Soul Splinter (26 page)

P
uddle placed a protective hand on the lever before his lamp. ‘The door’s strong and it’s bolted fast.’ He scratched his beard. ‘But in all the time I’ve been here no one has ever come knocking on it in the middle of the night.’

‘We haven’t got time to think on it,’ Moll said urgently, she turned to the others. ‘Listen, the lighthouse, it’s been shining out a code—’

‘—and Moll wants to go after it tonight,’ Puddle finished. ‘In the rain. Without a boat. To Devil’s Drop.’

‘What’s Devil’s Drop?’ Siddy asked warily.

Moll raised her jaw. ‘A waterfall that might or might not be a little bit haunted.’

‘How haunted are we talking?’ Alfie asked.

Moll tapped her foot impatiently. ‘Dead sailors, I think.’

Siddy moaned. ‘Only
you
would come up with a plan as mad as that, Moll.’

Ignoring them both, Moll spread out the parchment where Puddle had drawn the code. ‘Puddle says it’s something called a Morse code – emergency signals.’ Her voice was a rush of breath. ‘And it spells out OLIVE. My ma! Somehow we need to get down to Devil’s Drop because that’s where the amulet is. And we need to do it before the Shadowmasks find us!’

The reply didn’t come from anyone inside the lighthouse. It came from the glass surrounding the lantern room – a tapping noise, scratching on a pane at the far side.

Scrap reached out to find Alfie and he took her hand in his. The lamp flickered off, and darkness fell, but when the light beamed again it shone upon a terrifying sight.

A crowbar gripped firmly by an enormous black hand.

Scrap screamed and Alfie held her tight. Before anyone could move, the crowbar slammed into the glass, the windowpane shattered to the floor and four smugglers, clad in long black leather boots and soaking shirts, piled in off the ladder that scaled the lighthouse: Barbarous Grudge, Smog Sprockett and the two older boys Moll and Siddy had seen back in Inchgrundle.

Moll plunged a hand into her dress pocket, but she’d taken the catapult and knife out before going to sleep – and the bows downstairs, even Willow had said, wouldn’t work against those who knew nothing of the Bone Murmur. She backed up against the wall, shielding Gryff with her legs.

‘Now – now listen here,’ Puddle stammered, edging behind the lens. ‘This is no place for smugglers. You and your lot aren’t welcome so—’

Grudge raised his crowbar, all the while chewing hard on the finger bone, grinding it between his golden teeth. He lunged towards Puddle and struck him in the stomach. The lighthouse keeper crashed to the ground, winded and groaning.

Moll leapt forward, but the two smuggler boys fell upon her, pinning her back. Smog cornered Gryff and, though he snarled and hissed, the street urchin could see the wildcat was now blind and he taunted and jeered at him as if Gryff was a harmless stray.

‘Thought I wouldn’t find you and your little friends?’ Smog sniggered at Moll. ‘I only had to ask around, then track your footprints . . .’

Grudge pushed his dreadlocks back from his face and pointed at Scrap with his crowbar. Then he crunched over the broken glass towards her.

‘You!’ he spat. ‘You
helped
them? My own flesh and blood?’ He looked at her with contempt. ‘You’re no daughter of mine any more!’

Moll’s eyes widened. Scrap was Grudge’s daughter! And yet she’d saved Moll from the kelpie and led them all to the Blinking Eye.

Grudge raised a pistol from his holster and Scrap raced round the wall to the door. But Grudge followed her with the barrel of his gun. ‘Here’s what I do to traitors, you little wretch!’

‘Run, Scrap!’ Moll screamed.

But it was too late. The gunshot roared. Scrap’s legs buckled beneath her and she collapsed to the ground.

Moll bit the smuggler’s hand fixed round her jaw, but it held fast. Siddy darted towards Scrap, but Grudge advanced, his gun levelled at him. Siddy froze and Gryff growled from the corner, but Smog boxed him in. Only Alfie, unseen by the smugglers, could run to Scrap. He bent down, cradling her little body close. Immediately, he felt the blood leaking from her side.

His eyes stung. ‘It’s OK, Scrap, it’s OK.’

The smugglers shifted uneasily at the voice coming from nowhere.

‘More gypsy magic. Just like back in the port,’ Smog muttered.

A smuggler boy shivered. ‘It – it’s a ghost!’

