Jungledrop

by Abi Elphinstone

‘Heckle didn’t imagine she’d be one for perilous quests,’ the parrot sighed, ‘and yet here she is, firm in the knowledge that she has not finished saving Iggy Blether or Jungledrop yet.’ She cocked her head at the young Unmapper. ‘Heckle won’t rest until she’s helped undo what Morg did to you and the rest of the prisoners.’

  Iggy’s face filled with pride as he looked at Heckle.

  ‘Make your way up these stairs, across the courtyard and out of the gate,’ Deepglint said to the Unmappers. ‘Wait for us under the avenue of trees – it is too risky for you to navigate the hunchbacks and the nightcreaks and all the other creatures lurking in the Bonelands on your own.’

  ‘But the Midnights!’ one of the Unmappers, a young girl, whispered. ‘We hear them screeching – they’ll only drag us back here!’

  Deepglint shook his head. ‘There are no Midnights any more, so there is nothing to fear. Fox saw to that. Now go. We will come for you as soon as we can.’

  The Unmappers traipsed up the steps out of the crypt and the animals, sensing the chance to escape, followed.

  And then it was just Fox, Deepglint, Heckle and the sloth in the crypt. They hurried down the passageway, Fox’s heart pounding at the thought of facing Morg at every turn, until they came to a dead end.

  They skidded to a halt, then Fox pushed hard against the wall of stone, but it didn’t move. ‘The crypt can’t just stop! This was the way into Shadowfall – the only way in!’

  ‘Shhhh,’ Heckle hissed. ‘Your thoughts are buzzing about Heckle’s head so loudly she can’t hear the trunklets properly.’

  At the mention of trunklets, the sloth tightened his grip round Fox’s neck.

  ‘The trunklets?’ Fox whispered.

  They were silent for a while as Heckle listened. And then the parrot nodded firmly. ‘There’s a trunklet on the other side of this dead end, Heckle thinks. Seems he made a pact with Morg to pull off the biggest prank in trunklet history – to bar the way into the temple with an Impassable Wall – only now that he’s sensed the presence of a Lofty Husk on the other side he’s wondering whether he might have taken things a bit far.’

  Deepglint stalked right up to the stones. ‘Listen here, you little wretch.’

  There was a squeak from the other side.

  ‘You had better bite your way through these stones and open up a way for us or –’ he took a deep breath – ‘when I do come face to face with you, I shall eat you.’ He turned to Fox and said, in a whisper, ‘I never eat magical creatures, but threatening disobedient ones is another matter entirely.’

  There were a few more squeaks from beyond the wall, then the sound of jaws working furiously and stone crumbling away. A little green head appeared. It stuck out its tongue at Fox, then, on seeing the Lofty Husk, carried on biting away at the stones until eventually a space big enough for Fox and her friends to step through opened up.

  They rushed through it, leaving the trunklet grumbling behind them, and ran on down the passageway until, eventually, they came to another stone staircase. Fox took a deep breath, then she climbed on up it with Deepglint by her side.

  She didn’t know quite what to expect at the top of the steps, but it certainly wasn’t what lay before her. They were standing in the corner of what might once have been an antechamber. There was a crumbling throne in the middle and stone walls that towered up on all sides. But there was no roof. Only the night sky, peppered with stars. And because a full moon shone down Fox could see quite clearly what had taken over this space.

  A garden.

  Only this was a garden like none Fox had ever seen before because every single plant was black. Vines as thick as snakes and as dark as coal twisted up the walls. Bushes laden with black fruits dripped juice the colour of ink. And shrubs with black-stained teeth snapped open and shut. But what made Fox shiver most was the enormous plant in the middle of the hall, the one that grew at the foot of the throne.

  It was a fern. Fox recognised its distinctive fronds because she’d been keeping an eye out for them after seeing the fingerferns in Cragheart. But Fox could tell that it wasn’t filled with phoenix magic. Instead, the plant before her seemed to ooze darkness. It was black, like all the other shrubs around it, but its fronds moved – up and down, up and down – as if, just possibly, it might be breathing.

  There was no sign of Morg. Only this garden built from curses.

  Fox looked on in horror, then, in a tiny whisper, she said: ‘Could Morg have conjured her own Forever Fern?’

