Soul Splinter

by Abi Elphinstone

  Darkebite raced along beside them, flying higher and higher until she was above the eagle again. Then she raised the Soul Splinter in both hands and uttered a rasping chant:

  ‘Below me now are the girl and the cat.

  I soar above them, as fast as a bat.

  Now the weapon is ready to poison them both,

  To darken their souls. That’s the Shadowmasks’ oath.’

  ‘Don’t look up!’ Alfie shouted. ‘Don’t let her do it, Moll!’

  The eagle cried out and, as Moll buried her head in Gryff’s fur, Alfie wrapped his arms round her. Darkebite smirked, then lashed out with her free arm, wrenching Alfie backwards.

  Time skidded to a halt. Alfie tumbled from the eagle’s back and Moll flung herself at him, grabbing him by the wrists. He dangled in the air, hundreds of metres above the sea, and Moll groaned at his weight, desperate not to lose him. She hauled hard, but Darkebite was circling again, wielding the Soul Splinter like a staff. Gryff lashed out splayed claws towards it, forcing the Shadow Keeper back.

  ‘Let me go, Moll!’ Alfie gasped. ‘If your hands are on me, you’ve nothing to stop the Soul Splinter dripping inside you both.’

  Moll winced under the strain. ‘I’m not losing you, Alfie.’ But her hands were sweating and the hold she had was starting to slip. She clutched him harder. ‘I won’t ever let you go. You were my impossible dream – to unlock the Oracle Spirit in my arrows. I wanted to make you real so that everyone could see you!’ She struggled against Alfie’s weight. ‘I won’t let you go!’

  Alfie met her eyes, his jay feather fluttering against his neck, then he squeezed her hands tight. ‘You don’t have a choice, Moll.’

  Darkebite swerved towards them and, as she raised the Soul Splinter at Moll, Alfie wrenched himself free from Moll’s grasp and leapt on to the Shadow Keeper’s back.

  ‘If I made it, I can break it!’ he shouted.

  Darkebite reeled backwards at the weight of Alfie and, as he wrestled the Shadow Keeper for the shard of ice, Moll felt her world slide. It was just as her ma had said: ‘He who made it will destroy it.’ Only she hadn’t meant the Shadowmasks: she had meant Alfie.

  ‘No!’ Moll screamed. The eagle beat its wings towards Darkebite. ‘No, Alfie!’

  Alfie reached down and tore the Soul Splinter from Darkebite’s clasp and, while the Shadowmask stretched out frenzied hands, Alfie looked at Moll with glassy eyes.

  Then he snapped the ice in two.

  It shattered into hundreds of black, glittering pieces before falling through the sky, like grains of dark sand.

  Darkebite hovered in the air for a moment, her mask thrown back, screeching into the dawn. Alfie was poised on her back, his eyes locked on to Moll, then, as Darkebite’s screech shrank to a moan, she crumbled into black dust, just as the Soul Splinter had done, and Alfie sprang towards the eagle.

  Moll’s heart leapt; Darkebite had been wrong: Alfie had broken the Soul Splinter, but it hadn’t broken him.

  But, mid-leap, Alfie’s body began to fade, crumbling at the edges, growing dimmer where the colour and life had been. And, as Moll reached out her arms towards him, scrabbling through the air, she met with nothing but a wisp of white.

  Alfie was gone.

  The eagle didn’t fly back to the others. As if it could sense Moll’s sadness, it beat on and on towards the horizon, calling to her softly.

  Moll buried her head in Gryff’s fur, her heart breaking inside her. ‘Alfie,’ she sobbed. ‘Alfie.’ But only the waves answered, rolling on far below.

  Moll closed her eyes. She had tried for so long to hold people at a distance and for a while she had managed to spread her heart so thinly she hadn’t felt much of anything. And then people like Alfie had crept in and she’d learnt to trust. But, as the eagle flew further out to sea, Moll realised that Alfie hadn’t just crept in – he’d stormed in and opened her heart up – and it felt as if he’d left a little part of his soul inside hers.

  Moll’s heart swelled and then ached and she clung to Gryff, letting the tears fall for the friend who’d followed her every step of the way since they’d met in the forest, even though there was nothing in his blood that tied him to any of this – only the Shadowmasks’ curse before he was old enough to stop it. Gryff nuzzled into Moll, whimpering quietly, and they let the sea drift past.