Grudge stiffened. ‘Stay away from it, boys. Whatever it is.’

Scrap whimpered in Alfie’s arms, her breaths shallow and fast. But in her eyes Alfie saw something different. She was looking at him, not around him, not in his general direction, but
at
him.

Tears rose in his eyes. ‘You can see me now, can’t you?’ he whispered.

Scrap nodded, letting her eyes work their way over every curve of Alfie’s face. She smiled faintly as if she was recognising him after a long time apart. Then she lifted her shaking arms up and wrapped them round his neck. She clung to Alfie, and he clung back, and then her body grew weaker and she slumped into his lap.

Gryff snarled and stamped on the floorboards. Alfie’s jaw stiffened and he glared at Grudge. ‘Murderer!’ Still unseen by the smugglers, he picked up a shard of broken glass next to him and hurled it at Grudge.

Grudge may not have been able to see Alfie, but he spotted the flying glass and ducked just in time, his pistol swinging from Siddy to where the glass had come from. He shot once again into the room and Alfie ducked as the bullet skimmed the door frame.

‘Keep back, spirit!’ Grudge warned, training his pistol on Moll. ‘Come close and I’ll shoot your friends.’

Alfie looked down at Scrap and moaned. ‘I promised her I’d keep her safe.’

From behind the lens, Puddle heaved himself up and limped towards the door. He glowered at Grudge as he passed. ‘You can shoot me if you want,’ he muttered, bending down to kneel by Scrap. He felt for Alfie and placed a hand on his back. ‘It wasn’t your fault, boy. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done.’

Grudge grunted at Moll. ‘It’s you and your pal I’m after. We’ve come for that amulet.’

Moll blinked at Scrap’s body, hardly able to take in what had happened. How could Scrap be dead? Tears pricked her eyes, but with Grudge there she wouldn’t let them fall. She spat on to the ground by Grudge’s boot as he advanced and the smugglers holding her tightened their grip.

‘That’s no way to cooperate, missy.’ Grudge’s lips curled back to show two rows of golden teeth.

Moll looked him square in the eye. ‘How
could
you? She was your own daughter!’

Grudge ground the finger bone between his teeth.

Moll watched the storm swelling around them outside. Scrap was gone – and it hadn’t even been the Shadowmasks who’d taken her away. She looked at the little smuggler girl and a lump swelled in her throat. Grudge would answer for this; she would see to that. And then, just as she was about to look away, Moll’s heart beat faster. She could have sworn she’d seen a tiny, almost unnoticeable, flicker cross Scrap’s eyelids. Moll’s pulse hammered as Scrap’s chest rose then dipped a fraction. She glanced from Puddle to Alfie to Siddy. They’d seen it too:
Scrap was still alive
. But if Grudge caught on he wouldn’t show her mercy.

Thinking fast, Puddle scooped Scrap up from Alfie’s arms and looked at Grudge. ‘There’s nothing you want from me. I’m taking her body; she deserves a proper burial. You owe her that much.’

Grudge scowled as Puddle left the room with Scrap lying limp in his arms. And then an idea began to form in Moll’s mind. She didn’t like it, but maybe, just maybe, it might work. She forced the words out, trying her best to turn her anger into a plan. ‘You got a boat?’

Grudge nodded.

‘Good,’ she told him. ‘Cos you’re going to need it if you want the amulet.’

Siddy turned panicked eyes towards her. ‘You’re going to trust
them
to take us to the amulet?’

Moll glanced at Siddy, then at Alfie and took a deep breath. She faced Grudge square on. ‘We’ll take you to the amulet – if you’re man enough to brave Devil’s Drop.’

Smog looked up from taunting Gryff, and the two smugglers glanced at one another uneasily.

‘It’s haunted, that place,’ one of them muttered. ‘There’s not one sailor who’s made it past those waters alive.’

The other smuggler nodded. ‘I heard there are ghosts that drag you from your boat and drown you . . .’

Grudge snorted. ‘Tall tales. There isn’t a sea in the land I can’t master if there’s loot at the end of it.’ He made a fist of Moll’s coat. ‘Whatever gypsy magic you have going on up here – whatever ghost you claim follows you – you’d better leave all that behind. Understand?’

Moll said nothing, wishing him dead. Then she dipped her head.

