‘You did it!’ Alfie cried, the wind ruffling his hair over his eyes.
Scrap cartwheeled down the path and Moll and Siddy hurried to keep up with her.
‘Thank you, Scrap,’ Moll said.
Siddy nodded. ‘We never would’ve found this without you!’
Scrap twizzled her dreadlocks in delight and Siddy lifted Hermit out of his pocket.
‘Look, Hermit – the sea!’ Two shaking pincers reached imploringly from their shell towards the coast. Then a set of eyes appeared, caught sight of the lighthouse and glazed over with dread.
Moll bent down to Gryff. ‘We’ve found it,’ she whispered. ‘We’re closer to the amulet now and it’s going to help you, I know it.’ She stroked the fur beneath his chin and Gryff purred back, leaning helplessly into Moll’s body.
The track skirted round the edge of the cliff amid the bracken and Moll swallowed as she took in the sheer white face of rock plunging down to the sea. Waves crashed against boulders and Moll craned her neck closer – because mingling with the rush of the sea there was a roar – constant and fierce. But there was no waterfall in sight, as Moll had expected from such a sound, so she kept on walking with the others.
Eventually the bracken petered out into grass and sea thrift and the children stopped a few metres from the lighthouse. Moll could just make out a lamp inside a glass dome at the top of the tower. It was turning slowly, sunlight glinting off it, but, other than that, there was no movement inside. Curtains were drawn either side of a latticed window halfway down and even the stone outbuilding to the left of the lighthouse, its whitewashed walls chipped and cracked, looked abandoned.
‘Don’t these things usually have keepers?’ Siddy said. ‘Someone to check the lamp keeps turning?’
Alfie shrugged. ‘Doesn’t look like there’s anyone about.’
All of a sudden there was an almighty blast. The children jumped as a foghorn boomed out into the morning and, seconds later, the front door of the lighthouse flew open. An enormous man, clad from head to toe in yellow waterproofs, filled its frame.
‘Will you shut up, Dorothy!’ he shouted.
The man stopped in his tracks and stared at the children before him. Beneath his yellow rain hat was a bushy white beard, as large as a crow’s nest, and blue eyes fringed with wrinkles. He took a step towards the children, reached a large hand into the pocket of his waterproof and drew out a telescope. Setting it to his eye, he stared at them through it, even though they were just metres away.
‘What is the meaning of this little gathering?’ he roared.
Moll and Gryff edged backwards, Siddy stood rooted to the ground and Alfie shifted closer to Scrap. But the smuggler child only grinned.
The man’s eyes widened inside the telescope and he swelled up before them so that he looked even bigger than before. Scrap tried to hide her smile and look impressed, but, when the foghorn inside the lighthouse blasted out again, making everyone jump, she lost it and fell about laughing.
The man turned in the doorway and shouted up inside the lighthouse. ‘Enough, Dorothy!’
‘We – er – we’re looking for something,’ Siddy stammered.
The man looked from Siddy to Scrap and then from Moll to Gryff, missing Alfie entirely. ‘With bows and arrows?’ he shouted.
Moll squared up to him. ‘We only put arrows in unhelpful people – the ones who don’t give us what we’re looking for.’
Siddy winced at Moll’s words. ‘We don’t mean any harm. Please don’t shout at us, we just—’
‘Shout?’ the man bellowed. ‘Am I shouting?’
Siddy put his hands over his ears. ‘Yes!’
The man cocked his head to one side and wiggled his ear. Water dribbled out. He did the same to the other ear. ‘Better?’ he said, his voice now at a reasonable volume.
Siddy nodded.
The man straightened his hat. ‘It’s this leaking lighthouse that makes me shout,’ he muttered. ‘Water trickling into my ears every second of the day and night and blocking off my hearing . . . I haven’t been dry since last March!’
Scrap poked a head out from behind Siddy, took a few steps closer and blew her whistle. The man peered down at her over his beard and frowned.
‘She – she can’t speak,’ Moll said. ‘But she’s fierce with a catapult so don’t you lay a finger on her.’
The man bent down and Moll suddenly saw the kindness in his eyes. ‘Well, fancy that. I don’t often speak either,’ he said to Scrap. ‘Not many people to talk to out on the cliff edge; the Nibbled Head is a lonely sort of place.’
