The Dreamsnatcher (26 page)

‘Hand over Moll and her wildcat or we’ll see the clearing burned to the ground!’ Gobbler shrieked.

Skull’s boys spread out with Gobbler to face the oaks, where the wagons used to stand, but Skull and Hemlock hung back in the centre of the clearing with the Alterskin. They didn’t
need to fight; their curses were stronger than daggers and torches. The Shadowmasks’ heads were bowed and their Dream Snatch flooded Moll’s body, tearing through her with thuds of
loathing.

We know you’re up there, Moll Pecksniff. You and your wildcat. There’s no escaping us now. Give yourself up and all this will stop – all of your camp will be spared.

Blood pounded in Moll’s ears.

Your parents tried to fight us, but what good did it do them? If you don’t surrender, we’ll kill Oak . . . We’ll torture the women . . . We’ll tear the children apart
. . .

Moll gripped the amulet, willing herself to be strong. But it no longer glowed and, hanging round her neck, it looked like nothing more than a small lump of metal. Doubt crept in as the Dream
Snatch beat louder. Perhaps the amulet had never been magical at all. Beside her, Gryff was clasping the branch with his claws, shaking his head from side to side.

Sensing his panic, Moll stretched out a hand and squeezed his leg. ‘Fight it with me, Gryff.’

The wildcat burrowed into her chest, his body shuddering.

Gobbler and Brunt had lowered another torch to the foot of an oak. Gobbler’s hunched back swelled in delight as the flames crawled upwards, crisping the leaves to rust. More gypsies jumped
within the branches.

‘Give Moll and the wildcat up and your forest will be spared!’ Gobbler shouted. ‘What hope have any of you got against the Shadowmasks? Who’s going to answer me
that?’

And then Jesse emerged, darting out on to the branch of a burning tree.

Siddy gasped. ‘Pa!’

‘I’ll answer you that, Gobbler!’ Jesse hurled down a dagger.

It shot through the flames and sliced keen into Gobbler’s neck. Gobbler yelled out in pain, his back humping over his face as he slid from his cob to the ground. He crawled a few steps
towards the edge of the clearing, his running eye wild and wet, and then, after a few moments, he was still.

Skull looked up from his chant. ‘Torch it to the ground,’ he snarled.

Like unseen acrobats, the gypsies leapt within the oaks, from branch to branch, from tree to tree. Daggers showered down towards Skull’s boys, but they sidestepped on their cobs, hurling
their torches at the trees. The clearing blazed orange, a graveyard of scorched undergrowth.

Brunt urged his cob forward, towards Jesse’s tree. Realising his ma and baby sister would be tucked up with his pa, Siddy fumbled for his catapult and drew it out. Roaring with fury, he
pulled back on the pouch. The sharpened stone flew through the air and slammed into Brunt’s head. He cried out and tumbled backwards off his cob.

Two more knives hurtled through the air; one slammed into the leg of a tall, lanky boy with ruthless eyes and the other lodged in the arm of the last of Skull’s boys. He had a haunted
look: purple, curled lips and dark shadows for eyes. The boys fell down off their cobs and stumbled between the roaring flames. Still more daggers showered down – towards Skull and Hemlock
this time – but they dodged them with a sinister quickness, hanging back to perform their curse.

And, between them, the Alterskin’s red eyes narrowed.

Wisdom flung down another dagger, then looked to Oak, who nodded.

‘Stay here, Moll,’ Oak whispered. ‘So long as Gryff and Alfie are with you, you’re safe.’ And then he shouted out into the clearing: ‘Down from the trees,
men!’

Oak’s sons, together with Oak, Jesse and Florence’s father, leapt from the burning branches, spilling into the clearing like a raging tide. Moll watched, aghast, as they darted
between the flames, brandishing their daggers at Skull’s boys.

‘You’re outnumbered and you know it!’ Oak cried. ‘We’ll spare you all so long as you leave the forest and never return!’

Brunt was fumbling for something inside his waistcoat, then a pistol gleamed in the flames. ‘Let them have it, boys!’ he bellowed.

Several gunshots cracked into the air.

‘Wisdom, Jesse!’ Oak roared. ‘Use your guns to wound not kill!’

