Everdark

by Abi Elphinstone

  She was above the canopy of the forest now and Everdark was spread out around her as far as she could see, a quilt of trees and rivers and towering mountains. The sky held the light of a million stars and spinning up into them was the silhouette of a harpy.

  ‘And still you come!’ Morg screeched.

  Smudge steadied herself on the branch. ‘Me and Bartholomew – we’re not done with you yet!’

  The harpy unfurled her wings, dipped her skull and then dived straight for Smudge. But this was exactly what Smudge wanted. So, when Morg tore down towards her, Smudge twisted her body at the very last moment and threw herself on to the harpy’s back.

  The creature shook her body so violently that Smudge slipped and was left dangling from her talons. The harpy jerked and kicked, but Smudge clung on, desperately trying to claw her way up.

  ‘If you fall, you’ll die!’ Morg shrieked.

  ‘I’m not afraid to fall,’ Smudge gasped as she dug her nails into the harpy’s skin, wrenched her body upwards and swung round on to the creature’s back. ‘Because there’s a white-nosed monkey on my side – and he’s not going to let me down.’

  Thankfully, Smudge was so high up in the trees she couldn’t see Bartholomew who, right at that moment, was cursing because, having finally worked out how he could use the gloomweb, he now couldn’t get the lid off the jar.

  Morg swerved this way and that, but she couldn’t shake the girl from her back. ‘You’re a nobody!’ the harpy hissed. ‘A powerless child who’s seconds away from death!’

  ‘Wrong,’ Smudge spat. ‘I’m an explorer who’s seconds away from stealing your wings.’

  Smudge yanked at the harpy’s feathers and where the wings looped over the harpy’s fingers they tore free before slipping backwards to reveal Morg’s bony arms. Then both Smudge and the harpy were falling through the air – fast. Smudge wrenched hard on the wings and, though the phoenix skull remained clamped over the harpy’s head, her wings broke away fully this time and Smudge pushed back from Morg.

  They fell, side by side, through the air and Smudge’s heart thumped with fear. Would her plan work? Or had she gambled too much?

  The harpy cried out – a hair-raising scream – and, though she swiped for her wings and lashed out with her talons, this was not the same creature that had spiralled into the sky earlier. She was smaller without her wings, weaker, and, while Smudge smashed down through the branches as she fell, the harpy dropped like a rag doll, with every branch punching a little more of her strength away until she came to a stop completely – a shrivelled creature sprawled across a branch.

  Smudge continued to plummet down alone, clutching the wings that reeked of mould and felt ice cold in her hands. She careered past the cursed nest, but when the ground rose up to meet her Smudge smiled – because Bartholomew had worked out what her plan was and, just in time, had extracted the steel-strong gloomweb from the jar and strung it between the trunks of the trees at either end of the clearing.

  The web broke the jolt of Smudge’s fall, but she didn’t hang around for a second because Morg, it seemed, was not dead after all but limping down through the branches after her. Smudge raced towards the tree with the doors carved into its trunk and, as if Everdark could sense there was a chance now to be rid of Morg, the chains hanging over the one marked TO FINAL ENDINGS fell away and the door itself swung open. Smudge hurled the wings inside, then slammed the door shut.

  Morg screeched from the trees and the green smoke from her nest vanished, but the rusty chains hanging over the door were tightening back over it now. And the harpy and the girl, and even the monkey hyperventilating on the gloomweb, knew that this was a door that wasn’t opening again.

  Morg snarled, her eyes dark slits, and Smudge made to go after her. But the harpy scuttled away, like an overgrown spider, deeper and deeper into the forest. Smudge tried to follow, only to find the forest grew so knotted and wild that it was impossible to see where the harpy had gone and even harder to find the way ahead.

  Smudge clambered back through the undergrowth and staggered into the clearing.

  ‘You . . . you did it,’ Bartholomew stammered from the gloomweb. ‘You saved Crackledawn!’

  Smudge looked at him. ‘We did it, Bartholomew. And though the harpy might not be gone for good I think she’ll be gone for a long time now she’s lost the power of her wings. The Lofty Husks will awaken from her curse and, like Nefarious said, they’ll see if there’s a way to preserve what’s left of the old phoenix’s magic until a new one rises and Morg is killed for good.’

