The Moon Child Read online

  Tolly shook his head miserably. “Something horrible, I expect?”

  “Ice – big lumps of it in the sea. Like the Thames last winter – but much bigger. If the ship runs into one of them she’ll go down in minutes because they’re as hard and jagged as rock. Some of the floating islands are the size of Wales – the country, I mean, not the sea beasts – that’s what Spider says.”

  “Spider says a lot, doesn’t he?” Tolly fed a nugget of dry ship’s biscuit to Cleo. She didn’t seem to like it very much, but there was little else to offer.

  Jem decided to change the subject. “Are you and Cleo going to be all right up here on deck?”

  “Well, I won’t go below, so we don’t have much choice, do we?” Tolly’s voice was sharp, but then he must have seen Jem’s face and continued more softly. “We’re as comfortable as possible. I’ve made a sort of … nest, I suppose you could call it, inside the stacks up there.” He pointed towards the prow where a mound of sailcloths and some fat bundles covered in oilskins were lashed to the foredeck. “Don’t worry. No one will notice us. I’ll be careful. And if anyone catches me, I’ll say I’m out here for one of the essentials.”

  Jem nodded. He’d always thought that the servants’ privies at Ludlow House were the foulest place on earth, but now he knew better. The hole cut into the side of the Fortuna for shipmates to relieve their bowels was not only revolting, but dangerous too. He couldn’t believe his eyes when Spider had shown him where it was.

  Tolly looked behind him and frowned. “The Fortuna is travelling fast.”

  “Spider said that too when we were scrubbing ice off the deck. We’re making good time.”

  Tolly shook his head slowly. “No, that’s not quite right. We’re moving unnaturally fast. Pocket said some of the experienced crewmates are nervous about it. Look back there, Jem. That’s England slipping away from us in the dark. We shouldn’t be here yet. We only left London yesterday morning. It can’t be possible, and yet …”

  The boys fell silent as they watched the winking lights gradually recede on the coastline far behind them. Ahead of them was a wall of black. Jem felt as if they were sliding over the rim of the world. He had always dreamed of going to sea, to seek adventures in distant lands, but not like this.

  “What are we going to do, Tolly?”

  “Well, we certainly can’t swim for it, that’s for certain. Even you couldn’t make it to land now.” Tolly’s knuckles showed white as his brown hand tightened on the rail. He stared up at the stars.

  Jem felt utterly trapped and defeated. He drew a deep breath and just for a second caught the rich, spiced tang of tobacco. He glanced back at the man guarding the entrance to the grand cabins.

  Jem realised it must be the strange crewman Spider had spoken about earlier. Mingan – was that it? Jem had helped the tall, silent man to unfurl a sail on deck earlier that day. Grimscale had ordered them to check it over for tears.

  Mingan didn’t seem to feel the cold. His bare torso and arms were covered with elaborate tattoos, and he had peculiar ice-blue eyes that burned like the hottest part of a fire in the weathered skin of his face. But the most extraordinary thing of all about him was the mane of thick grey-black hair that fell to his waist, threaded with scores of tiny white skulls. Mouse skulls, Spider reckoned, “and maybe a couple of cats.”

  Tolly followed the line of Jem’s gaze. “I can’t read him,” he said, after a moment. “Usually I pick up things – you know, just feelings – about people. But not him …” Tolly shook his head. “There’s a wall around him.”

  Jem watched as Mingan leaned forward and raised the long pipe to his mouth again. The bowl of the pipe sparked and the scent of the man’s tobacco wafted down to them once more. As he moved, the outline of his head was sharply silhouetted in the glow of the single lamp swinging from a chain beneath the Medusa. For a second, Jem saw the shadow of a huge, long-snouted dog. He blinked and the image was gone. A trick of the light.

  “Spider says he’s going home to his people. He’s served with the captain before. Trevanion trusts him.”

  “Does he?” Tolly’s eyes narrowed. Cleo poked her head out from the folds of the cloak. “I think she’s frightened of him. You know how she always has a nose for people? Well, when Mingan’s near, she acts in an odd way. She doesn’t run away exactly … it’s more that she watches him – she’s fascinated by him, but wary too. I don’t understand it.”

