Angus walked over to the fire, placed another log from the wicker basket on to it and sat down in the rocking chair. He creaked back and forth, but said nothing and Moll noticed Morag was avoiding their eyes as she cleared the plates away.
‘Please tell us,’ Domino said. ‘The Shadowmasks will know Moll and Gryff are here now and you heard what Willow said about the next full moon – we haven’t got much time.’
Morag ushered the twins up the stairs then looked down at the others. ‘I know nothing of burning feathers and what you might find one hundred years deep, but Angus will tell you what we know about witches.’
She disappeared after the children and Angus looked into the fire. ‘Beyond the North Door lies the Clattering Gorge,’ he said, ‘a river that winds down from the moors and runs through a silver birch forest before flowing past Glendrummie. We used to fish for salmon there and the twins climbed trees and built dens in the rhododendron bushes. But all that changed recently.’
‘Go on,’ Moll said.
‘The witches appeared a few weeks ago when stories of the dark magic started circulating from those beyond the North Door,’ Angus said. ‘A family was fishing down by the river, but only the mother returned to Glendrummie. Heartbroken, she spoke of women emerging between the trees, beautiful young ladies who played music so enchanting it lulled her family to sleep. She awoke by chance – a mother’s instincts perhaps – to find her family gone and these women, these witches, running away through the woods.’
Siddy’s eyes widened. ‘And we’ve got to steal the last note of the witches’ song?!’
Moll clenched her fist round the parchment and thought of Alfie, of the villagers poisoned by the Veil, of all the people they needed to help. ‘We should sneak out of Glendrummie now – while it’s light – and before the Shadowmasks conjure another storm.’
Angus reached for a jar on the mantelpiece and drew out three sprigs of white heather. ‘One each,’ he said, handing them round. ‘They’ll keep you safe until the North Door at least – but, beyond that, it’ll take more than heather to ward off the dark magic.’ He tossed an extra sprig to Moll. ‘For your wildcat, though he’ll have to carry it between his teeth. Morag will fix you up some food and blankets and—’
There was a rap at the door and Moll jumped.
Domino darted to the window and looked through. ‘People from your village, I think,’ he whispered to Angus. ‘A woman and two children.’
Moll craned her neck towards the window and gasped. The woman’s face was full of life, but her children’s were sucked of colour. Purple circles hung beneath eyes that bloomed with terror and Moll gulped as she took in the Veil’s victims. But why had the woman been spared the Night Spinner’s curse?
Angus joined her at the window and, on seeing the three figures, he hung his head. ‘Fiona lives just up the road. She believes in the Bone Murmur and she tried to place pots of white heather around her house, but her husband didn’t have time for the ways of the old magic and he threw them away. The Veil poisoned him and their children two nights ago. Fiona was spared because of the sprig of heather she kept beneath her pillow, but her family won’t eat or drink or speak any sense, so Fiona can only hope we’ll find a cure . . .’
Moll turned to Domino as Angus went to open the door. ‘I know I said we should get going, but we can’t just up and leave these people,’ she whispered. ‘They need our help!’
They watched the children on the doorstep muttering under their breath, their voices strangled by gasps. ‘The Veil is hungry,’ they chorused, ‘and it will be back. Soon all will bow down to the Night Spinner’s eternal darkness.’
Fiona clutched Angus’s hands. ‘We have to find a cure – somehow – before my children lose their minds completely.’
Moll looked from Siddy to Domino. ‘One of us needs to stay,’ she said. ‘The Shadowmasks sent the storm that destroyed this village because they knew me and Gryff were here. If we hadn’t come, maybe these folk would still have their homes to hide in.’
Domino paced by the fire. ‘I could stay and help rebuild the cottages. Perhaps, together, Angus and I could find a cure to help those poisoned by the Veil.’ He paused and turned to Moll. ‘But I can’t let you face the witches alone – I swore to my parents that I’d protect you, that I’d look after you like an older brother should.’
The kindness of Domino’s words cradled Moll and, although the sense of belonging, the force of family, made imagining leaving Domino almost impossible, Moll could feel Fiona’s pain and hear the desperation in her heart, and she knew what had to be done.
