Petronella and the Janjilons Read online

  “Oh, it will take the most potent recipe I have, so it will. I must get my recipe book out and set the ingredients out before my sisters come back.” She looked out into the forest through the hut’s doorway, and saw something moving in the shade of the trees. It looked like a person.

  “Just a moment,” Gesuelda whispered to Judge Ormerod, “I need to go out into the forest a moment. I think someone is spying on us.”

  Gesuelda was careful to creep quietly around the hut then through some trees – until she was standing right behind Soloman. She tapped him on the shoulder and said: “So, what are you doing here, may I ask? You wouldn’t be spying on me, would you, young man?”

  “Oh, no, no, I’ve been walking around the forest and I stopped to have a rest. Really, that’s all I was doing!”

  “Oh, yes! So you go for walkies into the heart of this dark forest knowing it will get dark before you can get back home. Who do you think you’re fooling? Do not, whatever you do, take me for a stupid person. Get in my hut at once! You’re nothing but a wicked young man. Get in there and don’t argue, if you ever want to see your mother again.”

  “But I don’t have a mother,” he said, “she’s dead.”

  Gesuelda did not feel sorry for him one bit. So if Soloman was looking to soften her heart, he could stop it at once. That idea would never work with her.

  “Dead? What about your father?” she asked.

  “He’s dead, too. And my grandmother, she’s dead...”

  “So you’re all alone in the world, are you?” Gesuelda said to herself, more than to Soloman. “Just sit down and I’ll deal with you later,” she said.

  Soloman looked around him. The hut was not very big. There was a three-tier bunk-bed in the corner and not much else, except for this big filthy black cauldron in the middle hanging from the roof, some crooked shelves, with dirty jars and bottles lined up on them, and a box on the floor.

  “Come on, boy, sit yourself down and cross your legs,” Gesuelda was getting impatient. She made it quite clear that she was boss in the hut.

  Soloman did as he was told and looked at the man who was already sitting there, staring at the cauldron. The boy liked adventures in books but not real ones like these where he was in serious danger. Another sure thing was that he didn’t like the look of this man. Soloman was intimidated by him because he was so well dressed. Looking down at himself, in comparison, Soloman felt like a real tramp. But, Soloman didn’t seem to have much of a choice. He had to sit there and do what he was told and be part of the strange goings-on in this spooky hut.

  What was he to do? Nobody was going to miss him at home. Nobody would come looking for him. Gesuelda knew that just as much as Soloman did.

  “So, where was I?” Gesuelda said, “Ah! Yes, my recipe book.” She fumbled through a few dirty sheets in the box. “Ah, here it is: The Almighty Smoke Recipe.” She looked at the list and got a few jars and boxes down from the crooked shelves around her.

  “A little brook water to boil it all in,” she said as she poured it out of a filthy jar into the cauldron. She named the ingredients while getting them out of different shaped jars and bottles, all dirty and cracked, as she threw them into the cauldron:

  “Three eyes of newts.

  A third of a rat’s tail.

  Seven fleas from my sisters’ hair.

  3.7 cubes of an expired blackcurrant jelly.

  Thirteen stitches from the festered wound of a witch’s leg.

  Thirty bristles of a wild pig.”

  This took her rather a long time to count out. Judge Ormerod and Soloman looked on hardly believing their ears. Judge Ormerod, unlike Soloman, was quite happy to go through this. The result would be worth it. These old hags were never wrong. And he would give them all he had if only they’d help him to become the most powerful man in Westshire, and keep his wife quiet as well.

  “Three dried seven-legged spiders and seven clippings from my toe nails. That should do the trick,” she said, all pleased with herself.

  Her sisters appeared just in time. “Here you are, dear sister,” Gasmina said, “here are the logs you asked for.”

  “Perfect,” Gesuelda said, complimenting her sisters for once instead of telling them off.

  Placing the logs under the cauldron, Gesuelda asked her twin sisters to burp into the cauldron before she set a match to the wood. “Perfect,” said Gesuelda, “now just breathe on the wood to kindle the fire up properly.”

