The Night Spinner

by Abi Elphinstone

  Moll ran a hand down Pepper’s neck and noticed that his mane was plaited with tiny silver bells.

  ‘For luck,’ Aira said. ‘And it means we can hear them if they wander off.’ She shortened the stirrups on Pepper’s saddle. ‘When they canter, the bells chime and rustle and I like to think that if a whole constellation of stars fell to earth it might sound something like our highland ponies galloping.’

  She handed Moll Pepper’s reins and walked back to her own mare. Moll looked out over the horse’s saddle and watched the pale sun rising above the moors, brushing the sky pink. I’m coming for you, Sid, she said to herself. But just thinking the words in the face of the wilderness before her made Moll feel suddenly small.

  Since losing Alfie, she was used to sadness, used to the grief that rocked inside her every time she thought about her friend, but this morning she’d awoken with a new feeling: a heavy guilt that sat in the pit of her stomach and made her want to curl up into a ball and forget that not only had she failed Alfie but she had lost Sid too. Moll was a fighter and she had pushed back at every threat that had come her way since learning about the Bone Murmur, but as soon as she had set foot in the northern wilderness she’d felt something inside her shift.

  Gryff had been able to tell that things weren’t right. He had refused to sleep upstairs in the bothy – the chatter and the snores of the Highland Watch were too noisy for him – and so he and Moll had cuddled up in an armchair by the fire, and, as they lay together beneath the sheepskin rugs, the wildcat had felt the sadness and the guilt brooding inside the girl. He had curled his tail around her and nuzzled her cheek, but both he and Moll knew that these were wounds not easily fixed.

  Gryff blinked at Moll from the path and she tucked the tartan scarf Aira had lent her down into her duffle coat, adjusted the quiver on her back, then hoisted herself up on to Pepper. Aira mounted her mare and the Highland Watch gathered around the door of Fillie Crankie.

  ‘You’ll be careful, won’t you?’ Spud said, twisting his beard.

  Aira slotted her crossbow into the holder on her back, then pulled the hood of her cape up over her hair. Her blue eyes sparkled against the rabbit-fur trim. ‘You just keep an eye on the moors.’ She kicked her mare on across the heather to the path. ‘I’m relying on you.’

  Moll dipped her head at the Highland Watch. ‘If you find Sid, tell him . . . tell him I’m sorry for leaving him. And that I’ll be back once I’ve got the feather.’

  Spud nodded. ‘We will, lass. We will.’ Although, in his eyes, Moll couldn’t see much hope.

  She tugged on the reins and followed Aira up the track that led out on to the moors. Pepper’s stride was unlike Jinx’s and Moll was used to riding bareback rather than sitting in a saddle, but, even so, there was something reassuring in the pony’s broad shoulders and the steadiness of his hooves as they clopped up the path and cracked through iced puddles.

  For a while, they rode in silence, cantering side by side, while Gryff bounded over the heather in front of them. Moll listened to the moors – to a lark calling, to the grouse wings whirring over the heather and to the tiny bells jingling from within Pepper’s mane – and with every sound she heard she prayed for Siddy’s voice. But it never came. Once or twice she glimpsed a bog set back from the path, a dark pit surrounded by heather, but no creatures stirred from within them and the highland ponies sped by, on and on over the Rambling Moors.

  As they approached a fence running across the hillside, Aira finally drew Salt back to a walk. ‘The goblin at Whuppity Cairns,’ she said as she unhooked the gate and pulled it open, ‘apparently he’s dreadful.’

  Moll kicked Pepper through. ‘Did the Shadowmasks bring him through the thresholds to the moors?’

  Aira nodded. ‘The north has always had its quirks: selkies and krakens down by the sea and the odd monster in the lochs. But the goblin is the Shadowmasks’ doing and, from what I’ve heard, he’s a crooked old trickster.’ She closed the gate and they carried on walking, across a bridge of felled pines that ran over a burn and back on to the path. ‘Kittlerumpit, they call him.’

  ‘Sounds like a dodgy vegetable,’ Moll replied. ‘And why do people visit him if they know he’s a trickster?’

