Soul Splinter Read online

  ‘Easy, boy, easy,’ Alfie soothed.

  Jinx took several loud slurps from the bucket in Moll’s hand and Moll frowned as she stroked her neck. ‘I could’ve sworn I took Jinx’s halter off yesterday.’ She shook her head, then, when Jinx had finished the water, she turned to Alfie and Siddy. ‘I can’t think straight in the cave; I’m going to ride out across the beach and see if the bone reading becomes any clearer.’

  She swung herself up on to Jinx’s back, dug her heels into the cob’s flanks and, before Alfie or Siddy could reply, she was off. Moll let the wind course through her long dark hair and pummel inside her dress. But, as the sand sped past beneath them, she realised something was different about the way Jinx was moving. Moll knew her cob’s movements by heart, but her strides seemed unfamiliar today and, however hard she tried, Moll couldn’t settle into them. She leant forward and rubbed the white hair between Jinx’s ears, the place where sensitive cobs keep their souls. And, as she did so, a coldness fastened round her chest. This cob looked like Jinx, but she knew the rhythms of Jinx’s soul. And this cob wasn’t Jinx.

  She yanked at the halter, but the cob twisted its head free and galloped on. Moll made to leap from its back, but her body seemed welded to the cob’s and she couldn’t fling herself off. And then slowly the cob’s appearance began to change. Its palomino coat dimmed to a dull grey, like dirty steel, and its glossy white mane stiffened into strands of rotted seaweed. The cob’s nostrils flared, foam began to drip from its mouth and its coal-black eyes fixed on the sea at the far side of the cove, where the current was at its strongest. Moll’s stomach lurched. This was the Shadowmasks’ magic and she could feel their darkness closing in around her.

  She struggled to free herself, but her body was still locked in place, just as it had been by Ashtongue in Inchgrundle. Her gut twisted as she remembered Cinderella Bull’s words – about water spirits called kelpies who claimed the bodies of well-loved cobs to lure their riders into the sea and drown them. There was a way to stop kelpies – Cinderella Bull had told her – but, as the sea loomed closer, Moll’s mind was a terrified blank. She snapped her head back, the only part of her free to move, and yelled to Siddy and Alfie back over the other side of the bay.

  ‘Help me! It’s not Jinx!’

  Within seconds, Alfie was up on Raven, speeding across the sand, and behind him Gryff leapt down from the rocks.

  But Moll could feel the kelpie’s power growing. It thrashed through the shallows, driving Moll on to meet her fate, and as the water grew deeper it rampaged through the waves and plunged downwards, nosing its ghastly head beneath the surface and dragging Moll deeper towards the churning current.

  She scrabbled with her arms, clawing at the surface with ragged breaths, but the kelpie pulled her under. Water gushed up Moll’s nose and beat at her lips, but the more she struggled, the deeper the kelpie sank. Its seaweed hair moved in ghostly wisps and all the while its black eyes searched for darker waters.

  Moll jabbed with her legs and bucked with her body, but the kelpie’s hold was fast. Her eyes widened, blinking with panic. There was no breath left in her lungs; she was going to drown . . .

  It was then that she glimpsed the dark shapes moving in a blur above her: four black cob legs shredding through the water towards them. Raven. And were those Alfie’s legs dangling down, his head just above the water? Moll’s heart leapt. In the next second, Alfie ducked beneath the surface and stretched out frantic arms towards Moll. She reached out with the last of her strength and their hands met, clasping tight. Moll felt the kelpie’s hold weaken as Alfie hauled her upwards, then she broke through the surface, gasping in shuddering lungfuls of air.

  ‘Grab my waist!’ Alfie yelled.

  Moll reached out, but the kelpie’s strength swelled again and it smashed its weight against her, sending her spinning down into the sea. For a moment, the kelpie was gone from sight, then it rose from the depths beneath her, sliding under her body so that she was fixed once again on its back, and Moll understood: no amount of hauling would free her. She had to remember Cinderella Bull’s secret to escape the kelpie.

  Paws powered through the sea behind her, then Gryff was beside her, shunting his weight against hers, trying to shove her free. But the kelpie sank lower and the sea grew colder; the current was closing in. Gryff’s claws beat faster towards Moll, then Alfie dived deep behind her. But, as the blood roared in her ears, Moll knew the kelpie was heading to a place the others could not follow.

