Part 2 - The Lost Charms
Down by the brook, Willow had nothing better to do than to sit on the
banks under the old willow from which she had got her name.
It had been a long night. She had left the Wisptown of Little Mudhaven
under the Hill as soon as the doors were opened at nightfall. Her Finder Charm
had been glowing a very faint pink; a sure sign that somewhere there was a
Charm that was lying unclaimed. How it had suddenly appeared she could not say,
nor could she tell if it was a lesser charm that was close (likely), or a Charm
of Power a long way off (unlikely). However she did know that she wanted to get
to it before anyone else. For most of the night she had been following the
brook down from the Hill.
As the night grew old, and
the moon rose to bathe the landscape in its comforting light, Willow had
travelled further and further from home, carefully skirting around the stone
houses of the Big Folk. Holding the Finder in front of her she had continually
headed in the direction in which it glowed brightest. Throughout the night it
had gradually glowed brighter and redder, but too slowly. She was certainly
heading in the right direction, but it must still be a long way off.
Reaching a quiet, moonlit pool overhung with ancient willows, she decided
to give up for the night. It would not be long before the dawn when she needed
to be out of sight of the Big Folk. She would return to Little Mudhaven, and
set out again tomorrow, and try to pick up the trail from this same spot. But
before returning home, she would have a swim in the pool, and wash off the muck
from her night explorations. Hanging her charm necklace on a convenient branch,
she dived in.
She leant back against the rough, pitted and split bark, enjoying the
moonlit night (Wisps generally only come out at night), while dangling her feet
in the cool dark waters, and schlucking her feet in and out of the mud at the
bottom. The early summer night air was warm, the soft breeze wafting the
scents, and lulled by the quiet rippling of the stream, she dozed off.
With a start she woke. It
was broad daylight; the sun climbing steadily above the early morning mist. But
it wasn’t the light that had woken her, but a tinkling, jangling sound. Turning
towards it, she is just in time to see an enormous magpie pluck her charm
necklace off the branch, and with a hop and a jump and a flap, take off into
the morning sky.
She leaps up desperately after it, yelling. ‘Not my charms, not my charms’.
But it was no use, the black and white thief flapped off lazily over the
fields, the necklace dangling from its beak.
Willow rushes off after it. Battering her way through the dew damp corn,
diving headlong through gaps in hedges, scratching her face and hands, ripping
her clothes, but desperate to keep the bird in sight. Everything seems to be
trying to hold her back. The brambles snatch at her hair, barbed wire snags at
her coat, and all the while her charms are disappearing further and further into
the distance. Wrenching herself free of one more hedge, she pelts all out
across the close-cropped turf of a pasture, leaping over still drowsing sheep,
scattering others. Throwing herself to the top of a fence, she stares in horror
at the stone house beyond. And in more horror at the frantically barking dog
charging in her direction. And in even more horror at the sight of that horrid
magpie escaping over the village, while being mobbed by a flock of smaller
birds. Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get any worse the magpie
dropped the treasured necklace, and flapping harder sped out of sight. With her
eyes Willow followed the necklace as it fell to earth, only to see it vanish
from sight into the middle of a distant group of houses.
‘Oh no’, she wailed, ‘I’ll never find it amongst that lot’, and slumped
back to the foot of the fence, sobbing into the long grass, oblivious to the
sounds of a yapping dog scratching at the other side of the fence only inches
away.
What could she do now? Black despair was settling over her like a
blanket. All her charms gone. How could she search for them in the middle of
the village of the Big Folk? It would take years to replace them, and some of
the old ones might never be replaced. Not even a Finder Charm to search them
out….
She sat up with a start. The Finder Charm. It hadn’t been on the
necklace. She had taken it off earlier in the night to make it easier to use
while she tracked down that other charm. Where was it? She started to rummage
through her pockets. It wasn’t there. It must have been left back at the pool
in the brook.
Cautiously she started to back track, despair having been replaced by a
glimmer of hope. She mustn’t allow herself to be seen by the Big Folk, and she
felt very exposed this close to the stone houses. How she wished for her
Camouflage Charm, or the Transparency Charm. So, keeping to the hedgerow, she
quietly skirted the field, heading back to the brook.
Scrabbling through the undergrowth that lined the banks of the brook,
Willow could not see the charm anywhere. Combing through the long grass with
her fingers, pushing aside anything that got in the way, she searched more and
more frantically. Close to panic again, she sat down in the middle of the
trampled vegetation, big tears starting to well up in the corner of each eye.
Rushing around wasn’t going to do any good; she had to think, and think very carefully about what she had been doing.
Feeling a little calmer she pictured herself in her mind’s eye arriving
at the pool in the moonlight.
She had hung the necklace on that branch over there, on the dead tree
with the flaking bark. Then she had folded up her coat and other clothes, and
placed them on that log by it. And the finder charm. Had she put it in a
pocket? Could it have fallen out in that mad dash across the fields? ‘No’, she
decided, she had placed it on the log alongside the pile.
It wasn’t there now! She
looked on the ground behind it, and in front of it, and all around it, but
nothing. In desperation she heaved up one end of the log to look underneath. As
she did so, something rattled. It sounded like it was inside, but how? Dropping
the log, she prodded at its surface, and felt the bark move. The log was rotten
and the bark had cracked and started to come away from the wood beneath. Working
her fingers into the crack, she grabbed an edge of the bark and pulled off a
piece, and the charm tumbled out into the grass.
Sighing with relief, she clutched the charm tightly in her hand.
