Moll stopped dead in front of it, rage flooding through her veins. Locked behind the bars, scrabbling at the lock with his paws, was Gryff.
‘No,’ Moll growled. ‘Not this. Not ever this.’
When the wildcat saw Moll, he stopped struggling and his eyes grew large and afraid. Moll dropped to her knees and wrenched at the lock, but it held fast and she could only press trembling palms up to the bars.
Then the goblin appeared, walking slowly towards them from the way they’d just come. ‘Kittlerumpit will let you both out if you leave the cat. And maybe the piano string too.’
Aira swung her crossbow down from her back, but Moll’s temper was swifter and she darted forward. Eyes narrowed, she threw herself on top of the goblin, pummelling furious fists into his body and ripping at his clothes with her teeth. Cages and boxes clattered to the ground as the two wrestled back and forth across the tunnel.
‘Get back, Moll!’ Aira cried. ‘I can’t fire with you there!’
But Moll was deaf to Aira’s words. All she could feel was her fury.
‘No one locks Gryff up!’ Moll panted, swinging a punch at Kittlerumpit’s shoulder. ‘He’s wild. He belongs free!’
Kittlerumpit struggled backwards, his waistcoat torn and his nose bleeding. ‘Don’t forget, girl, Kittlerumpit is the only one who has a key to that cage. If you carry on like this, you’ll never find it and your cat will be locked down here for ever . . .’
Aira lowered her crossbow. ‘What do we have to do to get the key?’
Before Kittlerumpit could reply, Moll was on her feet, her hair wild about her face. ‘Listen, goblin,’ she snarled. ‘I’m through with your bargaining and your bullying and your horrid little tunnels.’
‘Careful, Moll,’ Aira whispered.
Moll blundered on, her anger hot and loaded. ‘Gryff’s not some thing to be locked up and traded! You’ll free him or I’ll tear you and this place to pieces.’
Kittlerumpit snorted. ‘A little girl like you bringing down all these tunnels?’ He rubbed his bruised elbow. ‘Unlikely.’
Moll drew herself up over him. ‘Everything you’ve got in here has been bargained for – traded – nothing’s free. But Gryff came to me from the northern wilderness. He sought me out even though there was nothing in it for him. He gave his friendship for free.’
She took a few steps backwards and put a hand on the cage. Gryff nosed it through the bars and whimpered helplessly, then Moll got out her pa’s knife from her belt and began sawing it back and forth against the metal bars. Behind her Kittlerumpit sneered.
‘Is that the best you’ve got?’ he scoffed.
Aira levelled her crossbow at the goblin. ‘Leave her be.’
At first nothing happened and just the sound of scraping metal echoed round the tunnel. Then, little by little, Moll’s knife cut into the bars.
‘It’s working!’ Aira gasped.
Kittlerumpit’s face tightened. ‘Impossible.’ He wrung his tattered shirt like a spoilt child. ‘That cage is enchanted. Its bars are made from iron forged in the depths of a volcano. Only my key can unlock it.’
Aira pulled back on her crossbow. ‘Looks like we might not need you after all.’
Moll didn’t look up. ‘I don’t care about your enchantments, goblin. That’s my wildcat in there and I’m not leaving until he’s free.’
One of the bars clanked to the ground and Gryff pressed closer to Moll.
‘I’m up in the northern wilderness to find an amulet and to rescue my friends,’ Moll muttered. ‘I’m not here to play games. You’ve had your fun with the feather, Kittlerumpit. Now let Gryff go.’
Another bar snapped away and Kittlerumpit backed up against the tunnel wall, wringing his hands before Aira’s crossbow. ‘But how is she doing that? No one’s ever broken into my cages.’
Aira took a step closer to the goblin. ‘Well, you haven’t met Moll, have you? This child’s got more love and loyalty bound up inside her than you have in one of your crooked toenails!’ she cried. ‘And that counts for more than enchantments and sneaky deals.’
Moll sawed and sawed until her hand went numb and every muscle in her arm ached, then another bar crashed down and Gryff burst from the cage, flinging himself against her. They crouched together, a tangle of paws and hair.
‘We came down here for a feather,’ Aira spat. ‘And in a moment you’re going to tell us how to leave.’
