Molly had her mouth open. Without looking back at Hannah, she reached her hand back. Hannah grasped it tightly and squeezed.
‘It goes on forever,’ whispered Molly.
And it did. Ridges and surges of land stretched on as far as they could see, peaks and valleys that eventually disappeared into the blue haze that hung over everything.
Hannah had never imagined that the world could be so big. Even after they had come so far on the Derby Ram, she could not bring herself to believe that such a distance could exist. It yawned out above and below her. It filled her with a gaping emptiness.
The late afternoon sun bathed the mountains in yellow light and dramatic blue shadows. Hannah looked down, and her stomach lurched. Far, far down in the valley below, she could see where the river was finally reunited with the earth, etching a great curved line into the scrub. It wound away out of sight between two soaring peaks.
The emptiness inside Hannah swallowed her heart. She felt like she wanted to cry, but couldn’t. How could they find one person hidden in all that vastness?
‘We’ll never find him,’ she whispered. ‘Never.’
Molly looked back at her and smiled, then turned back to the view, drinking in the vastness of the world. ‘We already have,’ she said. ‘This is it. We found it. This is the land that lies east o’ the sun and west o’ the moon.’
And perhaps it was. Hannah realised she had been wrong when she had said it was Port Jackson. It was beautiful there, but not like these mountains. Port Jackson seemed tame compared to the mountains.
‘This place is beautiful and terrible … like…’ she stopped, trying to find the right word.
‘Like the white bear,’ said Molly softly.
Hannah nodded.
They sat on the rocky precipice beside the waterfall and watched the sun go down, and the mountains and valleys around them disappear into the blue haze. The last rays of sunlight turned the spray from the waterfall into a dancing cloud of rainbows.
Had Will Appledore been joking when he said that they’d find him once the sun had gone down?
Molly was staring dreamily out at the view. ‘It looks like the ocean,’ she said. ‘Like big frozen waves.’
For a moment, Hannah pictured a castle, made entirely of ice, its white turrets and battlements gleaming in the pink and orange rays of the setting sun.
‘Molly!’ she gasped. But the castle was gone. Hannah shook her head. ‘I thought I’d remembered the rest of the story,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t.’
There was a rustling above them, and Hannah looked up to see a strange white bird perched on a branch above them. Molly looked up too and squeaked.
It was a large bird, pure white, except for its black beak and eyes, and a mane of bright yellow that sat on the very top of its head. Hannah stared at it, open-mouthed.
‘Is it magic?’ asked Molly.
‘I don’t know,’ said Hannah. ‘It might be.’
The bird bobbed its head up and down, and its yellow mane opened out into a golden fan of feathers.
‘It’s beautiful!’ Molly exclaimed.
The bird looked at her with a beady black eye, and then opened its beak and made the most terrible noise Hannah had ever heard. It was simultaneously high-pitched and raucous, like the scream of a dying man. Molly clapped her hands over her ears.
‘It looked so beautiful,’ she said, appalled.
‘Nothing is as it seems in this place,’ said Hannah, not taking her eyes off the bird. ‘The magpie looked foul and sounded beautiful. This bird looks beautiful but sounds foul.’
The bird let out the raucous, screeching cry again, and then flapped its wings and soared off into the darkening sky. Hannah watched it go, winging its way across the valley to a yellow rocky outcrop.
‘It’s showing us the way to go!’ said Molly, pointing after it. ‘That’s what Will Appledore meant. He knew that the bird would come and show us how to find Mr Bear.’
Hannah smiled and shook her head. ‘I think maybe Will Appledore was having a joke on us,’ she said sadly.
A yellow star appeared in the direction where the bird had flown, low and large on the horizon. Another joined it, burning red, further up in the sky. Then a green one, and suddenly the whole sky was peppered with stars, so many that there was barely any black left.
‘Beautiful,’ murmured Molly.
But there was no Great Bear to guide them. Hannah sighed, and reached into their pack for the blanket and one of the wrinkled apples. Molly curled up in the hollow of one of the rocks.
