“Stop it, Jemma,” she muttered, gritting her teeth. “It’s almost a whole hour until they’ll wake up. Whatever happens, you’ll be stronger with your Stone. So calm yourself! Breathe. Now, where are we?”
Directly in front of her was the Bell Tower, which meant the kitchen and Vat Room, and the corridor from which she’d thrown her Stone, must be around the back of it. Noodle and Pie scampered alongside as she set off, her footfall soft in the silence. The sodden ground felt strange to walk on after a lifetime of flagstones, and she teetered a little, off balance, but soon got used to the rise and fall of the grass-tufted earth.
To the left, ranks of trees sloped away into the forest, pale silhouettes in a sea of gray. Mist swirled around her like damp fingers, suspicious, searching her out. She shuddered, focusing her intention: the Stone, its aqua glow … The Mist seemed to edge back, and she relaxed a little.
Keeping her distance from the castle, she rounded the Tower, expecting to see a long expanse of wall stretching away toward the kitchen. What met her eyes took her aback. Built into the side of the castle, as if swarming its base, was a mass of ramshackle huts. Of varying heights and sizes, they leaned every which way, looking desolate and desperate. Most had no rooves. A few had tumbled down completely, leaving their stone chimney stacks to point accusingly up the castle walls.
“The Dwellings, Rattusses,” she whispered. “That’s where the servants used to live, till they went away.” She had all but forgotten, but now it dredged up from the depths of her childhood, the hushed talk she’d overheard: kitchen-maids, and footmen, spooked by the cries they heard late at night from the forest. The hauntings, they’d called them—most likely the same cries that had plagued her, she now realized. It was no longer worth staying, all the servants had said, even for food and shelter. The last to go, when Jemma was seven, had been the cook. Apart from the fact that Jemma then had to start helping Drudge with the cooking and cleaning, she hadn’t cared—in fact, had been glad to be rid of them, as most of them were dour and unfriendly. If only Drudge would go too, she’d thought at the time; but she’d been wrong about him, and she’d probably been wrong about them, as well. Living under a shroud of fear, no wonder they’d been so surly.
Noodle and Pie skittered onto a furrowed, pebbly track running parallel to the castle walls—the track that must lead to Hazebury. She imagined Digby and his father trundling along it in their cart on delivery days. What would they think when they came tomorrow and found she had gone? Would Digby be worried? Would he miss her? Then she imagined the Agromonds in their coach, leaving for one of their “visits” to the villages. What did they really do on those trips? Terrify the life out of people, no doubt. Certainly nothing benevolent, as they’d always pretended.
The track was easier going than the rough ground, and Jemma picked up her pace. Above the huts and occasional leafless tree, she could just make out the slit windows of the corridor where Nocturna had caught her. Soon she was parallel to the one from which she’d hurled her Stone—the seventh. The hut beneath it looked sturdier than most, and had a tree growing in front of it.
“Let’s get closer, Rattusses. I couldn’t have thrown it this far out.”
The rats hopped ahead as Jemma crept along, scanning the ground. Brambles and briars unfurled as if awakening from slumber and snagged her cloak, slithering around her ankles, slowing her down. Noodle and Pie were also being assaulted, their gnawing barely keeping ahead of the unrelenting undergrowth. Finally, she and the rats reached the huts. But there was still no sign of her Stone.
“Sprites! Where is it?” Breathe, Jemma, breathe, she told herself. Keep calm.… But it was hard to keep calm while precious minutes marched by like soldiers with swords raised, ready to strike. Maybe she should come back later after all, and run for cover while she still could.
Her foot hit something large and pale, lying on a low thicket of brambles. A book, splayed open, pages downward, the faint indent of its title shining from its wet, leather cover.
“From Darknesse to Light! How did that get here?” Jemma bent to pick it up.
The instant she touched it, a story unfolded in her mind: Nocturna, going back to the corridor after locking Jemma in the dungeon, intending to destroy the book for having the audacity to wound her … protecting her hand with the hem of her dress … the fabric searing … the book sailing through the air, hurled from the window in a rage. Jemma hugged it to her chest. It felt like an old friend.
