by Cate Cain
Probably not.
What would his mother think?
She won’t even know.
What would Master Jalbert do?
He wouldn’t have dropped his guard.
That’s it – he needed a weapon!
Perhaps they could hurl rocks at it? Jem scoured the ground for suitable pieces but instead caught sight of Cazalon’s staff, lying like a twisting black serpent on the snow.
This was his weapon! He leaped down, snatched it up and brandished it forward, taking a fighting position just as Master Jalbert had taught him. He gripped the staff and felt the rough shark spine beneath his fingers.
He squared his shoulders. What if it wasn’t just Tolly who had the power? What if he could make it … do something too? He tightened his grip and concentrated. But there was nothing at all – not even the faintest tremor in his hands. He stared at the crystal bird-head. “Why not me?” he thought.
A shadowy form slumped across the treeline.
Jem saw something glinting in the fading light – teeth or claws?
The beast raised its head. Slanted blue eyes that the burned like candles narrowed, and a long muzzle wrinkled as the wolf opened its gaping jaws. Red drool dripped to the snow.
Jem heard Ann stifle a scream. Without thinking he swung the staff and lunged, but she caught his arm. “No, wait. Look at Cleo!”
The little creature had wriggled from the shawl and jumped to the ground in front of the rock. She twitched her head from side to side, all the while keeping her eyes locked onto the wolf.
“No! Come back, girl.” Tolly tried to catch her, but she scampered away from his hands.
Jem watched in horror as Cleo, tail erect, slowly approached the wolf. He could hear a low rumble from the beast’s throat and brought a hand to his mouth as the monkey whickered softly and reached out to prod a huge, splayed paw.
The wolf lowered its massive head.
“Cleo!” Tolly roared her name, his cry echoed round the clearing.
There was a soft, pattering sound and then a muffled crump as a blanket of snow slipped from the branches overhead and enveloped both animals.
Moments later, Cleo’s head, dusted in snow, poked out from the white mound. She chirruped, freed herself and began to dig frantically. After a few seconds she stopped, stared back at them and chattered angrily before burrowing into the snow again.
“What is she doing?” Ann jumped down and began to walk slowly towards the mound.
“You mustn’t.” Tolly sprang from the rock, but Ann raised her hand.
“Wait. She’s always right.” Kneeling beside Cleo, Ann began to scoop away handfuls of snow. After a few moments she halted and turned to them.
“It’s … it’s a man – and he’s wounded. Help us.”
Despite his confusion, Jem followed Tolly as he began to dig alongside Ann. Cleo chirped and nuzzled against Tolly’s side as he worked.
They soon revealed a man with swirling tattoos etched into the bronze skin of his naked torso and all along his broad shoulders and arms. His legs were encased in tattered skins and his long grey hair was divided into a hundred plaits threaded with little skulls – their bony whiteness gleamed in the half light.
Jem wiped flakes of snow from the man’s scarred face and sat back on his haunches. “It’s Mingan.”
“You know him?” Ann dabbed at a deep scratch on Mingan’s arm with the edge of her cloak.
Jem nodded. “He was on the ship. He … he helped me. He saved my life.”
“Well, his life is in danger now. He’s breathing, but look at the gashes in his side. His skin has been ripped apart.”
Cleo chirped again. She batted an affectionate paw against Mingan’s arm as if she was trying to rouse him.
Ann looked at Tolly. “She trusts him?”
After a long pause he nodded. “He cared for her when we were locked in the hold. But I can’t read him, Ann. Even now, away from the ship …”
“Well, that’s hardly surprising – the man is half dead!” Ann’s voice was crisp. “He needs warmth – we all do.” She looked up at the circle of darkening sky above the clearing and lines crinkled between her brows. “We’ll have to stay here tonight. We don’t have a choice now. If we move him over there beneath the trees …” she pointed, “it will shield us all from the snow. And I can make a sealing charm, too, to protect us from wolves … and from anything else out there.”
