Soul Splinter

by Abi Elphinstone

  Moll raised her eyebrows. ‘You’re staying around to help us?’

  Alfie nodded. ‘If you’ll have me.’

  Moll threw him a defiant look.

  ‘We’ll have you,’ Siddy said after a pause. ‘So long as you explain things when we’re back in the cove.’

  Moll whirled round, seized by the urge to pinch Siddy. ‘How can you let this go so quickly?’ she spat. ‘Alfie left us to face The Crumpled Way when he knew the Shadowmasks were out there!’ She breathed deeply, barely able to rein in her emotions.

  ‘Because we need to work together, Moll. Remember?’ Siddy glanced at the window. ‘That way we’ll stand a chance of getting back to Little Hollows unharmed.’

  Moll kicked the floorboards. Siddy was right, she knew that, but her pride still stormed inside her. She glowered at Alfie. ‘Fine. We’ll discuss it back in Little Hollows, but don’t expect me to be polite or nice to you until then.’ She waited, her mind racing on to other things. ‘Oak – have you seen him? Is he OK?’

  Gryff nuzzled against Moll’s legs, but Alfie avoided her eyes. ‘I found Oak, Patch and Gryff on the cliff top when I realised running away wasn’t the answer, and I turned back for the cove. The owls had gone, but they’d cut Oak’s leg pretty badly. I could tell Gryff had wanted to run off and find you, but he wouldn’t leave Oak when he was injured. I helped Oak up on to Raven and led him and Patch back to the cave with Gryff.’

  ‘And Jinx? Did you find her?’ Siddy asked.

  ‘When I realised you two weren’t in Little Hollows, I rode Raven hard to Inchgrundle. I heard Jinx whinnying for Moll down by the harbour wall. Gryff and I walked her to the cliff top and watered her, then I tied her up again; we’re going to need her to get back to the cave.’ Alfie glanced from Gryff to Moll. ‘Your wildcat and I got off to a bit of a shaky start – lots of hissing and snarling – but I think, when he realised I just wanted to find you too, he trusted me a little more and we got along OK – so long as I didn’t get too close to him.’

  Gryff held his head high, twitched his whiskers, then stalked round Moll’s legs.

  ‘That’s not really the amulet, is it?’ Moll asked, looking at the stone in Alfie’s palm.

  ‘No, it’s an old charm of Cinderella Bull’s. She trapped a sunbeam inside the rock and told me it would shine in times of danger.’ Alfie shoved it into the pocket of his shorts. ‘Did the trick though.’

  But Moll couldn’t help feeling cheated. She’d been so sure that her ma’s soul was waiting for her in Inchgrundle. And now what? They didn’t even have a bone reading to guide them . . .

  Siddy was looking at Alfie closely. ‘It was more than that. Those Shadowmasks were scared of you – not just the amulet. Something about you made them leave.’

  Alfie shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘I think I might have an idea why, but I’m not sure . . . Let’s talk back in the cave; we need to get moving in case we run into Grudge and the Dreads with their loot.’

  Moll looked Alfie up and down. ‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do later,’ she muttered. ‘That kind of running-off behaviour could get you expelled from the Tribe.’

  Siddy nodded. ‘And it really offended Hermit.’

  ‘Come on,’ Moll said, sizing up the window now fringed with jagged glass. ‘Urgh. It’s going to be a right pain climbing out of that.’

  ‘We could always leave through the door,’ Alfie said.

  Siddy slapped him on the back. ‘There’s a reason we need you around, Alfie. That kind of clear thinking just doesn’t happen with me and Moll.’

  Moll charged out of the house with Gryff. Siddy might be fine with letting Alfie back into the Tribe and joking around with him, but with Moll it was more complicated. There was still a mountain of hurt inside her.

  Outside, the rain had stopped and the night was wearing thin. A clear sky stretched above them, dark blue before the sun came up, but full of promise for a bright day ahead. Moll shuddered as she took in the garden now the night had faded. It was a charred mess of dead grass, weeds and withered flowers while further up the road another garden was a burst of shining rhododendron bushes. The Shadowmasks’ magic had been all around them, but they hadn’t even noticed it.

  ‘We’ll go on up The Crumpled Way,’ Alfie said, ‘then skirt behind the village before heading across the cliffs and back to Little Hollows. Less chance of us being seen that way.’