‘You should stay, Domino,’ she said. ‘I’ve got Sid and Gryff and a whole quiverful of arrows.’
Domino placed his hands on Moll’s shoulders. ‘But what if something were to happen to you? Or to Siddy? I couldn’t bear it, Moll.’ He shook his head. ‘Pa wouldn’t want me to leave you alone.’
Siddy stepped forward. ‘The fire spirits told us our quest would start here.’ He nodded towards Angus who was hugging Fiona. ‘Well, our quest isn’t just about us now. We need to look out for others too, and finding this last amulet is just as important as Domino helping these villagers.’
For a moment, Moll felt her heart wobble. She didn’t want to leave Domino – it had been hard enough saying goodbye to Oak and Mooshie – but there was something growing in Siddy’s voice and it made her feel bolder.
‘Plans change,’ Siddy went on, ‘but our promise to fight this dark magic doesn’t. So we keep going – we fight from all sides now – because that is our new plan and it’s the right thing to do.’
Domino watched Fiona’s children shivering outside the cottage, then he turned to Moll and Siddy, taking in their mud-streaked faces. ‘These people need me,’ he said. ‘But, the moment I’ve helped rebuild their homes and done all I can to search for a cure, I’m coming after you.’ His eyes met Gryff’s wild stare. ‘All of you.’
And Moll knew that those words were a promise, one made with all the love and loyalty of an older brother.
Hands curled round sprigs of white heather, they walked out of the ruined village together. Sycamore branches lay strewn across the track, hacked from trees by the storm, and shadows fell over the frosted fields either side of them as the sun dropped behind a forest. Occasionally a pheasant croaked from a thicket and a woodcock stirred, startled by Gryff prowling through the bracken to the side of the track, but otherwise the countryside was quiet. The hail and rain had stopped, no carts trundled past and not a soul stirred from the cottages scattered along their way.
‘The last note of the witches’ song . . .’ Moll whispered to Siddy as Domino discussed plans with Angus ahead. ‘We don’t even know what we’re looking for, not really.’
Siddy straightened his flat cap. ‘No, but I don’t think many people do at the start of the journey. They sort of find out halfway through.’
Moll pulled her scarf tighter around her neck and thought of the clue they’d unravelled to find the second amulet. It had been just as scrambled and yet somehow, together, they’d managed to work it out.
She carried on walking as a skein of geese honked above her, a V-shape gliding on against the darkening sky, until eventually Angus stopped on a humpback bridge. A large river gushed beneath it, browned by peat from the moors and boxed in by steep slopes of rock that led up to woodland on either side.
‘The Clattering Gorge,’ Angus said.
Moll watched the water rush over jutting stones and froth beneath waterfalls. Even the rivers are wilder up here, she thought.
Angus walked over the bridge to the stone wall on the left-hand side of the track which ran alongside the road and masked the Clattering Gorge from sight. The others followed and then stopped behind him as he paused before a large wooden door set into the wall. Animals had been carved into it – stags and eagles mostly – but there was a wildcat too, and on seeing it Moll glanced down at Gryff. Another reminder that he belonged beside remote rivers and icy fields
, not at the side of a girl in a forest hundreds of miles south.
‘The North Door,’ Angus said. ‘The gateway to the northern wilderness.’
Domino handed Siddy a satchel that Morag had filled with food, water and a blanket, then he put an arm around Moll and Siddy’s shoulders as Gryff stalked behind Moll’s legs.
‘This is where the next part of our journey begins,’ Domino said. ‘And, although things aren’t as we expected them to be, we’re still a team and we’ll fight, on both sides of the North Door, to force this dark magic back.’ He squeezed Moll’s and Siddy’s shoulders. ‘However frightened you are or however desperate things seem, remember that you have beaten Shadowmasks before. You have fought against the creatures of the Underworld – and won. So, stick together at all times, at all costs – and, as you fight alongside each other, know that not so far away I’ll be fighting too.’
Siddy swallowed and Moll ran a hand over Gryff’s back.