  Bartholomew sniffed. ‘Please would you come here immediately, Smudge.’

  Smudge climbed on to the gloomweb and slumped down beside the monkey. ‘Are you all right?’

  Bartholomew brushed the tears away from his eyes. ‘Quite all right, thank you, Smudge.’ He paused. ‘It’s simply that I find myself in dire need of a hug.’

  Smudge laughed as she wrapped her arms round her friend and for a while the two of them just sat there, on the gloomweb, looking up at the trees. A hush had fallen over Everdark, but the air felt different. Moonlight fell about the branches and moss and creepers glistened in its silver.

  ‘Look, Bartholomew!’ Smudge gasped. ‘Look at the trees!’

  Tiny candles appeared on the branches all around them, flickering quietly in the night.

  ‘Everdark knows,’ Bartholomew whispered. ‘It knows that Morg has been beaten tonight. And that means all the Unmappers will know, too, because they will wake from her curse.’ He paused. ‘Then every cave in Wildhorn will echo with the news that on this day you and I did something extraordinary.’

  Smudge beamed at his words. All those days finishing bottom of the class and being laughed at, all those nights spent crying into her pillow because she didn’t fit in. And now this. A kingdom still standing because she had believed in herself.

  ‘You said the Lofty Husks told you that one day I would sail you somewhere glorious,’ Smudge said. ‘I know you thought that meant retirement, but this –’ she cast her arm around at the candles – ‘well, it’s a tiny bit glorious. Isn’t it? To be the only two people in the whole of the Unmapped Kingdoms to have set foot in Everdark.’

  Bartholomew smiled. ‘It’s more than a tiny bit glorious, Smudge.’

  They watched the candles dance some more, then the monkey turned to his friend. ‘With the gateway in the cave closed, I think we need to pick a door for ourselves now.’

  Smudge nodded as they pushed up out of the web and walked towards the tree.

  Bartholomew stroked the wood on the door marked TO PEACE AND QUIET. ‘This—’

  ‘—will involve reading newspapers, having lie-ins and being bored. Sorry, Bartholomew, but I don’t think it’s a very good idea.’

  They moved round to two more doors carved into the tree trunk. One was tall and rectangular and on it the word BACK had been carved while the other was misshapen and battered-looking and it simply said ONWARDS.

  Smudge slid a glance at Bartholomew. ‘We know what’s on the other side of one of these doors.’

  Bartholomew nodded.

  ‘But all the what ifs and the just maybes aren’t there.’ She looked at the one marked ONWARDS. ‘They’re in here.’

  Bartholomew took a deep breath. ‘I set out on this voyage thinking that I wanted to retire.’ He paused. ‘But now that Great-aunt Mildred’s tea set and Uncle Jeremy’s golf clubs are festering at the bottom of the ocean, I see that perhaps I have a little more living to do.’ He held Smudge’s hand. ‘You see, dear Smudge, you have taught me that children, and monkeys, are curious and brave and – if they dare to believe it – stronger than sea witches, ogre eels and harpies.’

  Smudge squeezed the monkey’s hand, then she raised her other to the door marked ONWARDS. ‘We have so much living to do, Bartholomew. So many places to discover, so many people to meet and so much more magic to unearth before the new phoenix rises.’

  Bartholomew nodded and picked up his
trilby, dusting it down and setting it on his head. Then together the girl and the white-nosed monkey pushed open the door and walked through.

  Prologue

  The prisoner gazed out of her window. It was one of four in Crowstone Tower, the tall stone cage in which she was being held.

  Here, if she kept her eyes up, she could pretend that the prison walls far below did not exist, and that she was looking upon the world from a castle, or perhaps a mountain.

  But today she was done with make-believe; pretending she was in a dream, pretending someone was going to save her. The girl wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, against the cruel wind that whipped through the bare windows. It smelled of the marshes: briny with a whiff of fish. The tide was out, leaving only a vast expanse of mudflats stretching before her. In places she could see gulls pecking at stranded fish, tussocks of marsh grass, and a battered, abandoned rowing boat. A tendril of her long, tawny hair flew in between her lips. She tugged it free, tasting salt, and leaned over the cold, scratched stone sill as far as she dared.