Kittlerumpit put his hands over his ears. ‘Not listening! Not listening!’
Aira levelled her crossbow at him and the goblin’s hands slid to his sides and he gulped.
‘I want to know why you made Moll choose between Alfie and the feather,’ Aira said. ‘What were the Shadowmasks trying to do?’
Kittlerumpit chewed on his nails. ‘Poor Kittlerumpit can’t even disappear when he’s as frightened as this.’
Aira took a step closer and jammed her crossbow beneath the goblin’s chin. ‘Tell me,’ she growled. ‘Or I’ll make you disappear myself.’
Kittlerumpit blinked very quickly, as if struggling with an inner decision, but, when Aira placed a finger on her crossbow trigger, his words tumbled out.
‘I never saw the boy she calls Alfie,’ he spluttered. ‘The Shadowmasks gave me his belongings because they hoped that the girl and her wildcat would come for the feather.’
‘But why make her choose?’ Aira growled.
‘Because the Shadowmasks want her to give up on the boy. They said they needed to break her impossible dream to conjure their eternal night.’ The goblin’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘Choosing Alfie over the old magic here would have proved that she had given up hope of finding him herself. That’s all Kittlerumpit knows.’
Aira looked down at Moll who was still hugging Gryff, then she glowered at Kittlerumpit. ‘We’d like to go now, goblin, and I don’t care if the Shadowmasks told you to break Moll’s hopes and hold her here. We’re leaving and you are going to show us the way out.’
Kittlerumpit chewed his lip. For the first time, he’d been outwitted by one of his customers. ‘The way home is always closer than you think,’ he sniffed. ‘Knock one and a half times on the slab in the roof and you’ll be back on the moors in a second.’ Aira frowned at the stone overhead. ‘It’s not the one you fell through earlier,’ the goblin mumbled. ‘Each slab in the cairns leads down to a different tunnel.’
Aira raised an eyebrow. ‘How do we know you’re telling the truth?’
The goblin looked down at his tattered clothes and at the cages strewn across the tunnel. ‘Because Kittlerumpit doesn’t want you or your friend or her wildcat in his tunnels any longer than he has to, whatever the Shadowmasks might have instructed him to do.’
Aira nodded at the slab. ‘Open it. Now.’
Kittlerumpit scurried over to the wall, grabbed the ladder resting there and propped it up against the edge of the stone. He scampered up, knocked once, then as he was drawing his fist back to knock a second time, the slab wobbled and then crunched back, like a can lid opening, and the whiteness of the moors flooded in. A breeze rippled through the tunnel, shaking the stale world locked beneath the hills, and a handful of snowflakes drifted down.
Aira turned to face Kittlerumpit but, just as before, his small green body faded before their eyes and then vanished completely. Aira knelt by Moll and Gryff who were still huddled together on the ground.
‘You did it, Moll!’ she cried. ‘You got Gryff out of the cage and we made Kittlerumpit show us the way home!’
But, as Aira tried to urge Moll up, she realised the girl wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were red and swollen and large tears were rolling down her cheeks.
‘When I closed my eyes before making my choice, I thought I saw Alfie telling me to choose the old magic,’ Moll sobbed. ‘But now everything feels confused again, as if maybe I didn’t see him after all. What if he really is gone and I don’t stand a chance of finding the last amulet?’ She shook her head. Once again, it felt as if forces beyond her power were wrest
ling for control over her thoughts. She clutched Gryff to her chest. ‘All that waits for me above these wretched tunnels is more dark magic.’
Aira didn’t try to clasp Moll’s hand – she remembered how the girl had withdrawn at Fillie Crankie – and, even though she knew they needed to leave the tunnels as quickly as possible, her words came softly. ‘We can’t know what’s going to happen over the next few days or weeks or months,’ she said. ‘Most of the time when people hope, the odds are against them, but they keep on hoping anyway. However small and shaky you feel your hope is now, remember that it was enough to break through Kittlerumpit’s cage. That fight inside you – that one Kittlerumpit admitted the Shadowmasks are trying so hard to break – it’s not dead yet, Moll.’