  The sea below her was dark and cold and still and Moll’s eyes grew heavy. The others had vanished and Moll felt herself sinking with the kelpie as she gave in to its pull.

  And then, out of the corner of her vision, there was a flash of colour: something red moving through the sea towards her. Moll’s eyelids slid closed, then they flickered open for a second, long enough to see someone – something – reaching for the kelpie’s halter.

  A memory stirred inside Moll, and Cinderella Bull’s words floated back to her: You can only master a kelpie if you take off its bridle.

  There was a terrible moan, then the kelpie’s whole body shuddered. Its mane flaked away, floating round Moll as dead seaweed, then its body shrivelled like haggard skin before dissolving completely into the sea. Moll felt herself hang for a second in the cool dark waters, then hands plucked at her, lifting her up, up, up . . .

  Moll felt the sand beneath her body – tiny, dry grains under her legs and back. Her head was raised, on someone’s lap perhaps, but before she could open her eyes her breath was forced into spasms and she choked up mouthful after mouthful of stinging salt water.

  A pair of ringed hands pushed her hair back from her face and pulled a blanket up round her shoulders. Moll’s eyes fluttered open and rested on Mooshie’s face, then she groaned as she spewed another mouthful of seawater on to the sand.

  ‘It’s all right, Moll,’ Mooshie said. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘I – I thought it was Jinx and—’

  ‘Shhhhh now.’

  Moll’s eyes flickered open again to see Gryff, Alfie and Siddy standing over her in front of the rocks at the far side of the bay. Gryff bent low and nosed her cheek.

  ‘What happened?’ Moll croaked.

  Mooshie drew the blanket tighter round Moll. ‘One of the cobs must have nudged Cinderella Bull’s pebbles aside. The protection charm was broken when she went to inspect it a moment ago. My guess is that Darkebite conjured a kelpie from the Underworld which slipped inside.’ She paused. ‘The Shadowmasks must know you’re back in the cove; they’ll have hoped their kelpie could drag you to a place so deep only they could follow. But the kelpie failed and, although Cinderella Bull has renewed the protection pebbles, sooner or later the Shadowmasks will break in.’

  ‘Is Jinx OK?’ Moll asked.

  Alfie nodded. ‘We’ll need to leave as soon as we can and work out the bone reading as we travel.’

  ‘But how did I escape? Even you and Gryff couldn’t haul me off that beast.’

  Siddy and Alfie looked at one another, then they stepped aside to reveal a small child sitting with her arms crossed on a rock behind them. Moll blinked several times and struggled up so that she was leaning against Mooshie.

  The girl was dark-skinned, no older than six or seven, but she was unlike any child Moll had ever seen. She wore a scrap of old red sail with a hole cut through it for her head, and a piece of matted blue sailor’s top twisted up round her waist as a belt. Slung over her shoulder was a deflated lifebuoy and on one foot she wore an oversized leather boot. She looked more like washed-up flotsam than a girl, but what irked Moll most was her hair – a nest of dreadlocks dyed red with henna, tied back from her face with a piece of rope.

  This was a smuggler’s child. One of the Dreads.

  ‘Her?’ Moll whispered in disbelief. ‘She saved me?’

  Mooshie nodded. ‘Apparently so.’

  The girl reached for a battered oar by her feet. She clasped it like a weapon, but her face was ful
l of fear.

  Moll dipped her head. ‘Thank you.’

  The girl backed up further, then jabbed the end of her oar into a rock pool and bared her teeth.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Siddy whispered to the girl. ‘We’re not going to hurt you.’

  Alfie turned to Moll. ‘Don’t make any sudden movements. She scares easily. Hasn’t said a word since she brought you ashore.’

  The girl jabbed her oar in Alfie’s direction, then her eyes slid nervously from Moll to Siddy to Mooshie.

  Siddy looked at Moll. ‘She can’t see Alfie, but she knows there’s something strange going on. I think she can hear his voice. It’s got her spooked.’

  The girl edged down from the rocks and crept closer to them, brandishing her oar in front of her. She took a step towards where she thought Alfie should be, then stopped and shook her head.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Moll asked her.

  The girl opened her mouth, then tucked her head down and turned her back on them all.

  Mooshie clutched Moll’s arm. ‘She’s not afraid,’ she explained. ‘The poor child’s mute; she hasn’t got a tongue!’

