The crevasse in the rock isn’t very far away, but by the time Gretel and the others get to it, Buttercup is extremely stuck down it. Only the top half of her head is visible.
‘Buttercup!’ cries Snow, running over. ‘Can you breathe?’
Buttercup just looks away.
Snow growls with frustration. ‘Trevor, please ask Buttercup if she can breathe.’
‘If she can call for help then she can breathe,’ Gretel tells her. ‘Buttercup, how in Myrsina did you manage to get wedged in there like that?’
‘I got into a tizzy,’ Buttercup admits. ‘I was only up to my waist at first, but then I grabbed at the rocks, and… and these stupid hands of mine! I got trapped in fudge and it just made me sink down further. And I think the cold’s frozen it.’
‘Sorry,’ mutters Patience, looking down at the ice spreading over the already frozen fudge fissure, ‘a lot of that’s me. I’d better go and… haunt a tree or something, till you’re out.’ She vanishes, and somewhere off in the trees beyond there is the unmistakable sound of Patience practising her haunting on an unsuspecting owl.
Gretel tests the frozen cake with her heel. It feels like frosty, dense soil.
‘Good news is, there’s still a bit of give to it,’ she says. ‘Do you lot have any spades?’
‘There’s a couple by the cesspit,’ Hex tells her. ‘I can fetch them.’
‘I’ll help you,’ offers Jack.
Hex drops his head. ‘You don’t have to do that, I can manage.’
‘You can manage,’ echoes Jack flatly. ‘You can carry two big spades.’
‘Yes.’
‘With your one arm.’
Hex sighs. ‘OK. You can come.’
‘A boys’ trip to the cesspit it is, then.’ Jack grins his do-not-trust-me-with-your-silverware grin. ‘Lucky me.’
‘Careful when you pass by the cottage,’ calls Scarlett. ‘Best not to wake Gilde.’
Gretel sits down next to Buttercup, removes her prototype climbing winch from her belt and starts to dismantle it.
‘Why do you do that?’ she asks Scarlett.
‘Why do I do what?’ Scarlett asks in return. She watches Gretel’s studious undoing of her own handiwork, her head cocked doggishly. ‘And what are you doing?’
‘Oh, she’s always tinkering,’ says Snow. ‘Taking one thing apart and turning it into a different thing. Buttercup, are you cold? Shall I fetch you a blanket?’
‘We can use the main wheel as a pulley,’ explains Gretel briefly. ‘Why do you let Gilde boss you about so much? She’s a bitter little old lady; you’re an actual Werewolf.’
‘Admittedly, right now I’d only be able to put the blanket over the top of your head,’ adds Snow, ‘but still. Could help.’
‘Wolves are pack animals,’ Scarlett tells Gretel. ‘We understand hierarchy. Gilde was the first of us, she took us in.’ She nods down at the hapless Buttercup. ‘Like that one, and I notice you’re all running around after her, even though she’s the weakest of your pack.’
‘Hey,’ whines Trevor, ‘don’t say that.’
‘Sorry,’ replies Scarlett with a friendly matter-of-factness. ‘Second weakest. I keep forgetting about you, spider.’ She looks across at Snow, who has taken off a badger pelt from around her waist and is trying to lay it in a way that might keep Buttercup warm. ‘Would it help if I went full wolf and started digging with my claws? Break the ground a bit before the men bring the spades?’
‘You’re very helpful, for a Werewolf,’ says Gretel, quietly working away at the winch, ‘aren’t you?’
‘What do you mean, “for a Werewolf”?’ Even while mildly affronted, Scarlett remains largely affable. ‘Have you just never met a Werewolf before? We’re friendly creatures, we love making ourselves useful. We have to be able to integrate into human as well as wolf societies. Apparently, manners aren’t our strong point in either type of social setting; sometimes it’s hard to remember what’s considered rude in which form. All I’m saying is, be glad I’ve learned to stop sniffing people’s bums while I’m this shape.’ She scratches the inside of her ear, finds something in there and eats it.
‘Hmm,’ mutters Gretel. ‘It’s a pity.’
‘What?’
‘Well, think of how friendly and helpful you could be if you didn’t have to obey Gilde constantly telling you not to be.’ Gretel is finally able to pull the inner wheel mechanism out of the winch. ‘I can only imagine how useful a Werewolf would be on our team. Once our Ghost had got used to not being the only supernatural any more, of course.’
Scarlett’s face creases with thoughtfulness. ‘Hmm.’
‘Snow, stop it!’ Buttercup’s voice is even more muffled than before, from fully underneath Snow’s badger pelt. ‘Now I can’t breathe!’
‘Sorry!’ Snow snatches the pelt from the top of Buttercup’s head. ‘Wait, does that mean you’re talking to me again?’
‘No!’
12
Seduction in Spades
‘Not far now,’ Hex tells Jack, as they stumble through the darkness.
‘I can tell,’ Jack replies. ‘Ground’s softer here.’
Hex shoots Jack a quick glance of distaste.
‘Well, you’re not going to be able to dig a cesspit in rock, are you?’ says Jack.
‘You know a lot about cesspits,’ Hex replies.
‘I grew up poor,’ Jack tells him.
‘Are you not still poor?’
‘Not as poor as I was.’ Jack claps Hex gently on the ‘good’ shoulder. ‘Got bed and board in a genuine haunted house nowadays, got cleared of murder and now I’m on a bracing night walk in the mountains with a mysterious stranger; my life’s just getting better and better…’
Hex shakes Jack’s lightly lingering hand off his shoulder. ‘Stop it.’
Jack seamlessly switches his expression to one of wounded innocence. ‘Stop what?’
‘You know what. I know Gilde said I’d be flattered, but she was just… teasing.’
‘Does she tease you a lot, then?’
‘It’s just her… funny little way.’
‘Oh. OK,’ replies Jack. ‘We all have our quirks, I suppose.’
‘Such as deliberately singling out the most useless and isolated member of a group and following him out to the privy to try to sweet-talk him into leaving his people and joining yours, like he’s some desperate, needy child? Quirks like that?’
‘Woah!’ Jack tries another winsome smile, still with emphasis on the innocence. ‘Where did that outburst come from? I’m just helping you fetch spades. I’m not doing what you think I’m doing, and I certainly don’t think any of those things about you. Why would I think you were useless? You turn into a bird!’
Hex turns his face away from Jack. ‘No I don’t. I got turned into a bird by a witch, along with all my brothers. My sister Septa was a witch too, and she almost died bringing us back. Only she ran out of time with me, hence the wing. None of this is my power. This is the magic of two witches, at war with one another over what shape my body should be. And the more powerful of those two witches is the malevolent one who wanted me to stay a bird forever, just to hurt my sister.’ Hex snorts a small laugh. ‘None of this is even about me. I was just… there. So, yes, I’m the useless one. I wouldn’t expect someone who can summon hundred-foot vegetables to understand.’ He stops beside a small wooden shack that smells strongly and distinctly of poor drainage. A couple of spades rest against its wall. Hex snatches one up and shoves it into Jack’s hands. ‘You should have sent your spider to try to talk me round; at least he’d have seen eye to eye with me, rubbish one to rubbish one.’