Soul Splinter Read online

  ‘Mind yourselves,’ Hard-Times Bob said as he hobbled past Cinderella Bull, Siddy and Alfie at the entrance of the alcove. He opened his old, wrinkled arms and tucked Moll inside them. ‘There are few things worse than seeing your parents weep – and Oak and Mooshie are as good as parents to you, Moll.’ He stroked her hair. ‘But it’s going to be all right. I won’t let anything happen to you or Moosh. I’ll look after you both until Oak is back on his feet.’

  ‘Will – will he be OK?’ Moll whispered.

  Hard-Times Bob hugged her tighter. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, as if one word might be enough to convince the world that Oak wasn’t allowed to leave it.

  Mooshie wiped her eyes with her pinafore. ‘Thank you, Bob,’ she said. ‘There’s firewood by the tunnel. And Moll, Gryff’s coat will need to be wiped down with the dried rosemary and water.’

  Cinderella Bull nodded, then, as she turned towards the cave, she looked at Alfie. ‘And it’s time you told us about your past, young man.’

  It took Moll most of the day to wash Gryff’s coat. She had coaxed him into the hammock easily enough, but, when she advanced with a bowl of water sprinkled with rosemary, Gryff had kicked the whole thing over and skulked off to the far corner of the alcove before burying himself in Moll’s patchwork quilt. A while later, Moll had lain next to him, counting her heartbeats against his as they drifted in and out of sleep. But only when she offered up a sea trout Hard-Times Bob had caught did Gryff let her tend to his cuts.

  When they emerged from their alcove, Alfie and Siddy were already eating around the fire with the grown-ups. No daylight seeped through the cracks above the tunnel now; it was night and, outside in the bay, the sea would be dark and cold. Moll watched the flames from the fire flicker over the words of the Bone Murmur on the cave wall.

  ‘We’ve fed and watered the cobs,’ Siddy said as Moll approached. ‘And I managed to get Hermit to look at his pincers in the mirror without charging off backwards.’

  Moll glanced at the crab perched on Siddy’s knee – every leg, pincer and claw tucked out of sight beneath its shell. ‘You go through pets very quickly, Sid.’

  Siddy scowled. ‘It’s not my fault Porridge the Second didn’t fancy the change of scene. Personally I think the sea air would have done wonders for his melancholy. But he was having none of it.’

  Moll shrugged. ‘You should get a decent animal, like a fox or – or a badger.’

  Mooshie rolled her eyes. ‘Siddy is not adopting a badger.’

  Moll sat on a stool between the boys, then shuffled it closer to Siddy – a sign to Alfie that things weren’t as they had been – and took the bowl of mussels Mooshie held out for her. She ate hungrily. The garlicky taste of the peppered dulse tingled on her tongue and, when she had finished eating, she wrapped a blanket round her shoulders. Gryff slunk beneath it, out of sight.

  Cinderella Bull sat forward, licking the last of the sauce from her fingers. ‘Siddy told us all about Ashtongue distorting the Oracle Bone reading. What with the Soul Splinter and the Dreads, it looks like you had a lucky escape.’

  ‘Mmmmmn.’ For a while, Moll said nothing more, then she turned to face Alfie. ‘Somehow we’ve got to find this amulet without a bone reading – but I can’t even think about where to start when I don’t know who you really are.’ She looked towards Mooshie’s alcove. ‘Oak always says trust is what comes first in a friendship – everything else follows. So, if that’s anything to go by, you’d better tell us who you are, Alfie.’ Her face was stern. ‘Why did you run away?’

  Alfie twisted his earring between his fingers and looked at Moll. ‘I left because I didn’t want you finding out the truth, not after you all took me in and treated me like I was one of you,’ he said slowly. ‘I couldn’t face telling you that . . .’ His voice unravelled and he looked down.

  Moll stared at him, unblinking. ‘Couldn’t face telling us what?’

  There was pride and hurt in that voice; Alfie knew Moll well enough to hear it. He met her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘That I can only be seen by animals and by those who knew me in the forest. Skull’s camp first – then yours.’

  ‘And the Shadowmasks,’ Siddy added.

  Alfie nodded, his face grim. ‘And by them, it seems.’

  Moll shook her head. ‘I don’t understand . . . The Shadowmasks were scared of you.’