  They found Alfie’s cob, Raven, tethered to the gate, and he whinnied as they approached. Alfie hoisted Moll and Siddy up on to his back, then, undoing the buckle on the leather satchel tucked behind the gate, he passed Moll and Siddy two hunks of bread and a flask of water.

  ‘You not riding too?’ Siddy asked, his mouth full of bread.

  Alfie shook his head. ‘I’ll walk with Gryff; Raven’s got enough on his back with you two.’

  The cob’s hooves clopped softly on the track as they made their way down The Crumpled Way. Moll willed herself to stay awake – the Dreads could come back at any moment and who knew where the Shadowmasks were lurking? After a while, Alfie turned Raven left off the track, down a narrow country lane. At the end of it was a gate leading into a field and Alfie unhooked it to lead them through. Cows were grazing on grasses untouched by the Shadowmasks’ magic and, some metres away, a farmer was filling a trough with water.

  He glanced up and looked at the children. ‘A couple of gypsies, a cob and a—’ he looked at Gryff, whose eyes were now yellowed slits, and shook his head in disbelief, ‘—a wildcat. I’d be picking up speed and heading home if I were you – that village lot don’t look kindly on outsiders.’

  After smugglers and Shadowmasks, Moll’s patience was wearing thin. ‘We’re going as fast as we can, but we can’t fit three of us on the cob’s back, can we?’

  The farmer nodded at Gryff. ‘With legs like his, he won’t need a ride.’

  Moll frowned. ‘Not the wildcat – him!’ She pointed to Alfie, then noticed that he’d dropped Raven’s tethering rope and was hastening ahead.

  The farmer looked at where Moll was pointing, his eyes scouring the grass, but never fixing on Alfie, then he shook his head again. ‘You gypsies are a strange old bunch. Now hop it off my land or I’ll set the bull on you.’

  Moll kicked Raven into a trot after Alfie. He was running now and, when he reached the far side of the field, he clambered over a stile before jumping down into longer grass strewn with poppies. Moll squeezed Raven’s flanks with her legs and he broke into a canter, leaping over the stile into the field beyond. Gryff followed.

  Alfie was standing in front of them, the wind ruffling his shirt, grass swaying about his shins. And his eyes were filled with tears.

  Moll slid from Raven so that she was standing before him. ‘The farmer – he – he couldn’t see you!’

  Alfie’s lip quivered, but he said nothing. He wouldn’t cry; nothing would change by crying.

  Siddy gasped. ‘It was you! Down by the harbour wall. You were the cloaked figure messing up Grudge’s plans so that we could escape. But, just like that farmer, the smugglers couldn’t see you either!’

  Moll gasped. ‘That was you?’

  Alfie nodded. ‘Found an old rag in the shipyard and I wore it to disguise myself from you two. I knew if you realised it was me there’d be too many questions and you wouldn’t run away.’ He reached into his satchel and drew out a dagger, its handle tipped with bone. He handed it to Moll. ‘Stole your pa’s knife back from Grudge.’

  Moll looked at it in disbelief. ‘But – but,’ she stammered. The mountain inside her shrank a little. ‘Why can’t some people see you? I see you, Siddy and Gryff see you, all of the gypsies in Little Hollows and Tanglefern Forest see you. So why . . .’ Her voice faltered into silence.

  Alfie looked at the sea beyond Inchgrundle, spread out below them like a giant bruise, then he turned to face her. ‘I’m not real, Moll.’

  His words hung in the air.

  ‘Not – not real?’ Moll�
�s voice was close to nothing.

  Raven stepped forward and nudged Alfie’s shoulder with his nose, but Alfie didn’t respond, and the only sound to break the silence was the farmer in the field behind, herding up the cows.

  Alfie led Raven through the poppies, on towards the gate at the far end of the field. No one spoke. But his words were still ringing in Moll’s head, turning over and over in tangled shapes. Not real? How could Alfie not be real? She watched him lift the latch on the gate, pushing his fair hair from his eyes as it flopped across his face, and pull Raven through.

  He looked so different from the dark-haired gypsies in Oak’s camp that Moll had almost expected him to fit in with the villagers in Inchgrundle. But they couldn’t even see him. Who was Alfie? Moll noticed Gryff quicken his stride down the sandy path that led towards the cliffs so that he was walking abreast with Alfie. Back in the forest the wildcat would never have done that; he had snarled and spat when Alfie came too close. But Gryff had learnt to trust the boy – obviously even more so since their time together on the cliff tops.