Now she could think about what to do next. First she would need to
refocus the Finder Charm to find her necklace. Saying The Words, she felt the
familiar tingle in her spine as the World’s Magic flowed through the charm. She
pictured her necklace in her mind’s eye, and thought of her strong wish to find
it. The charm responded by changing to a deep turquoise glow, which pulsed
strongly when she pointed the charm in the direction of the village. Wherever
the necklace ended up, she would be able to follow it now.
Looking out at the day, she could see that the sun had climbed high in
the sky; the morning mists had long ago vanished. It would be safest to wait
for nightfall before entering the village, but anything could happen to her
Charms before then. She would just have to risk it and go in daylight, but not
across the fields this time. There had to be a safer way.
The Wisps seldom went into the village these days, preferring to keep to
themselves. But Willow had done so on a number of occasions, usually as a
result of a dare with a coveted charm as the forfeit, and then only in the dark
of the night. She knew therefore that the stream that emerged from the Hill by
the entrance to Little Mudhaven flowed down into the village. There it joined
another at a spot that the Wisps had known as Boggy Bottoms before the coming
of the Big Folk. On the other side of the village the stream flowed onward
between the fields in a thickly overgrown channel. If she crossed over to that
stream, she would be able to follow it up to the village without any chance of
being seen.
Having decided on a course
of action, she picked up her things, checking carefully to make sure that
nothing had been left behind this time, and set off. Around the edge of the
field she went, keeping to the hedgerow, as much for the sake of keeping out of
sight as for the hope that she might find something to eat. It had been ages
since breakfast and a good meal was long overdue. As it was, her Finder Charm
was only able to come up with a small cache of hazelnuts forgotten by a
squirrel and a few dandelion leaves. Still, it was better than nothing.
It was the middle of the afternoon before she came in sight of the
village. The stream had certainly been a good place to hide, but it had been so
overgrown that she almost despaired of ever getting to the village. Every log,
twig and bramble had seemed determined to stop her getting through. But now she
had reached the end of the overgrown channel. From here the stream meandered
lazily through the middle of a field, before disappearing on the other side
through a gap between two houses. Willow shuddered at the thought of crossing
the open space, but there was nothing else she could do; the Finder was still
indicating that her necklace was more or less directly ahead. Pausing first to
gather her courage, she steps out into the field.
Keeping by the banks of
the stream, she darted from grassy clump, to patch of reed, to muddy hollow.
Trying to keep out of sight of the houses on the far side of the field, their
open windows staring outward like eyes constantly on watch. Halfway across she
suddenly heard the sound of voices, and a couple of children came into the
field, a large dog bounding out in front of them.
Willow dived, face down, into the nearest clump of reeds, squirming
through the mud into the densest growth at the centre. Hearing the voices
getting nearer, she carefully lifted her head enough to peer over the top of
the stream bank. One of the children had picked up a stick
and was waving it in the air above the dog, which was now barking excitedly and
leaping from side to side. None of them showed any sign of having spotted
Willow. She was just about to slide back into hiding again when the child with
the stick, threw it as hard as possible towards the stream, and the dog
launched itself after it. To Willow’s horror the stick landed in the mud right
in front of her, and the dog was now running at full speed in her direction,
fur streaming and tongue lolling out of its mouth.
There was no time to think, only for action. She ducked her head below
the level of the bank, grabbed the stick and hurled it as far as possible into
the water downstream. As she dived back into the cover of the reeds she caught
a glimpse of a huge dark shape pass overhead, as the excited dog reached the
bank and leapt straight into the sluggish waters of the stream.
The dog had spotted its stick slowly bobbing away from it, and quickly
splashed through the muddy water after it. Willow carefully edged through the
reeds in the opposite direction.
Reaching the other side of her reedy sanctuary, she looked out across the
field to where the stream emerged from a dark hole in an earth bank. If she
could get there she would be safe, she told herself. The hole was easily big
enough for her to walk through, but none of the Big Folk, or their animals
would be able to follow.
Gathering her courage, she took one more look back to make sure that
neither the children nor the dog were looking in her direction, then ran as
fast as she possibly could, along the edge of the stream, and into the
welcoming darkness of the culvert.
For a long time she stood there, her feet in the cool water, her back
pressed against the damp brickwork; panting from exertion and terror, her heart
thumping and the blood roaring in her ears. Slowly she calmed herself, and
quietly promised herself that if she could just get her Charm Necklace back,
she would never, ever come into the village again.
Not daring to go back to the field, Willow could only go on. At the far
end of the culvert a small circle of light glimmered. She could certainly get
out that way, but she could not guess what new terror awaited her beyond it.
There was only one way to find out! Carefully Willow waded upstream, through
the accumulated muck and filth that lay in the bottom of the culvert. The
stench from the water in such a confined space made her feel ill, but still she
pressed on.
She was appalled at the mess and dirt that the Big Folk tipped into their
stream as it passed through the village: where this self same stream flowed out
of Little Mudhaven only a few short miles away the water was as sweet and clean
as you could wish for. But here … Ughh!
Willow shuddered as she trod on something soft and slimy in the
darkness. She decided that she did not want to know what it was.
As the distant circle of light
grew closer and larger she began to see something of what lay beyond.
Momentarily she paused at the mouth of the culvert, then cautiously stepped out
into the daylight, ready at the merest hint of danger to jump back into the
dubious safety of the tunnel.
But no-one shouted, and no dogs barked. Birds sang in the trees, just as
birds always sing in trees. The banks to the stream were a little higher here,
so she carefully climbed up the left bank to have a look over the edge.