  The windows were not barred; they didn’t need to be. The height of the tower was deterrent enough. The noise of the crows circling outside was constant. At first she had thought of the birds as friends, chattering to keep her company. Sometimes, one would land on the sill. Pecking, watching, unblinking. The caws began to sound less friendly. Accusing, mocking. Marsh witch, the crows seemed to croak, in the voices of the villagers. Came in off the marshes, she did, killing three of our own.

  She had never meant to hurt anyone.

  The scratches in the stone stretched the length of the windowsill, one for each day she had been imprisoned. Once, she had known how many there were, but she no longer counted.

  She walked a lap of the circular tower room, tracing her fingers over the stone. There were more scratches in the wall’s surface: some shaped into angry words, others deep gouges where she had thrown things. Chipping away, but never breaking free.

  A pale red moon had appeared in the sky yesterday, which had set all the warders’ tongues wagging. The moon being visible in daylight was a bad omen at any time, but a red moon was worse still. A red moon was a blood moon, a sign that wrong-doing was afoot.

  The girl explored the rough stones until she found the small gap in the mortar which she had discovered when she hadn’t long been in the tower, assessing the walls for possible footholds. When she had still had hopes of escaping. In the crevice she had wedged a broken chunk of stone, hidden from the prison warders. It was too small to be used as a weapon, but the warders would no doubt confiscate it if they knew about it.

  She worked the stone loose and held it in her palm, hardly recognising her own hand. Her once brown skin was dirty and grey, her nails ragged. Using the stone, she scratched on the inside walls as if she were writing with chalk. She wrote out a single word: a name . . . the one who had wronged her. With each letter she focused, thinking dark thoughts, before letting the stone fall from her fingers. She didn’t need it any more. This was the last thing she would write.

  She stared across at Crowstone. At high noon, a boat was to take her across the water, to the crossroads. There the gallows were being prepared at this very moment. It would be her first and last journey to the mainland. Her last journey anywhere.

  It was there she was to be executed.

  She wondered how the warders felt about transporting a supposed witch across the marshes. She would be shackled in irons, of course, which reputedly rendered witches powerless, but even the most fearless warder would be unsettled to be near her once she was out of the tower. Especially under a blood moon.

  Her eyes drifted to the marshes, where it had all begun on a little boat one stormy night. Where three lives had been lost.

  ‘I never meant to hurt anyone,’ she whispered, gripping the sill with numb fingers. It was true, she hadn’t wanted to cause anyone harm then, but now, revenge was all she could think of.

  And she would have it, even though she knew it would not save her.

  Chapter One

  Trick or Treat

  Betty Widdershins first learned of the family curse on the night of her birthday. It was her thirteenth, a number considered unlucky by some, but Betty was too practical to believe in all that. She liked to think she was too practical to believe in most superstitious nonsense, despite having grown up surrounded by it.

  It was a Saturday; always a busy night in Betty’s home, which was the village inn. The Poacher’s Pocket was the rowdiest place on the isle of Crowstone, and had been in the Widdershins family for generations. It now belonged to her granny, also named Betty but whom everyone called Bunny to avoid confusion. They lived there with Betty’s sisters, Felicity (known as Fliss) who was the eldest, and six-year-old Charlotte who would only answer to ‘Charlie’.

  Betty’s birthday also happened to fall on Halloween. As she and Charlie galloped downstairs, their trick or treat costumes billowed behind them in a satisfying, villainous way. In fact, the outfit was helping Betty to feel rather daring, which she was glad of, as she and Charlie were about to break Granny’s biggest rule. Only Charlie didn’t know it yet . . .

  Also by Abi Elphinstone

  The Dreamsnatcher

  The Shadow Keeper

  The Night Spinner

  Sky Song

  First published as a paperback in Great Britain in 2019 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd

  A CBS COMPANY

  Text Copyright © Abi Elphinstone 2019

  Interior and cover illustrations Copyright © Carrie May 2019

  The Unmapped Chronicles logo Copyright © Patrick Knowles 2019

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Abi Elphinstone, Carrie May and Patrick Knowles to be identified as the author and illustrators of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London

  WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  PB ISBN: 978-1-4711-7835-1

  eISBN: 978-1-4711-8499-4

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset in Goudy by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and supports the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.