‘How many live in the Citadel, Daisy?’
Daisy ponders this. Unlike Hansel, she’s actually been to the Citadel, selling baskets at the craft market. ‘Ten thousand?’ she hazards. ‘Thereabouts?’
‘Ten thousand people.’ Hansel can’t even imagine ten thousand people; the biggest place he’s ever been to was Ham, when his step-parents bought a new thresher a few years back, and he’d been so unnerved by the clatter of hundreds of boots and horseshoes on the cobbled street that he’d ended up spending most of the trip hiding in the cart. Yes, the Mudd twins were raised by both a stepmother and a stepfather. Hansel’s never bothered to ask about birth parents or how the whole ‘two step-parents’ thing actually works. There’s never seemed to be much point, since they all love one another anyway. Mudd is, after all, thicker than water.
‘What I was shown was a warning,’ he tells Daisy. ‘We can’t just leave ten thousand people to the terrible fate I saw.’
‘Hansel, are you seriously saying…?’
‘Yep,’ Hansel tells her. ‘I think… I think we need to go to the Citadel. We need to help them.’
3
And All That Other Bit Be Monsters as Well
Snow’s latest strop is mercifully short-lived. She returns after half an hour or so, to Buttercup’s coos of soft concern and offerings of scones. As Gretel had been expecting, Snow makes no mention of the argument that had preceded her walking out, nor of the fact that she had clearly forgotten the Mirror and needed to come back for that anyway. Gretel had not, however, been expecting Snow to demand to see the map again, or ask to see Gretel’s ideas for an excursion north if they were to leave, say, tomorrow at dawn.
Gretel unfolds the map of Darkwood drawn up for her by Snow’s birds. No matter how many times she uses it, she’s never quite prepared for just how bad it smells. Everyone reels away from the stench of it, with the exception of Snow, who is very used to the stink, and Patience, whose sense of smell died with the rest of her.
The map is full of messily drawn details of the forest’s south-west corner, but to the north and east is a blank.
Patience leans in, a piece of charcoal telekinetically raised next to her.
‘OK,’ she says, ‘so, the huntsmen’s scout parties weren’t able to chart the forest’s interior anywhere near as well as you have, but there are a few bits I can add from what maps of theirs I saw in my old life.’
The charcoal draws a jagged line along the top of the paper.
‘The Great Mountains are up here. Nobody ever really bothers with them. All just snow, goats and collapsed mineshafts.’
The charcoal draws a wavier line down until it bisects where Nearby Village and the Darkwood’s border are marked out.
‘This is Nearby’s river. Comes down from Bear Mountain.’
‘Bear Mountain?’ asks Gretel.
‘Yep.’ The charcoal draws a particularly large mountain shape at the start of the river’s line. ‘This bad boy. The huntsmen know about it because it’s a biggie, you can see it all the way from Slate, but they never actually explored it, because…’ Here, the charcoal draws another line from north to south, meandering over the river’s line several times until it finally joins the birds’ marking for the forest’s boundary. Patience points at the marking for Bear Mountain, on the ‘forest’ side of the boundary line.
‘It’s in Darkwood,’ murmurs Gretel.
‘I stayed near Slate once,’ offers Jack. ‘Just for a bit. Back before I escaped into Darkwood.’
‘So, while you were on the run from angry Giants, with your ill-gotten gains?’ asks Patience.
Jack shoots them all a guilty smile. ‘Yeah. Then. Anyway, there was a lot of talk about bear raids in the villages north of Slate. But that wasn’t all. There were other stories about different creatures, stalking the mountain villages at night.’
‘The wolves?’ asks Trevor, gently swaying over the map on a thread of webbing, like a little leggy pendulum.
‘Not just wolves.’ Jack pauses with a little dramatic flourish and then says in a flamboyantly spooky voice, ‘Werewolves.’
Gretel nods. ‘Right, so we’ve gone from a bear witch and a wolf witch to a gang of bear raiders, actual Werewolves and a crow the size of a man, all apparently hiding out on a scary mountain together?’
‘I did say they were best left alone, dear,’ says Buttercup.
‘No, I meant it in a good way,’ says Gretel brightly. ‘Guys. Werewolves! A gang of criminal bears! A massive crow! Imagine having magical assets like those on our team!’
She looks around at the others. Her smile freezes when she notices how hurt they all look.
‘What’s wrong with our magical assets?’ asks Trevor.
‘Oh! Nothing, of course…’
‘Well, you don’t have any, technically,’ says Jack.
‘Er, excuse you! I’m a spider and can talk.’
‘Some of us can grow whole trees,’ argues Jack.
‘Oh wow, what an amazing and rare power. Trees. Yeah, you don’t see many of those round here, not like talking spiders, which are ten a penny, obviously.’
‘Yeah, and I can do all telekinesis and stuff since I died,’ adds Patience.
Even Snow looks mildly defensive. ‘I controlled an otter the other day.’ She pauses, glaring around the room. ‘It was pretty big.’
‘Hmm,’ manages Buttercup, looking down at her hands. She’s managed to turn her own bit of charcoal into an éclair. She pushes it away.
Gretel sighs internally. ‘Look, you’re all great and powerful witches, OK? With a terrifying Ghost and a talking spider super-spy. You never know – they might all be up their spooky mountain right now too worried to come and make contact with us because they think we’re too scary.’
Trevor raises a foreleg. ‘Er, that’s a point, actually. People are always saying “ooh, spiders are more scared of you than you are of them”, and it’s true, we are. Maybe they’re like spiders. You know – adorable and friendly, like.’
Buttercup still looks worried. ‘You’re saying a Werewolf is like a spider?’
‘Maybe! We haven’t met one yet!’ Gretel smiles brightly around the kitchen. ‘So, what do we all reckon?’
Jack leans back in his chair. ‘You’ve already decided we’re all going, haven’t you?’
‘Absolutely not!’
‘But Mum! I said I’d go!’
Ethel Wicker glares up from her weaving. ‘You are fourteen, Daisy my girl; you are not going on a mysterious mission to the Citadel of all places!’
‘It’s not like I haven’t been there before,’ argues Daisy.
‘Yeah – before the Citadel’s huntsmen invaded the village, locked us up and nearly burned you alive.’
‘Exactly, Mum. I got through all of that just fine. I can get through a quick trip to scope out the situation over there.’
‘And what if they recognise you? You’re not exactly in their good books, are you?’
‘They won’t recognise me.’ Daisy pauses, thinking. ‘I’ll disguise myself. I’ll wear a hat.’