  From Fox’s shoulder, the parrot narrowed her eyes. ‘Heckle can see the harpy has conjured something, but this is no Forever Fern.’ The plant pulsed away at the foot of the throne and Heckle glanced at the sloth just behind her. ‘Fibber agrees. He thinks this thing looks like it’s drenched in dark magic.’

  Deepglint growled. ‘We must destroy it because with Morg growing evermore in power who knows what this fern could be capable of?’

  Fox eyed the plant nervously. If it was filled with curses, she would need all of her strength to wrench it out of the ground. She raised a hand to lift her satchel over the sloth and off her back. It had been feeling heavier and heavier as the journey went on, which now struck Fox as slightly strange because she hadn’t added anything extra to it. She shrugged the thought away. There were more pressing things ahead of them now and, knowing that she would need all of her energy to pull Morg’s fern loose. But, when she placed a hand on the strap, a terrible silhouette filled the moon. Fox tensed and the sloth on her back shivered.

  High up on the far wall stood Morg, her jagged wings outstretched.

  ‘Welcome to my Night Garden,’ she crooned. ‘A place full to the brim with dark magic.’ She tilted her masked face. ‘I see you have laid eyes upon my Forever Fern.’

  Deepglint snarled. ‘That is no Forever Fern.’

  ‘Perhaps not in the way that you think,’ Morg replied. ‘But it sprang from the deepest of curses. From a seed soaked in poison and wrapped in a strand of the night. And I was only strong enough to perform this curse because I’ve been swallowing the tears of the Unmappers and creatures of this kingdom. Now, as long as this fern exists and grows, so, too, will my power.’

  Morg launched off the wall, her wings rippling through the night, and glided down to her throne. As she sat there, breathing in the fern’s horrible power, Fox felt the ground beneath her feet tremble.

  Fox reached under her chin and clutched the sloth’s paws. Then Heckle shifted even closer to Fox’s neck and Fox, in turn, shifted even closer to Deepglint. The flagstones around them broke apart and a cluster of enormous black roots burst out, spraying soil and stones into the air.

  Deepglint gnashed at the roots with his teeth, Fox darted this way and that, the sloth tore with his claws and Heckle flapped furiously. But the roots grappled through and fastened round the panther, the girl, the sloth and the parrot and began hauling all four of them through the Night Garden towards the harpy.

  Fox dug her nails into whatever she could – plants, vines, soil and leaves – but this garden and its plants belonged to Morg and they seemed bent on dragging her victims towards the throne.

  ‘No!’ Fox cried. ‘It can’t end this way! Not when we were so close!’

  A lump lodged in her throat as she thought of how far they’d come, how much she’d changed and how many people – both here in the Unmapped Kingdoms and back home in the Faraway – she’d be letting down if she lost to Morg now. Not least her brother. Would he stay a sloth for ever because she’d failed to stop the harpy in time? Then there were her parents. They had lied to her. They had pitted her against her brother. And yet, despite all that, she still wanted to see them again and to save them from the terrible fate Morg had in store for Fox’s world.

  The harpy’s cackle echoed through the garden. ‘I told you before: worlds are built by people of power, not by insignificant little girls like you! You never, ever stood a chance of beating me!’ Morg tilted her skull mask as the roots of her fern heaved Fox
closer. ‘I see you for what you are, child. A miserable wretch with a thorny heart who lived unloved and will die unloved.’

  Fox’s tears fell fast now. ‘Stop it!’ she shouted. ‘Stop it!’

  Heckle screeched in fury and Deepglint roared, but the roots only tightened round the panther and the parrot as they were thrust, along with Fox and the sloth, into the folds of the fern itself.

  ‘Don’t listen to Morg!’ Deepglint panted as the fern began wrapping its leathery fronds round its victims. ‘You are loved, Fox. You—’

  His words were smothered by the fern, which had now closed so tightly round its prey that Fox could no longer see or hear Deepglint or Heckle. She clung to the sloth’s paws with all the strength she had left. But through the tiny crack in the plant she saw only Morg, her wings outstretched in triumph.

  ‘Feast on them!’ the harpy shrieked to the fern. ‘Feast on them all!’

