“The rest of you search Nottingham for scims,” Agatha continued. “If the Sheriff spotted those eels last night, that means the Snake is here somewhere. If you find him, cast your glow into the sky as a signal. Don’t try to fight him on your own.” Agatha scanned the group. “Understood?”
The questers dispersed. Ravan’s team went with Vex’s to explore the hill around the jail. Beatrix, Reena, and Kiko teamed up to search the area bordering Sherwood Forest. Bogden and Willam took the Nottingham school, Hort and Nicola headed towards the outer cottages, and Hester and Anadil followed Dot into the center of town.
“Daddy will know where the scims were. We have to get to my house,” said Dot as they passed a billboard with a flattering painting of the beefy Sheriff chasing an ogrish-looking Robin Hood, about to snare him in a big, gray sack. The sign read: “WELCOME TO NOTTINGHAM, LAND OF LAW AND ORDER.” “Can’t wait for you to meet Daddy. I’ve told him all about you.”
“Since when are you so chipper about ‘Daddy’?” Anadil scorned. “The way you talk about him, calling you a failure and a loser, he sounds like a demeaning, belittling mope. And that’s coming from me.”
“Well, he appreciates me more now,” said Dot cryptically.
Hester tuned out whenever Dot talked about her dysfunctional relationship with her father. (She had no patience for parental issues, which she thought most kids used as an excuse for mediocrity and avoiding real responsibility). Instead, she was unnerved by how dead this town was as she took in the square’s empty streets, stagnant fountain, and closed shopfronts.
“Um, sorry this isn’t Ravenswood or Bloodbrook, with bird-bone temples and man-wolf raves,” Dot said, seeing her face. “It’s Robin’s fault, to be honest. Robbed all the rich people to give to the poor, so the rich people left. But then the poor got rich from all Robin’s stealing, so then he started robbing from them and they left too. So the only people here are neither rich nor poor and there ain’t too many of those in this world. So yeah . . . it’s a sleepy town.”
“This isn’t sleepy. This is zombie,” said Hester.
“No thugs running around wreaking havoc either,” said Anadil. “If the Snake’s here, where are the attacks?”
A spooked villager rushed towards them, carrying an axe.
“Get inside, you fools! Eely things flyin’ around all last night! They’re huntin’ for someone!” he spat, blowing past them. “If you’re idling about, they might come back!”
The witches watched him flurry towards the cottage lanes.
Hester frowned. “At least we know why the streets are empty.”
“Hold on. Last night? Dot’s father said the scims were looking for someone last night too,” Anadil pointed out. “Last night. Long before Tedros even left his castle. So the Snake can’t have been looking for Tedros. He must be looking for someone else in Nottingham.”
“Someone he wants to kill?” said Hester.
“Or it could be someone he needs,” said Anadil.
“Someone he needs in order to take Camelot . . . ,” Hester mulled.
“You’re soooo overestimating this town,” Dot quipped.
Anadil’s eyes roamed the clear sky. “Well, we’ve been here a while and haven’t seen a thing. So either the scims gave up . . . or they found who they’re looking for.”
Hester noticed the news and sundries shop they were passing, the Sheriff’s Blotter, covered in WANTED posters of Robin Hood, which had a cartoon of an executioner chopping off his head. In the window, Hester glimpsed the latest edition of the Royal Rot— BANISHED FROM CAMELOT?
LADY GREMLAINE SPOTTED
IN HOMETOWN OF NOTTINGHAM!
Isn’t that Agatha’s steward? Hester thought. The one she’d complained about? It was suspicious that she’d be back in Nottingham just when Camelot needed her most . . . but then again, the Royal Rot claimed that Agatha and Sophie were secretly sisters, which was the most preposterous thing Hester had ever heard. Still, she’d ask Agatha about Gremlaine just in case. . . .
But now Hester was distracted by the row of local Nottingham newspapers next to the Rot— FOUR-POINT REPORT! SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM SAYS DAUGHTER WAS THE TRUE “LION”!
DOT THE HERO! READ HER EXCLUSIVE LETTER TO DADDY INSIDE!
“I’M SO PROUD OF MY DAUGHTER!” SHERIFF BOASTS
“Dot, honey . . . ?” Hester said.
“Mmmm?”
“In your letter, what did you tell your dad about the Four Point?” Hester asked sweetly.
“Um, you know . . . that we won,” Dot said, eating a chocolate WANTED poster. “We should hurry. It’s getting dark.”
More WANTED posters of Robin Hood decorated the shuttered shopfronts: Sheriff’s Coffee, a cozy café selling drinks like “Frothy Marian” and the “Sheriff’s Special Blend”; the Headless Robin, a souvenir shop selling Sheriff and Robin masks and fake Sheriff badges, plus replicas of the famous gray sack the Sheriff had used to catch Robin and parade him through town; Books and Badges, with books about Robin and the Sheriff prominently displayed in the window. . . .
And one about Dot, Hester realized, peering closer.
THE SHERIFF’S DAUGHTER:
Dot, Robin, and the Woods’ Most Famous Escape
Hester narrowed her eyes. “Dot, what happened exactly between you and Robin Hood?”
“You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?” Dot snapped, swiveling—
“Watch out!” Anadil yelped.
Hester and Dot whirled to see a scim whiz over their heads.
In a flash, the three witches took off after it, hightailing down the street and around a corner to follow it— They crashed right into Sophie and Agatha, the five of them toppling to the ground.
By the time they found their feet, the scim was gone.
“Where’d it go?” Hester asked, breathless.
“You saw it too?” Agatha said, pulling Sophie forward and calling back to the witches, “We’ll take the east lanes. You girls take west!”
The three witches sprinted away from them into the next row of cottages. Anadil tore up a rosebed, Hester kicked aside a bicycle, Dot peeked inside mailboxes.
Hester snarled: “Dot, you spitwad, it’s not going to be in a mailbo—”
The scim flew out of the box right into Dot’s mouth, then shot back out, rocketing past the witches, down the street, and under the door of a big gray cottage at the end.
“I take that back,” said Hester, hurtling towards the cottage, as Anadil raced after her, the two witches shooting their glow into the sky to signal the others. Sophie and Agatha’s glow flared from the next street, acknowledging the witches’— But Dot still hadn’t budged, rooted by the mailbox, her eyes on the house where the scim had gone.
“Daddy,” she gasped.
Dot burst into the house.
“Daddy? Where are yo—”
A meaty arm slung Dot against the wall.
“Don’t move,” a deep voice said.