Soul Splinter (18 page)

Moll edged away from the wildcat, back towards the cliff edge. Clutching her catapult so that she didn’t lose it on jumping, she lowered herself on to the ledge and peered down. The waves loomed beneath her and Moll felt her body sway, then she thought of the amulet and of Oak lying wounded in the cave and she scrunched up her fists and leapt. Her stomach swung into her mouth as she tumbled through the air before crashing down into the sea. She surfaced, breathless and cold, then swam towards the rocks and pulled herself up.

They untied the kayaks and Moll tucked herself into the smaller one behind Scrap while Siddy begrudgingly manoeuvred himself and Hermit into the larger kayak with Alfie. They pushed out from the rocks, wobbling and yelping as they adjusted their balance to the rhythm of the boats. But Gryff remained ashore, his back turned, his head hung low.

Moll called out to him. ‘Come on, Gryff! You’ve got to follow us!’ He growled and stayed where he was and Moll glanced at the boys. ‘I’m worried. Gryff just lashed out at me and he’s never done that before. What if he’s acting strange because he’s suspicious.’ She paused, not daring to catch Scrap’s eye – but the others knew what she was thinking. And so did Scrap.

The smuggler child twisted round to face Moll and smacked her paddle against the water, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Gryff seemed OK with Scrap back in the cove, didn’t he?’ Alfie said.

Scrap nodded, blinking back her tears.

Alfie dug his paddle into the sea and moved his kayak closer to Scrap’s. ‘We don’t think you’re spying for the Dreads, Scrap. It’s OK.’ She reached out a hand to find him and Alfie held up his palm until their fingers met. ‘We trust you to get us to the Blinking Eye.’ He looked up at the wildcat on the rocks. ‘Gryff’s never liked the sea, Moll – perhaps it’s that. He’ll follow if we keep moving.’

But Moll knew it was more than that and, as the group got into a rhythm with their kayaks, she kept casting anxious looks behind her.

They were halfway across Bootleggers Bay when Moll started shouting. ‘Yes, Gryff! Keep going!’

The others turned to see Gryff out on the ledge, ducked low in a crouch. He sprang into the sea and they all cheered as the wildcat swam towards them, on and on through the rolling waves. After a while, he heaved his weight up on to the end of Moll’s kayak, but to her dismay he didn’t face the girls. He curled up into a ball, his head turned out to sea, and watched the waves ripple in the early evening light.

They paddled on – past Bootleggers Bay and the fields stretching over the cliff tops. Moll swallowed. The day before, the pastures had been bursting with life, but, even at a distance, she could see that now the grass was charred and the stubble fields blackened. It seemed the Shadowmasks had trailed her and Gryff from Inchgrundle the night before, leaving a path of darkness in their wake. The villagers would notice, surely, and it would be the gypsies who took the blame for cursing their land.

They kept paddling, leaving Inchgrundle and the trickle of cottages dotted along the coast beyond the village well behind them, until their stomach muscles ached and their palms grew blistered from the paddles. But they were making quicker work of the journey than they would have been up on the cliff path, and they’d stayed clear of the village and the Dreads.

A seal head popped up beyond their kayaks, then slunk away, leaving froth rocking on the surface, and in the distance a boat passed them, its sail fluttering in the wind. Siddy and Alfie chatted between strokes about what the Blinking Eye could be and, as Moll and Scrap eased their kayak on, Moll tried her best not to think about Gryff’s strange behaviour or the setting sun and how soon they’d be on their own against the Shadowmasks.

Eventually the land ahead veered into the sea, a giant headland jutting out for miles.

‘It’s going to take ages to round that,’ Siddy groaned.

Scrap lifted her paddle and pointed inland to a small cove with a pebble beach. A fisherman was hauling up a net nearby, but he seemed uninterested by the kayaks and the cove looked deserted. They paddled towards it, letting the kayaks grind ashore over the rocks, and clambered out. Moll turned to Gryff, but he had already slipped from the kayak and was waiting, half hidden in the dunes beyond the pebbles.