  Moll watched, caught between anger and doubt. Alfie had abandoned her on their quest – he’d left her to face the Shadowmasks without him – and yet something about his words just now suggested maybe he was even more alone in this world than she was.

  She felt Siddy lean in closer behind her. ‘Do you think Alfie’s a – a ghost?’

  Moll observed Alfie closely: his old brown boots leaving prints on the sand, his shirt flapping in the wind. She could see him, clear as day, and yet the farmer and the Dreads hadn’t – they hadn’t even seen Alfie’s clothes or the rag he’d been huddling under. ‘No,’ Moll said firmly. ‘Ghosts are white and wobbly and they only come out at night.’

  But, as she turned to face forward again, a coldness slid beneath her skin. She could throw Siddy off with a line like that, but what Moll had seen of spirits and ghouls in the forest made her quite sure ghosts weren’t white and wobbly. She kept her distance from Alfie and shook the thought away; it wouldn’t help matters thinking about him like that. And, besides, there must be more to it; Alfie needed to tell them what he meant.

  The path unfolded towards the cliffs and below them was the sea, waves pinched into glistening points. Moll smiled as she glimpsed Jinx grazing on the grass near the cliff edge. She clicked her tongue and whistled. The cob looked up and, on seeing Moll, strained against her tethering rope and neighed. Moll slipped from Raven’s back and hurried over, wrapping her arms round Jinx’s neck.

  ‘I’m sorry for leaving you,’ she whispered.

  ‘We’ll need to ride fast,’ Alfie said, glancing down the path that ran along the cliff tops. ‘The Shadowmasks won’t be far away.’

  Spraying sand up behind them, and with Gryff moving so fast his limbs were just a ripple of black and grey, they galloped past the fields of pigs, cows and sheep and sped by the tumbled stone cottage the owls had ambushed them from.

  Eventually they came to the heath and Moll felt a sense of calm when she saw Little Hollows down below them. She dismounted from Jinx’s back, then frowned at the pebbles, each one marked with a chalked star, set out in a line at the cliff edge across the length of the cove.

  Alfie followed Moll’s gaze. ‘Protection charms – the ones Cinderella Bull has been working on since we left the forest.’

  Siddy nodded. ‘I remember her saying she was conjuring more and more magic inside them so that eventually they’d be strong enough to keep the Shadowmasks from the cove.’ He dismounted Jinx and patted the cob’s neck. ‘Suppose that means we’re safe so long as we stay inside Little Hollows.’

  ‘Only there’s no amulet in the cove,’ Moll muttered. ‘We’ll have to leave again soon . . .’

  ‘Let’s get the cobs down too,’ Alfie said. ‘I don’t want Raven up there with the Shadowmasks’ magic around.’

  Alfie led his cob carefully over the pebbles and down the winding path. Siddy followed, then Moll with Jinx and Gryff. A rabbit shot out of the bracken that lined the path and Jinx shied, but Moll coaxed her on with Siddy’s help, and, in their haste to get back into the cove, neither of them noticed that Jinx’s hoof had nudged aside one of Cinderella Bull’s pebbles.

  As they edged down the cliff, it was Hard-Times Bob they spotted first. He was sprawled on the sand like a starfish, wearing orange braces over his wrinkled chest to hold up a pair of tattered shorts. Beside him was an open-topped barrel.

  Siddy whistled. ‘Oi! Hard-Times Bob!’

  The old man sat bolt upright, jerking his neck this way and that, then his eyes rested on Siddy and the others making their way down the path.

  ‘You made it!’ he cried, leaping up and dancing excitedly on the spot. He pointed to the barrel beside him. ‘I’ve been beside myself with worry. Dislocating’s gone to pot – couldn’t even wriggle my limbs inside this old whisky barrel that washed up this morning!’

  Moll thought of Grudge and the Dreads. Perhaps the barrel had floated away from their raid . . . She shivered at the thought of the smugglers and stepped down on to the beach. The sand curved over her feet and, for the first time in days, she felt safe again. Taking the halters off the cobs so that they could roam the cove, the children hurried over to Hard-Times Bob.

  He gave Siddy and Moll a hug. ‘So Alfie found you both in Inchgrundle, did he? What happened over there? Mooshie’s been worried sick.’

  Moll scuffed her foot in the sand and took a deep breath. ‘We got tricked by an annoying street kid, kidnapped by the Dreads, then trapped by Darkebite and another Shadowmask called Ashtongue, who pretended to have the amulet, and—’ She looked at Alfie, then back to Hard-Times Bob. The old man’s face was aghast and Moll realised that telling him about Alfie might send him over the edge – or bring on a fresh bout of hiccups.