Moll watched in horror, and yet, as she watched, the figures, the flames and the cobs were all becoming a blur. She felt the heat from the fire burn inside her, growing with Skull and
Hemlock’s chant. Her grip on the branch loosened, her balance wobbled, but Alfie seized hold of her. Beside them, Gryff’s fur was wet with sweat and his eyes were wild. But Moll was
oblivious to Gryff now. All she could feel, all she could hear, was the Dream Snatch clamouring in her ears.

‘Leave Tanglefern!’ Oak yelled from below. ‘And we’ll spare you!’

Skull’s boys fought on, blind to Oak’s words. Oak jammed his leg into Brunt’s hand. The pistol dropped from Brunt’s grasp, but he lashed out blindly with his dagger. Oak
leapt backwards, then raised his own dagger. Jesse scampered forward and grabbed the fallen pistol from the ground. He raised it up, taking aim at another boy, but the boy ducked behind a tree.

Brunt jabbed his dagger at Oak’s face. Oak jerked aside, but the blade snicked his cheek. Blood trickled down to his jaw, yet still Oak jumped forward. Brunt was quick and he leapt aside.
But Oak was quicker. He brought his dagger down on to Brunt’s arm and it sliced through his clothing. Brunt howled with pain.

Oak drew out his pistol. ‘Leave!’ he roared. ‘Or we’ll shoot you all dead!’

Brunt’s eyes were wide with fear and he faltered backwards. His jaw was shaking, but he raised his dagger again. Oak fired two shots into the ground before Brunt’s feet. They
ricocheted off a fallen branch and spattered against Brunt’s shins. Brunt’s legs buckled beneath him and he cried out. He looked at the dagger in his hand; blood had dribbled down from
the wound in his arm and was now smeared over the handle. Grimacing, he let the dagger fall to the ground and, clutching his arm to his chest, he limped away, out of the clearing, into the
darkness.

‘Come back!’ Skull roared.

But Brunt had already disappeared into the forest.

‘He won’t come back for you!’ Oak cried to the last of Skull’s boys. ‘Leave and we won’t fight you any more! Find other lodgings and work; Skull’s
dealing in a magic far darker than you realise!’

Skull’s boys stumbled backwards, clutching their wounds. Bent double and fighting for breath, they looked at each another with panic-stricken faces. Oak’s men gathered together in a
cloud of anger, shouting and wielding their weapons. Beaten and bloodied, Skull’s boys heaved themselves away from the clearing. Skull and Hemlock kicked their cobs in pursuit of the boys,
howling for them to return.

‘The Soul Splinter’s been summoned!’ Skull shouted after them. ‘You want to miss out on dark magic like that?’

The Alterskin flicked a glance up to the very branch Moll crouched on, then followed.

Moll blinked several times, trying to understand what she was seeing. They were winning, surely, but then why did everything in her body tell her that Skull and Hemlock were stronger than all of
this.

The Shadowmasks were lost in the trees for a moment and, in the commotion, no one noticed Gobbler’s misshapen body haul itself up with a gun and take aim at the back of Oak’s head.
No one except Alfie.

The barrels of Gobbler’s gun loomed like tunnelled eyes, but Alfie’s arm shot back and, with one eye closed, he hurled his dagger. It spun through the air, a glint of leather and
metal, and sunk into Gobbler’s hand. The gun fell to the ground and Gobbler edged backwards, cursing. Alfie’s eyes widened in shock as he realised what he’d done.

As Oak’s camp fought to quell the flames, Skull tore back in the clearing, pausing for a second by Gobbler.

‘Help me,’ Gobbler rasped. And Skull fired his pistol into Gobbler’s heart.

He raised a cloaked arm and pointed at the branch Moll and Gryff crouched on. ‘That one,’ he hissed. Then he turned from the clearing and rode back towards the Deepwood.

Moll shook her head, burying it in her knees. ‘They’re calling for me, Alfie! Make it stop!’

Beside her, Gryff clung to the branch, his whiskers trembling, his growl weakened to a whimper. Then he threw his head back and yelped.

Alfie held Moll by the shoulders. ‘They’ve gone, Moll. It’s just us!’

Moll shook her head, her body rigid with fear. ‘They’re here, Alfie. They’re
here
!’ She shuffled nearer to him.

And, like ghosts in the darkness, Hemlock and the Alterskin waited, stitched into the shadows beneath the Sacred Oak.

We know you’re up there, Moll – with your wildcat. We can feel you. We can hear you breathing. Give yourselves up.

‘Can you hear it?’ Moll whispered, her eyes wide.

