style="font-size:15px;"> Rye cringed as she listened. Too much, Mr Nettle. He was not a practised fibber.
“I’ve never heard any such names,” Lassiter said, glowering at Mr Nettle. “I’ll look forward to meeting this master of tree houses upon his return. This is the shabbiest flophouse I’ve ever seen, but we’ve travelled far and long. Fix us a room and a hot meal while we wait.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, but there’s not much I can do to help. We’re all out of food.”
“A guesthouse without food?”
Mr Nettle bobbed the horns on his head with a nod.
“Are you out of rooms too?” Lassiter looked up at the smaller cottages nestled in the boughs of the oak.
Mr Nettle chewed his beard for a moment. “Yes, yes, full up.” He gave Lassiter and the other glaring Charmers an apologetic smile.
“And yet you just told me you were all alone,” Lassiter said flatly.
“Right,” Mr Nettle said slowly. He pursed his lips. “I did. What I meant was … well …”
“Pigshanks,” Rye whispered to herself.
Lottie must have recognised the severity of Rye’s expression. She didn’t say a word about Rye’s colourful language, just crossed her index fingers and rubbed them together in Rye’s direction. Tsk tsk.
Rye put her own finger to her lips, reminding Lottie to keep hushed, and led her quietly inside where she began helping her with her boots and cloak. The voices below were muffled, but Rye could make them out through the gaps in the tree-house floorboards.
“Perhaps you meant to say that the guests are all out with the hunting party?” Lassiter snarked.
“Yes, exactly,” Mr Nettle said enthusiastically. Rye could hear the misguided relief in his voice. Life in the forest had made Mr Nettle resourceful, but he had no ear for sarcasm.
“Do you know who we are, goat boy?” Lassiter demanded, his voice rising.
Rye threw her arms through the sleeves of her coat and was still pulling on her boots as she ran back to the porch railing.
“Certainly,” Mr Nettle said, blinking his eyes. “You’re Mr Lassiter, and that’s Mr Doom, and Mr Gloom and –” he tapped a finger on his chin before waving at the fourth man – “Mr Desperation, was it?”
Lassiter unsheathed a blade from the scabbard at his hip. He clutched a handful of Mr Nettle’s vest.
“We’re Fork-Tongued Charmers – and no greater nightmare than us roams this forest. We have searched this forsaken wood far too long in pursuit of our quarry, and now, at long last, he’s been found and we are on our way home.”
Rye bristled. Their quarry? Surely he meant Harmless.
“But at the moment we are tired and starving. If you truly have no food, we’ll just have to test the old superstitions.” Lassiter pressed the tip of his blade against Mr Nettle’s chin. “After all, everyone can use a little extra luck.”
Mr Nettle pinched his eyes tight.
“Let him go right now!” Rye yelled from the darkness above them. She wrapped her white knuckles round her cudgel in anger.
Mr Nettle opened his eyes and, along with the Fork-Tongued Charmers, looked up.
“So there is someone else here.” Lassiter nodded his head at one of his companions. “Gibbet, go get whoever’s in there and bring them down.”
Rye’s heart climbed into her throat.
The Charmer named Gibbet moved in the direction of the oak but paused at a sound from the surrounding woods. The night choir had come to life – the first voice, a gravelly growl, took up its song on the other side of the Rill.
Lassiter loosened his grip on Mr Nettle’s vest. “The denizens of this forest are relentless,” he said in exasperation. With his blade, he gestured for the other two Charmers to watch the trees opposite the Rill. They unsheathed their own weapons and moved to the edge of the little stream, angling their lanterns so their light might penetrate the shadows.
The chorus grew louder, their throaty warbles and wicked ramblings calling to one another, excitement in their mysterious tone.
“Gibbet, to the tree,” Lassiter ordered again. “And you two, cut down any creature foolish enough to trifle with us.” He gave Mr Nettle a hard shove towards the two Charmers by the Rill. “Feed the Feraling to them if need be.”
One of the Charmers took him by the shoulder.
“No!” Rye yelled. She pressed herself over the rails, her eyes flaring at them. “Stop it!”
As suddenly as it began, the night chorus fell silent. Mr Nettle and the Fork-Tongued Charmers froze in surprise, none of them more shocked than Rye herself. Then she heard it – a thumping plod followed by slithering through the dried leaves outside the Hollow.
Mr Nettle caught her eye, then glanced at the rowanbranch platform still laid across the Rill.
“Oh my. Shriek Reavers,” he observed quietly, but when his eyes briefly met hers again they were wide with fear. “Climb, Miss Riley!” he bellowed. “Climb!”
THREE LONG SHAPES, low to the ground, scurried over the rowan platform with remarkable speed. Sharp fingers clawed the soil as they dragged their legless, serpentine bodies behind them, black tails undulating like eels through water. The first Shriek Reaver reared up, and Rye saw that its head was elongated like a stag’s, its skinless skull charred the colour of soot. Two jagged, multi-pronged antlers jutted menacingly from its head.
The Hollow echoed with the sound of clacking bone. Dozens of oversized teeth chattered not from cold, but purposefully – with hunger.
Like a cornered badger, Mr Nettle lurched forward and buried his own teeth into the nearest Fork-Tongued Charmer’s shoulder. The Charmer growled in pain, but before he could move to strike Mr Nettle, a Shriek Reaver’s whip-like tendril slashed the Charmer’s arm and sent his lantern flying.
“Climb, Miss Riley! Go!” Mr Nettle called out again, and she saw him dart across the Hollow, a hand on his head to keep his skullcap from flying.
Rye tore back into the tree house and grabbed Lottie by the hand. Lottie’s eyes were wide as Rye dragged her through the main room, to the opposite landing at the top of the spiral staircase. She looked at the enormous oak ascending above them as far as her eye could see.
“Lottie,” she whispered, crouching down to face her and placing her hands on Lottie’s shoulders, “you love to climb trees, right? But Mama won’t always let you?”
Lottie
