The Night Spinner

by Abi Elphinstone

  Moll glanced at the figure by the fountain; something about it was strangely familiar . . . She thought of the footprints in the snow on the staircase that had only been a bit bigger than her own. Could they have belonged to a child? A child bound up in the Shadowmasks’ curses?

  ‘No!’ Moll cried again, her stomach churning as the horrifying possibility leaked open before her.

  Wormhook tutted as he raised a finger towards the slumped figure. ‘And I think Molly knows all too well who that was.’

  Moll’s throat tightened as she raced forward. No, no, no, beat her heart. She fell to her knees and turned the body over. A black hood covered the face, but when she tore it away she threw back her head and wailed. Here was the face that had stolen into her dreams every night since she’d last seen it down by the sea: a scruff of fair hair above two shining blue eyes.

  Tears rolled helplessly down Moll’s cheeks as she flung her arms round the body. ‘Oh, Alfie, Alfie! What have I done?’

  The others rushed close and Gryff bent low, nuzzling Alfie’s cheek.

  ‘Alfie’s connection to the Soul Splinter meant that when it was destroyed he also disappeared,’ Wormhook crooned from the door of the monastery, ‘down to the depths of the Underworld. But I plucked him from the shadows before they claimed him for good. I made him real, just as you wished for, Molly Pecksniff.’

  He paused, as if relishing the irony, and Moll sobbed into Alfie’s lifeless body.

  ‘I made him my Night Rider,’ Wormhook muttered, ‘a cursed soul without any memories of his past, to carry the Veil through your land while Orbrot sent witches, peatboggers and goblins to find you and I conjured storms. The Veil’s victims awoke jabbering about the Night Spinner, about my power to come, but no one ever suspected your little friend might be behind the poisonings. To think that you thought I was riding the Veil all that time when I only ever rode it once, to pay a visit to a kraken on the coast . . .’

  Wormhook ran a cloth hand over the Veil and sniggered.

  ‘Alfie’s soul was cursed from the moment we stole his tears to make the Soul Splinter, Molly, but your ridiculous hope in him – your impossible dream – meant that a little part of him belonged to you. Your belief in your friend stopped me from claiming him completely, but, now that you’ve killed him, you have no impossible dream to believe in any more! Alfie’s body will fade, but his shadow, his damned soul, will remain and that will belong to me completely – and a soul that has been corrupted from innocence to darkness is more powerful than any other kind.’

  Wormhook’s straw hair glinted in the torchlight.

  ‘I will have Alfie’s shadow join with the Veil to form a cloak of darkness so terrifying that it will drown out the sun and the stars and the moon. Then, under an eternal night, the Veil will call up the creatures of the Underworld so that I can begin my rule of terror.’

  Siddy clenched his jaw. ‘Alfie’s soul was good and strong and your curses made him into a monster! He would never have done anything like this!’

  But Moll was beyond the rights and wrongs of what the Night Rider had done under Wormhook’s command. This was her friend, the boy who had stormed into her life in Tanglefern Forest and helped to open up her closed heart. She buried her head in Alfie’s chest.

  ‘Come back,’ she sobbed. ‘Please! I kept my promise. I crossed moors and mountains to find you. I’ve come to make you real!’

  Domino lifted Moll away and slipped a hand beneath Alfie’s back. He drew out the arrow, placed it in Moll’s quiver, then he felt for Alfie’s wound. His hand stilled and he glanced up at the others.

  ‘There’s no blood,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t even feel where the wound should be.’ He stood up and glared at Wormhook. ‘You didn’t make Alfie properly real . . . You cursed whatever was left of him when he destroyed your Soul Splinter, then you used him as a puppet to poison people’s spirits – and, when neither Orbrot nor your hideous beasts could hold Moll back, you had Alfie lure her here.’ Domino spat on the ground in disgust. ‘You’re pathetic. Moll never gave up on Alfie – she never surrendered her impossible dream – because I know that girl and nothing, not even death, could make her give up on her friends!’

  And, as Domino said those words, Moll realised they were true. Even though Alfie lay motionless before her, she still hadn’t given up her hope in him. Moll ran a hand over his hair, then she gasped as she realised Alfie’s robes were fading. But he didn’t shrivel to a shadow, as Wormhook had implied. His body lay there still, but his robes vanished and Moll could see that he was now clothed just as he had been the last time she had seen him: in a duffle coat over ripped shorts and old tattered boots. This was her Alfie, not the slave to dark magic Wormhook had made him. But he didn’t move, didn’t breathe. What life he’d had left was now gone.