But, before Alfie could answer, something black and sinuous bolted up the tree towards Moll. Gryff leapt in front of her, his claws splayed. The Alterskin’s red eyes throbbed and its
scaled limbs thrashed out at Gryff. Moll scuttled backwards, pressing herself against the tree trunk with Alfie. Gryff yelped in pain as the Alterskin’s claws sank into his fur, then he
twisted free, gnashing his teeth, lashing at the ape-like face with razored talons. The Alterskin bellowed in anger and hurled itself at the wildcat.

Time shrieked to a halt.

Moll caught Gryff’s terrified eyes, just as he fell from the tree. Limbs scrabbling, the Alterskin hurtled to the ground after him.

‘GRYFF!’ Moll yelled.

Gryff darted away from the Alterskin, but a net shot out from the shadows, hissing through the air. It whipped against Gryff’s face and he swerved left, into the clutches of the
Alterskin.

Moll struggled against Alfie, feeling Gryff’s pain tugging inside her.

‘GRYFF!’ she yelled again, her eyes filling with tears.

‘If you go after him, the Shadowmasks get you both!’ Alfie shouted.

Hemlock slid out from the shadows, hurling the net again. It sucked Gryff backwards, cutting into his fur. Snarling, spitting, tearing at the ropes with his teeth, Gryff fought inside the net.
The Alterskin thumped a claw on Gryff’s back and Hemlock pulled the net tighter, strapping the ropes to his cob.

Oak and his men were rushing towards Hemlock now, but he leapt on to his cob and spurred it on, back towards the Deepwood with the Alterskin.

Moll twisted and shrieked within Alfie’s grasp.

‘No! Not Gryff!’ she howled, great sobs ripping through her body.

Jesse fired his pistol at the Alterskin. It stumbled and then he fired again and again until it slumped down, dead.

But Hemlock rode on, wrenching Gryff further and further away from the clearing.

M
oll scrambled down the tree, her eyes blinded by tears.

The clearing was a blackened wasteland, the Sacred Oaks charred with ash, but Oak’s gypsies ran back and forth from the river beating down the flames with pails of water.

Oak rushed over to Moll. ‘OK?’

And she knew what that meant: they were going back for Gryff.

She watched as Siddy tended to his father’s wounds, then she scoured the clearing for Alfie, but he was nowhere to be seen. Dread crept in. Perhaps he’d realised they didn’t
stand a chance now and the thought of returning to Skull’s camp had thrown up fresh fears.

It was Raven that Moll spotted first, entering the clearing ahead of Alfie as he led Jinx and Oak’s cob towards them.

‘Figured there’s not a chance we’re letting the Shadowmasks take Gryff so I fetched the cobs.’

Moll tried to smile, but an emptiness was growing inside her, filling the space where Gryff had always been, even if she’d not known it until now. They swung themselves up on to the
cobs.

‘Wisdom, get the last of the flames out, then see to the wounded with Siddy!’ Oak cried. ‘Ma’ll help you!’

Driving the cobs through the trees, they galloped through the river and raced into the Deepwood. The stars above them seemed to fade, one by one, as the darkness grew. Moll clasped the amulet
around her neck tight as they galloped through the beeches, past the dead owl and the pierced rat.

There was no sign of the vapours this time, but somehow the air felt heavy, not with rain, but with something much, much darker.

Alfie’s body was hunched with fear and Oak had cocked his pistol, but Moll didn’t notice. Gryff’s absence burned within her; she’d get him no matter what. They pulled the
cobs back to a trot, then picked their way through the last of the trees before Skull’s camp.

A low, almost strangled laugh escaped through the branches towards them. ‘Tie him up on the ceremonial table, Hemlock!’ Skull shrieked with pleasure.

The three of them edged forward and peered into the clearing. Enormous torches lit up a long wooden table. A giant bat had been carved into it, its painted black wings unfurled across the
surface. Only then did they notice the trees ringing the clearing. Moll gripped Jinx’s reins tight.

They were unmistakably
alive
.

Their trunks leered forward, their branches twisted into tendrilled arms, their roots knotted into mangled feet. But the worst thing of all was the faces. Gruesome heads bulged out of the
gnarled bark: troll heads with bat wings for ears, goblin faces with wild boar snouts, werewolves with snake tongues, warlock heads with wolf fangs. And they were snarling, growling, licking their
lips in gleeful expectation.