Bird by Rita Murphy Read Free Book Online

felt it their right to tease and strike in return anyone smaller than them, as if size were in itself a reason for punishment.
    “Let us pass,” I said, boldly lifting my chin and nodding to the Hounds, for they were the reason for my courage.
    “Maybe we can help you, Little Mouse.”
    “I don’t think so.
    “Tell us where you’re going in such a hurry.”
    I shook my head.
    “Then you cannot pass.”
    The Hounds began to growl and the boys stepped back.
    “I am going to find a doctor, if you must know.”
    “Are you ill?”
    “No. Not for me.”
    “Is it the Witch? Is the Witch sick?”
    “I don’t understand what you mean,” I said, though I supposed they referred to Wysteria.
    “The Witch of the Manor. The old woman. The one who keeps you as her slave.”
    “I am no slave,” I protested, and the boys laughed.
    “That’s right. You are her heir. Her Highness the Mouse.” They all bowed deeply.
    I narrowed my eyes at them.
    “Don’t tease her,” one warned. “She might curse you like the Manor is cursed.” With this comment, they drew back and regarded me more seriously.
    “I don’t believe in curses.”
    “You should,” the stout boy said. “The Manor in which you live harbors a great and cursed fortune, and anyone who tries to claim it is driven mad. That house kills all that come to it. It keeps them bound until they suffocate inside its walls, or sends them hurtling over the cliffs, like the captain.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “My father told me of it,” the boy retorted.
    “What did he tell?” But the boy would say no more.
    “They are just stories,” I said.
    “Some stories are true.”
    “Some are not,” I replied.
    “Why are you so unnaturally small?” another boy interjected, regarding me as if I represented a strange and rare species.
    “Because the Witch put a spell on her so she wouldn’t grow,” said one tall boy. “So the old widow can pick her up by the collar and toss her about. Place her on the mantel as a decoration.” They all laughed.
    “She’s the little heir girl.”
    “So little you can barely see her.” They laughed again, but with a certain wariness, for just at that moment the Hounds began to growl more fiercely and push forward.
    “Let me pass,” I said again. “If you do not, I will set my dogs upon you.”
    The Hounds were eager and the boys backed away.
    “Let her pass,” a smaller boy chirped, and the rest of the boys grumbled and stepped aside.
    My legs shook as I walked by them, their jeers following me down the tracks until I turned off onto the main road. Once I was out of sight, I stopped to collect myself and bent down to the Hounds.
    “Thank you,” I whispered, and patted each on the head. “I would not have had the courage to face them without you.” The Hounds wagged their tails and licked my face, then resumed pulling forward on their leashes.
    The rest of the way to town, the boys’ words jostled about in my mind. What had they meant about the captain? He had drowned in a storm on the lake. Everyone knew that. The Manor had not killed him. They were full of lies. It was rubbish. Wysteria was certainly strange, and the Manor forbidding in appearance, but people feared what they didn’t know and went about making up fables and stories.
    As for the fortune, I knew there was no truth to that. Wysteria had searched every crevice of the Manor to no avail. “Do you think, Miranda, that if there was a fortune inside these walls, I would bother for one moment with the mending of nets? Certainly not!”
    “Stories,” Wysteria had said. “Rumors. The working of idle minds.” That was all there was to it. Nothing to fear. Nothing to go on about. How silly to think that the Manor, in which I had lived these many years, could harm anyone.
    At the edge of town, I tied the Hounds to a thick tree trunk and left them a handful of biscuits to feast upon.
    “I will return shortly,” I assured them. “Do