from Thin Time.... in the Shropshire village of Tong, a bad tempered dog called Fymm, who is many centuries old, makes a mistake and chooses the wrong girl to be Task Bearer. Chased by gargoyles, Alice reaches the Green Lady’s cottage, receives the first of her three gifts, and learns that she must enter the Other World at Thin Time. Her task is to bring back the New Year seeds before midnight and prevent the world from dying. With her small stepbrother Thomas, Ratatosk the squirrel who can’t be trusted, and Fymm by her side, she sets out on her dangerous quest. Using the skipping rhyme password to enter the door into the Tree of Life, she travels into the Other World. With the help of the singing cockerel from Tong’s church tower, and armed only with a stone and a gargoyle’s shield, she must face the three terrible Sisters at the Well of Wyrd and the fury of Nidhogg the Snake-Dragon. But does she possess the one thing that will protect her – a loving heart? For without that, she will never be able to return to her own time, and the treasure, whatever it may be, will never be hers.
The three sister’s clothes were twisted layers of dripping pondweed. Long ribbons of frogspawn hung round their wrinkled faces. They were knitting strips of wet frog skin on clacking fish-bone needles. I shuddered because the heaps of skins at their feet were wriggling and trying to crawl away.
‘The Three Sisters of the Well of Wyrd,’ whispered Fymm, settling beside me and pointing at the women sitting on the wall. ‘They are the Guardians of all the knowledge in the world. It is knowledge written in magic symbols on stones at the bottom of the well. Go on, Task Bearer. Speak to the sisters. Ask them to read the runes and to tell you where to find the seeds. Be quick, there can only be an hour or two left before midnight. Thin Time will soon be over.’
‘You ask them,’ I said angrily. ‘They are horrible. Why must it always be me?’
Fymm growled under his breath and I backed away, trying to keep clear of his snapping teeth, and not looking where I was going, stumbled into the clearing.
‘You ask them,’ I said angrily. ‘They are horrible. Why must it always be me?’
Fymm growled under his breath and I backed away, trying to keep clear of his snapping teeth, and not looking where I was going, stumbled into the clearing.
The three sisters saw me, stopped knitting, and stared at me through strands of frogspawn hair. Their silvery, fish-scale skins glittered in the moonlight, and on the sides of their necks were gill slits that flapped as they breathed.
They looked so alike it was impossible to tell one from another, and I stared at them in horror. There were bubbling watery sounds coming from their throats and they chanted, ‘Go away, go away, GO AWAY!’ Waving their strips of frog skin knitting at me, I saw the leathery skins on their needles lift their heads, their bulging frog throats croaking like kettledrums.
They looked so alike it was impossible to tell one from another, and I stared at them in horror. There were bubbling watery sounds coming from their throats and they chanted, ‘Go away, go away, GO AWAY!’ Waving their strips of frog skin knitting at me, I saw the leathery skins on their needles lift their heads, their bulging frog throats croaking like kettledrums.
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