  ‘I can’t think why,’ Alfie muttered. ‘Skull told me that he took me in as an orphaned baby from a farm – to look after the cobs when I was old enough.’ Alfie sighed. ‘But it was for another reason – I’m sure of it. I may have ended up looking after his cobs, but I don’t think that’s what Skull wanted me for at the start. Otherwise his boys wouldn’t have treated me like they did. They wouldn’t have said all those things.’

  Mooshie leant forward on her stool, folding her cardigan over her chest. ‘What did they say, Alfie?’

  He didn’t look up, but his words came stiff and cold. ‘They used to taunt me. Saying I was different from them, that I was broken inside.’ Alfie reached for the knot of Raven’s hair hanging round his neck and clutched it so tight his knuckles turned white. ‘Skull told me I was cursed, but he’d made a promise to keep me close – so he couldn’t abandon me, however much he wanted to.’

  Cinderella Bull pulled her stool closer in. ‘Maybe Skull did make a promise to keep you close, but if he did I’ll bet it wasn’t to the farmer, more likely to the other Shadowmasks. For some reason, Darkebite and Ashtongue don’t want you near them.’

  ‘They were afraid as soon as they saw Alfie,’ Siddy said.

  Moll crossed her arms. ‘Couldn’t you have run away from Skull? I’ve seen you pick locks and dig escape tunnels.’

  Alfie shrugged. ‘Tried to but it never worked. I was eight the first time I ran away – Skull’s boys had just started the beatings. They said that if I was cracked inside anyway a few more punches and kicks wouldn’t hurt me.’ He looked away.

  ‘That first time, Skull found me on the outskirts of the forest and I’ll never forget what he said: “You’ve been raised with a sickness inside you, a hole where most people’s ‘real’ is, and, if you leave the forest, you’ll cease to exist.” I didn’t believe Skull, and a few weeks later I tried to run away again. Got as far as Tipplebury village, but – but—’ His voice faltered. ‘Skull was right. No one could see me outside the forest – not even the clothes I was wearing or the rucksack I carried. Anything that touched me, apart from people and animals, seemed to disappear. It was as if I didn’t exist, as if I wasn’t even real. But Skull could see me all right and he dragged me back to his camp.’

  Hard-Times Bob’s face was dark. ‘My guess is that the Shadowmasks performed a curse on you when you were a baby. What I can’t work out is why. And why would it mean they’re afraid of you now?’

  Alfie turned to Moll. ‘When I heard you and Skull talking about the amulets back when he kidnapped you, I thought maybe they could cure me – make me real. That’s why I really wanted to help you at first . . . But we don’t have a bone reading to go on now and I’m not even sure finding the amulet will help; I just hoped it might after hearing what your pa said to us when we found the first one.’

  He looked at the gypsies sitting round the fire. ‘I’m sorry I left; I knew if I went to Inchgrundle you’d realise people can’t see me and I couldn’t face you all knowing the truth.’

  Mooshie stood up and walked round the fire towards Alfie, then she knelt by his stool and put a hand on his knee. ‘It doesn’t matter whether passers-by and farmers in the fields can see you or not. What matters is that we see you – people who have grown to trust you and care for you. That’s what truly makes you real.’

  Siddy nodded. ‘You’re real to me, Alfie.’

  Hard-Times Bob smiled and patted Cinderella Bull’s back. ‘And us.’

  Moll caught Alfie’s eye. This was her opportunity, her chance to let Alfie back in. She thought again of how she’d felt seeing his patteran in the sand the morning
he’d run away – of the hurt and the anger that had stabbed inside her because Alfie hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth. But she’d missed him, up on the cliff tops with the owls and locked in the room at The Gloomy Tap with Siddy. The three of them were a Tribe now and it hadn’t felt right without Alfie there. Moll thought of their friendship – scratched and broken as it was – but something about Alfie was worth fighting for and she summoned up the words she needed to patch things back together and forced them out over the pain.

  ‘You’re real to me too,’ she said softly, her head bent low so that she didn’t have to meet Alfie’s eyes. ‘And Gryff – and he really didn’t like you at first.’ She plucked at her blanket, then looked up at Alfie. ‘Whatever the Shadowmasks may have done to you, I’m going to make it right again.’

  Siddy smiled. ‘We’re in this together.’

  Alfie dug his toes into the sand. ‘Thank you.’

