The Dreamsnatcher (23 page)

Alfie smirked. ‘Grown? She’ll be button-sized forever.’

But Moll didn’t hear him. She drew the dagger from its sheath; the handle was made out of bone and just before the blade it was bound with string. She held it tight, as if she was holding
her pa’s hand.

‘Careful,’ Oak said. ‘The blade’s so sharp it’d slice a man’s wrist clean off.’

Moll gulped and even Gryff took a step back.

Oak smiled. ‘Your parents were honest, kind people, Moll. Your pa was big and strong and he knew this forest better than anyone. He could track an animal by its prints for miles and he
could kill a rabbit stone dead with his catapult – and that’s not to mention what he could do with this knife. As gypsies come, he was one of the bravest and most loyal any of
us’ve known.’

‘And my ma?’ Moll asked.

Oak ruffled her hair. ‘Sometimes I think I’m looking at her when I look at you. She was small, so small, with hair and eyes just like yours.’ He laughed. ‘And she was
kind and funny – and mischievous like her daughter . . .’

Moll held the words tight while Oak gave the second dagger to Alfie. ‘So you won’t need to use your rings to cut. It was my father’s – an ancient iron dagger – but
it’s the best blade you’ll find.’

Alfie drew back the sheath and the blade sparkled in the morning sun. ‘It’s shining, this is. Doesn’t look like ancient iron to me.’

Oak smiled. ‘That’s because it’s made with moon silver.’

‘Moon silver?’

‘You’ve never heard of moon silver?’ Moll said.
That’s because you’re no gypsy. But your story’s not as Skull told it either
, she thought, but she held
her tongue because finding the amulets was more important than the lies Skull might have told Alfie. For now.

‘When the moon’s full, we take our iron and copper out under it,’ Oak said. ‘And, when we hammer it into coins, jewellery and daggers, the moonbeams sink into the metal
and turn it to shining silver. It’s real silver to us, moon silver is.’

Alfie let his dagger glide through the air. Its blade was so sharp that it seemed to slice the sunlight to slivers.

As Moll tucked hers back inside its sheath, she noticed something else. Three feathers: one red, one blue, one brown. ‘Robin, jay, wren . . .’ she murmured.

Oak nodded. ‘Red for luck, blue for protection and brown for friendship. I put them inside each of our sheaths.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Moll watched Alfie turn the brown feather over in his hands and grip it tight.

Oak reached into his pocket and tossed them two chunks of bread. ‘Breakfast. We haven’t got time for more.’ Gryff wrinkled up his nose at the bread but, when no voles or mice
appeared from Oak’s pocket, he ate it. ‘And there’s something we need to do first, before we look for the amulets,’ Oak said.

They stood round the Sacred Oak, Gryff’s whiskers twitching at near-silent sounds: a deer stepping among the undergrowth, a hedgehog shuffling in the leaves. Dreamcatchers hung from the
lower branches, their beads and feathers fluttering in the breeze. Oak pulled out his dagger and, bending beneath the dreamcatchers, he began cutting into the trunk of the tree.

‘What are you doing?’ Moll asked, her mouth full of bread.

Oak had chipped out several small chunks of bark, leaving an arrow shape within the trunk, pointing towards the clearing. ‘I’m leaving a patteran.’

‘A patteran?’ said Alfie.

‘Gypsy traveller’s sign – sort of like a trademark that gypsies leave to show they’ve been here and settled. You carve your initials next to the arrow – and the
number of years you’ve been here.’

Oak began to carve his initials.

Moll beamed, delighted at the prospect of using her pa’s dagger so quickly.

But Alfie wore a very different expression. ‘You don’t think we’ll be coming back, do you, Oak?’ he said quietly.

Moll stiffened. But Oak continued to carve. ‘I want to believe we’ll be coming back, but gypsy traditions die hard and I want to leave my mark. Just in case.’

Alfie stepped forward and raised his dagger to the bark, but Moll pushed him back.

‘No.’

Alfie reddened. ‘Suppose I haven’t got a right to carve your trees.’

Moll shook her head. ‘It’s not that.’ She looked at Oak and then back at Alfie. ‘I don’t want you to carve the tree and I won’t be carving it either because
we’re coming back – all three of us.’ She looked at Oak’s initials and scowled. ‘Even if Oak has gone and carved his stupid pattern.’