Scrap plucked at the hem of the tunic beneath her coat and Alfie edged towards her protectively, unseen by the man.
‘But I shout a lot,’ the man said. ‘At Dorothy usually.’
‘Is Dorothy your wife?’ Siddy asked, desperate to keep the conversation light while Moll was so stormy.
The man shook his head and smiled. ‘Dorothy’s my lighthouse. She’s a right pain, this one. Got a temper like no one’s business – always mouthing off with her foghorn for no good reason and shining her beam in the wrong places.’ He ran a hand down the door frame. ‘But I love her, all the same.’ He looked across at Gryff and let out a whistle. ‘That a wildcat you got there, missy?’
Moll reached for Gryff’s back; the fur was bristled.
‘Didn’t think there were wildcats down in the southern part of the country.’ The man paused. ‘Is he all right? I’ve not seen a wildcat up close, but he looks in a bad way to me.’
Moll felt a familiar lump slide up her throat. She raised her chin, but said nothing.
The man shrugged. ‘What is it you’re after anyway?’
Siddy waved a hand carelessly. ‘Oh, well, this and that.’ He scratched his jaw. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got an amulet stored away inside?’
Moll shot him a look and Scrap turned and blew her whistle hard in Siddy’s face.
‘We – we . . .’ Moll’s words faltered. ‘We think you might have something we need. Badly.’
‘Just tell him the truth,’ Alfie whispered in her ear. ‘I don’t think he means any harm.’
Moll looked at the man, willing him to be someone they could count on, someone they could trust. She thought of Willow’s words – You’ve got to search through the knots to find out what you believe in – and took a deep breath. ‘We’re searching for an amulet – but not just any old amulet.’ She looked at her feet. ‘This one’s magical. And if we don’t find it then, well . . .’ She shook her head; not finding it would mean not freeing her ma’s soul or helping Oak and Gryff or saving the old magic . . . ‘Well, that’s not even an option. We have to find it.’
The man ran a large hand over his yellow cagoule. ‘Magical, you say?’
Moll nodded. ‘I know you might not believe us—’
‘Believe you?’ the man said. ‘Oh, just because I’m older and out here with no one to talk to doesn’t mean I don’t believe in magic.’ He swept a hand out towards the sea. ‘You can’t live beside something so wild and strong and not believe in its magic.’ He smiled. ‘The name’s Big P.’
‘What does the “P” stand for?’ Siddy asked.
The man sighed. ‘Puddle.’
The lighthouse was bigger inside than Moll had expected, and as Puddle had glumly pointed out: ‘There are six floors and each one’s got a leak. Even the bedroom.’ A spiral staircase ran inside the stone walls and a circular room led off left from every level. The first two floors were storerooms housing casks of oil, metal flasks and bundles of rope – even Scrap wasn’t much interested in those. But from the third floor there came delicious, warming smells.
Puddle paused outside the door of the kitchen. ‘Got a bedroom up on the next level – the wettest of the lot – then it’s the flag signalling and lantern room where it all happens.’ He looked at the quivers the children were carrying.
Moll followed his gaze. ‘Some people are coming to kill us,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘but we
’re going to kill them first.’
Siddy gave Moll an exasperated look. ‘Stop being so aggressive.’
Puddle half smiled. ‘Unless you’re planning to use those to catch breakfast, I suggest you leave them here on the steps.’
Reluctantly, Moll laid down her quiver with Siddy and Alfie’s, and Scrap put a foot on the step above Puddle. She looked at him with large, questioning eyes.
‘You want to go up higher?’ Puddle asked.
Scrap nodded.
‘You can have a snoop round the flag room, but I think talk of this amulet is going to warrant a spot of porridge. Hurry down once you’ve had a look.’
Scrap raced up the stairs and Puddle looked down at Gryff who had edged behind Moll’s legs. The wildcat had managed to walk alongside the river and through fields without his sight, but being trapped inside a stranger’s lighthouse had made him fearful. His every instinct warned him to stay outside in the wild, but he didn’t want to leave Moll, not now. He needed her, just like she needed him.
‘Wait one minute, will you?’ Puddle said.
He disappeared down the stairs and Moll turned quickly to Alfie and Siddy. ‘Do you trust him?’
Alfie nodded.
