Jinxed!: The Curious Curse of Cora Bell Page 3

  As she walked towards the wall, she heard something familiar. It was soft at first but as she got closer to home her heart stopped. It was something she had heard many times before. The lullaby. Only this time it wasn’t a drill.

  Trouble.

  Run.

  Chapter Seven

  Cora ran. But not away from the lullaby. She ran towards it. It was exactly what Dot had told her not to do. But she didn’t care. She ran as fast as she could down the main street of Urt. Heart racing, her feet barely touched the ground. Her thoughts on only one thing. Dot.

  She skidded to a stop when she reached the wall. Or, what used to be the wall. In its place, Cora gazed up at an enormous hole. She could see inside their home from where she stood on the street. Their things spilled out onto the ground.

  Cora felt like she couldn’t breathe. It was as though something had smashed right through the wall. Something huge.

  ‘Dot!’ she cried out in alarm. ‘Dot!’

  But only the sweet sound of the lullaby drifted out.

  Cora scrambled into their home. She stumbled over the mess on the floor and looked around. Everything was destroyed. Furniture had been smashed. Pots, pans, paper and food lay everywhere. Debris and rubble of floors and roofs covered the ground. The bookcase full of heavy, bound books lay in half.

  A fear rattled her to her bones.

  ‘Dot!’ she screamed into the house.

  But there was no answer. Just the lullaby.

  She felt tears sting her eye.

  ‘Scratch!’ she cried.

  Her vision blurry, she headed for the stairs. She stopped when she saw that most of them had been crushed beyond repair. Looking up, she could see that there was barely anything left of the upstairs. Her room. Dot’s room. It was all gone. It was all in pieces at her feet.

  ‘Dot!’ she screamed once more.

  She stood in the middle of their home, lost. Her mind whirled. It spun her in circles.

  Think, Cora. Think!

  But she couldn’t. She could only see Dot’s face. She held onto it. As she swiped the tears from her eye, she spotted something shiny by her feet. She picked it up. It was Dot’s pocket watch. She ran her hand over it. Dot had told her about the day she had found it so many times. Cora pushed the story from her mind with a shake of her head and shoved the watch into her pocket. When she found Dot, she was going to give it back to her and hear the story again.

  Cora began heaving and throwing books and furniture aside. Desperately, she searched through the rubble for any sign of Dot or Scratch.

  ‘Dot!’ she called out. ‘Scratch!’

  But again, there was no answer.

  She pushed aside torn-apart books, lights, chairs. Cora knew that it wouldn’t be long until scavengers would be all over the place. Taking what they could of their things. She had to protect them. For Dot.

  Suddenly, the whole room shuddered. Everything shook around her. Cora tried to grab on to something, anything, as the floor and the roof trembled.

  Then, from behind her, she heard a loud POP! Followed by another loud POP!

  Cora spun around, a book in hand. Ready for whatever was waiting for her. For whatever had done this. But what she saw, she didn’t expect to see at all.

  Standing in the middle of her home, amongst the rubble and mess, were two plump and hairy men about half her size . . . with wings.

  Cora blinked. Was she seeing correctly? She wiped the tears from her eye again.

  ‘Miss, you’re in terrible pudding,’ said one of them. He had a small tuft of hair running down the middle of his head.

  Cora stared at him, confused. Pudding? She shook her head. Her mind was more out of sorts than she realised.

  ‘I mean, um, danger,’ he said. ‘You’re in terrible danger.’

  ‘What? Who are you?’ asked Cora angrily. She brandished the book in her hand. ‘And where did you come from?’

  The two men looked at each other.

  ‘Well,’ said the other man who had hair coming out of his ears. ‘We’re fairies, of course.’

  ‘Fairies!’ Cora echoed disbelievingly.

  Under her gaze, both of the fairies twirled on the spot, their wings flittering behind them.

  To Cora, they certainly didn’t look anything like fairies. At least, they were certainly nothing like the ones in Dot’s books. The men in front of her weren’t tiny or beautiful; they were plump and their teeth were crooked. They had not much hair on their heads and a lot of hair on their backs. And their clothes didn’t fit them properly. Cora could see their hairy bellies poking out from beneath their shirts.