Moll let her chin rest on Gryff’s back as the snow sprinkled down. ‘But I might have lost my one chance of finding Alfie, for the sake of a magic that couldn’t even make him real.’ She tried to button her sadness in, but it spilled out, making her shoulders shake.
‘Alfie was never down here, Moll. You heard the goblin. Even if you had chosen Alfie’s belongings, it wouldn’t have brought him back – it would have just hastened the Shadowmasks’ eternal night instead. Only believing in your friend, holding fast to your impossible dream while keeping faith, can help you find Alfie.’ She paused for a moment and then, very slowly, she lifted an arm to Moll’s back. ‘It’s going to be OK.’
Moll didn’t flinch this time and, as the tears flooded down, she leant into Aira’s chest and let herself be held. She rocked back and forth in the darkness of the tunnels and cried for all the things she couldn’t fix: for Siddy and Alfie and for her ma and pa who weren’t there to comfort her now.
After a while, Moll looked up and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘I’m sorry for crying,’ she sniffed. ‘Usually I do it up a tree where no one can see me.’
Aira stroked Moll’s hair. ‘It’s OK to cry.’
‘No,’ Moll said quietly. ‘It’s not. Because crying doesn’t win wars and beat witch doctors. It gets you – killed.’
Aira smiled. ‘Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is cry – because it’s only afterwards, when your tears have dried, that you find you have the strength to fight on.’
Moll avoided Aira’s eyes. ‘Yes, well, if that’s true, I’ll be ready for lots more fighting now.’
Aira laughed, then she stood up and placed a boot on the first rung of the ladder. ‘Come on. Let’s get going. We don’t want Kittlerumpit sending word to the Shadowmasks that we’re still down in his tunnels.’
They clambered up the steps and emerged into a world washed white. The snow had almost stopped now and behind the clouds an orange dusk was pushing through. Moll stood amid the cairns and let the wind dry her tear-stained face. They’d been down in the tunnels almost all day and the dark, closed spaces had made her feel trapped. But out here, with the heather and the snow and the wind, Moll could breathe. She tickled Gryff’s throat.
‘No one will ever take you away from me,’ she said softly. ‘No one.’
Gryff blinked up at her, then the stone slab scraped back over the entrance to Whuppity Cairns, as if Kittlerumpit had never existed. Moll joined Aira, who had wandered over to the grazing ponies, but, as they shared out the sandwiches from their saddlebags, Moll heard a sound she wasn’t expecting – one that made her head spin.
It was a voice, carried over the moors in a gust of wind, and it was calling her name. Moll knew this voice, almost as well as her own, and she scrambled to her feet.
‘SIDDY!’ she yelled. ‘SIDDY!’
Moll surged forward, rushing over the heather on to the track and, with her boots skidding on stones, she hurtled down it, further across the moors towards Siddy’s voice. Again and again he called out her name and with each cry Moll’s smile grew wider.
‘I’m coming, Sid!’ she yelled as Gryff bounded level with her. ‘Where are you?’
But only her name came back, carried on the evening wind. ‘Moll! Moll!’
She could hear hooves now, but they were pounding on the track behind her and, as she twisted her neck round, she saw Aira riding Salt and gripping Pepper’s reins.
Moll stopped, breathless, her hands on her knees. ‘It’s Siddy!’ she panted. ‘He’s here, I know it, and—’
‘Stop, Moll,’ Aira said. ‘Stop and listen to me.’
Moll scoured the moors, hardly able to focus on Aira as she drew the horses up in front of her.
‘This isn’t what it seems,’ Aira said.
Moll strained her ears – past the meadow pipit’s song and the roars of rutting stags in the distance – and there was Siddy’s voice calling out to her again.
‘He’s here, Aira. Listen.’
But, as they both did, Moll’s face changed. Something about the voice sounded detached; it was more like an echo from many miles away than a voice right there on the hillside with them.
Aira looked down. ‘Siddy’s not here, Moll. That’s an echo trapped in a knot of wind.’
Moll shook her head. ‘His echo. Siddy’s. That means he must be close.’
But the voice didn’t sound close. If anything, it sounded as if it was trailing away.
‘You read Willow’s letter,’ Aira said. ‘You saw what she said about the wind spirits carrying the parchment to you?’
Moll nodded.