A dull ache throbbed in Moll’s soles as she followed Scrap and the others up over the rocks and into the dunes. The gorse here was lush and full of flowers and Moll felt a surge of relief to be somewhere the Shadowmasks hadn’t been. They picked up speed, following Scrap on to a sandy track that cut through the headland they’d have spent hours rounding in the kayaks. The path ran through stubble fields full of bales, and before long hedgerows brimming with blackberries, cow parsley and rosehips shielded them on either side. Moll let her feet sink into the softer grass in the middle of the path and, some way behind them all, Gryff followed. They ran on and on and then Scrap stopped suddenly before a large elm bursting out of the hedgerow. She was red in the face and panting hard, just like the others.

Alfie wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘You’re right, Scrap. We need to rest for a while. But somewhere out of sight – we can’t risk being seen.’

Scrap ducked down and began twisting her way into the knotted hedgerow. Then her whistle sounded, muffled somewhat, and Alfie edged beneath a prickled branch before he too disappeared from sight.

Siddy groaned. ‘Gobbled by Shadowmasks before sunset . . . Just our luck.’

Moll waited for Gryff to catch them up, but he hung his head low, deliberately avoiding her eyes. Did he feel guilty for having struck out at her earlier? Moll wondered. And then she felt suddenly cross. It was
her
feet that were aching, not Gryff’s. Surely she was the one with the right to be irritable. What was wrong with him?

Moll gave up thinking about it and bent down beneath the brambles. They snagged on her coat, but she pushed them back, weaving further inside. And then she saw what Scrap must have known was there: a gap in the bark of the elm tree, almost a metre high and just wide enough to slip through. She and Siddy squeezed themselves inside.

The elm was hollow and its bark stretched upwards in gnarled scoops and curves. A sliver of light spilled in through the crack, but otherwise it was dark. Moll sat back against the bark and smiled.

‘Well done, Scrap,’ Siddy whispered. ‘We’ll be all right resting in here. You did good with those kayaks – even Hermit will admit that.’

‘How did you know about this place?’ Alfie asked. Scrap dipped her head and pretended she hadn’t heard. ‘Did you run away here once?’ he said quietly.

Scrap nodded but still she didn’t look up.

Alfie shuffled nearer to her. ‘Did . . . did Grudge cut out your tongue? For running away?’

Scrap looked at her feet and twisted her old sail tunic beneath her coat.

‘Here, Scrap, have this.’ Siddy handed her a sea-kelp muffin, the least damp item of food from their rucksack.

Scrap took it and nibbled the corner.

Moll turned her feet over in her hands. They were still gold from Cinderella Bull’s spell, her skin only etched with a few scrapes and scratches – nothing like she’d been expecting.

A twig snapped. Gryff was somewhere close by.

Moll craned her head out of the crack in the elm. ‘Gryff? Come inside,’ she urged. ‘It’s safer in here.’

She listened for his near-silent steps. They padded closer, then the wildcat came into view. Gryff stood before the entrance, his ears sunk low to his head, his eyes half closed and glassy. He lifted a paw, tried to take one more step inside the tree, then slumped to the ground.

Moll was out of the elm like a shot, kneeling in the brambles beside him. Gryff hadn’t been irritable before; he had been
in pain
. She could tell that now. She ran a hand over his body, but it was only when she turned over his paws that she understood.

The skin between his white-grey fur had been sliced to shreds and blood was oozing through the cuts.

Moll felt suddenly sick inside. ‘You . . .’ She gasped as she thought of the strange way Gryff had been running. ‘When you licked my feet back in the cove, somehow you – you took the pain I was meant to bear. You’ve been carrying it all the way here, walking on soles of glass!’

M
oll hauled Gryff inside the elm and this time he didn’t have the strength to hiss her away. He lay on his side, his eyes closed, whimpering.

Moll swallowed back the tears. ‘All that time I was telling him to keep going and getting annoyed at him for acting strangely . . .’ She ran a hand down the wildcat’s back; his breathing was slow and shallow. ‘But he was running on glass!’

Moll used some water from the flask to wet a handkerchief, then she dabbed Gryff’s paws, carefully cleaning the blood from his wounds. She sat back and bit her lip. ‘We need to help him! It’s not enough just cleaning his paws!’