A neatly trimmed garden stretched out in front of her. At the far end
there was one of the houses of the Big Folk. More houses were joined on to it
in line that followed a line parallel to the stream for further that Willow
could see. A large tabby cat lay sprawled in a sunny spot by the wall; it
opened an eye just enough to have a look at Willow, and then having decided
that she was neither a) food, nor b) going to provide food, ignored her and
went back to sleep.
On the other side of the stream there was more of the same, with a few
sheds and another larger building set back amongst the bushes. A distant
gardener was busy digging his vegetable patch, whistling tunelessly in rhythm
with the rise and fall of his fork. However he had his back to Willow, and was
paying more attention to his work than anything else.
‘So far so good’ muttered Willow to herself, and as quietly as she could
(which for Wisps usually means in total silence), set off upstream once more.
Holding her Finder Charm out in front, sweeping it from side to side as she
went, watching its light dim then brighten as it showed the way to the lost
charms.
The charm was glowing much brighter now, and was definitely starting to
indicate a direction off to the left, towards the line of houses. She was
getting near – very near. So near in fact that the brightness of the charm
might attract unwanted attention. She whispered a command to it, and the light
faded to a safer level. On the left, the houses blocked any way through, so she
continued up the stream hoping to find a gap, or some other way to whatever lay
beyond.
Alert to every noise, and every unexpected movement in the surrounding
foliage, Willow crept on closer to her goal. Her heart was pounding so much it
seemed that everything for miles around would hear it, but nothing noticed her
stealthy progress. Then up ahead a wall appeared that crossed the stream from
bank to bank, and towered up high above her. Two dark holes at its base allowed
the stream to flow through. It was almost with a sense of relief that Willow
crept into the darkness of one of the holes. Feeling safer she sat down on a
handy stone, while the sluggish waters lapped at her feet.
A sweep of her Finder indicated a direction well off to the left now.
Somewhere on the other side of this tunnel she would have to leave the relative
safety of the stream and start searching in earnest for her necklace.
Looking out from her refuge, she could see the stream going on as before.
Overhead the trees had grown together to create a shadowy tunnel. Just before
the stream passed out of sight, another stream came in from the right and
joined it. She knew where she was now; Boggy Bottoms, the place where the two
streams met, right in the heart of the village.
At the top of the left bank she worked her way through the undergrowth
and looked out across a beautifully manicured garden. The lawn was absolutely
level; the short grass cut in light and dark green stripes that looked as if
they had been made with a ruler. Interspersed around the edges were flower
borders crammed with blooms of every colour, and overhead flocks of butterflies
and bees in a shimmering, fluttering cloud. Somewhere in that lot lay her
necklace.
With plenty of foliage around her she felt safer. She knew she probably
wasn’t, but just felt that she was, and she wanted to hold on to that feeling
for as long as possible. So keeping as much to the bushes as she could, she
climbed the bank and started to circle round the large garden that she now
found herself in. Every so often she would stop to take a bearing with the Finder
Charm, then move on further. By the time she had got half way, she had a pretty
good idea where her precious charms were lying. Somewhere near to the glass
house on the other side, but the line of bushes she was in stopped at the
house, so she would have to cross over the lawn to get there.
She worked her way forward until she reached a point where she could get
a good look around the garden and at the house. Everything was quiet in the
garden. A couple of butterflies flitted overhead, and a lone sparrow was taking
a dust bath on a patch of bare soil up by the house. Music could be heard
playing through an open upstairs window. The quiet seemed to close in around
her as if everything was waiting for something. She hadn’t the faintest idea
what that something might be, and she desperately didn’t want her imagination
to start filling in the details.
Taking a deep breath, and one more quick look, she sprinted out her
hiding place, straight across the lawn and dived head first into the flower
bead on the other side. She lay there with her face pressed into the warm earth
until she had got her breath back, then she peered out again.
Everything was quiet in
the garden. The butterflies had settled on a large bloom disturbing a large
bumblebee. Another sparrow had joined the first, and they were now squabbling
over a dried crust. The music played on as before.
Wriggling forward through
the foliage, Willow came to a mossy brick path. On the other side a tall
ivy-covered wall rose out of what had once been a flowerbed until the weeds had
taken it over. Taking her Finder Charm again she swept it round in front of
her. The light from it blazed sharply as she pointed it towards the old glass
house on the left. She was so close, but still she couldn’t see her Charm
necklace. Creeping down the path, she kept the Finder out in front, following
the direction of the brightest light. Until eventually she was standing in
front of a large box filled with a jumble of empty flowerpots. There could be
no doubt about it; the necklace was somewhere in there.
She climbed up the side and started rummaging through the pots, all
thoughts of caution forgotten. The pots rattled and clattered as she climbed
over them, but she had to find her necklace. At last she saw it lying in a heap
at the bottom of the biggest pot there. She couldn’t reach it from the top, and
if she climbed into the pot to get it she wouldn’t be able to climb out again.
She tried to tip the pot over, but it was too big and heavy, and too tightly
wedged in amongst the other pots. To be so near, yet it was still out of reach
she was almost weeping with frustration.
After a few moments thought, she turned her attention to the smaller pots
around it. By heaving and pulling, and kicking and thumping she managed to move
a few just enough so that she could wriggle under the big pot. Then by
stretching out her arm, she could just get her fingers through the hole in the
bottom, and ever so gently, charm by charm, teased the necklace out through the
hole.
And at last she had it in her hands. She just sat there clutching it
tightly. It was such a relief to have it back that she quite forgot where she
was, and it was several seconds before she realised that she could hear
footsteps coming down the path towards her.