  It was sunset before the eagle flew Moll and Gryff back to the shore. The sky was streaked with pink clouds and, as the great bird swooped down towards the rocks beneath Puddle’s lighthouse where the others had gathered, Moll was glad of the wind to dry her tear-stained face. The eagle’s talons shot out and it slowed to a halt on the furthest rock.

  Siddy looked up from where he was sitting, his eyes flicking from Moll to Gryff, the truth of things slowly dawning.

  ‘Not – not Alfie . . .’ He clutched his face and looked away.

  Moll slid from the eagle’s back with Gryff, and Oak limped over the rocks towards them, his head hung low. He drew close and Moll sank into his arms, closing her eyes against everything that had happened. Oak stroked her hair and looked up at the eagle. It dipped its head and Oak did the same, then he reached out a hand and ran it over the eagle’s neck. Oak jumped as his fingers met with the feathers.

  ‘The – the pain,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s gone!’ He bent down and wound the bandage away from his ankle. His leg was completely unharmed; there wasn’t even a scar. ‘The power of the amulet, as Willow said,’ Oak murmured. He looked at the eagle. ‘Thank you, Olive.’

  The eagle turned its head to Moll and she noticed a single tear trickling down its beak.

  ‘You have to leave, don’t you?’ Moll said, her voice small and cracked at the pain of things unsaid.

  The eagle dipped its head again, then it nudged its beak against Moll’s hand. No one leaves forever, Moll. Have faith. Moll heard the words inside her, as if her ma was holding her heart and making it beat.

  She leant into the eagle’s chest and wrapped her arms round its neck. The great bird lifted a wing over Moll and for a few minutes they stayed like that, safe in each other’s arms. Then the eagle ruffled its feathers, looked at Moll one last time, as if it was seeing right inside her soul, then took off into the setting sky. Moll followed the bird with her eyes, watching its wings beating out towards the horizon until it was just a dot. Then, when it disappeared completely and the sun dropped away, the first stars emerged, blinking brighter than they had in weeks, and Moll knew that her ma was safely home.

  Under a starlit sky, Moll helped Oak and Siddy pile armfuls of driftwood into the rowing boat Oak had moored to the rocks. Then Siddy stepped inside it, his cheeks blotched by tears, and began rubbing two sticks until a trail of smoke appeared.

  Moll had heard Oak and Mooshie talking about gypsy burial rites back in the forest: Burn the wagon of the deceased with all their belongings so that their spirit doesn’t come back to haunt this world. Only Alfie hadn’t owned a wagon – he didn’t even have a body to most people – but this was the boat he had planned to go out in with Oak. Moll’s eyes filled with fresh tears as Siddy set a flame to the sticks and sparks flitted into the sky. He climbed out, scooped up Hermit from a nearby rock, and Moll and Oak pushed the boat away from the rocks. Then they watched from the shingle as it floated out to sea, a glow of orange against a black satin sky.

  After some time, Oak turned to them. ‘Let’s get a fire going with the rest of the driftwood. And I’ve bread, nuts and water from Mooshie for us all.’

  Moll sat on a rock and, as Oak and Siddy heaped the sticks into a pile, Gryff nuzzled against her, rolling his head round and round her hand. She hugged him close to her chest and looked up at the cliffs, at the sheer drop she and Siddy had climbed to the bottom of. Then her eyes rested on a shape moving very slowly down the path towards them. Moll’s hands shot to her bow, her heart drummed, then she squinted harder into the darkness at the large cagouled figure making its way down to the rocks.

  ‘Sid,’ Moll w
hispered. ‘It’s Puddle.’

  They watched him draw close, then Siddy narrowed his eyes. ‘And – and is that . . . ?’

  His voice trailed off, he started forward and then Moll was on her feet too, scrambling over the rocks and rushing towards Puddle.

  ‘Scrap!’ Moll shouted. ‘Oh, Scrap!’

  And there she was – the little smuggler’s child – wrapped in several blankets and huddled in Puddle’s arms. She smiled weakly as Moll and Siddy gathered round her.

  Puddle smiled. ‘She’s a fighter this one – especially after we had a visit from a very unusual-looking lady all dressed in silver.’

  Moll and Siddy looked at one another. ‘Willow,’ they said in unison.