Together they hauled Mingan to the fir trees at the far edge of the clearing. The dense canopy of interlocking branches overhead provided a sort of shelter. Ann made the sealing charm successfully this time – even Cleo allowed her to pluck a hair with little complaint. Then, whispering some words over a pile of twigs, she made a fire whose warmth soon began to penetrate their aching bones.
Jem had torn his cloak in two. Tolly sat opposite, wrapped in the other half. He was silent as the flames made shadows dance on his dark skin. Jem noticed that he never took his eyes off Mingan, who lay between them.
“Do you think it was him who was following us?” Jem fed a twig into the fire and watched it burn. “That’s what you and Ann sensed?”
Tolly didn’t answer for a moment. “I can’t be sure, but …”
A sudden cracking sound came from above. Lumps of snow slid from the branches, pattering down in a circle around them.
Tolly shook his head slowly. “But I just hope it was Mingan.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
When Jem opened his eyes he was confused. Surely there should be steam billowing about below the arched ceiling in the laundry at Goldings? And where were the great wooden barrels filled to the brim with hot lavender-scented water?
He blinked and shook his head.
A dusting of snow fell onto his nose and it all came rushing back. He wasn’t in the laundry, but huddled on a frozen forest floor. He’d been dreaming about the warmest place he knew. On cold winter mornings he loved to sneak across the courtyard to help Eliza stir the tangled sheets.
Jem rubbed his face and struggled to sit up.
At the other side of the fading fire, Ann leaned over Mingan, pushing the matted hair back from his forehead. He moaned and opened his eyes.
At first he didn’t seem aware of anything, he just stared upward. Ann soothed his brow. “You are with friends,” she murmured.
Mingan moved his head a little so that he was looking at the fire. Jem saw his eyes clear gradually and then widen. He tried to sit up, but a spasm of pain shot across his face. Instead he clasped Ann’s hand.
“Moon Child …” he whispered. “Moon Child.”
She shook her head and smiled. “Drink this.” She helped Mingan to sip something from a sort of cup made of rolled bark.
“You’re awake then? I swear you could sleep anywhere, Jem Green. It’s a rare gift.” Ann grinned at him. “I made a poultice for his wounds and a tonic from some leaves and herbs. Tolly helped me to find them under the snow. It seems to be working.” She raised her eyebrows and jerked her head at Mingan, mouthing, “He heals so fast.”
She helped Mingan to tip back the bark cone so that he swallowed the last dregs of liquid. He wiped his mouth. “Good,” he whispered.
“You can talk?” Jem’s knees cracked as he stood in surprise.
Mingan gazed up at Jem from beneath hooded eyes.
“It’s just that on the ship you never …”
“Sometimes it is better to be silent.” Mingan glanced at Tolly, who was sitting watching from the far side of the fire. Jem thought of the way Tolly had protected himself from Cazalon by pretending to be a mute. The count had believed Tolly to be little more than a pet, but he had been so wrong.
Mingan pulled himself into a more upright position, resting his back against a tree trunk. He winced as he moved, clutching a hand to his side as the leaves covering his wounds slipped.
“I thank you.” He looked at each of them in turn and his ice-blue eyes flickered.
“I followed your trail, but I was wea
kened by these wounds. I would not have survived another night if I had not found you.” He spoke in a deep, rasping voice. Jem noticed that his words were clipped and sharp, as if he didn’t want to waste them.
“Who are you?” Tolly shuffled round the fire so that he had a clearer view.
“I think you must know that already.” Mingan looked at Ann and bowed his head.
“You’re a weren?” Ann didn’t look frightened at all. In fact, Jem thought she looked excited. He felt something knot in the pit of his stomach. He was standing next to a werewolf!
Mingan stared up at him, his pale blue eyes unblinking. “Now you understand?”
Jem nodded slowly. “Y-yes. I think so – some of it, at least. The battle with Madame – the owl – on the jetty. That was you?”
Mingan nodded.