  ‘Hasn’t got a tongue?’ Moll shuddered. ‘Do . . . do you think someone cut it out?’

  Mooshie held a hand over her mouth. ‘Who knows what happened. Poor lamb.’

  The girl turned to face them again, her lips pursed tight, her oar beside her like a trusted friend. She jabbed a dirty thumb at her chest, then grabbed her sail tunic and shook it.

  ‘She’s trying to tell us who she is, I think,’ Moll said slowly. ‘Red, sail . . .’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Cotton?’ Mooshie said.

  ‘Sack?’ Siddy suggested.

  The girl rolled her eyes.

  ‘Scrap?’ Alfie said.

  The girl stiffened suddenly, looked towards Alfie, but, not seeing him, kept searching. After a few seconds, she nodded.

  ‘Scrap,’ Moll repeated.

  And, finally, the girl smiled.

  Moll looked at the oar. ‘Did you come here by boat from Bootleggers Bay?’

  Scrap shook her head and mimed several swimming strokes.

  ‘You swam all that way?’

  Scrap nodded.

  Moll looked the small girl up and down. ‘And you carry the oar—’

  Scrap shrugged.

  ‘—just in case?’

  Scrap nodded.

  Moll smiled. ‘I carry a catapult just in case too. And my pa’s knife when things get really rough.’

  Scrap looked at Gryff, then she tilted her head and smiled. Gryff stared back, unsure what to make of her, then Scrap made a funny face and her smile broadened. Gryff’s whiskers twitched and he narrowed his eyes.

  Siddy crouched down in front of Scrap, his elbows resting on his knees. ‘So you heard trouble in the water when you were swimming near our cove and came to help?’

  Again Scrap nodded.

  ‘Good job you did,’ Moll said.

  Siddy gasped suddenly and, when he spoke, his voice came in a rush of breath. ‘Moll, the bone reading!’ He gazed at Scrap. ‘It said follow the silence!’

  Everyone looked at Scrap and then, one by one, their eyes widened.

  ‘Scrap – she’s the silence?’ Moll whispered.

  Mooshie raised a hand to her mouth. ‘This child looks like she’s one of the Dreads. You think a smuggler like her can lead us to the amulet?’

  Moll glanced up at Mooshie. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ She looked hard at the small girl. ‘Scrap, do you know where something called the Blinking Eye is?’

  For a while, Scrap said nothing, as if thinking, then she nodded twice.

  Gryff stood up and slunk towards Scrap, his ears low to his head. But Scrap didn’t move; she just watched as the wildcat stalked his circle round her. After a while, Gryff grunted and padded away – and Moll knew what that meant because the wildcat could read people like no one else.

  ‘Scrap’s telling the truth,’ Moll said slowly. ‘I know it sounds crazy – I don’t even understand it myself – but if Gryff believes Scrap then so do I. And, since we’ve got no other leads, I reckon she’s our best bet at finding the Blinking Eye.’

  Siddy looked at the little girl. ‘Can you write the directions down for us?’

  Scrap wrinkled up her nose.

  Moll held on to Mooshie’s arm and raised herself upright. ‘Can you lead us there?’

  Scrap nodded.

  ‘But what about the Dreads? What about Grudge?’ There was a tremor in Siddy’s voice. ‘He’ll come after you, won’t he?’

  Scrap’s jaw stiffened and only then did Moll notice the dark bruise stamped across her shin. ‘I don’t think Scrap was just swimming around. I reckon she was running away from Grudge and his gang.’

  Scrap looked down as if she was afraid to agree.

  Mooshie shook her head. ‘But we can’t promise her safety, not with the Shadowmasks out there waiting. And she’s so young!’

  Alfie shrugged. ‘Maybe we can’t promise Scrap safety and maybe she is too young.’ He paused. ‘But we can promise her friendship – just like you all did me – and maybe that’s what she needs now she’s come this far.’ He looked at her. ‘You’ve got to be pretty tough to escape Grudge.’

  Scrap took a step closer to where Alfie’s voice seemed to come from, not afraid this time. Just curious. Then she reached out her hand, feeling for something she couldn’t quite understand.

  Alfie watched as the little hand sought him out, just centimetres away. His cheeks reddened, suddenly aware of everyone watching, then he raised a tentative palm to Scrap’s. She jumped as her fingers touched his.