  The fire was soon raging and the liquid boiled while the three sisters chanted: “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble” for three minutes and 33 seconds. They spat on the fire to tone it down a little when it flared up.

  “Gasmina,” said Gesuelda, “go and get the mug. And you,” she said turning to Gismonda, “go and get the big wooden ladle.” Gesuelda passed the disgusting liquid to Judge Ormerod, stirring it three-and-a-half times, and saying “Come on, man, drink up. I need to tell you your future.”

  Judge Ormerod held his nose and drank it down feeling quite queasy but knowing all along that it was for his own good.

  Soloman felt sick just by watching him drinking.

  “Right, we can start,” said Gesuelda. “Look into the steam rising out of the cauldron and you will see some images of your future while I talk you through it.”

  “And you,” she said, turning to Soloman, “you will go outside along with my sisters and wait there until I have time to deal with you. You horrid little man.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Meanwhile in Fort Willow, people were going about their everyday business. Next door to Soloman’s house, in Brook Street, lived another boy of about Soloman’s age called Jack Tirel. Far from being adventurous like Soloman, Jack was very lazy. His mother, Mary, nagged him all the time about him not having any get-up-and-go. Because he was so slow, he was nearly always late for school. And when he was at home he would sit around not doing very much at all. He stared into space a lot as if he were day-dreaming. He thought a lot, that was for sure. But, those thoughts never turned into any kind of action. That’s just the way Jack was, and he was happy that way.

  Mary Tirel couldn’t stand it any more and was seriously thinking of packing him off to boarding school. She’d heard of The Janjilon Education Centre. Quite a few of the boys from the village had gone there, and their mothers were very pleased indeed. If Jack went there, he would have to fend for himself and be spurred into action.

  What made matters even worse for Jack was that he had a sister – she was nine and a right pain in the back of the neck. It seemed as if all the energy Jack lacked had been taken and poured into her. Yes, Elizabeth Tirel, or Betty, as everyone liked to affectionately call her, was definitely a pest born to make Jack’s life a misery. As if his mother wasn’t enough!

  Betty was a real goody-two-shoes. For one thing she liked reading books – made-up stories of any kind. When she hooked onto writers, she’d then have to read all their books. She just went on about how good this writer was, and how exciting stories of that other writer were. What a bore! She even tried to get Jack reading, but no way was Jack going to be dragged into that lark. He would much rather do as little as was humanly possible.

  So to get away from all the family squabbles, Jack’s father, George, went off to the local tavern as much as he could. It is true that he was a hard-working woodcutter, but when he clocked off from work he was down at the boozer playing cards with his mates. There were a lot of woodcutters in Westshire. The thick forest provided many a family with its daily bread. After the trees were felled, they were thrown into the river and floated down to the valley below, where other woodcutters chopped the trunks up into neat pieces, tied them into bundles and placed them on carts ready to be taken to all corners of the land and beyond.

  Sometimes Jack had to stir himself out of his laziness, just to get away from his mother’s and sister’s constant yapping. He would go out and look for a quiet place to sit and stare. The dark forest was a great place to hide. Who’d find hi
m there? The mountains were not so good for that. It was easier to be spotted there out in the open, if his mother or sister came looking for him. He wasn’t very far into the forest when he sat down deep in the tangled branches that hid him from any pest thinking of looking for him.

  Soon, in the distance, Jack heard the crunching sound of feet on dry twigs. It was getting louder and louder. Could this be his mother? Was she already there to tell him off and get him back home? As the figure approached and came into focus, Jack saw that it definitely wasn’t his mother. No, it was a man. A man carrying a rifle. He must be a hunter Jack thought. But Jack wasn’t going to stick around to find out. Oh, no!

  Jack jumped onto his feet and started running away. Not being fit, he couldn’t run very far because he was soon out of breath. The only thing he could do was to crouch down and disappear into the undergrowth. The man walked straight past and did not notice Jack there at all. As the man went in the opposite direction from the spot where Jack was hiding, Jack noticed a blue and red tattoo on the back of the man’s arm – it looked like a tangled mess. Jack couldn’t quite make it out. A star-shape of some sort, perhaps; with lots of squiggles over it.