  ‘Time to admit that you’ve given up on him once and for all,’ Wormhook goaded.

  Moll shook her head and rose to her feet. ‘You let him die when he never did you any wrong!’ The pain beat inside her as she said the words aloud, but, despite what they meant, she still clung to her impossible dream, her belief that somehow this might not be the end for Alfie. ‘It’s me you want. Not Alfie. And I came for you. I was ready for the fight . . .’ Moll’s voice began to crack and Siddy touched her arm.

  ‘Moll,’ he cut in.

  Moll twisted free as the tears coursed down her face. ‘You’re a monster!’ she screamed, setting the Oracle Arrow to her bow again. ‘How could you make me kill my best friend?’

  ‘Moll,’ Siddy said, louder this time, firmer. ‘Alfie’s still alive.’

  Moll’s bow dropped limp by her side and she looked down. Her heart quickened. Alfie’s body had faded around the edges now, but it hadn’t disappeared like his robes had. He was paler somehow, almost transparent, and to Moll it felt like looking at the ghost of a boy or an old photograph of someone from the past – but none of that mattered because Alfie’s chest was rising and falling. She had kept her belief in her impossible dream and somehow that had kept Alfie alive.

  Aira raised her crossbow at Wormhook. The leader of the Highland Watch knew that it had to be Moll who destroyed the last Shadowmask, but Aira’s guard was up because Moll’s heart and mind were far from the witch doctor now and they couldn’t let him escape.

  ‘Alfie,’ Moll whispered, shaking him by the arms. ‘Alfie.’

  His eyes met hers, but they were dull and glazed.

  ‘It’s me . . . Moll.’

  Alfie blinked once and then his eyes travelled over Moll and Gryff and finally Siddy. But no flicker of recognition stirred; it was as Wormhook had said: all memories of his past were gone. Moll went to shake him again, but her hands fell right through him and she stumbled forward. Alfie was there still – just – but his body was nothing more than a wisp.

  Siddy turned to face Wormhook and Frank bared her teeth from his pocket. ‘What’ve you done to him?’

  The Veil curled round the last Shadowmask and he turned his sack mask to Moll. ‘Alfie’s soul is past the point of no return now. He belongs to the Veil and together they will conjure the eternal darkness I have been waiting for.’ Wormhook clasped his hands. ‘He’s nothing more than a ghost to you.’

  Moll watched, her heart breaking, as Alfie picked himself up and walked silently away, past the fountain and across the courtyard, before disappearing into the monastery. She let the pain flood through her and when she raised her eyes to Wormhook she realised she was shaking – not with pain now but with anger – because Wormhook’s words were full of lies. Moll still hadn’t given up on her friend and, as she thought of the promise she had made to Alfie every night since he’d left, she knew that, whatever it took, she wouldn’t let the last Shadowmask steal his soul.

  ‘You may think that I’ve surrendered Alfie to you, but Domino’s right—’ Moll’s voice grew to a shout, ‘—not even death can stop me hoping because the Alfie I know is still out there and his soul will never belong to you!’

&n
bsp; Wormhook lifted his hands suddenly and the gargoyles shuddered, as if waking from a very long sleep, before ripping away from the walls and beating upwards with jagged wings. Moll watched in horror as they flew over the cobbled ground towards the fountain, breathing flames from their gaping mouths.

  ‘Attack!’ Aira yelled, loosing a bolt from her crossbow.

  The gargoyles screeched and flapped above them, raining down bursts of fire. Domino’s dagger brought down one and Siddy’s pistol another while Gryff and Aira wrestled two more to the ground and Frank tore at the stone remains. But Moll wasn’t interested in the gargoyles. Ducking and dodging, she strode towards Wormhook, the Oracle Arrow poised against her bow. The witch doctor lifted his hands and the Veil rose higher, then he pointed a tattered finger at Moll.

  ‘At last she is come, her quest doomed to fail,

  Into the hands of the Shadowmask’s Veil.’