  Aira smiled. ‘He collects things. Rare, magical things apparently and people have come from all over the northern wilderness to trade with him. But, as Spud said, not many come back.’

  Moll gripped tighter on Pepper’s reins.

  Aira shrugged. ‘Ach! But we’re not most people, are we, Moll? We’ll come back and with any luck we’ll be carrying that feather you need.’

  Moll’s breath misted into a cloud in front of her and, when she looked up at the moors ahead, she saw that they were cloaked in white and the sky around them was heavy with snow.

  ‘It’s arrived,’ Aira said quietly. ‘The first snow of winter.’

  And as Aira, Moll and Gryff made their way further across the moors a muffled whiteness stirred above them. Tiny flakes began to fall and Moll found herself pushing back her hood and letting them land, cold and wet, on her upturned face.

  ‘It’s never snowed this early up here,’ Aira said, brushing the snowflakes from her cape, ‘and, mark my words, it’ll get a lot worse – the Shadowmasks will see to that. They’re conjuring weather that’s near impossible to live through . . . It’s the Highland Watch’s guess that the witch doctors want to cripple this world – both its people and the land – so that when they do show themselves they have subjects so broken they’ll be desperate to obey the dark magic.’

  Moll’s eyes were glued to the track. ‘The Shadowmasks do that. They destroy places and they take people, even though they’ve got no right.’

  ‘We’re going to find your friend,’ Aira said.

  Moll’s gaze remained downward. ‘They took my parents too. And Alfie – before I could even make him real.’

  Aira frowned. ‘Who’s Alfie? And what do you mean, “make him real”?’

  For a while, Moll said nothing, the pain of things too raw inside her, but then she told Aira Alfie’s story.

  ‘When Alfie and Sid were here, we were a Tribe and I felt like I could do anything,’ Moll said. ‘Whatever the Shadowmasks had in store for us I knew we’d be OK because we were all together.’ She bit down on her lip. ‘But I couldn’t save Alfie – I didn’t think quick enough . . . and . . . and it’s all my fault Sid’s gone too.’

  Aira reached across and pulled on Pepper’s reins. The pony stopped and Moll looked up at Aira.

  ‘When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see?’ Aira asked.

  Moll sniffed. ‘A muddy face that’s always getting things wrong.’

  Aira shook her head. ‘You know what I see when I look at you?’

  Moll said nothing.

  ‘I see courage, lass.’ Aira put a gloved hand over her chest. ‘In here. And your courage isn’t just about bows and arrows and catapults. It goes deeper than that. There’s a fight inside you, Moll, a toughness of the soul. And it refuses to give up, no matter what is thrown at it.’ She paused. ‘That fight isn’t small – it’s not something that always gets things wrong – it’s fierce and loyal and, though I’ve no doubt it could bring down a mighty giant if it wanted to, sometimes it’s strong just by being inside you.’

  Moll swallowed. ‘How do you know I’ve still got my fight? How do you know I’m not just going to give up because that’s what I feel like doing now?’

  ‘Because I can see it,’ Aira replied. ‘It’s in your eyes and in your wildcat.’

  Moll looked down at Gryff, his striped fur dark against the snow.

  Aira kicked Salt on. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, Moll. You’re allowed to mess up and fall apart – everyone does it – but know that however small, useless and full of doubt you feel, I believe in you. I see your fight.’

  Moll heard Aira’s words and she tried to let them in, but, like with Siddy’s in the Clattering Gorge, something inside Moll pushed them bac
k, as if, perhaps, there were darker forces playing with her heart. She clamped her legs round Pepper’s flanks and the pony sprang forward into a canter until Moll was level with Salt.

  Aira glanced across and smiled. ‘Let’s find this feather, then.’

  They galloped over the moors with Gryff pounding beside them and, though somewhere the hills ended and the sky began, Moll couldn’t see where because everything was blanketed white, like a world made new. But Moll thought only of the darkness lying at its core, of the eternal night just three days away. The ponies pressed on up a steep path towards the summit of a hill and then suddenly Gryff stopped. His tail slid to the ground and his ears swivelled towards the banks of snow-dusted heather on their left. Nothing stirred, but Gryff continued to stare at the same spot, a dip in the heather several metres away.