Jem took in the deep scratches across the man’s face and shoulders and thought about Madame’s curved talons. He had felt sure that she had triumphed on the jetty, but now …
He felt a jolt of excitement and glanced at Tolly, who had stood up too. “So you killed her?”
Mingan shook his head and Jem’s relief evaporated as quickly as it had come. “I do not know. The witch threw herself into the sea. That was the last I saw of her before I followed you.” With a grimace of pain, Mingan hauled himself to his feet. Cleo chirped and scampered from Tolly’s side. The man smiled and bent to allow her to jump onto his shoulder.
Ann nudged Jem. “I’ve never seen her take to anyone so quickly before, except you.”
Mingan straightened up. “I am of this land, but there is danger here for those who do not know the paths. Where are you going?”
Jem gathered his shred of cloak together. “We’ve been trying to get to the coast – to find a ship. Will you guide us to the sea, Mingan – if you are well enough?”
Mingan stared back at him blankly. “Why do you wish to go to the sea again?”
“Because we need to go back to England. Ann’s life is in danger. We think there’s … someone here who wants to take her from us. Madame was bringing her to him. With your help, perhaps even in the next couple of days, we could be on our way.” Jem felt the flicker of hope again.
Mingan shook his head and the bones plaited into his hair clicked. “It is impossible.”
“Why?” Jem demanded hotly.
“It’s not that I won’t help you. I cannot help you. The ports are far to the south – many days walking. The white season is with us – soon the paths through the forest will be gone.” Mingan looked up at the sky. “And there will be no ships until the days grow long. Two, maybe three, months more.”
Three months?
Mingan blinked his odd blue eyes. “You will not survive alone. I will take you to my home. There will be warmth and food. My people will make sure you are safe until the snow time passes. I give you my promise. When the time is right, I will guide you to a ship for your passage back to England.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“What should we do?” Jem looked at Tolly and then at Ann.
A single wolf howl, long and low, curled through the air.
“My brothers will not harm us.” Mingan turned and strode into the trees. They watched his tall grey form slip between the trunks. Cleo chattered on his shoulder. She turned to look back at them, but she didn’t jump down. Instead she flicked her tail and nestled into his shaggy mane.
“That’s good enough for me.” Ann swept Tolly’s cloak around her shoulders and stamped on the embers of the fire. “Cleo has decided for us.”
“So that huge thunderclap was the Fortuna – dissolving?” As he used the staff to trudge through the snow behind Mingan, Jem tried to imagine the scene the weren had described. “But how …?”
“I tore a wing from her back and it was the end. When the witch woman believed all was lost, she cast herself into the sea. At first there was nothing. Then the water began to spin, faster and faster, until a dark whirlpool spread wide, rising from the bay in a spitting tower of fury. My friend, Captain Trevanion, ran from the jetty up the gangplank. He ordered every man to leave the Fortuna. To seek safety away from that … that place.” Mingan closed his eyes for a moment. “My friend.”
“What happened next?” Tolly’s breath steamed in the cold air.
“Most of the crew escaped. Your friend, the small one —”
“Spider’s safe?” Jem asked quickly.
Mingan nodded. “He was the last down the gangway before the Fortuna … vanished.”
“But that’s imp—’ Jem stopped himself. He knew only too well that things he had once regarded as nightmares could be very real.
“And the captain was still aboard?” Jem recalled the odd encounter with Mingan and Trevanion in the hold. What did the captain say? Something like, “I do not think this vessel will forget the oath I swore so rashly. If I cannot save myself, I will save as many as I can …”
Mingan nodded. “We have travelled the world together. Now my oldest friend is lost and I will never see him again. He knew the price.”
“His daughter, you mean?” Tolly quickened his pace as Mingan forged ahead. Cleo was now back with her master, nestled in the shawl at his neck. “You tried to help her – that’s what Trevanion said.”
Mingan growled. “It was the only time he betrayed me. He listened to the people of Swale who thought me a savage and he barred me from his house. He said my appearance frightened them, although compared to that woman …” Mingan stamped a foot into the snow. “He was desperate. Jane is … was everything to him. He would do anything to make his child well again. When we saw the ship for the first time – the Fortuna – we both knew it was like no vessel ever put to sea.”