  Wormhook glanced up at the quilt of darkness and Moll felt his words gnawing at the small shreds of courage she had left, at the hope she clung to for a boy who no longer knew her. Then Gryff bounded to her side and, as the witch doctor’s chant continued, the wildcat growled over every word and, together, Moll and Gryff advanced towards the last Shadowmask.

  ‘Feed on their souls, both the girl and the beast’s!

  And I’ll stand back to watch as the Veil feasts.’

  Moll barely heard Wormhook’s words; her ears were trained to Gryff’s growl and all the fight that was buried inside it. The Veil carved a channel through the gargoyles towards her and for a moment the darkness above was so all-consuming that Moll sensed her arms slacken. Then she felt the wildcat weave through her legs and thought of the ghost of the boy inside the Rookery.

  ‘This,’ Moll said through gritted teeth. ‘This is for my Alfie.’

  The Veil plummeted towards Moll and Gryff, rippling with delight as it fell, and Moll let her arrow fly. It shot through the air before plunging into the middle of the quilt, but the Veil kept falling, bringing with it a clock-stopping blackness that surrounded Moll like the darkest of nights and plucked at the impossible dream locked inside her. Then, just before the Veil itself folded around her, there was a splitting, tearing sound and, where the arrow had pierced the quilt, it began to break apart in the air. Reels of glittering thread unwound on to the cobbles, the darkness crept back and Wormhook rushed forward, clawing at his mask.

  He stopped abruptly as the last of the Veil uncoiled before him, then he spoke, his voice a twisted snarl. ‘You want to finish this, don’t you?’

  Moll rose up with Gryff and, as the gargoyles shrieked and the others fought around her, she picked up her Oracle Arrow and turned to face Wormhook.

  ‘I will finish this,’ she muttered.

  A gargoyle swooped down to the Shadowmask suddenly, as if bidden to silent commands. ‘Kill the boy,’ Wormhook muttered, ‘the one she calls Siddy.’

  Moll’s mouth turned dry and, as she watched the gargoyle bulleting towards her friend, Wormhook slipped from the courtyard back into the monastery.

  ‘Sid!’ Moll screamed, rushing towards him with Gryff.

  The gargoyle had her friend pinned up against the wall now and Frank had been flung to the ground, but, as the gargoyle drew breath to release its flames, Gryff leapt on to the creature’s back and hauled it away. Domino rammed it with his dagger and the gargoyle crumbled into a pile of rocks.

  Siddy glanced at Moll as Frank hurtled back inside his pocket. ‘You’ve got to go into the monastery,’ he panted. ‘We can hold the gargoyles, but your fight is inside. You have to stop Wormhook.’

  Moll shook her head. ‘I can’t leave you.’

  Domino jabbed his dagger into another gargoyle, then he spun round to them. ‘You don’t have a choice, Moll. If Wormhook gets away, then all of this was for nothing.’

  Siddy glanced up at the moon. ‘Go after him. You don’t have much time.’

  The gargoyles screeched above and, as Domino, Aira, Siddy and Frank flung themselves back into the fight, Moll and Gryff raced over the cobbles and darted into the monastery – into the heart of the last Shadowmask’s lair.

  It was quiet inside the monastery and the shrieks of the fighting were muffled by the thick stone walls that lined the passageway in front of them. Moll tiptoed down it with Gryff, the Oracle Arrow nocked loosely to her bow. Wax drooled from candles in iron brackets either side of them and Moll flinched at the clacking of her boots against the paving stones. Somewhere, in the shadows of this place, Wormhook was waiting for her. She crept on, and with every step she took she tried to draw courage from the wildcat padding faithfully by her side.

  After a few minutes, they came to an arch made entirely of thorns. Perhaps once, in the times when monks had used the place as a sanctuary for prayer, there had been roses here, but now dark thorns twisted above them like a mouth of tangled wire.

  Moll swallowed. ‘We can do this.’

  Gryff nuzzled her hand with his head, then together they stepped through the arch. But, whatever Moll had been expecting on the other side, it wasn’t what lay before her. An enormous cavern carved into the rock stretched fifty metres above and below them. A large stone bridge ran through the middle of the cavern, its supporting pillars entwined with dead ivy and lichen, and as Moll took a step out on to it dozens of black feathered heads poked out from the nests perched on the crags of the walls. They croaked into the silence, knowing there was an intruder in their midst. Moll glanced over the edge of the bridge to see the hall at the bottom was lined with statues of monks, the stonework smeared with bird droppings, but Gryff tugged at Moll’s coat sleeve with his teeth and urged her on.