  Then, without warning, the snow exploded, bursting into the air like scattered foam, and a dark, grimy hand ripped out of the ground. Pepper reared up and Moll clung to his mane, but Aira reached for her crossbow and swung it over her shoulder.

  ‘Peatbogger!’ she yelled.

  The pit belched as a brown creature climbed out on to the snow. Moll fumbled for an arrow as it raised its body up to full height, a ragged torso of soil twisted with clumps of heather. It had no eyes or ears, just a dark hole for a mouth and arms that trailed to the ground.

  Aira tucked her chin against the tiller of her crossbow, then fired and the bolt smashed straight into the creature. Its body collapsed into a heap of soil.

  ‘Well done,’ Moll panted.

  But Aira wasn’t smiling. ‘Ride hard!’ she shouted. ‘I just bought us a bit of time, that’s all!’

  To Moll’s horror, she watched the soil and heather rise up again, building itself back into a body until once more the peatbogger stood before them, beating earthy hands against its chest. It careered over the snow on all fours and Aira, Moll and Gryff raced further up the track. But, behind them, the peatbogger followed, a brown stain lumbering closer and closer. Moll squeezed her legs round Pepper’s body, grabbed her bow and twisted back in her saddle. She closed one eye and tried to think of her impossible dream – to make Alfie real – but her promise seemed to belong to a world long gone. She fired – and her arrow fell short.

  Gryff turned to face the peatbogger, lashing out with razored claws, but the creature merely lifted one large hand and batted the wildcat into the snow.

  ‘Gryff!’ Moll yelled.

  He struggled up, charged again at the peatbogger and bit hard on its leg. A chunk of soil and heather fell away, but the creature only grunted, shunting the wildcat aside and blundering on after the ponies.

  Moll tore another arrow from her quiver, but, even as she fired it, she knew she would miss. It careered into the snow and her insides clenched; where her fight had once been there was doubt. Moll leant into Pepper’s strides and glanced nervously at Aira as the peatbogger growled behind them. ‘Use your crossbow again!’ she cried.

  But Aira was fumbling for something else, something fixed to her saddle that Moll hadn’t noticed before: a single stag antler. Yanking it free, she hurled it towards the peatbogger. It sank into the path just in front of the creature and then a remarkable thing happened. The antler began to grow, new points splitting through the bone, and Moll watched, open-mouthed, as it twisted up and around the peatbogger, trapping it inside a cage. It seized the antlers and shook them hard, but they remained firm, like prison bars, and behind them the creature thrashed its head from side to side.

  ‘That’ll hold it,’ Aira panted. ‘Peatboggers can only last for a few hours outside their bogs so with any luck the cage will be strong enough to contain it until it dies.’

  Half dazed with shock, Moll kicked Pepper on, away from the howling creature and up on to the summit of the moors. An icy wind slid towards them and, though it chilled Moll’s cheeks and Gryff had to dip his head against it, Moll didn’t tighten her scarf or shiver. She felt numb inside. The old Moll would’ve crushed that peatbogger with a single arrow, but her impossible dream was fading, her fight – whatever Aira said – was dwindling inside her.

  Aira didn’t mention the arrows. ‘The Highland Watch find the only things that keeps those brutes away are stag antlers washed in the spring behind Fillie Crankie,’ she said. ‘It’s surrounded by white heather and I think some of that magic must spill into the water and on to the antlers.’ She sniffed. ‘But I often chuck a crossbow at them first – gives me time to untie the antler.’

  She slid from her horse and Moll noticed that heaped in front of them, on the highest point of the moors, was a circle of large, rectangular stones, flat against the snow and pointed inwards towards each other like the spokes of a wheel.

  Aira pulled her hood up against the wind. ‘Welcome to Whuppity Cairns.’ She walked over to one of the large slabs and began pulling at the pile of stones built into a small pyramid in the middle. ‘Should be in here somewhere,’ she muttered.

  Moll dismounted and, together with Gryff, she began hauling the stones back too. ‘What are we looking for exactly?’

  ‘An opening into the moor itself.’ Aira drew back, hands on hips, and stood upright on one of the large, flat stones. ‘I could’ve sworn the entrance was—’

  Before she could finish her sentence, the slab beneath her crunched and then tilted back a fraction. Aira’s eyes widened and then the stone see-sawed forward, shooting her down into a hole before clamping back into place.