  They stacked up the dirty bowls, then Moll wandered towards the Bone Murmur chalked on to the wall. She traced a finger along the words that were so familiar to her now that it felt as if they’d been breathed inside her since the day she was born. She thought of the last two amulets lying hidden beyond her grasp, one holding her ma’s soul, the other belonging to an unknown soul, and felt a sudden yearning for her parents and for Oak. She needed their guidance as to what to do next now that their plans had come to nothing and they didn’t even have a bone reading to go on.

  She slumped against the cave wall. The old magic seemed to be crumbling all around her. Her heart heavy, she looked at the bone tablet lying on a ledge of rock. Throwing a quick glance behind her to check Mooshie wasn’t watching, Moll shoved the tablet to the ground and gave it a hard kick.

  ‘That’s for tricking us, Ashtongue,’ she muttered, ‘and for leaving us with no clue to find the next amulet.’ Her palms were hot with anger now, but Moll was surprised to find herself feeling a tiny bit better. She gave the tablet another thump, then another and another, and the fury rushed through her. ‘And that’s for Oak’s leg and Alfie’s past.’ She stopped, panting hard, then propped the bone tablet back on the ledge and turned round.

  Siddy and Alfie were standing in front of her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Siddy asked.

  Moll flared her nostrils. ‘Kicking the bone tablet.’ She paused. ‘Want a go?’

  Siddy reached into his pocket. ‘Hermit might.’

  ‘Wait.’ Alfie’s eyes were growing big. ‘Look! Look at the bone tablet now!’

  Moll took her time turning round; even though she wanted things to be normal again, she was still guarded with Alfie, more wary after everything that had happened. Then curiosity got the better of her and she peered closer with Siddy.

  Beneath the candlelight, the pictures that had seemed so clear were blurring before their eyes. Edges that had been clear-cut were now smudges of black, and, moments later, the whole tablet was just a surface of ash.

  Moll picked it up. ‘The message – it’s – it’s gone!’ she gasped. Alfie and Siddy leant in either side of her as she blew the ash away. Then she blinked in disbelief.

  Symbols had been etched into the surface of the bone tablet:

  ‘What is it?’ Alfie asked.

  Moll ran a finger over the grooves, then she grinned. ‘Ashtongue’s dark magic has gone!’

  Siddy shifted. ‘How do you know?’

  Moll looked up at them both, her face glowing. ‘Because I can read these symbols; this is Oracle Bone script.’

  Moll whirled round the fire. ‘Mooshie! It’s my bone reading. My real reading!’ Mooshie looked up from the pan she was cleaning and Moll held out the tablet. ‘I kicked it. Twice. And then Ashtongue’s code faded into nothing.’

  ‘You kicked the bone tablet?’ Mooshie cried shrilly.

  Hard-Times Bob shuffled over to Moll. He peered at the tablet and clapped his hands. ‘Well, I never! It’s Oracle Bone script, sure enough!’

  Cinderella Bull’s eyes glittered. ‘It’s the old magic fighting back.’

  Moll beamed. ‘I kicked some sense into it.’

  Cinderella Bull’s smile vanished. ‘Please don’t talk about the old magic like that, Moll.’

  But Moll was no longer listening. ‘I need a few minutes on my own to work out what it means. I can’t concentrate out here.’ She hurried towards her alcove, Gryff pacing after her.

  ‘Can me and Alfie come?’ Siddy asked, grabbing Hermit from his stool.

  Moll shook her head. ‘I need to think hard for this. I have to be alone.’ She dipped beneath the sheet pulled back from the entrance to her alcove and slipped inside. Fumbling for the matches she kept in a hollow in the rock, she lit the tea-light candles lining the walls just as Cinderella Bull had told her to do when they’d practised the ritual a few days before.

  ‘Magic works best under candlelight,’ the fortune-teller had said.

  Moll dug her hand into the hollow again and drew out a leather pouch. She emptied the contents into her palm: curls of dried lemon peel and twelve acorns, one for each year she’d been alive. Then she arranged the protection charms in a circle round her hammock and looked at Gryff sitting beside her, his eyes wide and green.

  ‘You can stay,’ Moll smiled, stroking the soft white fur on his throat.

  Gryff purred and slunk to the far corner of the alcove while Moll clambered into the hammock, crossed her legs and rested the bone tablet on her knees. She listened to the silence inside her alcove. This was her chance to prove to everyone that she was the Guardian of the Oracle Bones, that even though she had no family alive she was part of something ancient.