  Where the bridge met the far side of the cavern there was another arch of thorns. Moll and Gryff stole through it to find a lantern inside flickering over three passageways. Those to her left and right were draped in shadows – stairs, it looked like – perhaps up to the turrets they had seen when they first laid eyes on the Rookery with Wallop. But Moll knew it was the passageway ahead that she wanted because there was a path of light coming from it and the rustle of paper being turned. Gryff blinked up at Moll and they walked on.

  The thorns opened into a large room and Moll blinked in disbelief as she took it in. Lining the stone walls were trees. Crooked trunks twisted upwards and thin grey branches, from which lanterns dangled, sprawled across the slabs of stone. A long time ago, they might have been rowans bursting with berries – the last of the trees to survive the mountains and the cold – but now bark flaked from their trunks, dead leaves lay scattered around their bases and twisted roots scarred the floor. It was like being in a pocket of the forest, where all of this had started. But along the branches that stretched across the walls, in among the lanterns, there were books – beautiful leather spines with gilt lettering – laid out as if the branches themselves were shelves. This was a library and standing behind a lectern in the middle of the room, facing them, was Wormhook.

  An enormous leather-bound book, almost the size of Moll, with edges dusted gold, rested on the lectern in front of the last Shadowmask and as Moll entered he glanced up, a black quill feather poised in his hand.

  ‘The Ancient Book that Wallop spoke about,’ Moll said slowly, raising her bow, ready to fight. Gryff growled by her side and Moll felt her voice harden. ‘What have you done to it?’

  Wormhook heaved the book shut and a cloud of dust puffed upwards. ‘Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.’

  Gryff sprang forward, but the Shadowmask lurched back from the lectern, his robes a ripple of black, and from the slit in his sack mask, where his mouth should have been, something dark and swirling seeped out. It floated into the library like a trail of ink.

  ‘A Night Spinner’s gifts extend beyond conjuring storms and snow,’ Wormhook sneered. ‘I can call upon nightmares too – the darkest thoughts from the Underworld. They breathe fear and they have the power to tear you and your wildcat apart.’

  The ink spilled into a large shadow and th
e unmistakable shape of a wolf hung before Gryff, its body and head bent low, its ears pinned back. The wildcat edged away, hissing, but the shadow grew in size, its monstrous head thrashing from side to side. And then the wolf pounced.

  ‘It’s not real!’ Moll yelled to Gryff. ‘It’s just a nightmare!’

  Wormhook’s sack mask tilted, as if half amused by Moll’s words. ‘Not real?’ he muttered. ‘Oh, it’s real all right.’

  Moll watched in horror as the shadow hurled Gryff across the room, smashing him into the trunk of a tree. The nightmare had a mind of its own and, as Moll got ready to fire her arrow, more ink poured from Wormhook’s mouth. Moll strained her eyes through the pitch-blackness, searching for the witch doctor, but he was hidden now and the nightmares slid closer, morphing into the shapes of giant bats. Moll felt a coldness cling to her skin. The darkness was absolute and, as the swarm of bats opened their wings over her face, she felt her bow and arrow clatter to the ground.

  ‘They’re not real!’ Moll whimpered. ‘They’re not real!’

  She struck her arms out against the shadows and for a second the darkness broke apart and she saw Gryff backed up against the lectern, thrashing his paws towards the wolf. Then the nightmares closed round her again, pulsing into a throng of bats, and, though they looked to be only shadows, claws raked at her face and leathery wings smacked her body. Moll fell to her knees as the nightmares sucked at her soul.

  ‘Your parents were too weak to fight us and they died as cowards, snivelling for the child they’d left behind,’ Wormhook taunted. ‘We expected more from the child and the beast, but look at you both now.’

  The bats clamoured around Moll, scrabbling at her face, and she was dimly aware of a sack-like hand snatching at something by her feet.

  ‘You may have destroyed the Veil and the other five Shadowmasks,’ Wormhook jeered, ‘but I am more powerful than those you faced before and I am close to finishing your miserable little life once and for all.’ He laughed. ‘And when that is done, Molly Pecksniff, the dark magic will rise and, thanks to you, I won’t even need to share the power with the other witch doctors; it will be mine and mine alone!’