  ‘Fairies?’ Cora echoed again.

  ‘I’m Tock,’ said the man with the tuft of hair down the middle of his head. He gave a small bow.

  ‘And I’m Tick,’ said the one with hair coming out of his ears.

  Tock looked over his shoulder worriedly. ‘Now, please, miss. We have to go.’

  Go? What are they talking about? Cora saw that the both of them kept looking over their shoulders at the hole in the wall. Like they were scared of something. But Cora didn’t care. She couldn’t care. She needed to find Dot and Scratch. Fairies or no fairies.

  She looked at them. ‘I’m not going anywhere. This is my home.’

  ‘Was,’ piped up the fairy called Tock. The other one elbowed him swiftly in the ribs.

  Cora glared at them both. Then she turned her back on them and continued searching through the rubble. She needed to find Dot.

  ‘Please, miss,’ said one of the fairies. ‘We’re trying to help.’

  ‘I have to find her,’ said Cora. ‘Dot!’ she cried out. She tried with all her might to lift up the large bookshelf that lay in half on the ground. The bookshelf groaned as she lifted it up.

  The fairies looked at each other.

  There was nothing but books underneath it. She let it drop to the ground. ‘She was here. She had to have been,’ Cora said, more to herself than anyone else. Dot had made sure to warn her by playing the lullaby. But warn her of what?

  Then the whole room shuddered. Everything shook around her. The floor and the roof trembled again. Cora looked up. The vibrations stopped. Then the ground shuddered once more.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Tock.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Tick.

  Chapter Eight

  The shaking and trembling became louder and louder. The rubble and debris bounced up and down at her feet. Cracks appeared in the walls that were still standing. Was this another earthquake? Cora wondered. Then chunks of ceiling started to crumble and fall on top of her. She shielded her head and looked up. The roof was going to collapse!

  But Dot. And Scratch. Cora didn’t want to leave. She couldn’t. It was her home. The only one she had. And if she did leave, how would Dot and Scratch be able to find her? Their meeting place was on top of the wall. But now there was no wall.

  She looked over at the fairies. But they weren’t looking up at the roof. They weren’t worried about the cracks in the wall. They weren’t even facing her anymore. Instead, they flittered above the rubble and stared out into the street through the hole in the wall.

  Cora’s bracelet tingled at her wrist. She looked out through the hole too. And then she saw what the fairies saw. The shaking wasn’t an earthquake at all.

  Lumbering up the main street of Urt was a huge creature. Dark as the night, it was the size of a house. And with every bounding step it took, the walls around her shook. The creature shimmered like it was made out of shadows. Its yellow eyes looked like burning rings in the night.

  And it was heading straight for them.

  Cora wanted to run but she couldn’t move. Her eyes were glued to the creature. She tried to lift her legs, she tried to speak, she tried to blink but it was as though something had a hold of her. As if . . . something was stopping her.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Tock, turning around.

  Both of the fairies flew towards her. Then one of them touched her on the shoulder. There was a l
oud POP! and before Cora knew what was happening, the dark creature and her home disappeared from sight.

  When Cora blinked, she found herself standing in the middle of a house.

  She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She felt like she could talk again. She felt like she could move again.

  ‘What was that?!’ she gasped, the creature’s yellow eyes still in her mind. She lifted her legs and her arms to make sure they were still working. Looking around, she recognised the room. They were inside the house she had been to earlier that day in the outer boroughs. The one where she had found the shoe polish in the shoebox.

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’ Cora asked.

  ‘This house is protected,’ said Tock.

  ‘Can’t you tell by the drapes?’ asked Tick, pointing to the worn and dusty blue drapes hanging limply at the window.

  Cora peered at them. They looked quite ordinary to her. Then, with a click of the fairy’s fingers, the drapes pulled themselves closed with a snap!

  ‘The drapes have a protection charm on them,’ explained Tock.