He shook his head. “I did not speak aloud on that ship because I knew it was listening. I was not willing to give it anything of mine. Not even my voice.”
After a moment Tolly said quietly, “I don’t think it was a ship at all.”
“That’s ridiculous – of course it was a ship. You even spent a night in the lookout. You can’t have forgotten that. I haven’t.” Jem shuddered at the thought.
Mingan smiled. “Your dark friend is wiser than you know.”
Jem felt crushed and oddly stupid – as if he had missed something everyone had seen. “But I thought—”
“We need to know more about Madame.” Ann’s voice cut across his next question as they manoeuvred around a pile of rocks.
Mingan shrugged. “I know little, other than that she follows the shadow path.” He grunted. “That first evening when the crew lined up for her inspection I did not look directly in her eyes for fear that she would know me for what I am. That was when I recognised you, Moon Child – not as a boy, but as you are. Those of our kind are able to see truly. I knew her for what she was as soon as she – as soon as you both – came aboard.”
“You knew she was a witch?” Ann asked.
“I knew she was a shapeshifter … as are you, little sister. We are kin.”
Ann frowned. “I … I can change into small things – cats, mice, birds. Actually, I’m getting much better at it, aren’t I, Tolly? But I’m nothing like you or Madame de Chouette. You are both so much more powerful.”
“You are wrong.” Mingan stopped now and turned to scan her face with his pale blue eyes. “You really do not know?”
“Know what?” Ann scuffled to a halt.
“Only the most powerful of our kind can shift to any form. To choose, as you are capable of doing, that is the highest rank. Who taught you?”
“No one.” She smiled sadly. “My grandmother and my mother were … taken before they were able to show me anything more than simple skills. Later I … I studied their books and … practised.”
Mingan smiled broadly. “Then you are extraordinary indeed, Moon Child.”
“But what about you, Mingan?” Tolly halted abruptly and Cleo scrambled to stay on his shoulder. “You didn’t answer my question earlier. I didn’t ask what you are, I a
sked who you are.”
Mingan swung round to face him. “You are right to ask, wise one. I am Mingan, son of Annawan, Prince of the Lake People. Like you I am a traveller, but I was not stolen from my family …”
Tolly started. “How did you know …?
Mingan smiled. “We share a gift. With you it is strong. In me it is more the sense of an animal. I know when there is danger and I know when to trust. Your little companion, the monkey, is the same. She knows when a heart is true. Now, come, we must move on.”
Tolly frowned, but stomped through the snow in Mingan’s tracks and the man’s clipped voice came back to them. “I was cast out by my people when they saw I was shadowed by the wolf spirit. I was young, just a little older than you, but they were frightened. My father took me to the sea and swapped good furs for my first passage. I was terrified on that ship, but I met Trevanion and he became my friend.”
“But, in that case, why have you come back?” Jem heard the suspicion in Tolly’s voice.
“Because it is time. I dreamed of my home for many years, but now I dream of my father too. He calls and I have come. Now I can control my wolf shadow my people will not fear me. When Trevanion asked me to sail with him, I was glad … until the day I saw the black ship. But then it was too late.”
Not for the first time, Mingan paused, closed his eyes and threw back his head to scent the air like a wild creature, then adjusted direction slightly. They were heading into a thicker part of the forest now.
“So why did you follow us – after the battle on the jetty?” Jem scudded forward to keep alongside Mingan as he loped ahead.
“Because I know this land. You could not survive out here alone. I followed you because you have good hearts and for the sake of the Moon Child, my sister. Now, save your breath and follow. If we keep this pace, we will reach my home before dusk.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
They had been travelling for several hours. In the darkest part of the forest Mingan had led them to a hidden cleft in the rocks, where he’d retrieved warm cloaks for them to wear. “In winter our hunting parties leave furs and food in secret places, so that when the deep snow comes they will survive,” he’d explained.