Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [69]
Oaks, with their burden of acorns. Smooth grey beeches, scattering nuts on the ground beneath. Helicopter seeds from the rough-barked sycamores swirled through the air, sprouting where they landed. Tallest of all the trees were the giant larches, maybe fifty feet high, towering over them all.
Ivy coated every tree trunk and filled in every gap, its lower stems as thick as children‟s arms. Its Christmas partner, the holly, was bursting with beautiful scarlet berries, but it was the needle-sharp glossy green leaves that the four travellers noticed the most, just like they found themselves considering the curved thorns of the dog rose, not its delicate pink flowers or bright red rose hips. Tree roots pushed up through the road surface, and out of the road itself grew a barrier of plants that Harry didn‟t recognise. The leaves were rather like those of a buttercup, but much larger, and stems of blue-purple bell-like flowers waved in the plants‟ centres.
„Aconitum napelltis,‟ said the Doctor.
„Aconite?‟ said Harry. „That‟s poisonous, isn‟t it?‟
„Monkshood, or wolfsbane,‟ said the Doctor. „Poisonous to wolves. And it‟s not native to this area. This was planted specially.‟
„To stop Emmeline getting out?‟
„To stop any of us getting out.‟
Chapter Twelve
Interview With the Werewolf
They had tried in vain to get through the thicket. They weren‟t sure if it was metres or miles deep, but it didn‟t really matter: however much there was of it, it was impenetrable.
The Doctor, who had earlier weaved his way through the greenery with never a scratch, was unable to get even an inch or two into the wood. Godric, the youngest and lightest, had braved the many thorns and started to climb a twisted oak.
Half way up, and the tree had thrown him off, into a holly bush. „Even as a wolf, I could not make it through this,‟
Emmeline said.
„Even if you could, I don‟t think the trees would let you,‟
said Harry, helping up the bruised and bleeding Godric.
„What can I do?‟ Emmeline sounded close to panic. „Today of all days, I can resist the moon not at all! As soon as the sun has gone and its rays hit the earth, then the change comes upon me!‟
„And it‟s winter,‟ said the Doctor, stating the obvious. „The days are short.‟
„What were you going to do?‟ asked Harry. „When you got to another town, I mean. How were you going to stop yourself going out and ripping people to shreds?‟
She frowned. „That I do not do, have I not explained it to you? It is not the way of the wolf; they harm humans only if provoked, or in times of great hunger. A chicken or a sheep, yes, a human, no. If I eat well, stay within walls of stone or concrete, lock myself in, then nothing should come to harm -
not even the sheep or the chicken.‟
„Pity you didn‟t think of that a full moon or two ago,‟ said Harry. „If you‟d not been going around mutilating sheep, perhaps none of this would have happened.‟
The Doctor wagged an admonitory finger at Harry. „I don‟t think there‟s been much left to chance, here.‟
She nodded at him. „You are right, I feel. For I was sure I locked myself in my room those nights of the full moon, and yet in the mornings I would find that my door was unlocked and open, and the front door of the house the same.‟
„A definite plan behind it all,‟ said the Doctor. „Which is why tonight I have a suspicion that you might find yourself being provoked. We‟ll have to do something about that. Don‟t forget there‟s magic in the air...‟
„But what can we do?‟
But whatever ideas the Doctor had, he didn‟t want to talk about them yet. He walked up the road one way, then back down the other. „We need to find out how far this barrier stretches,‟ he said. „If Hester‟s keeping us in the village...‟
„...she might be keeping us away from her hidey-hole as well,‟ realised Harry. „Sensible. Even if she doesn‟t know we know where it is. Or at least, we hope we‟ll soon know where it is. Or we would have done, if it weren‟t for this.‟
„Godric, onwards!‟ the Doctor cried.
They piled back into the Popular, and the Doctor executed a neat