Frantically, Willow scrambled out from amongst the flowerpots, and dived
into the foliage at the side of the path. Too late she realised that in her
panic she had dived the wrong way. Not towards the garden, but into the weeds
against the wall. With the wall in front, and the path behind, she had nowhere
to go and nowhere else to hide, and the footsteps could be heard getting closer
and closer. As she peered out through the leaves, Willow saw a small child
approaching down the path, and heading directly for her hiding place.
Shrinking back into the weeds as far as she could, Willow started
desperately searching through the charms on her necklace, trying to find one
that could get her out of this mess. Finding the Camouflage Charm, and not
having time to find anything better, she rushed through the Words, and wailed
‘Hide Me!’, just as the child reached the edge of the weed patch. Willow felt
the tingle of the World’s Magic start in the base of her spine, then rush up to
the top of her head and out to the tips of her fingers and toes. And as it did
so she completely lost the power to move. Not a finger, not a muscle, not a
twitch. She just stood there, as the precious Charm necklace, slipping from her
numb, immobile fingers, fell into the dandelions at her feet, and a short chubby
arm reached through weeds to grab her and pull her roughly into the daylight.
And there wasn’t a thing that Willow could do to stop it!
Willow found herself being dragged up the path towards the house, held
firmly in the rather sticky hands of a very young girl-child of the Big Folk.
The child had squealed with delight at her find and was now heading back to the
house as fast as she could toddle. ‘Mummy, mummy’, she was shouting as she
went, ‘I found dolly!’ She reached the house and dragged Willow in through the
door, bouncing her over the threshold and thumping her into a startled cat
before it could get out of the way. Pulling open another door, she hugged
Willow in a tight embrace and called to the woman inside, ‘Mummy, I found
dolly! Can I keep it?’
‘We’ll see dear’ she said, ‘But it’s time for your tea now. Why don’t you
leave the dolly with me while you go and wash your hands? Off you go now!’ And
she deftly plucked Willow out of the girl’s arms, and herded her through
another door.
As the child left, she looked carefully at Willow. ‘What a funny looking
thing’ she muttered, ‘I wonder where that came from.’
Willow could only fume inwardly. ‘Well, thank you very much’ she thought
angrily. ‘I don’t think that you’re exactly the best looking thing in the world, but I have better
manners than to say so’. Ignoring, in her anger, the fact that right now she
couldn’t actually say anything at all. Then she was lifted up and propped on a
shelf, wedged between a stack of books and a pepper pot. She could feel her
nose being tickled by the peppery smell, making her want to sneeze. But of
course, she couldn’t even do that. It really was most frustrating.
Left alone on the shelf she had time to work out what had gone wrong. It
had been drilled into her many, many times when she had been a young Wisp, that
to use a Charm you must command it accurately, otherwise you could never be sure
what the World’s Magic would do. And what had she done? She had just told it
‘Hide me!’ Well it had done that all right. As far as the Big Folk were
concerned she was just a child’s toy, and because toys don’t move, the Charm
had made sure that Willow couldn’t either. The trouble was that without being
able to move, and without the Charm in her hand, she couldn’t undo the magic!
She might be stuck like this forever, and she was starting to get hungry again.
The hours passed slowly after that. The child came back and Willow had to
silently suffer being pulled and hugged and bounced off the floor until to her
immense relief it was bedtime. Willow was then placed on a high shelf in the
girl’s bedroom and left to get hungrier and hungrier.
Slowly the room darkened as the evening wore on. Through a chink in the
curtains she watched the sky turn from blue to indigo to black. Occasionally a
star would appear in that tiny piece of sky that she could see, and then almost
imperceptibly slide across to the other side and then vanish. Willow
desperately tried to turn her head to follow its motion, but could not budge
one little bit. More and more she tried, but it was useless. Eventually, worn
out by effort, she dozed off, as she stood there, on a shelf, in a house of the
Big Folk, looking to all the world like a rather funny doll.
When she woke hours later,
the room was brighter. The curtains were illuminated by a cold wash of silver
light. While she slept, the moon had risen in the summer night sky. Its full,
round disk, moving slowly through the heavens, was now shining on the window. A
slim beam of moonlight shone through the gap in the curtains, and struck the
wall somewhere below the shelf on which Willow was standing. The reflected
light dimly lit up the room, showing the child still sleeping peacefully in a
bed in the corner. In the opposite corner, near to the window, there was the
door leading to the rest of the house and, more importantly, the way out. She
mentally sighed wistfully. If she could only get there; but she was stuck where
she was. From the other side of the door nothing could be heard, save a
rhythmic rumble and whistle from a distant room. But that had been going on all
night without apparently alarming the Big Folk, so was probably nothing to
worry about.
After a while Willow became aware of a patch of light near her feet, a
pool of moonlight had crept over the edge of her shelf, and was now inching
towards her. She tried to look down at it, but it was still no use, she was
still as rigid and immobile and ever. She could only watch that beautiful patch
of light out of the corner of her eye.
‘Oh!’ she thought ruefully ‘to be out there in the moonlight again. The
feel of the dewy grass between my toes; the smell of the dawn-fresh air; how
could I have been so stupid?’
The patch of moonlight continued to crawl so slowly up the shelf towards
Willow. ‘The moon is setting’ she realised, ‘It will start to get light soon.
Then another day as a child’s toy. AAARRGGGHHH!’ Not being able to scream out
loud, she did so silently, in her thoughts.
