From acorn to sapling 2/13

The headache cures were carefully packed into four large bags. The bags themselves were joined into pairs, so Ermintrude hung one pair on her broom in front of her and Jennifer Jane climbed on behind carrying her pair in the same way.

Erm set off for the village with Jennifer Jane hanging on grimly behind her. The broom wobbled a lot and she didn’t feel very safe. She guessed Ermintrude wasn’t used to flying brooms, while the extra weight seemed to be making her very unsteady.

It would all have been so much easier, if only she’d thought of bringing her scooter, but she really hadn’t expected to be sent out on a delivery on her very first day. However, there was one advantage to being a passenger, she could look round without having to worry about bumping into things.

She hadn’t flown in the direction of Lurbridge for some time and she was rather surprised to see several fields had been planted on the other side of the river from the village. If the villagers were crossing Gordon’s bridge twice a day, then they must be using up the riddles from Lurgin’s old book very quickly.

She looked at the bridge rather more closely as they slowly got nearer. Somehow the river seemed to be different as well. She was starting to get a feeling that something strange was going on in the surrounding countryside .

The broom landed with a bit of a rush just outside the George and Dragons, Ermintrude seemed just as thankful as Jennifer Jane did to get off safely. The landlord came out to carry one pair of the bags full of pots, while the two apprentices carried the other pair between them and followed him inside.

Ermintrude loaded both bags with the empty pots from the previous delivery and remembered to ask the landlord for the money owed to the witches.

Jennifer Jane excused herself and wandered off towards the bridge. She was determined to find out what was causing her misgivings and thought the best person to ask might be Gordon himself. After all, as far as the river was concerned, he lived right beside it and if anything had happened recently, he’d be the first to know.

She was most surprised to hear a quiet sobbing coming from under the bridge as she got nearer. Not too sure of herself, she crept quietly down the riverbank and peeped under the bridge.

Gordon was sitting there with his head in his hands, sobbing quietly and muttering to himself.

“What am I going to do?” he moaned. “Nobody crosses the bridge any more, I can’t eat the peasants, most of them are my friends now. Nearly all my money’s gone and I’ll soon have to sell some of my lovely furniture just to have enough to eat. I wish I hadn’t started this riddle business, oh what am I going to do?”

“Hello Gordon, can you tell me what’s happening here?”

Gordon looked up tearfully. “Hello miss, haven’t you noticed, the river’s dried up and now the villagers can walk across just a bit further upstream. I don’t get given riddles any more, so I don’t get paid and I can’t think of anything to do about it!”

Jennifer Jane looked down at the water under the bridge. Now that he’d mentioned it, the water certainly wasn’t flowing as fast as usual. Even as she watched the level went down slightly.

Gordon was watching her face as she looked. “That’s the tide going out,” he said, “it’ll come back in again in a while, but that’s not the problem. A hundred yards upstream from here the water is fresh as it flows down from the hills beyond the village. That’s what’s stopped, somebody’s built a dam across one of the valleys, so now the villagers have begun cultivating the fields and piping water down from the lake behind the dam. You’re supposed to be good with ideas, can you find a way to help me?”

Jennifer Jane thought for a while. “You hold on for as long as you can, I’ve got to go back to the village and see what they think, I’ll do my best for you and come back to let you know how I get on.”