‘You’re braver than you believe and stronger than you know,’ Domino said. ‘And, if I had to pick two people in the world to force this darkness back, I would choose you two.’
Moll tried to reply, but words couldn’t hold in all that Domino, Oak and Mooshie meant to her. She hugged him fiercely, proudly, and with a hope that in that embrace Domino would feel the love that her heart struggled to voice.
‘Once you have the last note of the witches’ song,’ Angus said, ‘follow the path that runs above the gorge right out on to the Rambling Moors. You’ll come to a bowl in the hills where you’ll find a bothy – a cottage – and when you get there ask for Aira MacDuff. Aira’s my sister and she’s in charge of the Highland Watch, a group of people from Glendrummie – believers in the old magic – who swore to try and safeguard the north and force any dark magic back after the witches appeared last month.’
Moll stretched out a hand and turned the knob, but the door didn’t budge.
Angus smiled. ‘We use a blessing for safe passage to open the North Door.’ Then he lowered his voice to a whisper and said:
‘Young and old, wealthy and poor,
Keep them safe, past the North Door.’
At Angus’s words, the handle turned of its own accord and the door opened, scraping back on rusted hinges. Before them lay a narrow path, a dark snake winding beside silver birch trees on the right and rocky banks that plunged down to the river many metres below on the left. Moonlight filtered through the branches, dusting the scene in a cool pale light and, as Gryff looked through the door, he let the heather Moll had insisted he carry between his teeth drop to the ground. Moll tucked her sprig into her pocket and rested her hand on the bow slung over her shoulder. As Angus had said, they’d need more than protection charms beyond the North door.
Gryff stepped up to the threshold, ears pricked, whiskers twitching, then he looked back at Moll, dipped his head and slunk inside. Moll followed with Siddy, then she glanced over her shoulder at Domino one last time. She held the memory of him tight, of his large brown eyes willing her on, then the North Door clicked shut behind them and she turned to face the Clattering Gorge.
Moll strained her eyes into the trees as they walked. Long, thin trunks wrapped in silver bark, they gave nothing away, no sign that anyone might be lurking between them. Their roots sprawled down to the path where woodrush and moss began, and beyond that the river roared, a dark churn beneath the moonlight. Moll watched as a salmon leapt upstream, its flimsy body nosing through the water. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to read the wind’s spirit, like Cinderella Bull had taught her, but it sounded different here – hollow, like air blown through the top of a bottle. Every now and again, Gryff stopped, ears cocked, muscles taut, but the forest around them seemed empty. If there were witches here, they were keeping themselves hidden.
They walked on and on and the further along the path they went, the brighter the trees seemed to shine. Leaves sparkled like crystals against the darkness and, on the far side of the gorge, the birches looked as if they were coated in frost. Moll stretched out a hand and touched a leaf. It felt cool beneath her fingers – and stiff.
‘Sid,’ she said slowly. ‘The trees . . . they’re not ordinary birches. They’re not even made of wood. They’re silver.’
Siddy ran his palm down a trunk and gasped. Moll was right. The bark was cold and hard, like a marble pillar. ‘That’s why the wind sounds different here,’ he murmured. ‘Because it’s slipping between metal not leaves . . .’
Moll adjusted the quiver on her back. The forest was beautiful – like a world frozen by moonlight – but trees made of silver meant there was an enchantment involved and if the witches were near it was bound to mean dark magic.
Moll dropped her voice until it was barely a whisper. ‘Keep your eyes open, Sid. The witches could be close.’
They walked over a bridge covered in lichen that crossed a stream leading down to the river and, though Moll tried to focus her mind on the dangers that could be hiding in the Clattering Gorge, she found herself thinking of Alfie. Where had he gone when the Soul Splinter shattered? Down into the Underworld, forever a prisoner of the dark magic? Or was he here, somewhere in her world? Something inside Moll, perhaps just the feeling deep in her gut that Domino had spoken of back in the forest, made her feel as if Alfie was still here – that somewhere his heart was still beating and his thoughts were turning – but would finding the amulet mean undoing all the curses the Shadowmasks had conjured? Would it mean bringing Alfie back to life as someone who could be seen by everyone, not just by those who believed in the Bone Murmur?
