The Night Spinner

by Abi Elphinstone

  ‘How do we fire it?’ she asked. ‘There’ll be no one left to push down on the weight.’

  Bruce’s face turned pale. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  A huge flame licked up over the ramparts, a pulsing wall of heat against Moll’s skin, and she stretched out her arms again for Gryff. But the wildcat had other plans and Moll’s eyes widened as she realised what they were.

  ‘No!’ she shouted, throwing one leg over the side of the sling.

  Bruce held her firm. ‘We have to go now!’

  Gryff leapt up on to the weight on the other side of the beam just as a piece of stonework crumbled inwards, landing beside him and forcing the wildcat and the weight to the ground with a thud. Moll and Bruce screamed, then the sling lurched up, propelling them both out into the sky.

  Moll didn’t even flinch as the icy water closed round her and as soon as she surfaced she shouted out for Gryff. The wildcat was just a silhouette against the burning sky, right on the edge of the ramparts, and Moll’s throat choked. She’d seen Gryff jump, seen him leap from the tallest trees in Tanglefern Forest and land unscathed, but an enormous drop from a castle? He’d have to clear metres of jutting turrets, not to mention the rocks that lined the shore.

  ‘Gryff!’ Moll cried again, clinging to the golden feather in her quiver, and battling against the waves that pulled her back and forth.

  The wildcat watched for a moment from the ramparts and then turned slowly away before padding out of sight.

  ‘He’s – he’s gone,’ Moll gasped.

  Siddy swam close, his teeth chattering. ‘Maybe Gryff knows another way down . . . maybe . . .’

  His words trailed off and Moll knew what he was thinking. There was no other way down. Moll felt the tears build up behind her eyes and then – through the flames and smoke – came a silhouette, a furious pounding of limbs on stone.

  ‘He’s going to jump!’ Moll cried.

  Bruce shook his head. ‘He won’t make it. You have to make him turn back!’

  But Moll’s belief in the wildcat was unshakable, like the roots of the very oldest oak tree back in Tanglefern Forest, and she willed him on with all the strength in her soul. ‘You can do it, Gryff!’ she yelled. ‘I know you can!’

  The wildcat surged forward and then leapt from the ramparts and for a second it seemed to the three children in the sea that he was hanging amid the fire, forelimbs stretched out, nose inching towards the water. Moll watched without breathing and then Gryff was tumbling through the air and smashing down into the sea. He ploughed through the waves towards the others, his eyes fixed on Moll.

  ‘He’s something, that wildcat of yours,’ Bruce murmured.

  Moll splashed towards Gryff and with her free arm she held him close for a second. ‘He’s everything,’ she said quietly. ‘Everything.’

  The swim to the Rock of Solitude was slow, and the cold Moll hadn’t felt before now numbed her through. But Bruce had kept his word; they were free of Greystone and its enchantments, and eventually Moll felt stones beneath her boots. She hauled herself and her soaking clothes out on to them. The rocks were crusted with barnacles and limpets and strewn with driftwood, but beyond them, lit up by the blazing fire that was Greystone, was a much larger rock that arched up over the whole island. And it was completely hollow inside.

  ‘Into the cave,’ Bruce said. ‘We’ll be safe in there for a while and we need to rest and make a plan.’

  Shaking with cold, the group traipsed inside. The roar of flames from the burning castle in the distance was hushed, but from the shadows cast by the fire Moll could make out chalked dashes on the walls by the entrance to the cave.

  Bruce followed her gaze. ‘I come here to be a bone – ALONE.’ He sat down on a ledge of rock and sighed. ‘Every mark is a day I’ve spent as a boy – a useless boy who gets his words all tangled.’

  Siddy sat down next to him. ‘You’re not actually that useless, Bruce. You just helped us escape from a burning castle and you seem to know where we need to go next. You’re—’ he thought about it for a moment and Moll realised that both she and Sid were beginning to trust the selkie now, ‘—like a guide! And that’s not something useless at all.’

  Moll watched as Gryff melted into the shadows of the cave, then she turned to Bruce. ‘You’ve helped us, Bruce, and now we’re going to help you find your sealskin.’

  She shivered inside her drenched clothes and, noticing her chill, Bruce scampered outside, returning moments later with an armful of driftwood. He rubbed the driest sticks together and, before long, a spark appeared. The group huddled close as the warmth of the flames spread out and Moll and Siddy gasped as Bruce’s secret hideout came into view.