‘Wake me up when Mr Bear gets here,’ she said sleepily.
Hannah covered her with the blanket, and stared out over the blackness. She sat still for what felt like hours, watching the stars move.
Suddenly, she could see a white sliver appear on the horizon, shining brightly. For a moment, her heart leaped. It was the White Bear, come to rescue them! But it was only the moon, drifting slowly upwards into the night sky. As it rose, Hannah began to make out the shapes of the mountains.
As the moon escaped the horizon and sailed fully into the sky, it shone a strange, pale light over the cliff-top and the waterfall. Hannah stared at the bright yellow star that burned just below the horizon.
‘Molly,’ she said softly.
She stared at the star. It seemed to flicker.
‘Molly!’ she said again, shaking her awake.
‘Did Mr Bear come?’ Molly asked sleepily.
‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘But I know where he is.’
She pointed to the yellow star.
‘It’s not a star at all,’ she said. ‘It’s a campfire.’
thirty-one
Soon Scatterheart reached a field of great sharp spikes. She cracked open the silver acorn, and inside it were two silver slippers. She put them on, and walked across the spikes without injury.
***
When the sun rose the next morning, Hannah looked towards the place where the fire had been. There were three crumbling peaks of yellow rock high on the mountain across the valley.
‘That’s where we’re going,’ said Hannah.
Molly clapped her hands and leapt to her feet, but swayed a little and had to sit down again.
‘Molly?’ said Hannah. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Just hungry,’ said Molly. ‘What’s for breakfast?’
After Hannah had shared out their small portions of stale bread and cheese, they set off.
To the left of the waterfall, the cliff angled downwards until it merged with the slope of the mountain. They made for that, and when the cliff-face ended, Hannah took one last look at the three yellow rocks where she had seen the campfire, and plunged into the forest.
It was hard going, and after an hour Hannah found herself longing for the rough muddy road that they had left behind. There was no path, and the creepers and shrubs seemed to be trying to push them back to Parramatta. Hannah wished she had a knife or something to cut away at the undergrowth and clear their way, but she had to duck and weave and tear at the vines with her bare hands. Her forearms and ankles were soon scratched and itchy. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed and feasted, and as they descended, a canopy of green closed over their heads and blocked out the sun.
It became colder as they descended into the valley. The layer of sweat that Hannah had built up struggling with the undergrowth now made her shiver. She felt very enclosed. The noise of birds and insects seemed magnified and up close.
A mosquito was buzzing by her ear. She slapped at it, hitting herself in the head. When she looked at her hand, she saw a smear of black insect and red blood.
By midday, Hannah had no idea if they were heading in the right direction. They were now walking uphill, but she couldn’t see the three yellow rocks at all. She thought of Thomas’s story of the sleeping princess in the castle, and the giant forest of thorns that had grown around it.
‘Hannah! Hannah!’
Hannah looked around. Molly sounded hysterical.
&nb
sp; ‘Hannah! Hurry!’
The forest was so strange. The closeness of the vegetation made sounds dart all over the place, and turned Hannah around so she kept going in quite the opposite direction to the one she intended. Hannah pushed through a thick tangle of green branches, and saw Molly. She was crouched down on the ground, her whole body shaking.
‘Molly?’ said Hannah. ‘Are you all right?’
Molly turned, and Hannah was surprised to see that she was laughing.
‘Come here,’ she said.
Hannah crouched down too. Half-hidden in the scrub was the most peculiar creature Hannah had ever seen.
It was about the size of a large rabbit, or a small dog. It was shaped like an upside-down teacup, just a dome-shaped lump huddled against the forest floor. It had a long, thin black snout and two beady little eyes. But by far the strangest thing about it was its coat of thick yellow and brown spikes.
‘Is it a giant hedgehog?’ asked Molly.