  Puddle nodded. ‘Scrap managed to eat a little porridge earlier and, after a bit of a rest, I think she’s going to make a full recovery. We’ve even had a little talk about her moving into the lighthouse and making it her home. Dorothy and I could use a bit of company.’

  Moll clutched Scrap’s hand. ‘It’s good to have you back.’

  Siddy ruffled her hair. ‘It’s not been the same without you.’

  They made their way back to the campfire and, though Oak accepted Puddle straight away as he listened to what the lighthouse keeper had done for them all, Scrap wept silent tears when they told her about Alfie.

  Before long, flames twisted into the night and they sat and ate around the fire. Moll thought of the last two Shadowmasks still out there, of the quilt of darkness they were spinning with her parents’ hair. Was the final amulet going to be enough to destroy all that? And where had Alfie gone after shattering their Soul Splinter? He’d been there one minute – she could still picture his eyes, big and blue and full of hope – then he’d vanished. The sadness rocked inside Moll.

  She bit off a mouthful of bread and swallowed it, then she looked at Oak. ‘The amulet was meant to fix things – meant to make things better like the first one did.’

  Oak stoked the fire with his boot. ‘Things don’t happen the same way twice, Moll, especially when magic’s involved.’

  Moll picked up a pebble and hurled it into the sea. ‘But when I fix one thing something else seems to fall apart. It’s never all as it should be – not ever.’

  Oak turned his hat over in his hands. ‘Often we don’t realise how good something is until we lose it. It may not have been perfect before, but perhaps it was good enough in parts.’

  ‘But losing Alfie . . .’ Moll looked away. ‘I thought the amulet would keep us all safe – that we’d be sitting round this fire together.’ She hung her head. ‘I want to start again, a million miles from here.’

  Oak was silent for several moments, then he stood up and went to sit on the rock beside Moll. ‘Sometimes people leave us halfway through the journey – but what a journey this was, what things you, Siddy, Gryff, Alfie and Scrap achieved. You found the amulet and you set your ma’s soul free. You broke the Soul Splinter and you destroyed Ashtongue and Darkebite. Don’t forget all of that. The old magic is still turning because of what you did.’

  Moll ran a hand over Gryff’s back, then she glanced up at Oak. His deep dark eyes were shining – not with sorrow any more but with hope. Moll could feel the determination inside him, stronger than the Shadowmasks, like an ancient rock that could never be smashed.

  ‘How can you go on hoping when things are broken like they are?’ she said.

  Oak looked into her eyes. ‘Because no one leaves for good, Moll.’

  She felt his words chime with her ma’s.

  Oak took her hand and clasped it tight. ‘And I don’t believe Alfie’s dead.’

  Siddy looked up from stroking Hermit’s shell. ‘You don’t?’

  Puddle fiddled with his beard. ‘There’s something about that boy – I felt it when I was alone with him and Gryff in the lighthouse. Maybe I couldn’t see him – maybe the Shadowmasks laid a curse on him that broke his “real” – but Alfie’s not gone.’ Puddle placed a hand over his heart. ‘I can feel that much in here.’

  Something inside Moll stirred with this knowledge, as if she too knew and believed its truth. ‘Before we reached the lighthouse,’ she said, ‘Willow told us all to think of an impossible dream – a dream so full of hope it would fight back against the Shadowmasks’ magic. Well, making Alfie real was my impossible dream. And although I didn’t expect things to work out like this – maybe that’s because this isn’t the end.’

  Moll reached for one of her arrows and ran a hand over the Oracle Bone symbol: Hope. She thought back to Alfie’s words to her while they were on the eagle’s back high up in the sky: ‘I’ll always come after you,’ he had said. Moll looked up at the others, remembering the promise she’d made back to him. ‘Maybe there’s more hoping and dreaming to be done.’

  Oak drew her close to his chest. ‘There’s more hoping all right. You’re not alone, Moll. Whatever the Shadowmasks have in store for us, we’ll fight it together.’ He reached for Moll’s quiver on the rock behind her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Siddy asked.

  Moll took the quiver from Oak, pushed the hair back from her face and looked at Gryff. His yellow-green eyes blinked back at her own, his head dipped and she knew he’d understood.

  Moll smiled. ‘We’re going after Alfie.’

  Many miles north of the lighthouse, past the knotted trees of Tanglefern Forest and the villages scattered throughout the countryside, the landscape grows wilder and fields give way to moors, lochs and glens. In the heart of this wilderness are the mountains, towering ridges scaling the width of the land. And carved into the rock face of the highest crag, almost lost in the clouds, is a monastery.