She could feel the moonlight on her foot now; a tingling in her toes.
‘That’s strange!‘ she thought ‘You can’t feel
moonlight’, but she could! Then the tingling started to spread up her legs, out
to the tips of her fingers, and on to the very tip of each individual hair on
her head. And finally, with a sigh, she slumped into a heap on the shelf, as
the World’s Magic dispersed in a shimmering cloud, and swept in a spiralling
mist along the moonbeam, and back out into the world.
The magic that had held her so rigidly was gone, and she could move
again. It felt so good to be able to stretch and wriggle her toes. For several
minutes she just sat there in that glorious patch of moonlight, basking in its
wonderful light. After a long while she got to her feet.
‘Right, now how do I get out of here?’
She walked along the shelf looking over the edge. It was a long way to
jump, and the floor below looked hard. There was nothing on the shelf with
which she could lower herself, and the wall didn’t have enough handholds even
for a Wisp to risk climbing down. She turned back and walked along to the other
end. On the floor below that end there was a large furry toy animal. It looked
to be very well worn, with patches of fur missing and a leg that didn’t seem to
be too well attached. In fact, it looked like it had spent too much time in the
loving care of that child. ‘Perhaps, as long as a week!’ she thought grimly.
Anyhow it looked soft enough to break her fall, and she wasn’t going to
stay around long enough to give that child a chance to do the same to her. She
carefully lowered herself over the edge of the shelf until she was hanging on
by her fingertips, then took one more look down to make sure that she would
drop on target, and let go!
She landed with a soft ‘plumpf’, and an explosion of soft white fluff as
the worn out material of the teddy bear gave way on impact, spewing its innards
into the air. Scrambling free, she quietly apologised to the old bear for what
she had done to it, and left its sorry remains in a cloud of slowly settling
downy fibres. Not daring to delay, she set off across the floor towards the door.
Fortunately it had been left ajar, and she was able to slip through into the
dark interior of the house.
Quietly running along the corridor, that peculiar rumble-whistle grew
louder. Half way along she stopped at a closed door. The sound was coming from
behind it. It really was most unsettling and she couldn’t imagine what could
make such an awful noise. ‘Why do the Big Folk put up with it?’ she thought,
‘It must make it ever so difficult to sleep’.
Taking a deep breath, she dashed passed the door and along the corridor,
thankful to have what must have been some sort of terrible monster behind her.
At the top of the stairs she had to slow down again. These steps were made for
bigger legs than hers, and she had to carefully lower herself down each one.
Slow and tiring work, but it was getting her away from there, so she gritted
just her teeth, and carried on until she reached the bottom.
Once there she had a pretty good idea of which way to go, having been
dragged round the house by that awful child the previous evening. The door at
the end of the corridor opened into the room where the Big Folk prepared their
food, and with a bit of luck she would be able to get something to eat for
herself. By now she really was famished. The door was shut but fortunately hadn’t
latched properly, so by grabbing the edge, and placing one foot against the
door frame, and heaving with all her might, she managed to get it open.
Inside she started to look
round to see what sort of food she could find. There was a big white door that
she had seen the Big Folk taking cold food out of, but though she heaved and
strained, and huffed and puffed, there was no way that she could get the door
to open. Abandoning that idea, she looked up at the worktops high above her
head. ’That’s where food would be left’ she reasoned, ‘but how am I going to
get up there?’ There was a row of doors below the worktop, but they offered no
handholds for a wisp. She looked round for some other way up and noticed that
behind her were drawers instead of doors; and each drawer had a handle. A
perfect Wisp-sized ladder.
Quickly, she scampered up,
and immediately spotted a bowl of fruit. ‘Ah breakfast!’ she cried, and set
about gnawing a hole in the nearest apple. As she chewed, a mischievous thought
came into her head, and she started to shape the hole more carefully. With the
first hunger pangs satisfied, she step back to look at her handiwork. ‘Yes’ she
thought, ‘that looks just like a mouse has been at it. It will give the Big
Folk something to think about. I wonder what those are?’ She had spotted some
grapes, and out of curiosity, plucked one off and bit into it.
‘Oh that is wonderful!’
The juice had squirted out in a jet, and not all of it ended up in her mouth.
She had never tasted anything quite like it. ‘They really know how to live
these Big Folk.’ Finding a couple of pips, she carefully sucked them dry and
popped them into a pocket. ‘I’ll see if I can get them to grow. There’s nothing
to lose by trying.’
Rummaging through some
more containers she came across a biscuit tin and was just finishing off her
breakfast with half a biscuit, when a sudden ‘flip-flap’ sound from the other
side of the room broke the silence.
Willow immediately ducked
down behind the tin, and carefully peered over the top. Not a sound could be
heard; nothing moved. As quietly as she could she crept up to the edge of the
worktop, and looked over. Straight into the big yellow eyes of a huge furry
black cat, as it stalked as quiet as a shadow across the room towards her. It
must have seen her move, because it paused in mid-step, looking up at her with
eyes wide. For a moment they just looked at each other, then the cat crouched
low to the ground, the tip of its tail twitching slowly.
‘Oh-oh! Now I’m in
trouble. Big Trouble’, thought Willow as she dove into the gap between the
biscuit tin and fruit bowl: the nearest place to hide available. She was barely
out of sight before the cat had leapt in a single bound on to the worktop,
landing right where she had been moments before.