  Fox’s pulse thrashed beneath her skin. She was terrified of the fern and of what it was about to do to her and her friends, but she was also terrified by what Morg had said. That Fox had spent a lifetime being unloved and would now die that way, too. That she had never stood a chance of finding the Forever Fern and saving the world. That she was foolish to even think she could.

  Fox felt her limbs slacken and her breathing slow as a soul-shuddering despair overcame her. And, though she could feel the sloth clutching her hands, she no longer had the strength to twist and turn to try and break free. This was the end. She could feel the fern sucking at the life inside her. Tears rolled down Fox’s cheeks as the air turned cold and fizzed with curses.

  But sometimes, as an adventure draws to a close, we find unexpected things. Tiny jewels almost completely buried in the shadows. And somehow, somewhere – though she was bound in the clutches of the very worst magic – Fox found a flicker of hope still burning in the dark.

  Her whole life she had buried her heart beneath thorns and hidden it behind walls, but something had changed out here in Jungledrop the moment she’d seen the quest for what it was: not some selfish opportunity to make a fortune, but an important mission to save two worlds. And she had seen her relationship with her brother more clearly, too. They weren’t rivals or business competitors. They were siblings and they had a lot more in common than either of them had realised. Fox couldn’t predict how the quest would end, or even if she’d manage to persuade Fibber to come home from Jungledrop with her, but she did know this: she had a brother who cared for her and she, in turn, cared deeply about him.

  And in learning to care – for Fibber, Heckle, Deepglint, Iggy, Goldpaw and all the others she had met on her journey – the wall around Fox’s heart had come crashing down. So this quest hadn’t been doomed from the start, whatever Morg might say. Not when so many here in Jungledrop believed in Fox and had shown her kindness along the way that had kept the search for the Forever Fern alive.

  Fox felt a tingling sensation tiptoe over her skin. And that’s when the faintest sound began, only just audible beneath Morg’s cackling and the throb of the fern’s dark magic. It was a tinkling sort of sound – the kind of noise starlight might make if you bottled a constellation – and with it came a familiar glow. One that Fox had last seen in Casper Tock’s antiques shop, but which had been quietly growing in the shadows of her satchel from the moment she had turned Fibber into a sloth and vowed to work with her brother to find the Forever Fern for the sake of the world and everyone in it.

  Fox was bound too tightly by the fern to lift the satchel from her shoulder and peer inside, but she could tell with every fibre of her being that the ancient magic of the phoenix tear was stirring. And it seemed Fibber could tell this, too, because he was now twitching with excitement around her neck. The glow brightened until Fox was no longer shrouded in gloom, but bathed in a magnificent blue light. Seeing that light, so bold against the dark, filled Fox with renewed strength.

  ‘There is a magic stronger than yours!’ she shouted to Morg. Fox didn’t know if her voice would travel beyond the fern’s fronds, but she flung her words out anyway because they were all she had left to fight with. ‘You say that this quest was doomed from the start and that worlds are built by people of power, not by insignificant little girls like me? Well, you’re wrong, Morg!’

  The glow was now so bright inside the fern that Fox was blinking into its light and the sloth was squeezing her hands tight, as if willing her on.

  ‘I used to think like you!’ Fox shouted. ‘I used to believe that to be kind was to be weak and that stamping all over other people meant you got what you wanted. I was wrong. To be kind is to be strong. And, if you’re strong enough to pull down a wall around your heart, you can fight with the strength of a warrior because then you will have learnt to love!’

  The sloth rubbed his head against Fox’s neck.

  ‘My brother and my friends in Jungledrop taught me that worlds are not built by people of power!’ she cried. ‘Worlds are built by people who care! Kingdoms go on because kindness goes on.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You don’t know my heart, Morg – whatever you might say – because I care. About our world and about all the people in it. I carried on with this quest even when I lost my brother and I wanted to give up. I set the glasswing butterflies free even though it could have cost me my life. I believed in Deepglint even though I risked everything doing it. And I went back for him even though the hunchbacks were closing in because that’s what friends do.’

  And, though she was still held in the grip of dark magic, Fox’s heart stumbled across something else half buried in the gloom then. Something sitting alongside the flicker of hope and burning with just as much strength: grace.