  Night is at its thickest now; the mountain is dark and still. But there’s a light coming from a room at the top of a turret, a single candle flickering on a window ledge. Inside sits a figure – cloaked and masked – before a spinning wheel. And the only sound to break the silence of the night is the slow tap of his foot against the treadle and the creak of old wood as the wheel turns.

  Long, thin fingers pluck the fibre from a basket and feed it on to the wheel. The fibre is black and glittering and, as it spins round and round, it tightens into thread, shining like oil. And then the boot pauses. The wheel stops. And the figure looks up. Candlelight falls upon his mask: a canvas face – strips of tattered sack stitched together, rough holes cut for eyes and a jagged line for the mouth. There is no nose, but clumps of musty straw hang down beneath the hood where hair might once have been.

  And there’s another noise in the turret now, a sound so soft it might have been missed before. But it’s there all right, a hushed kind of whispering, and it’s coming from the fibre itself as if sounds have been locked inside it: muffled sobs, a gasp, teeth chattering, a faint scream. The fibre is almost a living, breathing thing and, although every sound it makes is different, each one tells of the same thing: fear.

  The figure runs a curled nail along the fibre – slowly, thoughtfully, gently. This is something very precious. The sack mouth smiles and the eyeholes slant.

  ‘You’re almost ready, aren’t you?’

  Each word is precise, each syllable like a perfect stitch. The figure glances at an old wardrobe at the far side of the room. It is barred shut with a plank of wood, but, as the figure watches, the plank begins to shake. Whatever is locked inside the wardrobe knows it’s being watched and wants to get out.

  ‘All in good time,’ the figure whispers. ‘All in good time.’

  Then the wardrobe doors are still once more and the figure pushes the treadle down with his foot. Again the wheel turns, creaking into the night, and the black thread gathers round the spindle.

  THE DREAMSNATCHER saw the Tribe face the Shadowmasks in the forest. THE SHADOW KEEPER saw them battle the witchdoctors down by the sea. Get ready for the final book in the trilogy, where they journey to the northern wilderness to force the Shadowmasks back once and for all. Here’s a little teaser for what to expect . . .

  An eno
rmous thank you to creative superstar, Thierry Kelaart, for drawing me a world inside a feather.

  The dream was to get one book published. But somehow, here I am writing the acknowledgments for my second book. There are not enough star jumps in the world to express the happiness, excitement and sheer magic of that. So here are some very special thank yous instead . . .

  To the Salvesen Clan, thank you for the Norwegian adventures which helped shape a lot of the drama in the book: kayaking through the fjords, jumping off cliffs and diving for mussels. A big thanks to the De Lisle family for exploring beaches and lighthouses with me in Salcombe – Little Hollows grew out of that weekend. Thank you to Sam Allen Turner for an extremely bendy afternoon of Anti-Gravity Yoga, the inspiration behind the Oracle Spirits, and also to Huw Stephens and Kevin Higgs at Barbury Shooting School for letting me practise archery with a real Robin Hood bow so that the Tribe knew their stuff. And thank you to Fiona Bird for foraging tips and Pith and Bunga Heathcote Amory for advice on living wild.

  Thank you to my wonderful agent, Hannah Sheppard. You’ve been there for Moll, Gryff, Alfie and Sid from the start and hearing your enthusiasm for this book when you read it out at sea a year ago made me stand on my chair and whoop. Your early editorial advice, together with your continued support throughout contracts I never understand, has been invaluable.

  To Jane Griffiths, my hugely talented editor, you realised what was needed to make my characters stronger and the structure of the story tighter; your advice made me write a bolder book and your compassion for Porridge the Second and Hermit makes me smile. Liz Binks, you continually inject creativity and flair into the marketing and PR of my books – thank you (and Pete!) for all your hard work. Thank you also to Camilla Leask at Angel Publicity and Elisa Offord, Becky Peacock, Jade Westwood, Rachel Mann, Laura Hough, Stephanie Purcell, Sam Habib, Johnny Keyworth and Jane Tait from Simon & Schuster Kids for your enthusiasm, time and talent. Thomas Flintham, you’ve done a fantastic job on the book cover and the map – again. Huge thanks to you and Jenny Richards.