With nowhere else to go,
Willow wriggled further into the narrow gap behind the fruit bowl. A big black
paw came groping round one side of the bowl, then a few seconds later, another
one came round the other side, but the bowl was just big enough for Willow to
remain out of reach. The paw withdrew and a deathly silence descended. Willow
held her breath to try to catch the faintest sound, but there was nothing. She
didn’t know if it was still there, or had slunk off in frustration. She decided
to wait.
Minutes went by. Then more
minutes, but each one seemed to drag like hours. Finally the tension got too
much for her. She had to find out where it had gone. So ever so slowly she
raised her head above the edge of the bowl, and found herself almost nose to
nose with her adversary, which had been patiently waiting there, in the way
that only cats can wait.
Without thinking (and
under the circumstances it certainly wasn’t a sensible thing to do) she shot
her hands out, grabbed a couple of whiskers, and pulled for all she was worth.
This was not what the cat had been expecting, and in its surprise it pulled
back in the opposite direction. Again not the sensible thing for it to do, and
the pain in its snout just got worse until with a twang, two sets of whiskers
snapped and the cat shot backwards off the worktop and with a ‘yoowwlll!’ fell
on to the floor.
Willow darted forward to
the edge, and started hurling grapes at it, hoping to persuade it to go away.
It just sat there, rubbing its nose with the back of a paw, and flinching every
so often as a grape bounced off its head. But it wasn’t going anywhere. Its
eyes were merest slits now and its tail was thrashing from side to side in
irritation, as it considered its next move. It was not a happy pussy.
Running out of grapes,
Willow turned to find something else to throw. A nearby flower vase caught her
eye. It didn’t look too big for her to move, so she got behind it and pushed
with all her strength. It slid a fraction of an inch. Leaning against its side
with all her weight moved it a bit more.
Slowly, inch by inch, bit
by bit, she slid the vase across the worktop, until finally it was teetering
right on the edge. Below, the cat was still sat there wondering what was
happening. One more push and the vase toppled, and the cat found out what was
happening. With a tremendous CRASH, the vase hit the tiled floor and smashed
into tiny pieces. Flowers went flying across the floor. Shards of broken
pottery followed caroming off doors, walls, and a cat that had decided that
enough was enough. It bolted for the door, and hurtled out through the cat
flap, leaving it clacking backwards and forwards violently.
Willow was congratulating
herself on her quick thinking, when from upstairs came the sound of voices, and
footsteps heading towards the stairs.
‘Time for me to get out of
here.’ thought Willow, as she scrambled down to floor level. In case the cat
was still about she stopped amongst the wreckage to pick up a jagged shard, and
then followed it out through the cat flap.
Outside the night was drawing
to a close. The sky was brightening in the east, and the birds were already
celebrating the new day with the dawn chorus. A crescendo of birdsong echoed
around the garden. She really needed to get away as quickly as possible, but
first she would fetch her Charm Necklace from the patch of weeds into which it
had fallen.
She trotted down the path,
cautiously looking from side to side, but if the cat was about it was staying
well out of her way now. Behind her, lights were coming on in the house, as the
Big Folk came to investigate the noises that had woken them. Round the next
corner was where she had left the necklace.
Reaching it, she stopped
aghast.
Appalled.
It was too terrible to
think about.
There – searching through
the weed patch where her necklace lay – was a huge magpie. And it looked like
the same one that had caused all this trouble in the first place. She just ran
at it as fast as she could, yelling, waving her arms in the air, desperate to
drive it away. It just lifted its head to look at her, and she could see in its
beak the familiar sparkle of her Charm Necklace. It didn’t rush. After all,
what was there to be scared of in a tiny wispy thing like Willow? Casually, it
opened its wings and with a powerful down stroke, lifted into the air.
But it had been too slow.
At that same moment Willow reached it, and without thinking leapt at it. Just
as it seemed it would slip out of her reach, her hands locked onto its ankles,
and together they rose up into the dawn sky.
Willow pulled herself up
and wrapped her arms around its legs, but she couldn’t do anything to make it
go down, it just kept steadily flapping, getting higher and higher.
As the house and garden
dropped away Willow heard an angry voice, ‘Look at the mess that blasted cat
has made!’ and from an upstairs window the sound of a child wailing ‘Waaaaa! I
want my dolly! Waaaaaa!’
‘Strange people these Big
Folk’ thought Willow. ‘They don’t seem to know how to live quietly.’ The uproar
faded as she was carried up, away from the house, away from the garden, and
away from the village. Where to, she hadn’t the vaguest idea. She was keeping
her eyes closed as tight as she could.
After a while she risked
opening one eye. The dizzying drop below made her tighten her grip on the
magpie’s legs even more. Enough to make the magpie squawk, though it kept hold
of her necklace. It ducked its head to look at the unwanted encumbrance
clinging to it, and as it did so the loop of the necklace swung invitingly
close to Willow. Taking her chance, she let go with one arm, and shot her hand
through the loop, then back reattach her grip on its leg. The unexpected jerk
pulled it free, and once again she had her necklace back.
The magpie decided to deal
with this problem later, and ignoring Willow for the moment, carried on to its
destination. Willow could only hold on and hope she got there before her arms
became to tired to hold on any longer.
Time passed slowly.
Willow continued to cling
on tight until her arms and shoulders started to ache. When they started to
burn with fatigue she gritted her teeth and clung on more. At long last she
felt that they were descending. She opened an eye again. Yes, they were much
lower now. Up ahead was a large oak tree growing in the corner where three
fields met, and the magpie was dropping towards it. As they got closer she
could see a tangle of sticks, high in its branches. ‘That must be its nest’ she
thought. Sure enough a few minutes later the bird landed heavily on the edge of
the nest.