Suddenly remembering, Alfie rummaged in his rucksack and drew out the small tub of ointment Mooshie had made for them in case of emergencies: hedgehog fat which the gypsies believed contained a precious healing oil, melted with ribwort leaves to draw out infection. He handed it to Moll and she smeared it over Gryff’s paws. But still the blood oozed and he lay, whining.

Siddy clutched Moll’s arm. ‘That plant Mooshie used to pick from the hedgerows beyond the forest – the one she said could stop bleeding and heal even the deepest cut – what was it?’

Moll thought fast. ‘Woundwort. But she used the last on Oak’s leg; we don’t have any in our supplies.’

‘There are hedgerows here,’ Siddy said. ‘If we find some of the right leaves, we can press them into the ointment and, together with the hedgehog oil, it might just work.’ He looked at Moll. ‘I’ll need your help though; you’ve always been better at spotting herbs than me.’

Moll held Gryff’s paw inside her handkerchief. ‘I can’t leave him, Sid. Not like this.’

‘If you don’t go, Gryff will get worse,’ Alfie said. ‘I’d go with Sid if I knew what I was looking for. You
have
to go, Moll. Scrap and I will stay here with Gryff.’

Moll nuzzled her head against the wildcat, then pulled herself away. She swallowed. ‘He won’t let you touch him – no matter how much pain he’s in – but he’ll know you’re here. Tell him it’s going to be OK.’

She crept out of the elm after Siddy and they pushed their way through the undergrowth until they emerged on the path. Moll’s eyes darted frantically up and down the hedgerow. The sun was setting and the darkness huddled closer – it wouldn’t be long before the moon was up.

‘Where do we look?’ Moll spluttered. ‘It might not even be here!’

Siddy stood in front of her. ‘You’ve got to stay calm, Moll. Describe woundwort to me so I’m sure I’m looking for the right thing.’

Moll tried to force the image of Gryff’s paws from her mind and summon a clear picture. ‘Tall green stalks and at the top of the plant there are purple flowers with white-flecked centres.’

‘And dark green leaves – the ones that are toothed, right?’

Moll nodded. ‘Like nettle leaves only they don’t sting.’

‘Right. You take the left hedgerow, I’ll take the right.’

Moll began slowly, scouring every bit of greenery: cow parsley, brome, blackthorn, brambles, dock leaves, nettles, chickweed.

‘There’s none here!’ she cried after a few minutes. ‘It’s hopeless.’

‘Keep looking,’ Siddy said. ‘Gryff wouldn’t ever give up on us. We’ve got to help him now.’

Moll picked up speed, her eyes scanning the plants, grasses, bushes and flowers with eagle-eyed precision. The back of her neck tingled with sweat and a sense of helplessness worked its way up her fingers and into her body. What if woundwort didn’t grow in this part of the country? What if they had to go back to Gryff empty-handed? Then her eyes caught on a single stem at the foot of the hedge – and her heart leapt.

‘There!’ she gasped, rushing forward and snapping up the plant. ‘Woundwort!’

Seconds later, they were racing back to the elm together, charging through the hedgerow and spilling into the hollow tree. Gryff was where they’d left him and Alfie and Scrap looked on with anxious eyes.

‘Moll found it,’ Siddy panted. ‘I knew she would.’

But Moll could barely hear the others talking. She ripped the leaves from the stem and pressed them into Mooshie’s ointment. Then she smeared some on to her finger and smoothed it on to one of Gryff’s front paws. She did so tenderly, as if she was holding his hand, and his eyes flickered open then closed again.

Alfie leant closer. ‘I think it’s helping. Keep going, Moll.’

As carefully as she could, Moll rubbed the ointment on to Gryff’s paws. When she reached the last paw, she held it gently and curled up opposite the wildcat, blinking large, frightened eyes.

Then they waited.

Minutes passed. Nobody spoke. And still the wildcat lay with his eyes closed.

‘It’s not working,’ Moll whispered, her voice breaking.

‘Look,’ Alfie cried.

Gryff’s chest began to rise and fall in deeper, stronger breaths and each one filled Moll’s heart with hope. Then the wildcat’s eyes struggled open. But it was Scrap who noticed his paws. In a flurry of excitement, she sat bolt upright, blew on her whistle, tugged Moll’s arm, then, finally, pointed to them.