  Cora wasn’t sure what the tattered pieces of cloth were going to do against that . . . creature.

  In front of her, the fairies were pacing as they whispered to each other. They weren’t very good at it because Cora heard every word.

  ‘She has a witch’s mark,’ said one.

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t us,’ said the other.

  ‘Hello?’ Cora said. ‘Was I the only one who saw that . . . that thing?’

  Tick and Tock stopped pacing. They turned to her. Their faces still grim.

  ‘That thing was a Jinx,’ said Tock.

  ‘A what?’ asked Cora.

  ‘A Jinx,’ said Tick. ‘Did you summon it?’

  ‘What? Me? No,’ said Cora.

  The fairies stared at her, unbelieving.

  Cora stared at them right back. ‘I don’t summon things. I can’t. I don’t know how. I’m a collector. We collect things,’ she stopped as she thought of Dot once more. ‘Wait. How did we get here? I have to go back.’ Cora walked towards the door. The fairies flittered in front of her, blocking her path.

  ‘You don’t understand, I need to find Dot and my cat,’ she said, trying to skirt past them. ‘They could be hurt.’

  ‘The Jinx knows your scent so it’s of great igloo that you leave this city,’ said Tick.

  ‘Igloo?’ echoed Cora, confused.

  ‘Importance,’ said Tock.

  ‘It’s of great importance that you leave this city,’ said Tick. ‘It won’t be long until the Jinx finds your scent again.’

  ‘My scent?’ Cora responded, disgusted. She went to sidestep the fairy but he was too quick.

  ‘When a Jinx knows your scent, it never forgets it,’ said Tock.

  ‘Can we give it something else to smell?’ Cora tried. ‘There are a few people in this city who smell pretty bad.’

  Tick and Tock shook their heads.

  She stopped trying to get past them. Instead she stood still and folded her arms. ‘I don’t know anything about magic or Jinxes or fairies. You have the wrong girl. Now please, let me pass.’

  The fairies looked at each other.

  ‘You know nothing about magic?’ asked Tock.

  Cora shook her head.

  ‘But . . . you have a witch’s mark,’ said Tick.

  ‘A what?’

  Tick pointed to his left eye.

  Cora paused. Then she shook her head. ‘Th-that’s a scar. I’ve had it since I was little. It just takes a little getting used to.’

  Both of the fairies looked worried. Was it her scar? Why were they worried about that? It didn’t mean anything.

  Tock looked at Tick.

  ‘Maybe it appeared on its own?’ Tick suggested.

  ‘When you saw the Jinx, could you move?’ Tock asked.

  Cora looked away. She hadn’t been able to move a muscle. It had felt like she was frozen in place.

  ‘W-what does it want?’ Cora asked nervously. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer but the words had already tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  Tick and Tock looked at each other.

  Now Cora was sure she didn’t want to know the answer.

  ‘It . . . sort of . . . kind of . . . maybe . . . might . . . want to . . . eat you,’ said Tock slowly.

  Chapter Nine

  Cora stared at the fairies, wide-eyed. ‘It wants to eat me?!’

  Tick and Tock nodded apologetically.

  She groaned. How was this happening? She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Maybe this was all just a dream and she needed to wake up?

  ‘Wake up,’ she said to herself. ‘Wake up, wake up.’

  ‘What is she doing?’ Tock asked Tick. Tick shrugged.

  ‘I need to go back and find Dot and my cat,’ said Cora. ‘And when I find them, everything will go back to normal.’

  ‘If your Dot and your cat were there when the Jinx came . . .’ Tock said.

  ‘It is unlikely that they —’ began Tick.

  ‘Don’t,’ Cora whispered. She turned away from the fairies. She couldn’t think about that now. Dot and Scratch had to have gotten out. And she was going to find them.

  The fairies looked at her sympathetically.

  ‘It won’t be long until the Jinx finds your scent again,’ said Tock.

  ‘We have to leave the city,’ said Tick.