  She threw her last words out as loudly as she could with the power of the phoenix magic on her side. ‘I will not let you undo what others have taught me, Morg! I will not let you force a wall back up round my heart! So…’ She bit her lip – she could hardly believe what she was about to say. ‘I forgive you for what you did to Iggy Blether and Doogie Herbalsneeze and all the other Unmappers and animals you locked away. I forgive you for what you are doing to me and my brother and Heckle and Deepglint right now. I forgive you for everything because kindness is stronger than hate and I will win this quest even if every single odd is stacked against me!’

  Fox could feel her satchel shaking now. And bulging. As if something inside it was struggling to get out. Then suddenly the satchel flung itself open, flooding the fern with light and burning through the fronds as if they were paper-thin. Fox and the sloth tumbled to the ground and Deepglint and Heckle did the same either side of them as the fern shrivelled before their eyes until it was nothing more than a heap of black grit.

  The satchel lay beside it, at the foot of the throne where Morg sat.

  The harpy looked on in horror. ‘No,’ she murmured, leaping up so that she was standing on the throne. ‘What is this?!’

  Fox gasped in disbelief. Creeping out of the satchel that she had carried for the whole quest was a silver fern that glittered and shone as if it had been dusted in frost. And suddenly Fox realised why the satchel had grown heavier and heavier during the course of their journey, and why there had been soil and leaves inside it when she’d opened it up back in Cragheart. All along there had been a fern growing inside it!

  Fox watched, awestruck. The fern was growing fast now that it was out in the open. It set down roots that sprawled the length of the garden and then it grew taller than the throne Morg stood on, taller than the biggest plant in the Night Garden, taller even than the walls that surrounded the antechamber. It stood before them, a tower of shimmering silver. And Fox knew, without a shred of doubt, that this was the Forever Fern. She looked at the plant, hardly daring to believe it. How had it come to be in her satchel? How had it grown in there?

  But Morg was on the move now, so any answers would have to wait. The harpy leapt up into the Forever Fern’s fronds, which were as sturdy as if they belonged to a tree, and began searching frantically.


  ‘The pearl!’ Deepglint cried to Fox. ‘She’s after the pearl!’

  He swiped at Morg’s talon, trying to stop her pursuit, but the harpy leapt away just in time and carried on tearing through the fern, plucking at its fronds and muttering wildly.

  ‘It must be here!’ Morg cried. ‘I’m so close to claiming all the Unmapped magic!’

  The harpy’s words suddenly brought something back to Fox, something that Doogie Herbalsneeze had said in the Constant Whinge: ‘The things you search for are often much closer than you think.’

  Fox dug her hand into the satchel. There was nothing left of the fern inside it now. Its roots were lodged in Shadowfall’s soil. But the phoenix tear was still there, flickering quietly, along with Fibber’s paintings. Fox had no idea how long the Forever Fern had been in her satchel, but she wondered whether somehow its growing had sparked the phoenix tear’s magic into life. So could it be, then, that the phoenix tear was the pearl? That she had been carrying it all along… ?

  Heckle was now hissing at Morg’s heels and Deepglint was leaping up the fronds after her. Quickly, Fox raked away at the plants in front of her until she’d uncovered a small patch of soil. Morg glanced down just at that moment as she realised what was happening.

  But, unbeknown to the harpy and to Fox and her friends, the little sloth had been making his way up the Forever Fern as soon as it had sprung up because he sensed that Morg would want to search it for the pearl. So, despite his fear of heights, Fibber had climbed into the fronds before the harpy had leapt into them and before even Deepglint had raced up after Morg. And, as the harpy made to leap from the fern now and hurtle down towards Fox to ruin her chances of saving Jungledrop, the sloth had the chance to do something magnificent.

  Clinging to the frond directly below Morg, he swung out his paw at the same time as the harpy launched herself from the fern. He was a little sloth, but his claws were sharp and they ripped a hole in one of Morg’s precious wings, which sent her crashing off course into the plants beyond Fox. And, because of her brother’s quick-thinking, Fox was able to plunge the phoenix tear into the ground and heap the soil back on top of it.