Pip and the Wood Witch Curse Read Online Free PDF Page A

shelves of books and paper and wooden boxes filled with junk. Toad climbed the stepladder, and Pip joined him on its top step. He stared through the telescope, taking a moment to get used to the view through the lens. He could see the treetops of the forest and the sun melting the rooftop snow. Then he steered downward into the square.
    He handed the scope to Toad and watched him push his chubby face into the viewer.
    “Why do they call you Toad?” asked Pip.
    “Father says if the wood witches ever caught me, that’s what they’d turn me into,” Toad explained. He looked round at Pip and laughed.

    Pip couldn’t find it in him to find it amusing just yet. He was still growing used to the idea that the forest creatures existed at all and that he would have to hide for as long as he was here. It felt like a pointless existence.
    “Did Father tell you about the Dupries?” asked Toad, who was now wearing a serious expression.
    “No.”
    “Jean Duprie is a friend of my father, a baker in the city. He used to supply us with bread. His house was turned over by the authorities in the night and two of their children were discovered. The house was boarded up and now the children and their parents are held captive.”
    “What will happen to them?” asked Pip.
    “Prison,” said Toad. “Concealing children is the worst of crimes here. Children encourage wood creatures into the city. It makes the place unsafe, so they are held in the city prisons until they are older. But they have no right to do that to a family. They are as bad as the beasts in the woods. But there’s more to tell you,” he continued.
    Pip waited, not wanting to bump him off his stride. “Go on,” he urged.
    “My father knows Jean Duprie very well, well enough to know that he had three children, not two. We fear that his youngest daughter is somewhere in the city, hiding alone. She will not survive for long on her own. We must find her, Pip, without Father knowing that we are leaving the tavern. I need your help.”

It grew cold again and flurries of snow drifted down at intervals. But excitement boiled in the freezing depths of the woods. Word was passing quickly, from beak to lip, from lip to snout. There had been no sign of a child for such a long time that the sighting had stirred the forest dwellers into a frenzy. So much so that the Stone Circle was called.
    In the very heart of the forest sat the ancient remains of a building. Here and there crumbling archways still stood. Moss and lichen lay thick beneath the snow, and thorns and long tendrils pulled at the stonework, almost as if dragging it back into the earth below.
    And right here, in the center of the ruin, was the home of the Stone Circle. As the old saying went:
Whosoever comes to the circle must bring rock or stone and place it in the ground. A full circle of stones represents the strength of union in the forest.

    Cloudy wisps of frosted fog swirled and drifted around the clearing. The first arrival held a rock in both hands. She kissed it for good luck and placed it in the soft snow. Another followed and for a moment they stood alone in the darkness watching the moonlight. Then the others came. The small yellow eyes of the wolves pricked through the black curtain of night. The crows followed, descending from above, dusting the snow from the higher branches as they came. Then witches, scratching their way down the trunks from their high perches and emerging from the hollows on all fours like scrabbling insects.
    Something padded through the snow. Rolling and rumbling followed, and torchlight sang through the mist. First a black mare, then the pumpkin carriage, then down from his perch stepped the man with the hooked hand and the wolfskin cloak. He entered the circle and took a small pebble from his pocket with his good hand. He polished it against his filthy cloak and placed it down neatly.
    A bark demon was clamped on to the back of the pumpkin with its cloak trailing over the