“I’m glad to have found you,” she whispered. “Perhaps you can help me find my Stone.”
She was about to open it when a tiny bead of turquoise light appeared in front of her eyes, then grew brighter, and brighter still. It floated upward, leading Jemma’s gaze through the branches of the tree, then stopped several feet above the roof of the hut. Its light intensified and expanded, then flared and disappeared, leaving a faint aqua glow through the Mist. Her heart leapt.
“There it is, at the end of that branch! I’ll have to climb up to get it.” Slipping the cloak off her shoulders, she piled it with the book, wineskin, and pouch at the base of the trunk next to the rats. As she touched the tree, its bark seemed to expand a little into her hand as if welcoming her, but the roughness of it surprised her. She had expected it to be soft, the way firs looked. But such large beings needed to be sturdy to hold themselves up and root themselves into the earth, she reasoned, remembering Marsh’s explanation of how they grew.
The lowest branches were within easy reach. Smoother than the trunk, they were slippery, still damp from rain. Carefully, Jemma hoisted herself up, keeping her eyes fixed on the glow. From beyond it, up the castle wall, a light flickered through the Mist. Tensing, she stopped climbing. It was coming from the kitchen window. Drudge! He must be preparing the breakfast trays. She felt a pang of regret for having judged the old man as she thought of his entreaty to her: Trusssst … The words warmed her, and she wished him warmth too, hoping that somehow, he would feel it.
Moments later, she was lying on the branch that held her Stone. Its thin chain was wrapped around a twig at the end, and it swung slightly as she inched toward it. The branch bent under her weight. She clung on with one hand, reaching the other toward the precious aqua glow. Just a hare’s whisker more …
Her fingers closed around her quarry. Energy surged through her. Mist recoiled from her hand, leaving a clear halo around it in which she could see every nub of the twig, every thread of her woolen cuff.
“Well, Mother of—”
Clang!
Seven-thirty.
Jemma started. Her hands and legs slipped, and she swiveled around the branch. Hanging upside down from it, she felt the branch shake and dip. Then, with a loud snap, it broke, and fell to the roof of the hut below, with her still clinging to it. The drop was only a few feet, but the roof splintered under the impact, and she crashed through it onto the earthen floor inside. The Stone was jolted from her palm; her right foot twisted beneath her. Yelping in pain, she rolled on the floor and clutched her ankle. It swelled under her hands.
Noodle and Pie wriggled in through a gap in the door, and scampered to her side.
Stone! Stone will heal you! The words flew into her head, though not exactly as words, more as impressions that formed as words.
Jemma looked at the rats. “Was … was that you?”
A dazzle of aqua caught the corner of her eye. She turned, and there it was: her Stone. The instant she picked it up, a tingling sensation shimmered from the top of her head to her wounded ankle. The pain subsided, and was gone.
“Sprites! How did that happen? When I was fighting Nocturna, it worked so slowly. Perhaps she had a bad effect on it.”
That’s right. Very bad.
“Rattusses … you just did it again!” Jemma looked at them, amazed, then stood and tied the amulet around her neck by the two ends of its broken chain. “Right. Let’s get out of here.”
As she stepped toward the door, her foot clanged against a half-empty pail
of water. Two cups hung on metal hooks over its lip. Then it occurred to her that the hut was warm. Embers were burning in the grate. A pot hung in the fireplace; another sat to the right of it.
Someone lived here.
Clothes—or rags, more like—were piled on a three-legged chair. At the back of the hut, two filthy mattresses lay end to end, one large, one small, blankets strewn across them. On the smaller one, propped against the wall, was a cloth animal—a rabbit, barely bigger than the rats. Glassy-eyed, its ears flopped over its shoulders, one hanging from its head by a thread. It was wearing a patched leather waistcoat, much like the one Digby wore, and was missing an arm.
An eerie recognition clawed at Jemma’s chest. “I’ve seen that before,” she said, “but how could I have?” She wanted to look at it closely, touch it, hold it—and yet, angst fizzled under her skin. Why? Why be afraid of something that attracted her like a magnet?