  So after a while, Jack thought it was safe to come out of his hiding place and to go back home. Unluckily for him, though, he had completely lost his sense of direction. Instead of walking towards the edge of the forest, he walked further and further into it. He walked and walked until... he came face to face with the tattooed stranger. Ignoring the man was not an option.

  “G-g-good day to you, sir,” Jack’s voice trembled.

  “Hello boy. What are you doing in this forest? Going for a walk, were you?”

  “No, sir. I came here to get some fresh air but I’m off home. My family will be waiting for me. My mother’s very anxious and so is my sister.”

  “Are they, so?” the rifleman said.

  “Oh, yes. They’ll be out looking for me if I’m not back soon. My father’s a woodcutter and knows his way around this forest as if it were his own garden.”

  “Does he now?”

  “He does.” Jack was getting really jittery.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the man said, “I’m not going to harm you. But you shouldn’t be here on your own. Lots of young people have got lost in this forest thinking they could find their way around, but not so. Not so, indeed. Don’t you know that some of them never find their way out. A few have disappeared for good. It’s all mysterious. All hushed up, it is.”

  “So how do you know about all this?” Jack asked.

  “I saw it happen once. Oh, from a distance, you understand. Over there in that direction,” the man said, pointing to his left.

  “Did you see a killing, then?” asked Jack.

  “I remember seeing a struggle between a boy and two grown-ups. They were taking him away. I tried to follow them but they weren’t there any longer when I got to the spot. That’s why I carry a rifle with me. Just in case I need it. You never know.”

  Jack trembled in his shoes.

  “Then on another day, in summer it was, I was sitting under a tree watching some insects busily crawling around. It was fun to watch. I sat very still to see what they’d do next. But I was distracted by scuffling. When I glanced over I saw a few people, three I think, clustered in a tight ring looking at something, or someone, on the ground in the middle of them all. I thought that maybe a hunter had shot a deer and the little group were looking at it.”

  “How awful! What did you do next?” Jack asked.

  “I went after them. I had to go round some big trees, take a detour to get to them but my line of sight was hidden by other trees and when I got there nobody was there.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t imagining all that?” Jack looked pretty pale by now.

  “No, no way that could have happened. You see, when I got to that very same spot where I had seen those people, there were three strips of white cotton. I think that someone’s shirt had got torn off in the struggle.”

  “Did you tell anyone about what you saw?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, I did. Both times. I went to the castle to tell the Duke’s people about it. After much waiting, I finally got to speak to one of the Duke’s men. Judge... erm... Ormadod, I think it was. No, Ormerod, that’s it. He said he’d have someone look into it. That I shouldn’t worry about that any more. To leave it all to him.”

  “And did you not hear any more about it?”

  “Not a word,” the man answered.

  “But didn’t you go back to the Duke’s castle to find out?”

  “I did,” said the man, “but I was refused entry at the gate. I was told to go home and mind my own business and that, anyway, nobody knew anything about the disappearances I was talking about.”

  “That’s very worrying,” Jack said, shaken up by what he had just heard.

  “I know. I’d better lead you out of the forest so you can go back home. Your family will be worried about you.”

  As they went, they talked about the missing boys and about the hidden Golden Shield. How lots of people would be hunting around in the tangled undergrowth of the forest hoping to be the most powerful person in Westshire one day.

  CHAPTER 4

  Soloman was still standing around outside the hut, while the weird sisters, Gismonda and Gasmina, kept close watch on him. Soloman didn’t know where to look so he just kept his eyes on his hands, staring at them, as if he’d never seen them before.

  “What’s so special about your hands?” Gismonda squeaked.

  “Ah, erm, nothing much,” Soloman replied, “I, I, er, actually my hands are special. Or should I say my fingers are. I play the violin, you know?”

  “No, we don’t know and we’re not interested,” she said.

