Page 126 of The Knucker King

“STOP!”

Bramble tripped over at her cry. He righted and shook himself, looking up at her with worried eyes.

What is it? he asked.

“Lambs!” she exclaimed, pointing down at them. “You nearly trod on them.”

At least… they looked like lambs. The twins were tucked up against their mother’s woolly side. Their fleeces gleamed golden under the Sun and their tiny nubbed horns twisted in a winding pattern.

The mother ewe eyed Avice warily and gave her a short, sharp bleat in warning.

She held her hands up in surrender. “I will not touch your babies,” she promised, though her fingers twitched to touch the spun gold of their wool. “You have done a fine job,” she praised, side-stepping around the wary ewe. “Come, Bramble.”

They continued their battle through the pasture, occasionally spooking a trilling bird into flight and the field mice into their little nest homes.

At last, they stumbled into Joan’s garden. Avice caught herself on the trunk of a towering apple tree, sending a murder of startled crows from the garden and into the sky. She squinted up as they circled, cawing their protests down at her. They had been picking at the fallen scarlet apples, each larger than her balled fist. She plucked one from the grass, turning it this way and that.

It was perfectly round, except for the where the crows had hacked at it with their beaks, revealing the light flesh beneath. She brought it to her nose and sniffed. It was heavenly, sweeter than honey, and made her mouth water. There was a dozen or so surrounding the base of the tree, all partially eaten. Her eyes swept up the trunk and focused on the branches above.

“It is not possible,” she murmured.

Bramble – who had been snuffling around the roots – popped his head up. What is ‘not possible’?

Avice dropped the apple, and it thudded into the grass at her boots. “The tree has flowers and fruit at the same time. It is not right. Blossoms come in Spring, and apples come in Autumn.”

It towered above her. Thousands of tiny pink blooms dominated the cascading branches. The tree dipped with the weight of the fruit on its branches, some larger than her head.

Bramble looked up. What kind of magic is this?

“I was hoping you could tell—”

A stifled scream from Joan’s cottage stopped her mid-sentence. Her heart picked up into a gallop and she flew across the remainder of the garden, ignoring the wonders that surrounded her.

She burst inside – the door unlocked – to find Joan shoving her husband away. She tripped over her skirts and landed on their pallet with a painful thud.

Avice did not even pause to think.

She flew at him, tackling him to the ground as he stepped towards his wife with his hand raised.

“DO NOT TOUCH HER!” she spat, scrambling to her feet.

Robert staggered up before rounding on her. “You little hag!” he snarled.

Bramble corporealized by her side, making the shepherd jump back with a yelp. His hackles were up, teeth bared, and a savage snarl ripped from him. The Grim stepped slowly towards Robert, distancing the man from the two women and herding him towards the door. Avice swept to Joan and helped her sit up. The young woman was thinner than ever, her eyes wide with fear, and she was paler than a corpse.

“You have no right to hit her!” Avice growled, holding Joan to her chest.

She shoved down the fear that threatened to freeze her to the spot.

The man who assaulted her when she was still a child was dead.

Trewoofe was on the hunt for that odious Tall One in the Underneath.

No one would ever touch her again without her permission, and she was determined to make sure the same would happen for the young woman trembling in her arms.

“I have every right. I am her husband!” Robert yelled.

Bramble crunched down on the man’s thigh. Robert let out a gurgling scream. The tearing of flesh and smell of blood made Avice’s stomach turn, and the midwife covered her patient’s eyes when Bramble went for a second bite.