‘Patter
an
,’ Oak corrected.

Moll glowered at him. ‘The Ancientwood belongs to us and—’

Gryff was growling. He leapt in front of Moll, baring his fangs as he scanned between the trees. And then he turned back to the clearing, his head cocked to one side. Charging towards them, like
a miniature bull, was Siddy.

‘Moll! Moll! You won’t believe what I’ve seen! I’ve found it! I know where the heart of the forest is!’

Mooshie was storming across the clearing behind him, waving her tea towel like a war flag. ‘Siddy! You come back here right now! What would your ma say?’

Siddy ducked beneath the dreamcatchers. ‘You’ve got to believe me, Moll! It’s true! I found it!’

Oak stepped forward. ‘Siddy, you’ve got to stay with the camp this time. We’ll get caught if there are too many of us.’

Mooshie and her tea towel were getting closer.

Siddy shook his head. ‘I
was
staying in the camp. Then I lost Porridge the Second and I went to search for him—’

Mooshie stooped beneath the dreamcatchers and took a swipe at Siddy.

Siddy sidestepped. ‘—and, when I was looking for Porridge the Second, I found it – the heart of the forest. I’m
sure
of it!’

Mooshie put her hands on her hips and Moll shook her head. ‘You can’t have done, Sid. Even the Elders don’t know where it is.’

Siddy’s face began to crumple and then it hardened with anger. ‘Just because I’m not an Elder and quick-thinking like some of them back in camp – with their fancy letters
and long words – doesn’t mean I haven’t got just as much chance of finding things as they have!’

There was an awkward silence and Moll thought about doing a quick burp to break the tension.

But it was Alfie who spoke. Avoiding their eyes, his hands in his pockets, he said, ‘Maybe we should listen to what Sid’s got to say. You all listened to me back when Moll got
sick.’

Mooshie tucked her tea towel into her apron pocket. ‘This had better not be involving those highwaymen chickens, Siddy.’

They followed Siddy across the clearing to the oldest and biggest of the Sacred Oaks, the one Moll and Alfie had hidden in the night before. It was so huge and ancient it looked like the type of
tree that might have existed even before time dawned or the earth began to breathe.

Siddy pointed to the stump that jutted out near the bottom of the trunk. Coins had been slotted into knife slits made by Oak’s camp.

‘See those coins? The ones we stick in to ward off evil spirits?’

Everyone nodded.

‘Well, after I found Porridge the Second, I was just slotting in a coin to help frighten off the Shadowmasks and—’

Moll was good and ready to thump Siddy in the head. Did he honestly think that a coin could ward off Skull and Hemlock?

‘And I know you won’t believe me,’ Siddy added, ‘but, when I slotted the coin into the stump here, the tree groaned.’

He paused, waiting for a reaction. No one said anything. In fact the silence was so profoundly awkward that Moll began to hum to distract everyone.

‘It groaned – proper groaned – as if its spirit was alive!’ Siddy exclaimed. ‘And I think it’s something to do with the heart of the forest – what
you’ve all been searching for!’

Oak glanced at Mooshie. ‘It can’t be . . . We need to get on, Moosh.’

Mooshie eyed her tea towel.

Gryff stepped closer to the stump. He looked back at Moll, who held his gaze, then he looked at Siddy.

Moll thought about it for a moment. Then she said, ‘I believe you, Sid.’

Alfie threw up his hands. ‘I was all for trusting Siddy, but you really think the tree’s been talking?’

Moll nodded. ‘It’s got a spirit – all the trees have.’ She paused and then under her breath, she said, ‘And I suppose, if they’ve got spirits, there
isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t talk.’ She turned back to Siddy. ‘Put your coin back into the slot, Sid.’

He fumbled in his pocket, accidentally bringing out Porridge the Second. Blushing, he pushed the bewildered earthworm back and drew out the coin. Siddy manoeuvred it into the slot he’d
carved. Nothing happened. Alfie rolled his eyes and Oak looked anxious to press on.

And then it came. From somewhere deep, deep inside the bark, a low, tired yawn, like a heavy door opening for the first time in a thousand years.