  On every ledge surrounding the cave there were small wooden carvings. Some were no bigger than Moll’s thumb while others were taller with little sticks slotted into holes to act as whiskers. Moll squinted into the half-light and she saw that each carving was a seal.

  Bruce gazed at the wooden figures. ‘My family and friends,’ he said sadly. ‘I shaped them out of driftwood.’

  Moll’s eyes widened as she took in an enormous wardrobe fashioned and carved from driftwood and tucked into the far end of the cave. It was slightly lopsided and the wood was chipped and weathered, but there was something beautiful about the waves carved into the two closed doors and the shells fixed to the handles.

  ‘You carved a wardrobe too?’ Moll exclaimed.

  Bruce stood up and walked towards it, then he opened the doors and smiled. ‘It’s a bed.’

  Moll and Siddy gathered round him to see an enormous bed of feathers – white and brown flecked – and a mound of blankets bunched up in the corner.

  ‘Eider duck feathers,’ Bruce said. ‘I’ve been collecting them since Orbrot stole my sealskin.’

  Moll smiled. The more Bruce spoke to them, the safer he seemed to feel and the easier he appeared to find it to hit on the right words.

  ‘Why did you build a bed behind doors?’ Siddy asked.

  Bruce looked down. ‘So that no one would see me crying at night.’

  He closed the door and wandered back to the fire and, after the flames had warmed them through and dried their clothes, the three children stole outside, their palms clasped round stones to bash as many limpets as they could from the rocks. They crept back into the cave a while later, dropping armfuls of limpets into the bucket of seawater Bruce had collected. Gryff came to join them and Moll drew out the flask of water Aira had tucked inside her quiver and they ate and drank, safe for a little while inside the Rock of Solitude.

  When the wildcat had eaten his share, he stalked off towards a scoop in the rock and curled up inside it, but Moll stayed by the fire, watching the sea lurk beyond the cave. She tightened her scarf around her neck as she thought about the last Shadowmask hastening after them and the full moon just one night away. Then she looked at the others – at Siddy trying to get Frank to eat a limpet and at Bruce carving a seal into the handle of her catapult – and smiled. She might be hundreds of miles from home, but she was with friends and the comfort of that warmed her in a place even the heat from the fire could not reach.

  ‘Your sealskin,’ Moll said to Bruce. ‘Have you any idea where Orbrot could have hidden it?’

  Bruce blinked. ‘I know where it is. A selkie always feels drawn towards his shin – I mean, SKIN. It’s reaching it that’s the problem.’ He pointed upwards and Moll noticed a very small hole in the cave wall, right near the roof. ‘In there,’ he said. ‘Orbrot kept it there because she knew it would draw me back here every night and keep me out of her way so that she could work on her enchantments. But the space is too small for me to fit my hand inside, though every night I try.’

  Moll was silent for a moment, then her eyes flicked to Siddy.

  ‘Don’t some people use ferrets for hunting?’

  Siddy nodded. ‘They send them down burrows to flush out rabbits . . .’ He trailed off as he realised what Moll meant and he drew Frank out of
his pocket, propping her on his knee. ‘Frank, we have a job for you.’ Frank wagged her tail and wiggled her ears and Siddy looked from Moll to Bruce. ‘I think she’s on a natural high after the trebuchet ride.’ Scooping her up in one hand, Siddy used the other to balance his weight from rock to rock until he reached the hole in the wall. He plopped the ferret down on a ledge in front of it. ‘In there, Frank. Bring out anything you find.’

  The ferret wriggled inside the hole, then, seconds later, she appeared again with a tiny pebble in her paw. She offered it up to Siddy who shoved it in his pocket. ‘Again, Frank,’ he whispered. ‘Try again.’

  Frank disappeared and down below Bruce paced about the cave. ‘She won’t manage it. I’m doomed to stay a boy for ever.’

  Frank’s bottom poked out of the hole suddenly and began bouncing up and down.

  Moll rolled her eyes. ‘Dancing. There’s no time for that now, Sid. We need to find Bruce’s skin and move on . . .’

  But Siddy could see more than Moll. ‘Keep going, Frank!’ he urged. ‘Keep pulling!’

