The Dreamsnatcher (2 page)

And that’s when she heard it.

A noise threading through the trees towards her. A low, rolling sound, only metres away, like an engine throbbing deep in the bowels of the earth.

‘
Brrroooooo
.’

A smile flickered across Moll’s face. She wasn’t alone now.

‘Gryff,’ she panted, leaping over a tree stump and squinting into the undergrowth. She couldn’t see anything. But she knew he was there, racing along just metres from her
– silently, like a faster, stronger shadow. Then she spotted him, springing out from behind the cluster of alder trees that lined the banks of the river.

Gryff was large, even for a wildcat, with a muscular body and long banded legs. His coat was thick and grey with jet-black stripes and his tail long and bushy – ringed with perfect bands
of black – and ending in a blunt tip.

Moll skidded to a halt before him, gasping for breath. She crouched down, level with Gryff, and gazed into his eyes. They were yellowish green and large, like her own, but with vertical pupils.
Wild pupils.

‘It’s all right, Gryff. It’s all right . . .’

Gryff’s hackles rose and he arched his back. ‘
Urrrrrrrrrrr
.’ He was so close to Moll the growl felt like it rumbled inside her body.

She fiddled with a stick by her foot, then looked up. ‘I’m crossing that river, Gryff. Skull’s camp have been raiding our clearing for too long. They’ve taken chickens,
dogs, firewood . . . And now they’ve gone and thieved a horse! And not any old horse. They’ve stolen Jinx –
my
cob.’

Gryff didn’t move, didn’t even blink. Moll wanted to reach out and touch him, to stroke his thick, soft fur. But there were rules, even in the wild, and she wasn’t about to go
breaking them.

‘
Never touch a wildcat; they’re the only animals that can’t be tamed
,’ Oak had told her when Gryff first appeared at the camp.

No one knew where he’d come from. The wildcat just showed up one day, as animals sometimes did. Oak had said there were no wildcats left in the southern part of the country. But he was
wrong.

Gryff had showed himself to Moll first, out of everyone in the camp, and not even the Elders could explain the bond that had grown between them over the years. It was with Moll that Gryff ran
through the forest and it was Moll that he seemed to trust and even understand. No one else.

‘
He probably doesn’t feel threatened by you because you’re so small, not much bigger than him really
,’ her best friend Siddy had said.

But Moll didn’t think it was that. Not really.

She tossed her waist-length hair over her shoulder and huffed impatiently. Gryff flinched, backing away several steps. Moll dipped her head, an apology for the sudden movement. Communication
with Gryff had to be slow, measured and calm – everything Moll was not.

She rested her elbows on her knees and looked deep into Gryff’s eyes. ‘The Ancientwood here belongs to us, Gryff; Skull’s camp aren’t frightening us away by thieving and
I’m going to let them know it. They’ve got the Deepwood and that’s where they should stay!’ She looked towards the river and her face darkened. ‘And besides
this’ll show them back at camp that I’m no
half
gypsy.’ Moll narrowed her green eyes – eyes that were almost the same colour as Gryff’s, but that marked her out
as different from the rest of the dark-eyed gypsies in the camp, and had earned her snide comments in the past that she’d never forget. ‘This’ll show them,’ she
muttered.

Gryff didn’t move, but his claws sprang out from beneath him and sliced into the earth.

Don’t go
, he seemed to say.
The Deepwood’s not safe
.

Tanglefern Forest was vast, with some trees so old and tangled that few had passed beneath their branches. But there were places you went and places you didn’t. The Ancientwood in the
north of the forest was safe: there was the glade of brilliant spring bluebells and yews beyond Oak’s camp, then a grove of crab-apple trees, and beyond that, after the forest, the farm
itself and Tipplebury village. But south . . . Well, south was another place altogether. So she’d heard. The Deepwood was rumoured to be full of shady trees and rotting undergrowth and, when
it ended, the heathland, with it sinking bogs and soggy marshes, began.

But south was where Moll had to go if she wanted to get Jinx back.

Gryff was growling now, his warning deep and throaty. Moll scrunched up her nose and hurried to the riverbank. Only yesterday Oak had said that one day he’d get his revenge on Skull. Well,
to Moll that was a sign, possibly even an order, for her to cross the boundary and make things right – as quickly as possible. She grabbed the catapult she’d hidden in the hollow of an
alder the day before, then clutched at the chain around her neck. Every person in the camp had a different talisman to bring them luck, and hanging from Moll’s chain were two boxing fists
joined at the wrist. Her initials had been engraved on them: MP – Molly Pecksniff. She gripped themtightly – for further protection against evil spirits and bad luck – then
slipped into the gurgling river.

The cold nipped at her ankles, but she stooped to pick up a pebble; no point carrying a catapult if she didn’t have a stone . . .

‘
PAAAAH!
’

Gryff was behind her on the riverbank, bracing and stamping his forelegs. And he was spitting now, which was never a good sign.

‘It’s rude to spit, Gryff,’ Moll said. ‘I don’t go spitting at you when you’re off hunting in the dead of night.’

Gryff cocked his head, considering. Then he hissed and spat again.

Moll clung to a branch for support, then she edged further into the river. The stones beneath her feet were slippery and she stumbled forward. She whispered a quick prayer to the water spirit
who she’d heard could twist up whirlpools and conjure rapids against those who stomped in her river for no good reason. Then Moll carried on, bracing her legs against the current, feeling a
path through the stones with the soles of her feet.

