Authors: Abi Elphinstone
Soul Splinter
Also by Abi Elphinstone
The DreamSnatcher
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © 2016 Abi Elphinstone
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Abi Elphinstone to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
PB ISBN 978-1-47112-270-5
EBook ISBN 978-1-47112-271-2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To Mum, Dad, Will, Tom and Charis
For being such a loyal and loving Tribe
Contents
Chapter 1: Visitors in the Cove
Chapter 2: Inside Little Hollows
Chapter 7: Ambush on the Cliffs
Chapter 8: Braving Inchgrundle
Chapter 11: Inside Number Four
Chapter 16: Moll’s Bone Reading
Chapter 18: A Stranger in Little Hollows
Chapter 19: Cinderella Bull’s Spell
Chapter 24: A Way Out of the Forest
Chapter 28: Scrap’s Part of the Bargain
Chapter 36: Inside Devil’s Drop
Chapter 37: The Monster in the Lake
Epilogue: The Turret in the Clouds
T
he sea breathes quietly tonight, a sprawled darkness rolling in and out. It slips over beaches and laps at harbour walls. But further along the coast, where the cliffs turn ragged and shards of rock jut into the water, strewn like broken gravestones, the current is stronger. It moves with a strength all of its own here, heaving and churning, smashing and pounding. This is a place few men or women brave, and none on a night as dark as this.
And yet there is a light moving between the shards of rock, a lantern fixed to the front of a rowing boat, and, though the waves swell and suck and crash, the boat weaves a way through. The moon slides out from the clouds for a moment, scattering silver on the sea, and then it is gone. But the lantern still shines, splaying light on the snakeskin mask of the figure in the boat. He wears a cloak, the hood pulled high, and only his tongue moves – forked and flickering. His arms stay folded in his lap – he has no use for oars to propel the boat forward. It moves of its own accord, drawn by magic towards the opening in the cliff face.
Carving a channel through the last of the rocks, the boat disappears inside. The passageway of water within is still, a snake of black beneath arched walls of rock. The boat glides on, winding into shadows, then it nudges to a halt as it meets a metal grate stretched the height of the passageway. The figure drops his hood, his tongue quivers over his lips and he speaks.
‘It is Ashtongue who enters the Crooked Cave. I’ve come to you, Darkebite, as you commanded.’
A hiss escapes from Ashtongue’s lips, scratching at the silence, then there’s a grinding noise, like a chain being pulled, and the grate lifts. The boat noses through, into a wider cavern, and Ashtongue steps out on to a beach littered with bones. He looks at the glass bottles and metal cages arranged on ledges of rock surrounding the beach. They glint under the light of his lantern and each one is filled with animal parts: moth wings, fox teeth, owl talons, bat claws . . . Ashtongue smiles and turns to the cauldron standing in the middle of the beach. A burst of green erupts from inside it and a cloaked figure emerges from the shadows, plucking the wings from a dead moth as it crunches over the bones.
Ashtongue dips his mask. ‘Greetings, Darkebite.’
Darkebite’s cloak slips to the ground and, where shoulders should be, two enormous black wings flex, rising up like crooked sails. ‘Skull and Hemlock failed.’ The voice bristles with anger. ‘The child and the beast still live.’
Ashtongue stiffens. ‘The girl and her wildcat defeated
two
Shadowmasks?’
Darkebite’s mask of charcoaled wood is absolutely still, the jet-black hair wild around it. ‘With the help of their friends.’
Ashtongue shakes his head. ‘But Skull had the girl locked in a cage in the forest – he had hounds trained to track her – and Hemlock conjured poison to make sure she wouldn’t survive!’
‘It wasn’t enough.’ Darkebite’s wings twitch. ‘The children found the first amulet and used its power to destroy both Skull and Hemlock. I saw it happen and was forced to flee. We must kill the girl and her wildcat before they find the second amulet. Only then can we shatter the old magic and conjure an evil to take its place.’
Darkebite walks towards the cauldron, veined wings trailing through the bones. Ashtongue follows and the two Shadowmasks stand in silence for several minutes, watching the green liquid bubbling inside the cauldron.
‘You must call upon the spirits of the Underworld,’ Darkebite says. ‘Use them to wreak havoc on the old magic.’ Picking up a glass bottle, the witch doctor tips an owl talon into the cauldron; the liquid hisses and green smoke fizzes upwards. ‘I’ll conjure the night creatures; Molly Pecksniff and her wildcat won’t escape.’
There is a pause.
‘No one escapes the Shadow Keeper’s curse.’
Ashtongue nods, his snakeskin mask glimmers, then he watches as Darkebite strips the barbs from an owl feather and lets them flutter into the cauldron. The liquid swirls, sucking the broken feather into its clutches, then a talon bursts through the surface, snatching at the air before slipping silently down.
The Shadow Keeper smiles because inside the cauldron something hideous is stirring . . .