  Little by little, Frank shuffled backwards out of the hole, and Bruce gasped as he glimpsed the silver-white fur the ferret was tugging with her teeth. She hauled it free and Siddy scooped it up. It was soft and shining and, at the sight of it, Bruce’s eyes welled with tears.

  ‘My sealskin!’

  The ferret was panting, clearly exhausted, but she had just enough energy for a celebratory cartwheel before slinking into Siddy’s pocket and falling fast asleep.

  Siddy scrambled down the rocks and handed the sealskin to Bruce, who fell to his knees.

  ‘Thank you, thank you!’

  He hugged the skin to his chest, then he left the cave and walked down to the water’s edge before holding it round his shoulders like a cape. Then he slid into the sea and disappeared beneath the surface.

  Moll looked on from the entrance of the cave. ‘You don’t think Bruce has left us, do you, Sid? Now that he’s got what he wants?’

  They watched the sea, a dark stillness cast orange in parts by the dwindling fire at Greystone, then a small silver-white head popped up, scattering ripples, and a seal pup blinked large black eyes at them.

  Siddy’s face broke into a smile. ‘Look! He’s a selkie again!’

  For a moment, Moll wondered at the strangeness of things – how she’d set out to destroy the last of the Shadowmasks and had somehow stumbled upon a boy just trying to find his way home. She thought of her own home, her wagon deep inside Tanglefern Forest, and how she, too, wanted more than anything to be back with her friends under the cover of ancient trees.

  The seal pup dipped beneath the water, then resurfaced closer to the shore. Its whiskers twitched and, as Moll, Siddy and Gryff looked upon their new friend, they knew he would keep his promise: he’d take them to wherever it was that lay one hundred years deep.

  Siddy smiled. ‘Go find your family now, Bruce. Moll, Gryff and I will need to make a boat if we’re going to be able to follow you to the amulet. Come back at first light.’

  The selkie slipped down into his underwater world and the others turned back into the cave. Moll looked around doubtfully, then her eyes caught on the pile of logs tucked into the far corner. ‘The driftwood. We could make a raft out of it.’

  Siddy shook his head. ‘We don’t have any rope to tie the logs together.’

  Moll raised her eyebrows. ‘But we’ve got string.’ She dug out the last note of the witches’ song from her pocket. ‘It’s as strong as metal, Sid. No matter how hard I pull, it never breaks.’

  Siddy thought about it for a moment, then he stood up. ‘We need to make this raft fast so we’re ready for when Bruce comes back; we can only afford a few hours’ sleep . . .’

  They built a base from the three largest planks of wood they could find, then they strapped a dozen logs across it before using their penknives to chisel two smaller pieces of driftwood into oars. It was gone midnight by the time they had finished and their eyes were heavy with sleep, but they had a vessel, a raft large enough to hold Moll, Siddy, Gryff and Frank, and Siddy had gathered enough sharp stones for the catapult he’d borrowed from Moll.

  Moll stoked the fire, then they all climbed into the box bed, spread the blankets over Bruce’s feathers and shut the wooden doors. Moll listened, half hoping, for the sound of Aira’s horn – a sound that might mean she’d cured Domino and Angus and had come back to help them – but only the waves answered, lapping against the stones. Moll whispered her promise to Alfie, then she pulled a blanket over her before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep.

  *

  A little further up the coast, the final Shadowmask was awake. He had sensed the Veil weaken for a moment and he knew immediately what that meant: somehow the child and the beast had killed Orbrot and the witch doctor’s soul was no longer bound up in the quilt of darkness. And so, after locking the monastery very carefully, Wormhook had left the Rookery with the Veil.

  He rode the quilt towards the sea and he smiled. The thresholds might have closed, but Orbrot had been slipping creatures from the Underworld into the Lost Isles since she’d settled at Greystone. Wherever Molly Pecksniff and her wildcat were hiding, they wouldn’t stand a chance against what waited for them in the depths of the northern sea.

  The Veil sailed over the snow-capped mountains and Wormhook clasped his hands in delight as he thought of what he would find down by the shore. He glided on into the night, his cloak trailing out behind him, until finally the mountains receded and he touched down on a shingle beach. He dismounted the Veil, stroked it fondly, and then he advanced towards the sea, his boots grinding against the stones.