  Jem thumped the rail. “Well, I don’t understand any of this! The one thing I do know is that we have to search the ship. We have to find Ann, but with him keeping guard over there …” he nodded back to the entrance to the cabin, “we haven’t got a hope of getting in and that’s the only part of the Fortuna we haven’t seen yet. Ann must be there …”

  Jem stopped as a low, wailing noise filled the air. The eerie sound rose to a long melancholy note and then faded away. It began building again and Jem felt the sound coiling around him like a cobweb – it had a peculiar silky quality to it. He found himself brushing his face, trying to wipe invisible tendrils of sound away. Cleo covered her ears with her paws and burrowed deeper into Tolly’s cloak.

  “What on earth is that?” Jem held his hands over his own ears as the sound grew stronger. He peered over the side of the ship. “It’s … It’s coming from the sea.”

  Tolly didn’t answer. He was looking back along the deck. Mingan was nowhere to be seen now, but there was a dark, hunched shape outlined against the golden light of the open doorway beneath the Medusa mask. “Look!” he whispered. “Is that Ann?”

  The cloaked shape took a few steps forward and then seemed to float down the steps to the deck some twenty yards away from them.

  It paused before moving to the side of the boat to look out over the water. Jem couldn’t see who it was – the person had their back to them. “Can you feel anything – is it her?”

  Tolly shook his head slowly.

  Jem watched as the figure shrugged back a hood, revealing a mass of auburn curls which glowed in the light from the open door. He slumped against the rail. So it definitely wasn’t Ann. Slowly, it raised its arms. The wailing stopped abruptly and a sudden gust of icy wind caught at the trailing cloak, making it billow and flap about like the unfurled wings of a great black bird.

  The person turned and the beautiful, pointed chalk-white face sent a bolt through Jem. The woman wore a jewelled eye-patch which glittered in the lamplight pooling from the doorway.

  “Duck!” He pulled Tolly down beside him and the boys crouched behind a couple of water barrels lashed against the rail. Jem watched through the sliver of space between the barrels. He didn’t know why, but suddenly he was very sure that he didn’t want to be seen by the one-eyed woman. There was something horribly familiar about her, but he couldn’t remember when or where he had seen her before. As he wracked his memory he heard rustling as she came close to their hiding place … and passed on by. There were other sounds too – scratching, and a slow mechanical clicking.

  Tolly shifted and leaned to the right so that he had a view.

  “Careful!” Jem thought and Tolly nodded.

  “Don’t worry, she’s got her back to us.” The words sounded clearly in Jem’s mind.

  Instantly, the woman paused and turned swiftly to stare at their hiding place. She arched her neck, raised her head and turned it from left to right like an adder about to strike.

  Had the woman heard them? Jem shrank into a ball and kept very still in the shadows.

  A buried image began to form in his mind.

  A snake?

  The woman moved to the far end of the ship and paused at the stack of goods and sailcloth where Tolly had made a nest for himself and Cleo. Once again she arched her neck and swayed from side to side before leaning down.

  Jem couldn’t see her clearly now, but he heard a dragging sound, as if a heavy package was being pulled across the boards. Moments later there was a loud splash. He wanted to shift for a better view, but he could
n’t risk being seen. Instead he backed even further into the dark space between the barrels and the ship’s rail, aware that beside him Tolly was gently stroking Cleo’s head, willing her to stay silent.

  “Mange bien, mes soeurs. Mange tout.” The hissed words carried on the biting air. Then the scraping, scratching, ticking and clicking came again as the woman swept past them and back along the deck.

  At the Medusa doorway she turned and stared back towards the prow of the ship. Her red-painted lips curled into a cruel smile and the jewels sewn into the velvet of her eye-patch caught the light.

  At last Jem realised where he had seen her before – in a portrait hanging in the long gallery leading to the library at Malfurneaux Place.