‘Well, sometimes the wind spirits also carry messages on the moors up here for those who know how to communicate with them.’ She shook her head. ‘And what you’re following is not Siddy himself but his voice, trapped in a puff of wind.’
Moll closed her eyes and listened again. A gust of wind swirled around her, and with it came Siddy’s voice calling out her name, then the wind drained away and was nothing more than a sigh. Moll’s shoulders sank as the hopes she’d built were suddenly dashed.
Then the wind clamoured around them once more, scattering fragments of Siddy’s words: ‘Come to Greystone!’ the voice inside the knot of wind cried. ‘I know where the amulet is . . .’
Moll blinked at the strangeness of it all. ‘What does he mean? And how is Siddy doing this?’
The words echoed around them before crumbling into nothing as the wind withdrew.
Aira’s eyes shone. ‘I don’t know how your friend has managed to communicate with the wind spirits,’ she said quietly, ‘but I know where Greystone is.’
Moll hands were fists inside her gloves. ‘Where? Where is Siddy?’
‘West of the moors lies the sea and a cluster of islands known as the Lost Isles.’ Aira looked out over the hills. ‘Greystone is the name of a castle on one of the Lost Isles, the one closest to the coast. I thought it was deserted, but it seems that’s where your friend Siddy is – and somehow he’s managed to get a message to you.’
‘He’s alive,’ Moll breathed. ‘And he knows where the last amulet is!’ She frowned. ‘Maybe Spud was wrong; maybe the Shadowmasks didn’t take Sid from the moors after all. But his footprints . . . Spud said they stopped dead in the track and only magic could pluck him from the path like that.’
Aira was silent for a moment. ‘The wind spirits are strong up here. They’ve been known to wrench people from the moors and cast them into ravines. But I’ve heard stories of them carrying people to safety too.’ She paused. ‘It’s possible that the wind spirits rescued Siddy from a peatbogger and took him to the Lost Isles.’
Moll reached inside her coat pocket and drew out Willow’s parchment: ‘You’ll find what you need one hundred years deep.’ She looked at it for a moment. ‘The ocean is deep . . . deeper than anything I know. You don’t think,’ her eyes grew large, ‘that the amulet is at the bottom of the sea?’
‘Wherever it is, Siddy knows.’ Aira smiled. ‘And we can’t afford to spend a moment longer out here. Let’s go and find your friend.’
Moll’s face broke into a smile as she swung herself up on to Pepper, then they rode down the track, into the gathering dusk. The clouds pulled apart, letting the sunse
t slip through and bathing the snow in a deep orange glow. Burns and hills glimmered and Moll would have thought it beautiful had she not been thinking about the Shadowmasks, worrying that every time a covey of grouse or a herd of deer broke their silence it might be the witch doctors, spurred on after them at Kittlerumpit’s word.
Eventually the path ended and just the moorland stretched out around them: heather, juniper bushes and gorse poking through the snow and a small loch reflecting the evening clouds.
‘Proper wilderness now,’ Aira said, nudging Salt on into the heather.
And yet Aira knew her way without the help of a map. The landscape was etched on her memory, each peat bog and gully locked inside her skull. Once or twice they slipped down from the ponies to fill their flasks from the burns, but the water was icy cold and Moll had to wriggle her fingers inside her gloves afterwards to fight the warmth back into them.
Soon darkness crept over the moors and Moll was relieved when Aira pointed to a bothy set before a copse of pine trees. It wasn’t much, just a small hut made from timber to house any deer stalkers that passed this way, but it was a roof over their heads and, after they had fed and watered the ponies and tied them up, they traipsed inside.
Aira struck a match to the oil lamp on the table and it cast a hazy glow over two tattered armchairs set either side of a wood-burning stove and bunk beds piled up with blankets on the other side of the room.
‘Bit cramped,’ Aira said. ‘But places like this are always unlocked and stocked with firewood. Up here on the moors we look out for one another.’
There was only one window, but on Aira’s instructions Moll drew the curtains – they couldn’t risk being found by the last two Shadowmasks – then she unpacked the supplies from their saddlebags while Gryff skirted the room for an unlucky mouse and Aira lit the kindling in the stove.
The Night Spinner Page 11
