The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken

the handle.
    "Daffy idea to leave a corkscrew in a tree trunk!" Dido thought. "No bottles hereabouts? Wonder why Cris has it there?"
    It was not until she had started the steady jog trot back to Dogkennel Cottages that she remembered Yan, Tan, Tethera, and the rest. They too had been planning to come to the Cuckoo Tree. Could the corkscrew belong to them, rather than to Cris? And did Cris know about them?
    She reached the top of the hill and started running down the slope toward the little row of cottages. Away to her left she could see Mr. Firkin, with his dog Toby, sitting in the middle of a huge flock of sheep.
    "Ask me," said Dido to herself, "Mr. Firkin and Toby are about the only two around here that ain't muxed up in some kind of havey-cavey business. Blight it, there comes old Sawbones Subito on his nag; I'd best hustle."

3
    The doctor's verdict on his patient was favorable.
    "Another two weeks," he declared, "and we shall have him
con moto, allegro assai!
It is a strong constitution, fortunately—
fortissimo!
Continue with the treatment along the lines I have laid down. The
signora
Lubbage—she has seen him?"
    "Yes," said Dido, "she put these here cobwebs on him. She ain't home just now."
    "Ah, that is good—I mean, that is good she has seen him.
Eccolo,
I will return on Friday," said Dr. Subito, and made off at top speed, casting wary glances along the road in either direction.
    Captain Hughes was wakeful, after the doctor's inspection, and somewhat fretful.
    "I could eat a sturgeon, bones and all," he announced, and Dido glanced around the bare little room.
    "We're clean out of prog, Cap," she said. "Wait a couple o' minutes and I'll see what I can fetch in."
    Mr. Firkin still sat out in the hillside with his sheep, a
couple of miles away, but the basket from Tegleaze Manor was close at hand, temptingly in view through Mrs. Lubbage's kitchen window.
    "I spose she did lock the door?" Dido said to herself.
    She walked along to the witch's cottage carrying Captain Hughes's clasp knife, with which she thought it would be easy enough to force the door. She tried it to make certain: yes, locked. Just as she was about to insert the knife blade between door and doorpost she experienced a curious prickling sensation in her hands; at the same time a small buzzing voice—where? inside her head perhaps—said, faintly but audibly,
    "This is a hoodoo lock. Beware. Do not touch it."
    "Eh?" Dido looked sharply behind her. Nobody was there. "Have I got a screw loose?" she wondered, and approached the knife blade to the crack once more.
    Again she heard the voice, distant but distinct, impossible to locate, like the drone of a loud mosquito:
    "This is a hoodoo lock. Beware. Do not touch it."
    "Rabbit me!" Dido, thoroughly discomposed and uneasy, stepped back, eying the door as if it might fly open and thump her. "This is a right mirksy set-out! Talking doors—I spose when I goes to lay hands on the basket of grub it'll get up and walk away! Well, the old crone may have hoodoo'd her front door, but I'll lay she didn't think to set one o' her spooky booby traps in the attic—blow me if I don't fetch the vittles out that way just to serve her right for her nasty suspicious nature."
    Somewhat to the surprise of the Captain she returned to
his room, piled up their luggage, and climbed into the loft. Then she made her way along through the series of lofts until she reached that of Mrs. Lubbage, whose trap door was open. Jamming a broomstick across the hole, Dido tied a length of cord to it, and slid down.
    Mrs. Lubbage's kitchen smelt even worse with the door shut; the smell was like a solid, threatening presence in the room.
    Just our luck if it's turned the grub sour, Dido thought, moving carefully and warily across the greasy bricks toward the table on which stood the hamper of provisions. A label on the handle reinforced her courage: it said in large clear print:
FOR THE SICK GENTLEMAN
AT DOGKENNEL COTTAGES
    Bet we wouldn't