Hannah shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
The creature turned its head and sniffed the air with its long nose. Molly giggled. It raised itself onto four stubby legs finished with long claws, and, with a shudder of spikes, waddled off into the foliage.
Hannah and Molly both laughed to see the comical little creature move.
‘Well, that was easy,’ said Molly.
‘What was?’
‘The second challenge.’
Hannah looked blank.
Molly smiled. ‘The field of spikes. In Mr Bear’s story. He must be the field of spikes that Scatterheart has to pass.’
Hannah started to laugh. ‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘We’ll stop for a rest at the top of this hill.’
They continued to climb, their spirits buoyed by the laughter. But after only a few minutes, Molly stiffened.
‘What is it?’ asked Hannah.
‘Can’t you smell it? Like cinders and death.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I can’t smell anything,’ she said.
Molly fell behind Hannah, looking uncomfortable. After some time, Hannah realised that she could smell something. Something sharp and black, like burnt toast.
‘Can’t we go another way?’ asked Molly.
‘I don’t know if there is another way.’
The smell grew stronger. A thin haze of smoke clouded Hannah’s vision. A faint breeze made the trees above whisper and rustle. Something drifted down from the sky.
‘Snow!’ cried Molly. ‘It’s snowing!’
Sure enough, white fragments were whirling down towards them. Hannah held out a hand to catch one. It was not cold, like snow. It was like a thin scrap of paper. Hannah touched it with a cautious finger, and it smudged away into nothing.
‘It isn’t snow,’ she said. ‘It’s ashes.’
They pushed through a curtain of scrub, and found themselves standing before a field of blackness.
As far as they could see, there was black. The grass and plants had all been burned away, leaving scorched earth and the bare, charred remains of trees.
‘Let’s go back,’ said Molly softly.
Hannah took her hand and smiled encouragingly. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Look at those burnt tree-trunks. Maybe this is the field of spikes. Come on.’
‘We’ll be burned,’ said Molly, putting a hand to her melted face.
Hannah took her hand. ‘No, we won’t. We have good strong boots. We’ll be careful.’
They picked their way through the field of black earth, past the dark skeletons of trees. Soon they were surrounded by the black forest. At the stumps of some trees, orange glowed faintly as fire still consumed the life within. Occasionally they came across the charred carcasses of animals.
The bitter smell of the smoke stung Hannah’s eyes, and made Molly cough.
The black forest was eerily silent. No birds screeched overhead. There was no rustling of leaves as the breeze drifted through the dead trees.
Ashes floated down silently, settling on the ground until another breath of wind stirred them up again. Every now and then, the silence would be penetrated by a sharp crack, as a charred branch became too weak to cling to its tree-trunk, and fell to the ground, dislodging another cloud of white ash.
As they reached the bottom of the hill, green began to creep back into the landscape. Soon, the trees were only blackened on one side, and the undergrowth surged back into life. The bottom of the hill widened into a long, green gully, with a trickle of water flowing through it. They drank gladly from the stream, and washed the ash and soot from their faces.
‘We may as well follow this stream, while we can,’ said Hannah as she refilled the water bottle.
Her stomach rumbled, but the sourness of the smoke made her feel sick and a little dizzy. They could eat later.
The smell of smoke still pervaded the air, so they didn’t notice the campsite until they stumbled through a thick copse of young trees, and found themselves in the middle of it.
They were in a clearing, surrounded by five or six crude little huts made from strips of bark propped up with tree branches.
Twenty or thirty men, women and children, sprawled around a crackling fire. A scrawny yellow dog lay stretched out by one of the men, eyes closed. It didn’t seem to notice their intrusion.
They were all completely naked, save for long cloaks made of grey-brown fur hides, sewn together with some kind of thick, yellow twine. Their hair was long, black and matted, and all the men had thick black beards. One of the women held an infant to her bare breast.
An old man lay on a reddish-grey fur hide by the fire – his grizzled face sporting deep lines and a white, straggled whiskers. A younger man bent over him, holding a shallow brown dish of what appeared to be water.
