‘Er, there’s loads of us?’ Snow gestures around at the crowd. ‘And at least half a dozen of us are magic. You can start by flying the perimeter, seeing who’s where for me. You can keep in contact with me via the jackdaws. You speak jackdaw, right?’
Hex pulls a face. ‘I have trouble with their dialect, and they’re always swearing.’
‘Don’t care. Chop-chop.’
‘Please?’ Jack asks him gently.
‘Fine.’ Hex transforms, shaking off his clothes as he does. He takes off, in a great rush of inky black feathers.
‘Oooh,’ gasps the watching crowd.
‘Jack’s boyfriend is a rook,’ breathes little Tiler Hill in admiration.
‘A raven,’ corrects Jack, picking up Hex’s shirt and breeches. His mouth twists with a strange, bitten-down smile.
‘Oi.’ Snow snaps her fingers at one of the Dwarves. ‘Oi. You lads go ahead, start corralling.’
‘My pack can help,’ adds Scarlett, pulling up her hood for a controlled transformation.
‘Werewolf!’ shouts Gregor Smithy, delighted. He watches her run off towards the south, along with the other wolves and Dwarves. ‘Haven’t seen one of them since the Littles moved out, way back when.’
‘Aye,’ says Mother Goggins, thoughtfully. ‘The Littles…’
‘The rest of us can spread out and do a sweep,’ Gretel tells them. ‘As far north as the fires will let us go, and then back towards this cave of Snow’s.’
‘It’s not my cave,’ Snow replies. ‘Wouldn’t set foot in there usually, it’s too big for Dwarves. It’s all echoey, puts the wind right up the lads.’
The search of the northern woods is hurried yet gruelling. A few villagers are able to fill buckets from a nearby stream, but they quickly run into a wall of fire and smoke. A few pails of weedy water are going to be about as effective at stopping carnage of this scale as a damson plum would be if hurled in the path of an apocalyptic meteor by an overconfident dinosaur. A couple of the villagers courageously fling their water at the fire anyway. It evaporates with a hiss. They only manage to rescue a dozen or so creatures, trapped beneath collapsed trees, or unconscious from the smoke, before the fire stops them. They do run across many more for whom it’s already too late. Coughing, eyes stinging and with Buttercup still fruitlessly calling for Trevor, they turn back. Hansel’s several attempts to magically put out the fire fall flat: his magic is still too drained from getting the village into the woods. On Gretel’s suggestion, Jack uproots as much foliage in the path of the fire as he possibly can, in an attempt to stop it spreading. Even then, Gretel really isn’t sure if it’ll actually work, or if the huntsmen’s airship will reappear at any moment to continue burning the forest. Once out of the northern woods, they head in a wide sweep towards a large canyon, ushering Darkwood creatures as they go.
Gretel notices that Buttercup has stopped calling for Trevor. She can’t remember ever seeing the Cake Witch so downcast before. If Gretel’s being honest with herself, it’s a bleakness that she shares, reunion with her family aside. Here they all are, standing together, the witches of the south and the north, along with the people of Nearby Village, and for what? To pick up the pieces when the huntsmen crush the Darkwood on a whim. To cower in a cave that even Dwarves find unpleasant. And then there’s Trevor. They can’t even protect the littlest of their own family.
As they draw nearer to the canyon, Gretel sees other groups of creatures, either approaching or already making their way down it along a narrow path. The wolf pack shepherds one set; another lot of creatures are being rudely hassled towards the crevasse by the Dwarves. Gretel can spot Charles the Magnificent amongst other Unicorns in the unhappy herd, as well as Henrietta the Centaur, clutching the Mirror protectively. Hex swoops down and lands next to Snow, a multitude of smaller birds and a couple of very annoyed-sounding Harpies circling overhead.
‘That seems to be everyone,’ he tells them, gratefully receiving his clothes back from Jack. ‘I caught sight of the airship turning back, but the good news is, the fire seems to be quite a thin band. Bear Mountain looks untouched, from what I could tell.’
‘That’s something,’ says Jack. ‘Gilde might have been a pain, but nobody actually wanted her to burn to death.’
‘And, hey,’ adds Gretel hurriedly, ‘if Trevor’s still at her cottage, that means he’s probably still all right.’
‘Hmm,’ adds Buttercup glumly. ‘Let’s get to the cave before the flying machine comes back.’
‘I don’t like the thought of the cave,’ mutters Hansel, frowning. ‘Something dangerous about it.’
‘Everybody hates Big Cave,’ Snow tells him. ‘It’s just really… big.’
Still, Hansel frowns. ‘I must be sensing the flying machine. It must be close. Closer than we think.’
Gretel squeezes his hand. ‘Let’s hurry, then.’
They file down into the canyon. It has, Gretel notes, a large gash in the rock. It’s tall and wide enough for even an Ogre or Wyvern to squeeze through, and the blackness inside it looks very deep indeed.
‘Yummy,’ complains a Dwarf, clambering down the face of the canyon to land on Snow’s head.
‘I know,’ Snow replies. ‘Well, then – everybody in.’
‘No,’ says a friendly voice from within. ‘Everybody out, in fact.’
‘Oh, trousers,’ chorus Daisy and Hansel.
‘What?’ Gretel asks.
From out of the cave’s wide entrance steps a figure – she’s dressed in the black robes of a huntsman, but her hood is down and her mask is missing. A wild shock of dandelion hair and a big, buck-toothed grin greets them with sunny cheer.
‘Morning,’ breathes Hansel.
Behind him, Jack looks confused. ‘It’s, like, three in the afternoon.’
27
Afternoon, Morning
‘Hello, Hansel.’ The huntsman beams. ‘Daisy. And you must be little Gretel Mudd, I’ve heard so much about you. The name’s Morning Quarry.’
She holds out her hand, in a friendly manner. Gretel just frowns. As her eyes grow accustomed to the gloom beyond, she notices that there are many armed huntsmen behind this interloper, their weapons raised. Scarlett trots up to join Gretel, her hands instinctively on the hood of her cape, her lips snarling at the sight of the huntsmen, exposing slightly elongated teeth.
‘Oooh, the Werewolf’s back, is it?’ Morning smiles. She addresses the huntsmen behind her. ‘Such a weird, confused creature. I mean, I usually love dogs, but what is that thing? Man or beast?’
‘She’s neither.’ Snow scowls. ‘If anyone’s confused about her, it’s you.’
‘Oh! And Your Majesty, what an honour.’ Morning dips her shaggy blonde head at Snow in an approximation of a respectful greeting. ‘Sorry about all that dreadful business with your parents. Your mother really took so long to die, didn’t she?’
Snow smiles a dangerous smile. ‘So did your head huntsman, from the remains we found.’
‘Oh, he was an idiot. Had good maps of this accursed forest, though; I had a feeling you’d all try to hide in this big horrible cave if I flushed out some of the woods. Seems like all the huntsmen really needed after all was some fresh new thinking from a fresh new head huntsman.’ She points to herself, proudly. ‘Yours truly, by the way, as from today, thanks to Hansel and Daisy’s help.’