  Soloman felt he had to talk. Keep these hags occupied. As long as they were listening to him, they wouldn’t harm him, he thought.

  “It’s my job. I play the violin in streets and people give me money.”

  The two weird sisters didn’t look impressed.

  “Well, our job is a hundred million times more difficult than yours. Any idiot can play the violin. What does it take? Even three-year-old children can hold a stick in their hands and run it over a few strings. A bit of strumming and you’re off. Terrible screeching sound. With my beautiful fingers, I’d have played the piano, if I’d had a chance. Now there’s a real instrument. That’s difficult to learn. Not the violin,” Gismonda said looking at her sister who nodded in agreement.

  “Well said, sister. You’re spot on. Only one person in a hundred million can do what we do. What do you think of that?” Gasmina said, turning to Soloman.

  “I think that... erm..., I think that’s... Sorry, what is it you do?”

  “Ah, Ah. Now we’ve got him interested, haven’t we?” Gismonda said looking at Gasmina again.

  “We can see the future. That’s what we can do. Yes, see the future,” she repeated.

  By now Soloman was feeling really irritated. They had said horrible things about him and were coming up with all this rubbish about future telling.

  “All right, if you can tell the future tell me how long I’ve got to stand here with you two,” he challenged them.

  “Calm down, young man. You are getting above yourself. Haven’t you realised that you are in our domain here and that means you are totally in our power. We decide what’s to be done with you. Nobody asked you to come here. You trespassed on our land and you have to take the punishment,” Gismonda said.

  “But this is a forest. It belongs to everyone,” Soloman insisted.

  “It belongs to everyone,” Gasmina repeated.

  “No, it doesn’t, you idiot,” Gismonda said to Gasmina.

  “No, it doesn’t, s-s-sorry,” Gasmina apologised to her twin sister for having said the wrong thing.

  “I’ll have no more of your cheek, young man. Let’s tie him up!” Gismonda suddenly shouted.

  Gismonda was on to Soloman in a flash, grabbing him from be
hind and holding his wrists tightly together.

  “Gasmina, go and get some bendy twigs from the undergrowth and tie his wrists together,” Gismonda said.

  Gasmina ran off and was soon back. She tied Soloman’s hands together finishing off in three neat knots.

  “His feet, too!” Gismonda shouted.

  “Yes, quick,” Gasmina shouted back.

  They knocked Soloman down to the ground, got hold of his feet and wound twigs around those too.

  “That should do it,” said Gismonda, “that’ll teach him to answer back.”

  “Get off me. Untie me!” Soloman shouted out.

  “Let’s stuff something in his mouth to stop him talking,” Gismonda said.

  They looked around.

  “Some leaves, perhaps?” said Gasmina.

  “No, please. Leave me alone. Let me go...” Soloman pleaded.

  “You’re joking. We have no pity. None at all. So don’t try making us feel sorry for you. That’s just not the way we are,” said Gismonda.

  “If you don’t put leaves in my mouth, I promise not to answer back. I promise not to be cheeky, I promise not to...” he begged.

  “We can’t be sure of that, and we don’t trust anyone. Go get the leaves, Gasmina, while I keep an eye on him. Yours was a brilliant idea. Hurry now,” Gismonda panted.

  Gasmina went off to look for suitable leaves and soon came back with a pile of them bundled up in her black ragged apron.

  “Here you are, sister,” she said.

  “Lovely,” Gismonda answered. “Let’s stuff them into his mouth. Nice and tight, until we can stuff no more in.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Inside the hut, meanwhile, Gesuelda was telling Judge Ormerod his future. She had boiled up a disgusting concoction and looking at Judge Ormerod through the smelly steam she asked:

  “Are you ready?”

  “Of course I’m ready. I’ve been waiting for this for years. While I worked for that old Duke Merrick, all the time I was thinking about taking his place. I don’t know why he didn’t name me his heir while he was still alive. With all I did for him, and THIS is how he repays me. Opening it up to some idiot who happens to stumble across that stupid Golden S...”