Chapter 16
Dreamcatcher
As I shift the tent flap to one side the pungent, earthy smell of cheese surrounds me. I wrinkle my nose and step through. Something feels wrong. Slowly I tilt my head back, then gasp. The ceiling seems to stretch on forever, stars twinkling above me like I’m stood in a forest clearing at night. I stretch an arm up, eyes wide, expecting to feel cloth, but there’s just cool air. A breeze ruffles my hair sending a shiver down my spine.
A breeze inside a tent?
Alice steps in behind me. “Ugh! It smells like our fridge in here.”
“Welcome! Is it Brie you’re looking for?”
My head snaps round at the sound of the voice.
Off to our right, sat at a table covered in green velvet is a lady with light brown skin and long dark hair that flows over her shoulders. A spotlight shines down from somewhere above, pooling in a circle of golden light on the floor around her.
I narrow my eyes; pretty sure she wasn’t there a minute ago. Or maybe she was? My brain flops in my head like a fish out of water.
The lady runs a hand through her hair. “Ricotta a problem that needs solving?” She gestures to two chairs that seem to have magically appeared on the opposite side of the table.
“Wicked weird,” Alice whispers. “I reckon we’ve seen it all now.”
“Oh,” the lady smiles. “You haven’t seen much at all. Not yet.”
“You’re Martha?” I ask.
She laughs: a sound like music floating through open windows on a summer’s day. “I am. Come, sit a while. Let me put your hearts at cheese.”
Alice raises her eyebrows and looks sideways at me. I shrug and we go to sit.
Martha smooths the velvet cloth on the table with her hands, many bangles, gold, silver, copper jangling on her arms. Each of her nails is painted a different colour. “Is it cheese you require? Or something else you desire?”
Alice leans forward. “We’re looking for Hazel. Garvey told us you could show us the way.”
Martha sits back and places a finger on her lips. Her green, green eyes seem to look straight inside me. My cheeks flush hot. I swallow. “Can you help us?”
“First you must lay your curds on the table.”
Alice tips her head to one side. “What does that mean?”
“I think she means this.” I slide the card Garvey gave me from my pocket and place it down, then turn it so I see the knight stood, not falling.
Martha reaches out a slender hand. “Ah, The Tower. One of my favourites.”
“Garvey gave it to me,” I say.
She nods. “And Digby gave it to him. And Harvan to Digby, Gail to Harvan, Blythe to her.” Her fingers lightly touch the card. “It has meant much to many and always been given when it should.”
My heart flutters and I reach out to take it back.
Martha’s fingers press down, stopping me and I frown. Alice bristles beside me but says nothing.
“Do you know the meaning of The Tower?”
Both me and Alice shake our heads. I keep my hand on the card, my knuckles whitening. Finally, Martha slides her fingers off and sits back. “Change. Sudden and intense change. Loss. Tragedy.”
Alice makes a small noise in her throat, and I put a hand on her shoulder. “You ok?”
She runs her finger over the table, making a small, dark circle in the cloth. “Things change.”
A small smile lifts the corners of Martha’s mouth. “Life is change. The Tower is one of the most feared cards, but,” she holds up a finger, “it depends on how you look at it.”
I reach out and spin the card around, so the knight is falling for us, upright for Martha.
“Yes,” Martha says. “The Tower can also mean a new beginning, an awakening. These things should not be feared, although they often are.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I see it now. See it clearly. Everything I’ve been doing wrong, everything I should’ve been doing but haven’t. Martha’s words are so close to what mum told me before we moved: don’t look at it as the end of something, it’s the start of a new life, a new beginning – for all of us.
Steely determination fills me from my toes upwards. It spreads out through me, surrounding my fast-beating heart: calming it. “We need to go now,” I say. “We have a friend who was resistant to change, and it got him in a bad situation. We going to try to get him out of it.”
Alice’s eyes meet mine and she nods.
Martha’s eyes travel over us one last time before she stands. “The exit is where you want it to be.” She takes a step backwards and the darkness seems to wrap around her like cloth. She fades. “Fare thee well brave travellers. Gouda luck.”
“Wait!” I say, too loudly. I clear my throat. “Where do we go?”
“You know,” comes the whispered reply before silence surrounds us and we’re alone to find our way. My eyes scan the darkness.
There.
A tiny chink of light, tinged with green.
My eyes narrow. My heart thuds.
Alice’s chair scrapes back and she stands. “That was not helpful.”
I push myself up. “I’ve got a strange feeling it was. Follow me.”
“Where?”
I step towards the tiny chink of light and press both hands flat together, hold them out in front of me. A small vibration passes up my left arm and I smile. This feels right. Rotating my hands while keeping them pressed together I find a small crease. It’s like sliding your hand between two thick curtains. As I open my hands wide Alice gasps behind me. The darkness flies open like a tent flap revealing a small cottage in the woods. It’s like you’d get in any book of fairy tales. In fact, it almost looks unreal. Two dimensional.