  He thought back to the moment when he’d found himself drawn to the picture. The woman’s single golden eye had glinted with malice as he reached out to the brilliantly painted material of her glistening black dress. The swirling fabric resembled thousands of sheeny reptilian scales sewn together and Jem had felt compelled to touch them. And he was about to do just that when he had caught sight of the woman’s foot revealed by a parting in the fabric of her skirts, as if she was about to stride out of the picture.

  The foot was the gnarled and blackened talon of a huge bird – and now, in a flash, Jem realised it was the same hideous, scaly, blackened claw he had seen beneath the hem of the gown of the mummer who had led Ann to the ’Obby ’Oss at Goldings.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I know her!” Jem waited until the strange woman had disappeared through the doorway back into the cabin. “She was with the mummers who took Ann – and in a painting.” He stood up and grabbed at a rope to steady himself as the Fortuna creaked and rolled.

  “What do you mean, ‘in a painting’?” Tolly loosened his grip on Cleo and the little monkey jumped up to perch on one of the barrels that had shielded them from view. She flicked her tail and stared at the doorway.

  “In the corridor to the library at Malfurneaux Place there were lots of peculiar paintings of men and women all dressed in strange costumes. You must remember it?”

  Tolly nodded. “Of course I do. But I never looked at them. It was as if they were … alive. If I had to go there I always kept my head down. Ann said the paintings were evil. She warned me never to look directly into their eyes.”

  “She was right about that.” Jem shuddered at the memory. “There was one of a woman in a dress made of scales. She looked like a snake. I wanted to tear my eyes away but I couldn’t. I was almost … drawn into the picture with her. It was her – the woman we’ve just seen. I’m sure of it. She wore an eye-patch too and in the painting she had claws instead of feet – like an eagle or a hawk. Remember the masked mummer who led Ann to the ’Obby ’Oss? When its cloak moved, I saw that same foot then.”

  Tolly’s eyes widened, as Jem continued in a rush. “Did you hear the noise – the scraping? That was the sound of talons scratching on the wood. I’d know her anywhere. Who is she?”

  “I don’t think that’s the right question.” Tolly stared back at the doorway beneath the carved mask. “I tried to close my mind to her just now, when she seemed to sense us. It meant I couldn’t read her, but at least it also meant she couldn’t read me.” He frowned. “The thing is, if that woman really was in a painting at Malfurneaux Place, then perhaps the question we should be asking is why is she here?”

  “Because she has Ann?” Jem tightened his grip on the rail.

  Tolly’s eyes sparked with hope. “If you saw her at Goldings with the mummers it must prove we’re on the right track. But that’s not exactly what I meant.”

  He looked around at the blackened, carved timbers of the Fortuna and then stared up into the forest of masts and ice-crusted ropes straining above them.

  “No, the question is this: if she knew Count Cazalon, is the Fortuna a trap? And have we walked straight into it?”

  Jem tried to find a comfortable position in the narrow, stringy hammock. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the woman standing in the doorway again, her lips curved into that mirthless smile. The expression reminded him a little of the way Wormald, the vicious steward who’d tormented Jem in his previous life as a kitchen hand, used to look at him before inflicting yet another undeserved punishment with his special serrated cane.

  “Mange bien.” That was what the woman had said, wasn’t it? Jem twisted about and found himself wishing for the very first time that he’d paid more attention to Dr Speight’s French lessons. It was something about food, and “bien” meant good, didn’t it? He wasn’t sure.

  In the dark next to him, Spider snored like an old bloodhound. Jem was surprised that such a skinny boy could make such an incredible noise. Pocket mumbled occasionally and smacked his lips; Jem caught the word “bacon” and something that sounded like “good mutton”. He wondered how Tolly and Cleo were in their nest on the deck above and then he thought about their plan again. He had to get down into the hold without being seen, but if he tried now he’d need to light a candle lantern to see the way. He couldn’t risk waking either of his companions.

  It was Tolly’s idea. If they could find Cazalon’s staff, then perhaps they could use it again to show them precisely where Ann was hidden.