She looked up. She was nearing the banks of the Deepwood now, closer to Skull’s camp than she’d ever been. Fumbling for her catapult and swallowing back the thud of her heart, she
waded on.

C
lutching at reeds, Moll hoisted herself up the far side of the bank. She glanced around.

The same tangle of trees she’d grown up with in the Ancientwood: beech, birch, ash, yew, holly, hawthorn. The darkness couldn’t muffle their bark and leaves and she could almost hear
Oak’s wife, Mooshie: ‘
All trees have a spirit, Moll, and they lend it to us if we listen hard. Silver birch – its spirit protects against evil beings, and the sap’s good
for sugar when you’re making beer and wine . . . Holly berries – the greatest fertility charm there is . . . Ash – pass a naked child through a split ash tree and you’ll
find rickets and broken limbs all cured
. . .’

And yet there was something about the air this side of the river. It felt different, as if the night might be full of watching eyes and brooding shadows. Moll’s heart beat faster still and
a shiver prickled down her spine.

Branches swished above and Moll jerked her head backwards, towards the river. A split second later, Gryff landed on the bank beside her. He nodded towards the forest, his eyes narrow.

Moll dipped her head, grateful that he’d decided she wasn’t going on alone.

Somewhere nearby a twig cracked. Gryff’s ears swivelled to the sound and he grunted. A deer perhaps.

Moll shook herself. ‘We’ve got to be quick. Soon as dawn breaks we’ll be seen; the summer nights aren’t ever long.’

With Gryff at her heels, she ran further into the Deepwood beeches, her anklet jangling in the dark. ‘
Over the river . . . Straight through the beeches . . . Past the glade . . . Then
you’re in Skull’s camp – God help you
. . .’ She’d overheard the Elders talking enough times to know the way.

Gradually, and so slowly that at first she didn’t notice, the beech trees began to change. Their bark was no longer silver; it was flaky and grey and it peeled back like dead skin. Moll
and Gryff wove in and out of them, but the trees were not strong, like the ones surrounding Oak’s camp; they were withered and holed and they curved overhead like the bars of a cage. Moll
jumped as a bat shot out from a tree. Its leathery flaps crumpled into the distance. Gryff’s ears flattened to his head.

It was darker this side of the river somehow, as if the moonlight chose not to come here. And it was quiet – just the tired creaking of branches stirring in the gathering wind. Eventually
they came to the glade, but the grass was dead and brown, smothered by fallen branches and fungi. Moll shivered and kept running.

And then Gryff stopped, his neck craned towards the far end of the glade.

‘
Urrrrrrr
,’ he grumbled, whiskers twitching.

Moll knew what that meant: he was picking up vibrations of sounds that fell beyond the reach of her own ears. They must be near Skull’s camp. She clenched her fist round her catapult and
made as if to move on.

But Gryff remained where he was and Moll realised that it wasn’t only sounds that the wildcat was picking up on. His tail was flat to the ground and he was crouching. He’d seen
something too. Moll scrunched her eyes into the night, but Gryff could make out things in the darkness that not even gypsies could see.

Moll crept closer to him, her face sharpened with fear.

‘
Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
,’ Gryff growled.

Moll heard its creaking before she saw it, just like Gryff had done.

Some metres ahead, hanging from a decaying branch, was a birdcage. They crept closer until they were footsteps away. The cage was huge, several metres high and wide, swinging gently in the wind.
Only there wasn’t a bird inside. It was littered with bones.

Moll gulped. Gryff growled again.

And there was something else. Nailed to the trunk of the tree below the cage was a creature with a bald tail and a knobbly skull. A dead rat.

Moll swallowed again as they stepped out of the glade back into the trees. Then Gryff tensed. Hanging from another branch by a piece of tattered string was an owl: dead, eyeless.

‘Just an owl,’ Moll whispered to herself.

But she knew the signs; every gypsy did. Caged bones. Dead rats. Hanging owls. These were witch doctor omens. She and Siddy had laughed at the stories of Skull being a witch doctor, but Oak had
been telling the truth all along. And if Oak knew the truth about Skull no wonder Skull’s gang wanted to force Oak’s camp out of the forest.

Moll glanced behind her; it wasn’t too late to turn around. But Jinx . . . She couldn’t leave Jinx in a place like this. She clenched her teeth.

Then the whispering started.

It was a strange kind of whispering – scratched and guttural, like muttering – as if it was coming from deep within someone, right from the back of their throat.

And it was close, too close.

Moll’s body stiffened and fear settled around her neck. And yet she edged closer, somehow drawn to it. Gryff followed. It was louder now and there was a rhythm to it – strong and
pulsing. And slowly, like a frosty breath, a feeling slunk into Moll’s mind. There was something familiar about those whisperings. The feeling lingered in her mind, breathing quietly.

Then a movement caught her eye. Cloaked figures were stirring between the trees. She edged closer still, hiding behind a tree, and there, just in front of her, was Skull’s camp. Four
figures were circling a fire in the clearing, moving like a dark wave.

Moll’s breath caught in her throat. The whisperings were getting louder and faster now, growing like an untamed wind. And they were words that didn’t belong to Moll’s world:
strange, rasping words that—

The thud of a drum.

The hiss of a rattle.

Moll’s blood froze. Her nightmare was unfolding before her.

S
he was so close that the drumbeats thudded through her body and the rattle hissed in her ears. Gryff was absolutely still beside her, his eyes
locked on to the cloaked figures. They were moving faster now, a whirl of faceless black. But there was one figure who wasn’t stirring; instead he squatted by the fire like an enormous
spider, making something from a ball of wax.