Soul Splinter Read Online Free Page A

‘the strength of ten men’ and could ‘floor a Shadowmask with a single punch’. According to the others, he’d come along because Mooshie was the only one who knew how to cure his hiccups (a side effect of his dislocating various limbs to entertain other members of the camp) and keep him out of trouble.
    He shot them all an embarrassed smile between rows of broken teeth. ‘I heard Siddy hurt his arm so I thought I’d dislocate some limbs and shove myself through a lobster pot to cheer him up.’
    Mooshie sighed. ‘If you carry on like this, Bob, I’ll have to send you back to the forest to stay with the rest of the camp.’ She smoothed her petticoats. ‘Cinderella Bull, you’d better call upon the sea spirits for protection in the cove – and we need to make a plan once Oak is back from Inchgrundle.’
    Moll and Alfie exchanged looks. Neither said anything, but they knew what the other was thinking: the Dreads from Bootleggers Bay, just up the coast from Little Hollows – a notorious smuggler gang who hauled boatloads of gin and whisky into Inchgrundle and who set upon anyone who stumbled across their path. Every journey made to Inchgrundle for supplies meant a journey past the Dreads. Oak knew how to fight – he could toss a knife blind and still hit a target – but these smugglers were lawless thugs, hungry for violence.
    ‘Oak always comes back,’ Alfie said quietly. ‘The Dreads are no match for him.’
    Moll nodded, but, as she slipped off towards her alcove, she felt her body tense. She stooped beneath the sheet and went inside. A clutter of sea treasures lined every ridge: starfish, shells, pebbles and washed-up glass bottles. And a storm lantern containing a single candle glowed, illuminating the strange symbols of the Oracle Bone script Moll had chalked on to the walls to try and remember them: triangles resting on prongs, eyes inside squares, circles dashed through with lines. The sandy floor below the hammock was strewn with clothes and at the far end, beside a scattering of fish bones, lay Gryff.
    His yellow-green eyes flicked open, as if he’d sensed Moll’s presence. ‘
Brrroooooo
.’
    Moll loosened the ribbon that tied the sheet back from her alcove and the material hung down over the entrance, shielding them from sight. She smiled at the wildcat’s greeting, then walked over and sat down beside him. ‘We’ll get the Shadowmasks back for hurting Sid.’ She was silent for a moment, then she glanced at her catapult on a ledge and a coil of anger flexed inside her. ‘And for taking Ma and Pa away and forcing us from the forest. They won’t get away with it.’
    Gryff curled his tail round Moll’s ankle and purred.
    A voice sounded from beyond her alcove – deep and soft – and Moll breathed a sigh of relief. Oak was back from Inchgrundle; he’d made it past the Dreads.
    Moll listened as Mooshie told Oak what had happened. The gypsy leader said nothing, as was sometimes his way, but he was taking it all in – planning, assessing, thinking of the next steps. Moll waited quietly, then the sheet covering her alcove lifted and Oak stepped inside. Back in the forest, before Moll had learnt about the Bone Murmur, Oak would have knocked on her wagon door and asked if she wanted to go tracking for animals or climbing the biggest trees. But all that had changed over the summer . . .
    Oak took off his wide-brimmed hat, set it against his waistcoat and ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘Moll, we’ve put it off for as long as possible so that Cinderella Bull could teach you how to read the ways of the old magic.’ His eyes glinted in the candlelight, almost as black as the obsidian stone set in his ring. ‘Now it’s time you threw the Oracle Bones.’
    Moll’s heart fluttered. She was the Guardian of the Oracle Bones and this was what she had wanted, what she had been practising for every evening since they’d moved to Little Hollows. But, now the time had come to throw the bones,