Moll tried to hold her friend’s face up in her mind, tried to remember his blue eyes and scruffy fair hair, his jay feather earring and old leather boots, but with each day that passed the image seemed to fade and with it a rising sense of panic trembled inside Moll.
‘Look at those nests!’ Siddy murmured as they stepped off the bridge back on to the path. ‘They’re huge . . .’
Moll pulled herself free from her thoughts and glanced up to where Siddy was pointing. Within the branches of the birch trees were large bundles of sticks. Like the rest of the forest they were silver, but they were bigger than any nest Moll had ever seen – bigger than a crow’s or a buzzard’s, bigger even than an eagle’s eyrie.
‘What kind of bird would live in a nest like that?’ Moll asked.
Siddy shivered. ‘I’m not sure I want to find out. Let’s keep walking.’
The path wound on beside the gorge and, at first, Moll thought it was just the wind that she could hear, rustling through the metal trees. But, when Gryff stopped and growled, she strained her ears past the roar of water and the thudding of her heart, and then she heard it too. There was another sound in the forest, one not made by the river or the wind or the trees.
Moll grabbed Siddy’s arm. ‘Listen.’
They stood still on the path and, after a moment, they heard it more clearly. Music. Chords that started low and soft, like wind sighing in the hollows of a valley, then they faded and in their place notes rippled and slid.
Siddy bit his lip. ‘Is that the witches’ song?’
‘It must be. But,’ Moll’s eyes flitted between the birch trunks, ‘I can’t see anyone.’
The music swelled and softened around them and with every note Moll felt a strange sleepiness close in, a fog inside her mind that seemed to swallow all her thoughts. She shook her head, remembering Angus’ words about the family who had been lulled by the witches’ music and then taken.
‘Don’t listen to the music, Sid.’ Moll raised her hands to cover her ears. ‘Keep walking and be ready to grab your bow.’
Moll concentrated hard on her impossible dream, on the only thought powerful enough to unlock the Oracle Spirit inside her arrows. To make Alfie real, that was her dream, and Moll knew she’d need to believe in it with every fibre in her body to bring the Shadowmasks’ magic down.
Gryff stopped abruptly, his tail low to the ground. He’d seen something. Moll lifte
d her bow from her shoulder and, trying to ignore the music, she fitted an arrow to the string and looked into the trees. Set back from the path, beyond a cluster of birches laden with large silver nests, was a folly, a half-ruined temple of stones entwined with ivy. There were walls still, and long, rectangular holes where windows might once have been, but the roof had long since fallen in. The music was louder here – a crystal-clear melody that reminded Moll of water trickling – and it whispered to her that there was nothing to fear. She blinked again and again to keep herself awake and beside her Siddy yawned and even Gryff moved slowly, almost clumsily, through the trees.
‘We’ve got to follow this music,’ Moll said firmly, ‘without getting trapped under its spell. And then we need to . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Steal it,’ Siddy finished for her.
It sounded ridiculous out loud – impossible even – but they had to try. Gryff shook himself, then prowled into the bracken and, with their bows raised, Moll and Siddy followed.
The music grew louder, throbbing in their ears and rolling through the silver birches. Every note seemed to soothe Moll’s nerves and more than once she found herself yawning, but she swallowed the tiredness and pressed on between the trees until they were all outside the folly together, crouched beneath a window.
With an arrow still set to her bow, Moll lifted her head above the stonework. There were no witches huddled inside, singing; there were no people at all. Instead, in the middle of the folly, there was a grand piano with its lid propped open. Nettles grew around it, ivy twisted up the legs and moss clung to the strings splayed out under the lid. But the strangest thing about this piano was that the instrument was playing by itself.
Siddy peered over Moll’s shoulder, his eyes wide. ‘Where are the witches?’
‘I don’t know,’ Moll whispered.
But she knew enough of dark magic to realise that just because the witches couldn’t be seen didn’t mean that they weren’t there. The two children watched the piano notes rise and fall.
The Night Spinner Page 5