Willow let go with relief and rolled into the
middle, scrambling to her feet immediately. The magpie, which was seriously
annoyed by now, had decided that now
was the time to deal with this irritating problem. It was just about to stab at
Willow with its beak, when she struck first. Swinging her necklace round above
her head, she swiped at the magpie. A heavy charm caught it in the eye, and
with a croak of surprise it fell off the nest backward. Twisting in mid-air it
opened its wings and flapped off to a nearby branch from where it could watch
its nest and think about what to do next.
Willow knew that she
didn’t have long, this was the bird’s
home after all. With one wary eye kept on the magpie, she started to sort
through the charms on her necklace, rapidly considering how each one might be
used to get her out of this fix. She paused at the Camouflage Charm, but no,
the bird knew where and what she was so camouflage would be of little use.
Finally she came to the Shield, one of the oldest charms that she had. It had
been passed down through generations of Wisps, and was a most treasured and
powerful charm, but used a lot of magic. In ages passed, when the World’s Magic
was strong, it would’ve been able to keep a shield around her indefinitely. Now
however, it had to be left unused for long periods until it had absorbed enough
magic for it to be used. As she looked at it, it glowed feebly in her hand.
There wasn’t much magic there, so the shield wouldn’t last long, but that bird
was getting agitated, hopping from foot to foot, and calling with a ‘chak-chak-chak’.
She said The Words,
carefully this time, setting the shield strength to the minimum so that it
would last longer. The World’s Magic tingled up her spine, and a faint, barely
visible sparkle appeared in a dome around her. And not a moment too soon. At
the same time the magpie launched itself at her. She automatically cowered in
the bottom of the nest as it closed the gap, but as it approached the shield it
just slowed to a stop. Not like hitting a brick wall, but more like flying into
thick treacle. Willow couldn’t help but laugh at the look of confusion on its
face, as, for a brief while, it hung there motionless above her. Then it slowly
slid down the side of the shield dome, and fell back into the air.
It flapped off, but as
soon as it had gained height it came in again, with the same result. The third
time, it flew around for longer, until it was a long way up. When it was
directly above the nest it folded it wings and dived straight down. This was a
big bird and it was coming down fast. Willow wasn’t sure that the shield would
be strong enough. It hit the shield right at the top, and she was sure that it
was going to get through, but just before it reached her it slowed to a stop,
and the shield rebounded and bounced it back into the air. A single black and
white feather settled into the nest besides her.
The magpie, obviously
shaken by this unexpected turn of events, flapped unsteadily back to its perch,
and settled there. It ruffled its feathers and then started preening. But its
eyes never totally strayed away from the nest with its unwelcome occupant.
Willow lay back in the
nest laughing nervously. She was safe and sound for a little while at least.
However the shield would not last for long and she was still a long, long way
from the ground. Absentmindedly, she looked round the nest. The floor of it was
littered with the usual magpie junk - bits of shiny glass and metal, odd
trinkets, bits of jewellery. She looked closer. Some of that was real jewellery, with real diamonds and
gold. She knew that magpies were incorrigible thieves, but this one was clearly
in a league of its own.
Then she noticed something
that didn’t fit in with the others. She looked closer but there didn’t seem to
be anything there, just a black circle like a hole in the base of the nest,
except a hole would’ve shown the ground below, and this was just empty black.
Curious, she reached out her hand to stick a finger in the hole, and got two
shocks.
One - there was something there, she could feel it,
though no light came from it.
And two - whatever it was
had sent a tingle of magic right up her arm. It had to be some kind of Wisp
charm, but one unlike anything that Willow had ever seen, or even heard about
for that matter. Cautiously, she placed the palm of her hand over it and opened
her mind to try and ‘feel’ the kind of magic in it - to find out what it would
do. All she got was a feeling of enormous power. She shuddered. That much power
was scary, and she couldn’t understand the charm at all.
Picking it up she found it
was attached to a short length of broken chain, together with a few other
charms. Those were mostly fairly ordinary as charms go; she already had some
exactly the same. But the black one intrigued her. On thing was for certain she
wasn’t going to leave any of them here.
The trouble was that the
Wisp Council was dead against stealing of any kind. Even from a bird that had
acquired its treasure by thieving. But Wisp Charms would do it no good; it
couldn’t use them as the Wisps could.
She hesitated, pondering
the choices available to her.
She could just take them
and say nothing, but the chances of keeping them secret were just about zero.
Alternatively she could make up a story to explain how she came to find them.
But deep down she knew that the lie would be found out eventually. And then
there would be trouble!
Or she could go back to
the Council to ask for permission, and come back here for them later. But that
would take time, and anything could happen to them in the meantime.
No, they were too precious
to risk leaving them. She would take them with her, and when she got back to
Little Mudhaven, she would go straight to the Council to explain everything.
Later, she would find some other non-magical trinkets and return with them in
exchange.
She looked up to tell the
magpie what she was going to do. It wouldn’t understand of course, but she felt
better doing it anyway. But the magpie had silently slipped from its perch, and
was nowhere in sight. However she did notice that the shield around her was
wavering, with magic sparks popping erratically in the air above her. The glow
from the Shield Charm itself was nearly gone; the magic in it nearly spent.
She had to find a way out
of the nest quickly, because in a few seconds more she would be defenceless.
And she didn’t want the bird to come back and find out.
At that moment, with a
final shower of magic sparks the shield dissolved into nothing. At that moment
also, the magpie lunged into sight. The wily old bird had patiently been
waiting on the branch just below the nest where it couldn’t be seen, and now it
seized its chance.