  ‘I’m not leaving,’ said Cora. She sat down on the ground. She thought about the Jinx finding her again. About its burning, yellow eyes. A shiver went up her spine. Stubbornly, she put her hands in her pockets. Then her hand hit something. Cora pulled the strange wooden box out of her pocket. The one she was going to tell Dot about but never did.

  ‘Wait —’ Tock stopped. ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked, alarmed.

  Cora looked up. The fairies were now inches from her face, their eyes on the box in her hand.

  ‘I found it,’ she said with a shrug. ‘In this house.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tick. ‘So that’s where I left it.’

  Tock glared at Tick. ‘I knew we left the gateway too early. You had one job.’

  ‘To be fair, travelling through a gateway while holding onto an ancient spellbox AND eating a big sandwich is a very difficult job,’ said Tick.

  Tock continued to glare at Tick.

  ‘At least the sandwich was dishonest,’ said Tick.

  ‘Delicious,’ corrected Tock.

  Tick then turned to Cora and asked her sheepishly, ‘Did you by any chance happen to open the spellbox?’

  Cora nodded.

  ‘Did you read what was inside?’

  Cora nodded. ‘I-I tried to but I couldn’t pronounce it. I think it was in another language.’

  ‘The spell was a Jinx,’ said Tock, realising. He turned and elbowed Tick in the ribs.

  ‘At least we now know what spell was inside the box,’ Tick said, rubbing his side.

  ‘Father is going to be so mad,’ said Tock, pacing back and forth in the air.

  ‘Madder than that time we set his beard on fire?’ asked Tick.

  ‘A lot madder,’ said Tock.

  A sinking feeling crept into Cora’s stomach. ‘What is it?’

  ‘We were supposed to deliver that box to a spellkeeper in Urt for safe-keeping but Tick obviously got distracted by a large sandwich,’ said Tock.

  ‘A very delicious large sandwich,’ added Tick.

  ‘We were retracing our steps, looking for the box when we saw the Jinx heading straight towards you,’ said Tock. ‘When we saw your mark, we thought you might have summoned it.’

  Tock held his hand out for the box and Cora gave it to him. With a long finger, the fairy pushed the symbol on the box and it popped open. Tock turned it upside down but instead of the scroll with strange writing, only ash fell out. Cora watched, confused, as the cinders fell to the ground in front of her.

  ‘But-but there was a note inside it
,’ said Cora standing up. ‘Honest.’

  ‘It would have turned to ash soon after you read out the spell,’ said Tick.

  ‘So you’re saying,’ she began, trying to understand, ‘that what I read out was a spell. And that spell brought that creature here?’

  ‘Not just any spell,’ said Tick.

  ‘A curse,’ said Tock.

  A curse? She was cursed?

  ‘A bad curse,’ said Tick.

  ‘The worst,’ said Tock.

  Cora groaned.

  ‘Imagine if all the other curses were combined, this curse would be worse than all of those combined curses.’

  Cora’s stomach twisted in knots. Why did she have to find that box? Why did she open it? Was she really the cause for all of this? Was what happened to Dot and Scratch really because of her? Did that thing eat them? She tried to shake her head to be free of the thought but it stayed with her.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she asked herself.

  Tick and Tock looked at each other.

  ‘We will help you,’ Tock said. ‘It’s our fault you found the box in the first place. Well, Tick’s fault.’

  Tick shrunk low. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘But if we want to get out of here alive, we have to leave now,’ said Tock sternly. ‘The charm on this house isn’t strong enough against a Jinx.’

  ‘But what about Dot and Scratch? I can’t leave them,’ said Cora, torn.

  ‘If they are alive,’ said Tock gently, ‘then you cannot go to them.’

  ‘What?’ asked Cora. ‘Why not?’

  ‘You will only bring the Jinx,’ said Tick.

  Cora swallowed, her mind spinning with thoughts. If the fairies were right, if that creature was after her then anywhere she went, it would follow. She couldn’t let that happen. If Dot and Scratch were still out there, she had to protect them. And the only way to do that was to get as far away from them as possible.

  Cora looked over at the fairies. She had made up her mind. ‘What’s the best way out of Urt?’