‘Me too,’ Siddy said. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about him and I never really had that with Ashtongue.’ He paused. ‘And he offered us porridge; I don’t think that’s a very Shadowmasky thing to do.’
Puddle emerged on the stairs, holding four dead mice. ‘Hundreds of them in the outbuilding – thought your wildcat might like them.’
‘Thank you.’ Moll lowered the mice before Gryff.
He sniffed them nervously, but, on sensing the meat, set his teeth in hard. Puddle ducked beneath the door frame, leading Moll and Siddy inside the kitchen. But Alfie hung back by the entrance, unseen by Puddle, with Gryff.
‘Make yourself at home,’ Puddle said, pulling back two chairs tucked into the circular table.
Cautiously, Moll made to sit down.
‘Oooh,’ Puddle winced. ‘Wouldn’t sit there. Below the worst leak in the house that spot is.’
As if on demand, water dripped through a crack in the ceiling, straight on to Moll’s face. ‘Then why do you have a chair here?’ she muttered.
Puddle shrugged. ‘To catch the drops.’
Moll moved to the seat next to Siddy’s, sat down and looked round the kitchen. The plaster on the walls was coming away in great chunks, the rug beneath the table was threadbare and the little wooden cupboards lining the room were chipped. But, despite all this, the lighthouse had a cosy charm. Between the curtains there was a vase of pink sea thrift, and beyond that a spectacular view of the sea. Puddle kept utensils in brightly coloured glass bottles that must have washed up in the tide and every surface was cluttered with jars, pots and bowls – most of them full to the brim with food: condiments, pickled vegetables, spices and dried fruits.
Puddle waved a hand over them. ‘Dorothy likes her food well seasoned; she’s got high standards.’ He patted the wall and a cloud of dust puffed out.
Moll raised her eyebrows at Siddy. ‘Who lives in the outbuilding beside the lighthouse?’ she asked.
Puddle bent over the pot of porridge bubbling on his stove and gave it a stir. ‘I spend some of the colder months down there, but I like to be up here with Dorothy most of the time – got to keep an eye on the old girl.’
A piece of plaster crunched away from the wall beside the door and landed with a thud on the floor. Gryff leapt backwards.
‘Dorothy, we’ve got company!’ Puddle moaned. He rolled up the sleeve of his cagoule and, with fingers as chubby as sausages, he picked up a teaspoon and a pot of honey. Both were dwarfed in his hands, but he tried his best to decant the honey into his porridge. After several minutes, he shot a glance over his shoulder. ‘Who am I trying to fool?’ he muttered. ‘I normally just tip the whole lot in.’
Siddy grinned. ‘We’re not known for our manners. In fact we haven’t eaten a single meal with cutlery since April when Moll sank all the knives and forks in the river back in the forest. So don’t mind us.’
Moll sat on her hands. ‘It was a Tribe dare, in case you’re wondering. And we’ve done way worse.’
Siddy settled Hermit on the table, but, on catching sight of the pan on the hob, the crab scuttled left, smashed into a pepper pot, then lay, upturned and stunned, in the middle of the table. Siddy wrapped him in a paper napkin and cradled him in his lap.
Wind rattled the window in its frame as Puddle handed out bowls of piping-hot porridge. ‘A storm’s brewing,’ he mummered. ‘I can feel it in my beard.’
Scrap skipped into the room, wrapped in a red-and-yellow striped flag so that she looked more like a maypole than a girl. Perching on the seat with Moll, she gulped a few mouthfuls of porridge down.
Moll glanced towards Alfie; he was leaning against the door frame, his eyes glued to the floor. Puddle took off his hat to reveal a mass of wild white hair and Moll watched him tuck into his breakfast, hoping that the feeling in her gut was right. She could trust this man, couldn’t she?
‘What if I told you there was a boy in the doorway.’ Moll’s voice was low and full of challenge.
Siddy began concentrating extremely hard on his porridge and even Scrap seemed to shrink inside her flag.
Puddle leant against the wall. ‘Like a ghost?’
Moll considered this. ‘No. Not like a ghost. More real than that – and better with a bow and arrow.’
Puddle thought about it for a while. ‘Has this boy got something to do with your amulet?’
Moll held his gaze. ‘Maybe.’ She paused. ‘Yes.’
Puddle swallowed a spoonful of porridge. ‘I always think it’s best to believe in something until it’s proved otherwise.’