Jemma turned, ran out of the hut, grabbed her belongings from the base of the tree, and pelted away as fast as she could. This time, the brambles and shrubs held back their grasp, and within seconds she was on the track. She stopped, out of breath, and turned to see Noodle and Pie leaping over tuffets and brambles, trying to catch her up.
“Sorry, Rattusses—I didn’t mean … to leave you behind. It was … just … so … so spooky.” She tied the pouch around her waist and stuffed the book into it, then looked back at the hut. Who lived there? A mother and child, evidently. Did anybody else know about them? And why had that toy rabbit alarmed her so much?
Jemma slipped the wineskin over her shoulder, pulled on the cloak, and picked up the rats. Then she noticed the clear air around her hands again: Noodle and Pie’s fur looked as well-defined as if they were indoors, every golden strand of it clearly visible.
“Look at that, Rattusses! If the Stone can do that, and heal my ankle, perhaps it’ll help us on our way. Quickly, let’s be off, before they find out I’ve gone.”
She looked down the track. It would be easier to navigate than the steep slope leading into the trees, but she knew from Digby’s descriptions it meandered around the crag’s flatter side before leveling off into Hazebury. That meant it was a longer route. It was also the way anybody searching for her on horseback would take. She decided to run along it for five or ten minutes to put some distance between her and the castle, then head into the trees, where it would be harder to follow her and there would surely be more places to hide.
She slipped the rats into her pockets and broke into a trot. But she had barely taken ten strides, when the air was split by a blood-chilling scream coming from the castle. Nocturna! She must have woken early.… Jemma imagined her hastening to the dungeons, eager to carry out her torturous Rites, and now, staring at the empty cell.
“The Wrath of Mord be upon her!” The rage in Nocturna’s voice sliced through the early morning Mist and into Jemma’s nerves, promising revenge. She pictured Nox urging his black stallion, Mephisto, along the track, the horse’s hooves thundering behind her as he bore down on his target, so easily visible out in the open—
Jemma veered to her right and hurtled down the steep incline into the forest.
And then the storm began.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Hollow
Jemma sped over rocks and rotting branches, through sheeting rain that pounded the earth, pounded her. Thunder roared overhead, a great beast whose lightning talons raked through the air again and again, stripping trees of their limbs and striking the ground around her. Her Stone thumped against her chest as she ran and she clasped it, willing its help. But it had no effect on the storm, and seemed powerless in the thick of the forest.
And now the forest, too, was assailing her. Tree limbs stretched out, whipping her face as she passed. Roots rose from the earth like skeletons from the grave, tripping her. Again and again she slammed to the ground, terrified she’d squashed Noodle and Pie. Again and again their nips and squeals told her they were all right, and she struggled to her feet, picked up the increasingly battered book, and pressed on.
Finally she stopped and fell to her knees. The mauve tea essence had completely worn off; she was exhausted, and felt as though her pounding chest would tear open, baring her heart to the vengeful Wrath of Mord, which surely this was, unleashed by the furious Nocturna.
“Must … find somewhere to hide,” she gasped. “Can’t … keep going …”
Between the firs, through a curtain of rain, a shadow moved. And another, darting into view, then disappearing. Fear shot into Jemma’s veins and she took off again, stumbling over the uneven ground yet managing, somehow, not to fall. Her clothes were heavy, soaked through. And still thunder roared, and lightning speared down. In its brief flashes, she could see more shadows gathering. They looked like pale Mordsprites, small, bedraggled, skeletal. She lengthened her stride, but the ground was slick, and she slipped, slamming facedown in black mud. Hauling herself to her feet yet again, she came face to face with one of the shadows.
It was not a Mordsprite at all, but the gray silhouette of a child, a sunken-cheeked, hollow-eyed boy of no more than five, his ragged arms reaching out to her through the Mist.
Jemma stood petrified, her heart hammering as he swayed closer, oblivious to the chaos crashing down around him. Others closed in behind him, a straggling band of waifs, all moving in the same direction.
Toward her.