‘One wrong move from you and I’ll bury you and your friend alive. You’ve seen what I can do.’ Grudge bared his teeth at Moll in an ugly smile. ‘Well, we’d best get downstairs then, hadn’t we? The boat’s moored below the cliffs.’

Grudge flung Moll forward. She snatched at Gryff’s fur, but Grudge shoved her in the back again and forced her on towards the door.

I’ll come back for you
, Moll said silently as Gryff reached out a paw towards her.

‘We’ll leave the cat,’ Smog said. ‘He’s blind as they come, this one. No use to anyone.’

The smugglers grabbed Siddy by his arms and marched him to the door behind Moll. But, just before she crossed the threshold, Moll stole a look at Alfie. ‘Look after Scrap, then come after us,’ she whispered. ‘With Willow’s quivers, in case the Shadowmasks are near. I’ve got a plan; I won’t let Grudge get away with this.’

W
ith his pistol lodged in the back of Moll’s neck, and his smugglers gripping Siddy by the arms, Grudge led them behind the lighthouse, down towards the rocky precipice. The rain pelted against their clothes, but Moll could hardly feel it; her mind was swimming with images of Scrap. Would Puddle and Alfie know what to do to save her?

Grudge paused at the edge of the cliff and, as the lightning flashed, Moll and Siddy saw the chalky limestone fall abruptly away below them. At the bottom was the sea, a dark expanse of churning water, heaving in and out against the cliffs, dashing spray over the rocks.

Moll pointed to the left. ‘Devil’s Drop is in the next bay. Shouldn’t we walk round?’

Grudge clicked the safety catch back on his gun and Moll swallowed. ‘Our boat’s down here.’

‘Is there a safer way?’ Siddy asked with a gulp. ‘It’s a sheer drop – the ledges can’t be more than a footstep wide!’

Grudge shoved Siddy closer to the edge. ‘You’ll go down there; same way as we came up.’

Siddy shivered and Moll pushed her sopping hair back from her face. She thought of the trees she’d climbed in Tanglefern Forest, tried to imagine the cliff was just one of the giant elms. But, as the rain splintered down and the lightning shone on the drop, Moll’s muscles jolted with fear.

The tallest of the smuggler boys climbed over the cliff edge first, then Smog followed, clinging to the limestone with nail-bitten fingers as the wind pummelled through his rags.

Grudge motioned towards the edge with his gun. ‘Down you go.’

Siddy sucked the rain from his trembling lips, then followed Moll over the edge. Now and again small chunks of limestone crumbled away beneath their hands, but they clung to nearby ledges and felt for footholds, desperate to keep hold. And, each time the waves crashed below, Moll felt as if the limestone was moving, steered by powers far beyond her control. This wasn’t just an ordinary storm: this was the Shadowmasks’ menace. She could feel it.

Eyes blinking back the rain, Moll lowered herself on to a grassy patch covering a wider ledge.

‘I can’t stop thinking about poor Scrap,’ Siddy said as he dropped down level with Moll. ‘And after she got us all the way here.’

‘Puddle will have bandages, won’t he?’ Moll asked. ‘To stop the bleeding?’

Siddy bit his lip. ‘I hope so.’ He looked down. ‘You’d better have a plan in all of this.’

Moll glanced up to check Grudge was a safe distance above them. ‘I do,’ she whispered. ‘We use their boat to get us in behind Devil’s Drop—’

‘Then what?’

‘We get rid of them.’

Siddy gave a little whimper. ‘
That’s
your plan? Any idea
how
we get rid of them?’

Moll glimpsed the lamp flashing out its Morse code from the lighthouse above them. ‘Not yet . . . but we’ll find a way, Sid. These rotten smugglers aren’t taking the amulet from us – specially not after what they did to Scrap.’

She turned inwards to face the cliff again and carried on climbing down. The waves grew louder, filling her ears with their mighty roars, and once or twice Moll lost her footing on a slippery ledge. But her hands were like claws, gripping tight with fear, and they held her fast.

Eventually they stepped down on to the rocks and shingle at the foot of the cliff. The wind gusted against them and Moll and Siddy clung to one another, shivering. A small rowing boat knocked against the rocks, water buffeting it from all sides and spilling over the edges. The smugglers untied it and Grudge nodded at Moll and Siddy to get in. Shakily, they clambered into the stern. Moll sat on a wooden slat beside Siddy, and when the lightning flashed she saw the tips of knives bundled up in a roll of leather at the bottom of the boat.