  “If we know exactly where she is, that would be a start, Jem,” Tolly had pressed him earlier when they stood on deck. “And besides, if we have to fight that … that woman, I’ve got a feeling the staff could be a powerful weapon. It was important to Cazalon, wasn’t it? We don’t know what it can really do.”

  Jem had nodded, but Tolly’s words about the Fortuna being a trap had run through his mind. What if Ann wasn’t on board at all?

  “She is!” The words had been sharp.

  Tolly had read his doubt. For some reason Jem had felt guilty, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “She must be.” Tolly had reached up to stroke Cleo, who’d perched on his shoulder. She’d whickered softly and nuzzled his neck.

  He had rubbed a hand across his face and turned away to look out to sea, but not before Jem had noticed the glittering tears that brimmed in his friend’s dark eyes.

  After a moment Tolly had spoken gruffly. “When Count Cazalon bought me and took me to Malfurneaux Place, little Cleo here, and Ann, they … they became my family. I won’t lose my family for a second time.” He’d clutched the rail so tightly that the bandage over his fingers had split.

  Jem had felt his stomach knot as he thought of his own mother, and Gabriel too. He wondered if he would ever see either of them again, along with Ann. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat as Tolly spoke again.

  “We need the staff, Jem. From the moment I touched it in the caravan, I … I knew it was a key.”

  The boys had stood together in a miserable silence as the black timbers of the Fortuna growled and wind lashed through the rigging overhead. It sounded like the swish of a score of swords.

  “Never drop your guard.”

  Jem turned in the hammock and Pocket muttered in his sleep again. He thought about everything his fencing master had taught him. Tolly was right. They needed every weapon they could lay their hands on, but there was more. They needed to use their brains too. There had to be a way to get into the hold without anyone knowing.

  The sails billowed, their fat grey bellies straining as a fierce east wind drove the Fortuna on. Jem squinted as he looked up into the brilliant sunlight and tried to work out what time it was.

  “You finished with that lot?” Spider pushed another coil of rope across the deck. “Remember, if any is frayed or torn it can’t be used. It has to be unpicked and knotted again, otherwise it won’t be safe up there – won’t take the weight, see.” The boy pointed upward, but Jem didn’t look. He didn’t like to think about the network of ropes strung out between the towering masts above them. Most particularly, he didn’t like to think about the way the experienced crewmen clambered and swung between them. It was how Spider had got his name – he was particula
rly nimble on the ropes. His real name was John, but on his first voyage some of the older crewmates had nicknamed him Spider, impressed by his dexterity.

  “You don’t have a head for heights, Jemmie, do you?”

  Jem didn’t answer Spider’s question.

  “Pocket and me, we’ve noticed how you don’t look up. It’s no matter to us, we like it up there – the view and that.” Spider sniffed. “Tell you what, if you get sent up, one of us’ll do it for you. We’ll swap chores.” Jem glanced at Spider and nodded gratefully as the scrawny boy continued. “A word of advice – don’t let old Grimface know you’re feared.”

  As the Fortuna lurched, the boys were soaked by a deluge of freezing salty water that crashed over the side. “I’ll tell you another fing, Jemmie.” Spider rubbed the stinging water from his eyes with his raw, cracked hands. “You and your mate over there,” he waved a bit of frayed rope end at Tolly, who was sitting cross-legged at the other end of the deck, working on a section of tattered sail alongside Pocket, “you’ve found your sea legs quick enough. I was sick as a dog first time out.”

  “How many trips have you made?” Jem wondered what made a boy like Spider prefer the sea to the land.

  “This’ll be my third, same as Pocket. Never seen a ship go like this one, though.” Spider grinned up at the bulging sails. “You’ve brought us first-timer’s luck. That’s what I told Ned this morning when he said we were riding a witch wind. As a general rule, I don’t hold with that superstitious stuff and neither should you. If you ask me there’s too much of that kind of talk.”

  Spider shuffled a bit closer. “A couple of the lads reckon they’ve seen an owl in the sky. Now, that’s a bird of ill-omen, I’ll grant you that, but what’s it doing out here? If you want my ’pinion on the matter, they’ve been taking an unfair go at the grog rations. And that’s not right.”