“What do you want?” she rasped. He opened his mouth and emitted a hissing sound, his words, if there were any, inaudible in the storm. The others joined in with strangled moans and wails. Noodle and Pie turned frantically in her pockets, urging her to flee, but her muscles felt as slack as chicken giblets, and she couldn’t move. The boy was a mere arm’s length away, almost touching her—
And then, he walked through her.
For a split second, a freezing shudder seemed to separate Jemma’s mind from her body. It brought her to her senses, and she took off down the hill again, past the ghostly herd whose grabbing hands were as insubstantial as chilly gusts of wind.
But there was one more ahead, staggering out from behind a tangle of brambles. A girl … no, a stooped woman, carrying a long stick in one hand. Her face was haggard, hair plastered over it by the rain, lips curled back in a gap-toothed snarl. Just keep running—straight through it, like the others, Jemma told herself. The phantom-woman stepped aside, but Jemma felt a slap on her arm as she passed, as real as any slap Shade had ever given her. She stopped, then turned to see the woman scurrying away up the hill, cackling like a maniac as she disappeared into Mist. The muted tolls of eight o’clock began thrumming out from on top of the crag. Jemma staggered on, the thought of the Agromonds coming after her shooting through her like acid.
“Noodle … Pie …,” she stammered. “I don’t know how much more I can take. We have to find somewhere to hide.” But the Wrath of Mord was not about to show any mercy. Raindrops turned to beads of ice that stung her face and hands, and she could barely see a few feet in front of her, let alone spot any cave or overhang that might give shelter. And now she became aware of something new stalking her. Something low to the ground, scuttling alongside. Two of them, three, and more—she didn’t stop to count. Then several scudded across her path.
Spiders. Enormous, hairy wolf spiders. Nox had taught her and the twins about them, and the particularly venomous variety that inhabited Agromond Forest. One bite could easily kill a grown man. And they were hemming her in, forcing her along a path of their choosing.
“Oh, no, no …” Jemma broke into a run; the spiders ran faster too. She tried to veer in another direction, to jump over them, but they reared up and waved their forelegs, keeping her moving, driving her on to Mord knew where as ice pellets the size of pebbles hurled down on her.
“I can’t … go … on …” She was on the verge of giving up, stopping, sinking to the ground, letting the spiders, the forest, the storm, the Agromonds, have their victory—
The ground fell away, and
she tumbled into a deep hollow, over sodden leaves and pine needles. Noodle and Pie spilled from her pockets. Her pouch came untied and tumbled in next to her. She looked up. Spiders were crouched leg to leg around the rim, like spectators at a stoning, eager to watch her being battered to death by ice pellets, or simply gazing into this large bowl in the ground at their prey—Jemma and the rats—before devouring it.
Terror and weariness turned to fury. If she was going to die, she would die fighting. She leapt to her feet, throwing off the rain-drenched cloak and the wineskin, then yanked her knife from her boot top and waved its blade up at the spiders.
“All right!” she yelled, her face pummeled by the relentless ice. “Come and get me—but I’ll slice the legs off of every one of you first!” She was taut, ready for the onslaught. But the spiders turned their backs, and in quick succession, each shot a thick, glistening thread from their underbelly. The threads blew across the hollow, carried by the wind, and caught on roots on the other side. Then, circling over the net they had created above Jemma’s head, the spiders began spinning. She sliced and slashed with her knife, but it glanced off the threads, as ineffective as a feather trying to cut through steel. Soon, the spiders were no longer visible between the thick webbing. Their pattering footsteps faded to silence; the pounding of ice pellets was reduced to a steady hiss; the thunder outside became muted. In no more than a minute, the spiders had sealed Jemma and the rats under a glistening white canopy.
“Mord take you!” she shrieked, stamping her foot on the soggy leaves. “Why didn’t you just kill us, and be done with it? Why leave us to rot down here?” She looked around frantically for Noodle and Pie. They were sitting in the center of the hollow, licking each other’s fur, evidently completely unruffled. “Rattusses—you’re not scared? Didn’t you see those beasts? We’re going to make a fine feast for them!”
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