  Minutes passed and Moll sat in silence, tracing the symbols with her finger, searching for the answers deep inside her. She tried not to think of all that rested on it, but when she closed her eyes she saw Alfie’s desperate face and Oak lying in his hammock. Could the amulets really help them both? She thought harder, willing the code to make sense. The candles flickered around her, the silence swelled and then her breathing quickened. She looked at Gryff. ‘I’ve – I’ve done it, Gryff. I’ve translated the bone reading! I’ve actually done it!’

  The wildcat made a noise, soft and wild, as if disclosing a precious secret. Noine, noine, noine. Moll smiled. It was the sound Gryff made when he was happy.

  There were excited whispers coming from behind Moll’s hanging sheet, then a mop of brown, curly hair poked itself inside. ‘Well?’ asked Siddy.

  Moll watched as they all clustered by the entrance, her thoughts skittering inside her. She looked at Cinderella Bull. ‘I’ve translated it, just how you taught me.’

  ‘I knew you’d do it, Moll!’ Hard-Times Bob cried. ‘Oak would be proud of you right now.’

  Cinderella Bull stepped forward. ‘And? What did the bones say?’

  Moll took a deep breath.

  ‘They said: FOLLOW THE SILENCE TO THE BLINKING EYE.’

  They rose early the next morning, everyone except Oak, who lay inside his hammock, his forehead gleaming with sweat. From the bags under Mooshie’s eyes, it was obvious she hadn’t slept, but still she mixed another dressing by the tunnel to draw the curse from her husband’s wound.

  Moll peeped round the sheet hanging over her alcove and watched curiously as Alfie helped Siddy fill a water bucket for the cobs. She hadn’t expected Alfie to run away in the night – she felt sure he’d stay with them now – but she was still cautious and, although she knew deep down she’d do anything to make him real, a little part of Moll wanted Alfie to show her he’d never let her down like that again. She crept out of her alcove and walked across the cave towards the boys.

  ‘Did you two come up with any ideas about the bone reading?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Alfie said. ‘Follow the silence . . . It just doesn’t make sense. How can you follow nothing?’

  Siddy nodded. ‘And the blinking eye? What on earth are the bones harping on about?’

  Moll chewed her lip. ‘Maybe there’s a messa
ge hidden inside the words. Like the last time?’ She sighed. ‘If only Mellantha was here to help us.’

  ‘We’re on our own with this one,’ Alfie said flatly.

  ‘Then we need to figure out a plan.’ Moll lowered her voice. ‘Last night, after I cracked the bone reading, Cinderella Bull told me she heard the sea spirits murmuring. She said they seemed afraid.’

  ‘I’m not surprised with the Shadowmasks opening up thresholds left, right and centre and letting all kinds of dark magic in.’ Siddy stood up. ‘Come on; let’s get some fresh air. We’re safe in the cove with Cinderella Bull’s protection pebbles on the cliff top. We can make a plan while we’re watering the cobs.’

  Outside the cave, Moll drank in the fresh, salty air. Fleecy clouds drifted across the sky and the morning sun cast a dazzle of light on to the sea. Gryff leapt up on to the rocks to prey on fish in the rock pools, but Moll walked towards the shore with Siddy and Alfie. She let the tide wash over her feet, pushing and pulling as the waves rolled.

  Beyond the jutting rocks at the far side of the bay, a pod of dolphins arched out of the sea before spiralling down into their underwater world. Moll walked on. Any other day she would have raced across the beach, scampered over the rocks and leapt into the sea with them. But the bone reading was pressing in on her thoughts, the answer to it whirring just out of her reach.

  They walked over the beach towards the cobs by the gorse, but, when Alfie laid his bucket at Raven’s hooves, he tossed his head from side to side then whinnied. Alfie reached out a hand to still him, but the cob backed up and flicked his tail.

  ‘What is it, boy?’ Alfie whispered. He raised his hand and this time Raven let him stroke his mane, but his eyes were wide and wild.

  Moll flinched. ‘Something doesn’t feel right; Raven’s never jumpy like this.’

  ‘Maybe he heard the sea spirits moaning, like Cinderella Bull,’ Siddy said.

  Jinx was further down the beach, but when Moll whistled she trotted over. Once more Raven backed up, away from the children, then he blew hard through his nostrils.