As we step through, the scene wraps around us and begins to move, like someone just un-paused it.
An old woman stands stirring a large black cauldron. She wears a red headscarf and is bent nearly double, crooked nose close to the edge of the pot. We’re so close to her, I can’t believe she’s not seen us. The steam coming from the cauldron is pungent – like a cross between mint and fresh paint. It totally reminds me of the stuff mum puts on my cuts and bruises, the stuff that stings like heck and makes your eyes water.
There’s a swish of cloth behind us and I turn to see the scene roll back into place. Once, at the cinema they turned the projector on as the curtain pulled back and some of the picture hit the cloth. This looks like that. Like the trees behind us are printed onto cloth, they fold and ripple as they shift back into place. One half of a tree trunk meets the other and the black of Martha’s tent is gone.
Alice walks towards where the join was. I hold my breath, pulse throbbing in my throat. She passes through the spot and carries on for a few steps before slowing, then turns. “The door back is gone.”
My heart has been tempered: made strong. Like my foil it might look the same, but it’s not. Not one bit. “We’re not going back,” I say. “We’re going forwards.”
“Eh? What’s that, young knight?” The voice is cracked, burnt around the edges. “Do you come for my new concoction?”
I turn to face the old woman, sniff the air again. “What is it?”
“I call it ‘Witch Hazel’s Marvellous Magical Salve for the Healing of All Cuts and Scrapes.’”
“It’s a bit of a long name,” Alice says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m sure you could just shorten it a bit.”
She stops stirring and stares at me, purses her lips. “That’s not a bad idea, young knights.”
Hung along the edge of the cottage’s roof are hundreds of dreamcatchers like my mum used to hang outside our back door. A wooden ring with different coloured strands, all woven into a pattern. Rows upon rows fill the eaves of the house. Mum always said ours was there to ward off evil spirits and keep us safe.
I shiver.
Why would someone need so many of them?
Hazel stands and reaches up. For a moment she seems to grow, her back no longer bent; a long-fingered hand reaches out, its skin smooth and glowing. I blink and the old lady is back.
She hobbles towards me, and I take a step back. “Do not fear,” she says. “Things aren’t always as they seem.”
I plant my feet to steady my legs. “I know.”
Hazel holds out the dreamcatcher in a wrinkled and spotted hand that reminds me of gran’s. “Take it. It may be of some use in your quest.”
I reach out my hand and take it from her. The wooden hoop has four strings woven together in a web-like pattern: red, green, blue, and gold.
“Remember it when you are lost, when you need a guiding light, or can no longer breathe.”
Alice comes over and stares at it. “What do you mean, when we can no longer breathe?”
“The future is yours to find. The quest yours to complete.”
“Garvey told us you could show us how to get to Fae.”
Hazel turns away and begins to stir her cauldron, murmuring to herself as she does.
I step forward but Alice puts a hand on my arm. “Wait.”
I nod and slide the magic bag Barnabus gave us from my shoulder, place the dreamcatcher inside and wait until it disappears then sling the bag back on my shoulder. It still feels like it’s empty. Bizarre as.
Hazel takes a deep breath of the steam from her cauldron then turns back to us. “The gate to Fae is close by. Closer than you think. Take the path there.” She points to a small dirt track that leads off into the woods behind her house. “Follow the bluebells.” She cocks her head to one side as if listening. “Do you know that bluebells are the flowers of Lodinitus? When you see them in woodlands you can be sure that the first King of Fae once walked there.”
“Amazing,” Alice says, real warmth in her voice.
Hazel continues to stir the foul-smelling liquid. “You will need the key also.”
Butterflies flit in my stomach. “Key?”
“I will teach you. Listen close:
1,2 Buckle my shoe.”
“Hang on,” I say, stopping her, “that’s just a kid’s rhyme.”
Hazel cackles again, louder this time. “Children know much that adults have forgotten. Don’t make the same mistake as many before. Now listen, and remember:
1,2 Buckle my shoe,
3,4 Knock at the door,
5,6 Pick Up Sticks,
7,8 See the Gate,
9,10 In the Fae’s Den.”
“Isn’t it 9,10 a big fat hen?”
Hazel coughs and splutters. “Do not say that once you have begun the ritual. The last person to do that got squashed by said hen as it dropped from a tree above them.” She grins showing only three teeth. “I did warn them, as I warn you now.”
Alice steps forwards. “Well, I refuse to come this far to get flattened by a giant hen!”
Laughter bubbles up and out of me.
Alice grins at me. “What?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.” I turn to Hazel, point to the path that leads off into the trees. “So we go there?”
She nods. “Where the royal bluebell sits alone, where the path ends, where three quarters become four. You must draw a line with your sword, and then cross it.”
Excitement sparkles inside me. Now, the adventure really starts.