Siddy withdrew the coin and the yawn crumbled into silence again. They looked at one another, speechless, and then Alfie gasped.

‘I – I can see a face,’ he said slowly. Then, more confidently, ‘Yes! A face shaped into the bark. Two eyes – there!’ He pointed to two circular knobs
protruding from the trunk, lines like wrinkles surrounding each one. ‘And a nose!’ He pointed to the long ridge of raised bark beneath the knob-like eyes. ‘And a huge great mouth
– see!’ A large domed marking jutted out from the trunk and spilled down to the ground where the roots started.

Siddy’s eyes shone. ‘Only the mouth isn’t just a mouth, I don’t think. Looks like it might be a door!’

Mooshie frowned. ‘Why’s that?’

Siddy pointed to the stump with the coins slotted into it. ‘Because I reckon that there’s the handle . . .’

Moll gasped. ‘Why haven’t we seen this before?’

Oak shook his head in disbelief. ‘Things that are important are mostly invisible to the naked eye until you need them. It’s the ways of the old magic.’

‘Here, take the coin, Moll,’ Siddy suggested. ‘The tree just groans when I try.’

Moll had slotted coins into the bark before, but nothing had ever happened. And so, not expecting much, she took Siddy’s coin and slipped it into the tree.

Once again the tree groaned, its rumble seeming to wake the very roots buried deep within the ground. And then suddenly the bark stirred. The domed shape of the mouth quivered and then it
wriggled and very slowly it creaked out towards them.

Moll grinned. The old magic was fighting back now they needed it. The door into the heart of the forest had been unlocked.

I
t was dark inside, dark and cool. And, as Moll had almost expected, the entire tree was hollow. The grey-brown bark twisted upwards into dizzying
heights, but in the very centre of the oak was what Mellantha had promised them.

A well.

Mooshie looked at Oak, her mouth twitching with excitement. ‘I’ll go back and tell the others. You’ll want the whole clearing guarded, Oak.’

He nodded. ‘Make sure everyone’s armed – men and women. We can’t let Skull in now we’re this close.’

Mooshie hurried away, leaving the domed door a fraction ajar. Shavings of light slipped in, illuminating Siddy’s dancing shadow.

‘I found it! I found it!’ he whispered.

Oak nodded. ‘You did good, Sid. You did good.’

The well rose up tall in the middle of the oak and it was different from most wells: instead of stones or bricks, knobbly tree roots wrapped themselves round one another to form the sides.

‘Who put it here?’ Moll asked.

Oak was silent for a few seconds. ‘I don’t think anyone did.’ He paused. ‘I think it’s always been here, since the beginning of time.’

‘Like the Bone Murmur,’ Alfie said.

Gryff sprang up on to the well’s edge, his whiskers twitching as he looked inside. Holding their breath, the others peered in after him.

The well had only about thirty centimetres of water inside, but somehow this water looked different, strange. It was glowing turquoise, like a shimmer of fallen stars.

‘I can see the roots at the bottom,’ Alfie whispered. ‘There’s nothing in there except strange shiny water . . .’

Gryff was prowling round the top of the well, peering inside.

Moll watched him, trying to understand. ‘I – I think the amulets are inside,’ she said.

‘But we can’t see them,’ Alfie said. ‘We can’t see anything in there.’

Siddy frowned. ‘But we couldn’t see the heart of the forest either.’

Wincing, Alfie hoisted himself on to the well, but Oak held him back. ‘No, Alfie – not with your ankle.’

‘I’ve got nothing to lose.’ And before anyone could stop him Alfie had lowered his body into the well. The glowing water swished round his legs. ‘Feels different this
water – softer or something.’

‘Careful,’ Moll whispered.

Alfie gasped. ‘My – my ankle!’

Moll clapped a hand over her mouth. The bandage was unravelling in the water and beneath it, where the wound from the hounds’ teeth had been, Alfie’s skin was now unbroken. His wound
had completely healed.

‘It’s – it’s
better
,’ Alfie said in disbelief.

‘That’s the stuff of the old magic, sure enough,’ Oak whispered. ‘It’s what the bone readings of the past talked of. A magic that brings healing to wounds . .
.’