Four men stood, and approached Hannah and Molly.
They had painted white lines on their arms and legs, and across their noses, as if they wore their bones outside their flesh. One had a necklace of animal teeth around his neck, another a white shard of bone pierced through his nose. Their skin was covered in patterned scars – a sickle-shape over the left eyebrow, a cross on the fleshy part of the arm. They all held spears, tall, straight and deadly. Their arms and legs were thin, but sinewy and muscled. They were clearly very strong.
Hannah felt her cheeks burn when she saw their blatant nakedness, but Molly stared openly, fascinated.
‘Please,’ said Hannah. ‘We mean you no harm.’ The ludicrousness of her words, combined with her rising sense of panic, made hysterical laughter bubble up inside her.
The man with the animal necklace said something to the other three. Their language sounded completely alien to Hannah – it may well have been the barking of the yellow dog by the fire, or the sound of the wind in the Derby Ram’s rigging.
One of the men reached out and gently touched Hannah’s head. Her hair was perhaps three inches long now, matted and greasy. The man seemed curious at her shorn hair, and rubbed her head with the palm of his hand. Hannah was surprised to see that the blackness of them didn’t extend to their palms, which were as pink as her own.
The man grinned suddenly, baring his startlingly-white teeth, and said something to his companions, who all burst out laughing. Hannah tried to smile, hoping that their laughter was a good sign.
‘What do they want?’ asked Molly in a whisper.
As she spoke, the four warrior men turned their attention to her. Their eyes widened in surprise when they saw her melted-wax face, and they started chattering excitedly to each other. They touched her face curiously, running their fingers over her skin. The other men and women approached also, crowding around to see Molly and touch her face.
Molly stood stockstill, her face even whiter than usual, her one eye glancing warily at the sharp spears which the warrior men still held.
One of the warrior men put down his spear, and, gently but firmly, took Hannah’s bag from her.
‘Hey!’ said Molly indignantly. ‘That’s ours!’
‘Shh!’ said Han
nah. ‘Let them take it.’
The man rummaged through the bag. He sniffed the bread curiously, but laid it aside, not seeming to recognise it as food.
He brought forth a hunk of the cheese, but tossed it into the dirt in disgust when he smelled it, wiping his fingers on the ground and grimacing hideously.
He ran his hands over the cool hardness of the water bottle, and held it up to see the light shining through it, but cast it aside also.
He seemed uninterested in their damp woollen blanket. Hannah held her breath as the man reached into the bag once more. He pulled out a pathetic brown lump of fabric, torn and ragged. He pulled it away, discarding it in the dirt with their other belongings, and looked at what it had revealed.
Thomas’s spectacles.
The man held them up to the firelight, and smiled as the silver rims sparkled in the orange glow.
‘No,’ whispered Hannah.
The man grinned, and placed the spectacles around his throat like a necklace, the arms reaching around behind his neck.
He said something to the other men and women, who turned away from Molly and Hannah and returned to the warmth of their fire.
One of the women brought over a haunch of the animal that had been roasting over the fire, and gave it to Hannah. The man replaced the food, blanket and water bottle in the canvas bag, stood up, and presented it to Hannah.
‘Not Mr Bear’s spectacles,’ said Molly.
‘We have to leave them,’ said Hannah.
The man stepped back, picking up his spear, and made a gesture which seemed to indicate they should leave.
Hannah bobbed a curtsey to the man. ‘Thank you, sir.’
The man laughed again, and mimicked her.
Molly darted forward behind the warrior man, and bent down to pick something up from the dirt.
‘Molly!’ hissed Hannah.
The man tensed, gripping his spear.
Molly scurried back behind Hannah, clutching something in her hand.
Hannah grabbed her other hand, and they ran from the clearing, not stopping until they had put some considerable distance between themselves and the campsite. Hannah sank to the ground, her heart still pounding, and her hands still shaking.
Scatterheart Page 24