Moll’s eyebrows rose a little. People, she was beginning to realise, were surprising. You never knew what was going on inside their heads. This lighthouse keeper wasn’t a gypsy and yet somehow he was willing to believe in magic and mysteries. And maybe that was all they needed. ‘You really mean that?’ Moll asked.
Puddle nodded and Moll stood up, walked across the room and gave her bowl to Alfie.
‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.
Puddle’s eyes grew round as saucers. ‘The bowl – it’s disappeared!’ He reached for his telescope and pointed it towards Alfie. ‘There’s nothing there, but – but I could have sworn I heard a voice.’ He tutted. ‘Well, I never. I wait three years for a visitor and I get two gypsies, a wildcat, an invisible child—’
‘He’s called Alfie,’ Siddy prompted.
‘And,’ Puddle glanced at Scrap, ‘a walking flag.’
‘It’d be a dull old world if everyone was the same,’ Alfie said.
Puddle gasped but Moll smiled. She remembered saying those very words to Alfie back in Tanglefern Forest – and it made her suddenly glad of the friends she had around her.
Scrap whistled in Alfie’s direction, budging up on her seat to make room for him, and Puddle handed Moll another bowl of porridge. Scrap smiled as Alfie sat down then she patted him on the shoulder – she seemed to know where he was instinctively now.
Siddy grinned. ‘Scrap’s got a soft spot for Alfie. Don’t you?’
Scrap nodded simply.
Alfie blushed. ‘The porridge is good.’
Puddle rubbed his eyes at the sound of Alfie’s voice. ‘What a thing . . . An invisible boy. I suppose you’d better tell me about this amulet then and how you happened across me and Dorothy.’
And so Moll, Siddy and Alfie did.
At the end of their telling, Puddle was silent for a long time, then he looked up at the window and listened to the wind battering against the glass. They’d been talking for so long clouds had now gathered and the afternoon had turned grey. ‘There’s been a strangeness in the wind and the sea these past few weeks.’ He ran a hand over his beard. ‘As if they’re afeared – or angry.’
Moll nodded. ‘The Shadowmasks’ magic is slipping in fast
through the thresholds. They’ve already turned our cove bad, rotting the gorse and killing the bracken, and on our journey here we found a whole forest sucked of life.’
‘It makes sense now,’ Puddle said. ‘Even Dorothy’s been playing up more than usual, but I never imagined something like this could be behind it.’
‘It took Hermit by surprise too,’ Siddy said gloomily.
Alfie bit his lip. ‘We think the amulet might be able to make all this better though. Do – do you have it?’
Puddle was less startled by Alfie’s voice now, but still his eyes flitted from place to place, trying to fix on a point.
‘I’m sorry, boy. I’ve never heard of an amulet like the one you’re speaking of.’ Puddle sighed. ‘I wish I had but,’ he looked around at the crumbling kitchen, ‘it’s just Dorothy and me here.’
Moll said anxiously, ‘But it has to be in the lighthouse. Scrap was right: this is the Blinking Eye!’
Puddle leant forward and collected up their bowls. ‘There’ll be a reason your Oracle Bones led you here. For one thing,’ he looked at Gryff curled up beside Moll, his head buried beneath his paw, ‘the lighthouse is known by many as a symbol of hope.’
‘Hope for who?’ Moll asked flatly. ‘Lazy sailors?’
Puddle smiled. ‘Hope for the blind.’
Moll felt her knees grow weak with longing – could this battered lighthouse somehow help Gryff?
Puddle placed the bowls in the sink. ‘I don’t know how or why, but there’s a reason you’ve all come here. Magic isn’t straightforward; we’ve just got to work it out.’
The wind outside picked up and whistled round the lighthouse, gusting through the cracks and crevices. Then the rain began, tapping against the window and smearing down the glass.
‘It’s going to be nasty out. I think you lot need some rest before we plan anything.’
They followed Puddle up another floor to the circular bedroom. Most of the room was taken up by a large bed which, on closer inspection, appeared to be a rowing boat lined with a mattress and laden with blankets and pillows, and on the walls hung different-coloured life rings and medals Puddle had been awarded for saving sailors. There was a round window, like a porthole in a ship’s cabin, and a set of shelves piled high with books on tides, sea creatures and sailor’s knots.
Soul Splinter Page 17