  He stopped and looked out over the water – dark and shining like oil – then he stooped and brushed a sack hand through the shallows. A few minutes later, two bulging eyes surfaced: black orbs the size of plates set below hoods of green skin. A body followed behind, large and rounded, all covered in slime, then a huge tentacle burst from the sea, suckers shaking, before thrashing down against the waves. Wormhook didn’t flinch. Instead, he let his mask fall level with the giant squid’s head, a stone’s throw away from the enormous tentacles that writhed beneath the surface, so that he could finish what Orbrot had started.

  ‘Swim fast, kraken. Search every corner of the sea from here to the Lost Isles. I want the girl and the beast brought to this very spot so that I can squeeze that impossible dream from Molly Pecksniff’s heart.’ He glanced behind him and beckoned the Veil over with one finger. ‘Then, when her hope is finally drowned, we will finish what we started.’

  The kraken’s eyes swelled and then it sank beneath the surface and only a circle of foam rocked where its monstrous head had been.

  The first thing Moll and Siddy saw when they opened the doors around their box bed at the crack of dawn were the mackerel: six of them by the entrance to the cave, their rainbow scales glittering in the sunlight. Gryff was already standing over them, whiskers quivering.

  ‘Did Bruce leave these for us?’ Moll asked quietly.

  Then she followed Siddy’s gaze to a rock outside the cave on which a seal pup with silver-white fur lay. It shuffled closer on its belly and croaked.

  Moll walked towards it, glancing left and then right as she peered out of the cave. Greystone was now a smoking heap of rubble – it wouldn’t be long before any locals still left on the coast came to investigate what had happened at the castle – but neither the Veil nor the Night Spinner seemed to have arrived. Just the sea stretched out around them, a never-ending sheet of steel blue.

  Moll knelt before the seal pup. ‘You brought us the fish, didn’t you, Bruce?’ The selkie’s grey nose twitched and Moll smiled. ‘Thank you!’

  Gathering up the mackerel, she, Siddy and Gryff rushed back into the cave and, after eating quickly, they heaved their raft into the icy sea.

  Moll stood on the rocks, gripping the reel of string still left in her hand, while Bruce watched from the water as the rest of the group manoeu
vred themselves on to the raft. Then Moll jumped aboard, tossing the string to Gryff who caught it in his teeth and prowled to the far end of the raft to keep watch. Frank positioned herself at the opposite end of the vessel and Moll adjusted the quiver on her back. She was low on arrows after the moths – there hadn’t been time to snatch them from the fire – but the golden feather was still there, and slotted inside Siddy’s coat pocket was her catapult, its handle now inscribed with a seal pup, courtesy of Bruce’s handiwork.

  Moll glanced at the Lost Isles to the north of them. They were larger than the Rock of Solitude, taller and wilder, jutting out of the sea in jagged peaks, while on the mainland, where the moors ended, mountains cloaked in snow began. Moll turned towards Bruce’s sleek head bobbing before the raft and watched as it sank beneath the water, spilling ripples, and then appeared, a minute later, slightly further up the coast between the islands and the mainland.

  Moll took a deep breath. ‘Into the heart of the Lost Isles.’

  Siddy reached out and stroked Frank’s head and nodded. ‘Towards the last Amulet of Truth.’

  They paddled on after Bruce, inching up the ragged coastline, and, though they passed caves cut into islands and mountain peaks lost amid frayed clouds, Moll kept her eyes trained on the seal. The crags either side of them grew taller still, until they blocked out the sun and cloaked the raft in shadows, and it was then that Siddy lifted his paddle out of the water and glanced at Moll.

  ‘What – what are they?’ he stammered, pointing into the sea ahead of them.

  Grey fins sliced through the water towards the raft and Moll snatched her oar in and huddled closer to Siddy. But she saw that Bruce wasn’t in the least bit frightened. Instead, he rolled his body playfully into the fins and then several long, blunt noses poked up. Moll breathed out.

  ‘Dolphins,’ she said. ‘Like the ones we used to see back in Little Hollows.’

  The pod swam alongside the raft for some time and Moll was almost glad of their company in among the stillness of the Lost Isles, but after a while the animals spiralled into deeper waters and once again the group was alone. Siddy and Moll pulled their oars on through the water, past cliffs full of puffins and guillemots and slabs of rock where seals basked, while Gryff and Frank kept watch either end of the raft.