As its beak skewered
towards her, Willow screamed and fell backwards, instinctively clutching at her
Charms. Then everything happened at once.
A brilliant flash of
light, which vanished as fast as it had appeared. A loud ‘ding!!’, as the beak
hit and rebounded off an invisible something. And the air thick with a cloud of
magic sparks which rapidly dispersed and faded away. At the same time the
magpie was left scrabbling ineffectually at a shield that was not only in place
again, but operating at a strength that it hadn’t achieved in centuries. Willow
could only lie there looking on in amazement as the magpie vented its fury on
the unseen wall; the object of its hatred unreachable and smiling sweetly back
at it. Finally it gave up and flapped off.
Willow relaxed somewhat,
and looked about trying to work out exactly what had happened. A bright glow
was escaping between the fingers of her clenched fist. Opening her hand she
saw, as she had expected, that the Shield Charm was now fully charged, and
glowing strongly. Next to it was the mysterious Black Charm, as black and as
enigmatic as ever. Again she tried opening her mind to it, and again had that
feeling of awful power, but this time there was a tinge of smugness; as if the
charm were pleased with itself.
‘That’s ridiculous’
thought Willow, ‘Whoever heard of a charm having feelings. They’re things, they
don’t have feelings!’ She shook her head in bewilderment, for a brief moment
there she thought she could hear the sound of distant tinkling laughter.
With the luxury of safety
and time to think, she started to plan.
‘Right! First things
first’ she told herself, and started to sort through the new Charms to see what
was there. With each one she first found out what it would do, and then said
the Words of Claiming. The Council might take them away from her later, but no
other Wisp would be able to take them, without themselves being subject to the
Council’s retribution.
The Black Charm she left
until last. It lay there in the palm of her hand quite passively, but she could
feel the magic power in it with every fibre of her body. The whole world seemed
to thrum with barely suppressed magic. Willow realised that she was scared of
it. Very scared!
‘Do I really want to claim
this?’ she thought as she looked at it. But she went ahead anyway, and
whispered the Words of Claiming, forcing the words out through lips and tongue
and throat that were suddenly dry with fear. As soon as the last Word was
uttered the power that had been beating against her became muted, and receded
into the background.
The Charm was glad to have
a Master again.
Willow shuddered at that
thought. For good or bad she had claimed it now though, but she really needed
to get it back to the Charm-master in Little Mudhaven as quickly as she could,
to find out just what it was that she had claimed.
With that in mind she
turned her attention to the next pressing matter – getting down from the nest.
The branch that the nest
was on was certainly big enough for Willow walk along, but the burgeoning
early-season growth of leaves made it difficult to see whether the trunk was
climbable. She didn’t want to get halfway down and find herself stuck.
It was also extremely
unlikely that she could persuade the magpie to come back and carry her down.
The magpie was NOT very pleased with her to say the least.
The only other option was
to jump, but it was a long, long way down and would be a very painful landing
without a little magic to help.
One of the new charms had been elegantly
crafted in the design of a dandelion clock. When she had opened her mind to it,
it had seemed to be a charm that would allow a Wisp to drift with the breeze.
As light as a dandelion seed. At least that was the impression that she had got.
Normally, she would try a new charm out in a less critical situation, but there
didn’t seem to be any other way that she could think of.
Making sure that all the
charms were securely attached to her necklace, and that the necklace was safely
around her neck, she climbed on to the edge of the nest and took the Dandelion
Charm in one hand. Taking a deep breath, she said the Words. As the World’s
Magic tingled up her spine she could feel her weight fading away. The merest
zephyr of a breeze lifted her, and sent her floating off through the verdant
foliage of the big old oak tree. She helped herself along by pulling on twigs
and leaves as they came within reach, until she was out in the open, floating
with the wind across the fields.
Tentatively, she tried commanding
the charm to increase her weight by just the smallest amount, and was relieved
to find herself slowly drifting downward. She was just thinking that all her
troubles were over, when the magpie re-appeared. Arrowing out of the tree, it
flew directly at her, screaming its anger at her as it came in for the attack.
Willow had left the shield
in place, but she still tried to brace herself for the collision. Only there
was nothing to brace against. The bird hit the shield and sent the lightweight
Willow flying through the air like a ping-pong ball off a bat. Time after time
the bird came back, and each time Willow was jolted off in a different
direction. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower, usually spinning round like top,
until she started to feel very, very queasy. In desperation Willow told the
Dandelion Charm to give her her weight back, and just as the magpie came in for
another attack, she dropped out of the sky in front of it.
She watched the ground
rush up towards her, and at the last moment commanded the charm to make her as
light as possible.
And drifted the last few
feet to the ground, to land as light as a feather. Immediately she cancelled
the Dandelion Charm, and scuttled off out of sight into the long grass.
The magpie finally
returned to its nest satisfied that at long last it had seen off the intruder.
Many nights later, a dirty
and dishevelled, but very happy Willow crossed one last hill and came within
sight of The Hill. The Finder Charm had guided her unerringly home, and the
others had kept her safe through even more adventures on the way. But they were
only little adventures that she would modestly claim weren’t worth telling in
years to come. Before, of course, going on to do just that.
As crescent moon rose
above The Hill heralding the approaching dawn, Willow came to the secret
entrance to Little Mudhaven at its foot. There she was greeted by a crowd of
family and friends who had almost given up hope of seeing her again, and with
much celebration passed through the Hidden Doors vanishing from the world of
men. Home at last!
