever they are. I’ll find them all.”

“Such a long time since you had any success,” Esther croaked. “Not a single prisoner in the forest keep, not for a long time. And to think the last ones escaped … Dear oh dear! Perhaps you’ve lost your touch.” Her feet were clamped to the mantelpiece and she preened her feathers with her beak. She did love to wind his cogs, but it always came at a cost.

“Feathered freak!” he spluttered.

He pulled the hook from his arm and hurled it toward her. It missed and lodged itself into an oak timber as she scampered across the lintel, sending papers and candlesticks crashing into the hearth.

“And you’ve lost your patience,” she continued.

He ignored her and went back to warming his one hand.

Silas was different. There was a stillness about him, a brooding presence that somehow set him apart from the others.

“All crows are equal,” Esther would squawk, but Silas knew how inadequate she felt in his company.

He was always the first to know about everything. It was his keen eye, and his patience. So of course it was he who found something in the snow, something that made his heart thud and that he knew would set the woods alight with excitement.

Pip could see only a snowy-white labyrinth of streets and alleyways, fairy-tale towers and winding stone staircases. Lantern lights spread a magical orange glow across everything. Here and there, where the overhangs jutted out, the snow was only a fine layer and for a moment it felt good to walk on solid ground.

But there was a feeling as he walked, a sensation of dark and emptiness. As if something had happened here, something that killed the fairy-tale magic of the winding streets.

The draw of torchlight lured him through an archway and up some steps, with his hog’s teeth pointing forward and the brush of his tail dusting behind him.

A tall, wide building loomed down at Pip, with little windows and a low squat door with huge hinges that swirled and curved. A faded sign creaked gently overhead—the Deadman’s Hand.

What happened next sent Pip’s heart racing at such a rate that it felt like it might, at any minute, pop out of his top pocket.

A hand lunged at him from a half-open door and pulled him quickly inside.

It had taken him by the scruff of the neck and lifted him right off his feet, hauling him in like a rag doll. The door slammed shut. A mound of snow fell from somewhere above and landed with a soft thump upon the ground.

Pip looked up. He was now arranged untidily among a collection of small wooden barrels with his arms and legs in knots. Attached to the other end of the arm was a huge man, tall and wide with a wedge of black hair and spectacles perched on his nose.

“You should be more careful, son!” he said, pulling Pip back onto his feet.

“But wha—”

“Don’t talk. Move,” he continued as he pushed Pip off through the back rooms of the inn.

Back outside, Silas had heard the crunch of footsteps through the snow. He had been sleeping soundly in the recess of an archway but he was always on alert, even when he rested.

He took a moment to come around before he flew silently through the air, stretching out the long fingers of his wings and following the disturbance upon the ground. Up he went, through Cleaver’s Walk and into Stones Alley.

He rested atop an ugly, carved stone face that served the spouts and gutters of the priory roof. He looked down, tucking his beak into the plumes of his chest. Under the dance of lamplight Silas hopped downward with his wings out until he was up close and inspected the imprints that broke the perfect layer of white. His head lifted to one side.

There in the snow were the smallest footprints he had seen in a long time. Perfectly formed, deep and crisp and clear.

“Children … on the move!” he cawed excitedly, in a long low sneer. “Children indeed. And by the looks of it, only moments ago!”

As the snow continued and covered up the fact that the prints had ever been there at all, he raised his wings once more and set off excitedly toward the Spindlewood, where he knew he could barter with his newfound wisdom.

Pip saw everything fleetingly. A large room with a roaring fire and shadows of drinkers stooped over tables or nestling in the alcoves. Noise spilling out from every corner. The stale smell of ale and tobacco hanging in the air. Thuds and clunks and clangs mixed with shouts and bellowing laughter and the gentle hum of background music from a fiddler.

“My name is Sam,” said the huge man. “Where are you from?”

“Not here,” said Pip. “Far away!”

“How on earth did you get inside these walls, boy? Didn’t your mother ever warn you about Hangman’s Hollow?”

“I don’t have a mother, sir.”

“What’s your name then?”

“My name is Eddie Pipkin, but everyone calls me Pip. Did you say Hangman’s Hollow? The place where—” But he was cut off.

“Look, Pip, just don’t make any noise. Stay here,” Sam urged, squeezing him into a small cupboard. “When it grows quiet I’ll bring you something to eat.”

“Thank you … I think!”

“You’d have frozen to death out there,” said Sam. He was about to leave when he turned back.

“Listen. If you understand nothing else, make sure you understand this. There are no children here. You mustn’t let them find you.”

He closed the door and Pip was left alone in the darkness. And as he sat and waited he wondered about all the things he had heard about the hollow.