  Alfie gasped. ‘You can feel me?’ he whispered.

  Scrap wrapped her hand round Alfie’s fingers and nodded. And, for the first time since they’d returned to the cove, Moll saw that Alfie was smiling.

  Scrap had entered the cave cautiously, but, after accepting that Mooshie wasn’t trying to poison her, she had put down her oar and eaten some sugar kelp: crisped-up pieces of seaweed that Mooshie had coated in honey. Moments later, the gypsies had got to work: sharpening weapons, preparing food and packing blankets so that they could set off from the cave as soon as possible. From what they could gather from Scrap, the Blinking Eye was a two-day journey from Little Hollows.

  Scrap sat beside Alfie on the slabs of rock lining the tunnel. And, while he tried his best to focus on sharpening the knives, Scrap kept poking and prodding and squeezing him, just to be sure that he was there. Alfie glanced behind him at the fire, embarrassed at the attention, but, seeing the others talking among themselves about the journey ahead, he told Scrap his story, as he knew it. Scrap didn’t flinch at the mention of Shadowmasks and their dark magic – she didn’t need to after seeing the kelpie; she just sat and listened, dangling her little legs in the cool waters of the tunnel and swinging them back and forth.

  Alfie looked at her. ‘We’re not so different, you and me.’

  Scrap scratched her dreadlocks and looked at her reflection in the water.

  ‘People look right through both of us; they can’t see me and they can’t hear you.’

  Scrap thought about it for several seconds, then nodded.

  Alfie let his hand sift through the water. ‘What happened? To your tongue?’

  The child hunched her legs up to her chin and chewed on her red sail tunic. Alfie was silent for several minutes, then Scrap jabbed a finger towards the knives he’d been sharpening.

  Alfie stiffened. ‘Someone cut it out?’

  Scrap bared her teeth for a second, then her shoulders sank and she nodded.

  Alfie shook his head. ‘There are bad people out there, Scrap.’ He glanced at the little girl and noticed a tear trickling down her cheek. He looked away, uneasy for a moment, then he turned back to her. ‘It’s going to be OK; we won’t make you go back to the smugglers if you don’t want to. You can be one of us.’

  Scrap shuffled closer towards Alfie
’s voice until she could feel his body next to hers. They sat like that for several minutes, watching the water lapping against the tunnel, and then Alfie turned back to sharpening his knives.

  ‘I’ll protect you, Scrap,’ he said quietly.

  At the other side of the cave, Moll and Hard-Times Bob emerged from Oak’s alcove; it was clear from their faces that Oak was no better. On seeing them, Scrap fiddled with her deflated lifebuoy, then blew gently on the whistle.

  Alfie smiled. ‘You could use that to communicate with us.’

  Scrap stood up on the rocks and blew the whistle again, hard, so that her cheeks swelled like balloons.

  Alfie tugged it from her mouth. ‘Not so loud, Scrap!’

  Mooshie covered her ears with her hands. ‘We may as well dance a jig on the top of the cave and invite the Shadowmasks to tea!’

  Scrap picked up her oar and advanced to the fire, shrill bursts sounding from her whistle every few seconds. Hermit scuttled over the cave floor in panic, knocked into a lobster pot, then froze in absolute terror. But, when Cinderella Bull put a finger to her lips, Scrap lowered the whistle and watched.

  The aged fortune-teller walked silently over to the collection of glass bottles on the cave wall. She picked one up and hobbled towards the tunnel. The others followed her movements because they knew that whenever Cinderella Bull went to the tunnel, she meant magic.

  ‘We need to get going,’ Moll hissed. ‘We don’t have time for spells.’

  Hard-Times Bob put a hand on Moll’s arm. ‘If you and the others are going to leave this cove unharmed, you’ll need every ounce of magic that Cinderella Bull’s got left inside her to keep you all safe. She’s been working on this spell for some time now to prepare for this moment.’

  They watched as Cinderella Bull knelt down on the rocks. She pulled the gold-penny shawl over her head and whispered into the stillness, soft, swishing sounds that seemed to flitter over her tongue and slip into the cave. A moment later, she lowered the bottle into the sea. Moll heard the water glug inside it and watched as the fortune-teller set it on the rocks, then reached inside her pinafore pocket for several small items.