  Moll blinked. ‘She’s – she’s gone!’

  Gryff nudged at Moll’s calves and she knew what that meant. Follow Aira.

  She looked up to see Salt and Pepper grazing the heather.

  ‘We’ll be back up again for you soon,’ she whispered.

  Pepper whinnied softly as Moll placed a tentative foot on the slab and Gryff lifted one paw on after her. The stone held their weight and they moved the rest of their bodies on. Then Moll crouched low, clutched Gryff, and once again the stone crunched and rocked before sliding forward and propelling them both down into the heart of Whuppity Cairns.

  They landed with a thud and Moll blinked into the darkness as the stone above them closed back into place, blocking out the moors. They were in an underground tunnel, lit by candles fixed inside iron brackets, which was several metres wide with earth walls that curved above them into a web of heather roots.

  ‘Grand,’ Aira said, brushing the soil from Moll’s coat. ‘No broken bones, I hope?’

  Gryff picked himself up, then looked down the tunnel in front of them, his hackles raised.

  Moll ran a hand over his back. ‘I don’t like being underground either,’ she whispered to him.

  ‘The feather’s here though, I’m sure of it,’ Aira said. ‘And I’ve coins for any price Kittlerumpit names.’

  Gryff growled into the tunnel and Moll could tell that he was still unsure of the place.

  ‘I’ll go first if your wildcat’s feeling a bit nervous,’ Aira added.

  Gryff prowled past her, turning briefly to show his fangs, then stalked on ahead.

  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ Moll said to Aira. ‘His people skills aren’t much good.’

  Aira winked. ‘You’ve got a lot in common, you two.’

  Moll tried to smile, but ended up scowling. She walked abreast with Aira. ‘How do you think we find Kittlerumpit?’

  Aira shrugged. ‘All I know is that he lives beneath Whuppity Cairns.’ She placed a hand on her crossbow and kept it there. ‘Keep your wits about you, lass. I’m not quite sure what to expect from a trickster goblin.’

  Moll remembered how both her arrows had missed the peatbogger earlier and she fumbled inside her coat pocket for her catapult instead – perhaps she’d have more luck with that. But as the dimly lit passageway wound on into the heart of the moor, twisting this way and that, one thing became crystal clear: this was no tunnel. At every juncture there were three or four paths to choose from. It was a maze.

  ‘Aira,’ Moll said, castin
g her eyes upwards. ‘We’re back where we started . . .’

  Aira cursed as she looked at the slab above them and then Moll had an idea. She dug a hand into her pocket and drew out the piano string. It was almost completely invisible in the tunnel, but now and again the light cast by the candles caught an edge and it glinted gold.

  ‘This is the last note of the witches’ song,’ Moll said. ‘It’s what Willow told us to find first.’

  Aira squinted at it. ‘It’s beautiful, but how’s it going to help us?’

  Moll tied the end to the candle bracket on the wall beside her. ‘The string is never-ending, just like the witches’ song was. If we wind out the string as we walk, it’ll show us where we’ve already been.’

  Aira’s face lit up. ‘And it’ll show us how to get back too; I don’t much fancy being trapped down here.’

  Moll nodded, then, with Gryff by her side, she walked on down the tunnel, threading the piano string out through her fingers. But the further they went, the more on edge Gryff became. He shied at shadows cast by the candles and backed up into Moll when the path forked. Something about the place unsettled him and the same uneasiness whispered inside Moll too. She turned to Aira and, just as she was about to suggest going back towards the cairns, something swung down from the tunnel roof in front of them.

  Moll leapt backwards, crashing into Gryff. Hanging upside down from a loose root was the most extraordinary little man Moll had ever seen. For a start, he was green. A round, bald head set above an even rounder pot belly, despite his scrawny arms and legs, made him look like a series of cabbages placed one on top of the other. He wore a tattered waistcoat, undone to reveal his belly, and ripped trousers, but perhaps strangest of all were his ears which were four times the size of ordinary ears, and pointed. He blinked two black eyes at his visitors.