  ‘Did you find the amulet?’ Hard-Times Bob ventured.

  Moll blew through her lips. ‘No. It wasn’t even in Inchgrundle. Ashtongue distorted the bone reading; it was a trap all along.’

  The old man shook a crinkled fist. ‘When I get my hands on those Shadowmasks – and the wretched Dreads – I’ll show them.’ He hiccuped, a side effect of the morning’s attempted dislocation. ‘These fists have wrestled sharks and whales in their time.’

  There was a snort from the corridor of rocks by the cave as Cinderella Bull hobbled towards them. ‘You’re safe in the cove at last.’ She looked up at Alfie. ‘Well done for bringing them back. The sunbeam charm worked against the Shadowmasks?’

  Alfie nodded and Cinderella Bull’s gaze fell on Gryff. She glanced at the dried blood crusting his coat. ‘Come inside – all of you. You’ll need washed up and fed, I’ve no doubt.’ She paused and laid a hand on Moll’s shoulder. ‘Oak’s not in a good way, Moll. It’s best you’re prepared.’

  Moll stiffened at her words. ‘Alfie said it was just a cut from the owls. I thought—’ Her words dissolved. She sprinted forward, darting between the corridors of rock, her heart thudding in her throat. Please let Oak be OK, she told herself, over and over again. Twisting round a boulder of rock, Moll ducked down low and entered Little Hollows.

  Candles flickered on every ledge, the only movement inside the cave. The fire was out, just a pile of charred ash, which sent panic shooting through Moll’s veins. Mooshie never let the fire go out . . . Her eyes scanned the lobster pots, washing line and crates of supplies. Nobody there. All was quiet, save for the gentle slopping of water inside the tunnel.

  Moll ran towards Oak and Mooshie’s alcove, flinging the curtain aside. On ledges, Mooshie’s best china had been neatly arranged, and in the middle of the alcove, in their hammock, lay Oak. His leg was bandaged from the ankle to the knee and his eyes were closed.

  Mooshie sat on a stool beside him, holding his hand and occasionally wiping the sweat from his forehead with a damp cloth. She looked up at Moll.

  ‘Oh, Moll, you’re all right.’ She stood up and clasped her tight. Alfie and Siddy hung back by the entrance. ‘Thank goodness you’re all
OK.’

  While locked in The Gloomy Tap, Moll had craved Mooshie’s arms around her, but now she wriggled free.

  ‘Oak – is he . . . ?’ She crept nearer to the hammock, stretched out a hand and squeezed Oak’s arm. ‘It’s me,’ she whispered. ‘Moll.’

  Oak said nothing and Moll leant closer until she could feel his breath on her cheek. It was colder somehow, and weaker.

  Moll swallowed. Oak was their leader. He built wagons from scratch and found secret coves. But the Oak lying there, pale and cold – this was a man Moll didn’t know. She breathed in and out. ‘He’ll be OK,’ she whispered. She’d meant it as fact, but even to her it sounded like a question.

  Mooshie sat back down on the stool. ‘The owls’ blades must have been coated in a curse. When he came back to the cove with Alfie, it looked like a clean wound, but it was deep enough for a curse to slip in, and within hours the fever had started.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He’s been quieter since I dressed the wound with woundwort and elder blossom. All we can do now is wait.’ She squeezed Moll’s shoulder, then her face brightened for a moment. ‘The amulet. Did you—’

  Cinderella Bull saved Moll the answer. ‘There was no amulet in Inchgrundle,’ she said from the entrance to the alcove. ‘We should get a fire going to warm up these children and talk about a new plan.’

  Moll shook her head. ‘We can’t talk it through without Oak. He – he—’ Her voice trembled. ‘He always makes the plans. Without him, we—’

  Cinderella Bull came into the alcove and laid a hand on Moll’s back. ‘We don’t have time, Moll. The Shadowmasks have opened the thresholds and it won’t be long before their dark magic eats its way into everything, not just the places where you and Gryff are.’

  Moll looked over at Mooshie and noticed that her eyes had filled with tears. Mooshie tried to turn away to stop Moll from seeing, but, when the woman’s shoulders started to shake, Moll realised she was crying. Something deep inside Moll rocked with pain and the sand beneath her seemed to sway.