The Bone Snatcher Read online

  PENGUIN YOUNG READERS GROUP

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Charlotte Salter

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  Ebook ISBN: 9780399186363

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Salter, Charlotte, author.

  Title: The bone snatcher / by Charlotte Salter.

  Description: New York, NY : Dial Books for Young Readers, [2017] | Audience: 10 up. | Summary: “Stuck in a decaying mansion surrounded by sea monsters, Sophie Seacove’s only hope for escape is to find the mysterious Monster Box before the other inhabitants of the house get to her first” —Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016005220 | ISBN 9780399186349 (hardcover) Subjects: | CYAC: Monsters—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Islands—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Monsters.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S254 Bo 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016005220

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Jacket art © 2017 by Isa Bancewicz

  Jacket design by Samira Iravani

  Version_1

  For TL —

  who gave me the writing bug all those years ago

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Beware the Sea

  Chapter 2: Welcome to Catacomb Hill

  Chapter 3: The Grand Tour

  Chapter 4: The Rules of the House

  Chapter 5: Cartwright Is Coming

  Chapter 6: Dinner Is Served

  Chapter 7: The Queen of the Sea

  Chapter 8: Manic the Horse

  Chapter 9: The Glowfish Pits

  Chapter 10: The Skeleton Fish

  Chapter 11: The Room of Remains

  Chapter 12: The Red Rabbit Run

  Chapter 13: Breakfast Time

  Chapter 14: The Tailor

  Chapter 15: Scree’s Warning

  Chapter 16: Laurel’s Invention

  Chapter 17: Breaking Bones

  Chapter 18: The Clockwork Man

  Chapter 19: The Bonfire

  Chapter 20: All of Them Eaten

  Chapter 21: Another Sad Story About an Orphan

  Chapter 22: Feeding Every Kind of Creature

  Chapter 23: Dead Girls Mess Up the Carpet

  Chapter 24: The Obvious Untruth

  Chapter 25: A Ghost in the Catacombs

  Chapter 26: Ralf and Gail, Gail and Ralf

  Chapter 27: A Monster’s Call

  Chapter 28: The Monster Box

  Chapter 29: The Last Meal

  Chapter 30: The Crowning The Caretaker’s Ghost

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Beware the Sea

  Sophie’s face was pressed against the window of an ancient taxi. Her wrists were tied in front of her with a length of old nylon cord. She had spent the last few hours trying to chew through it, when she wasn’t shouting at the back of the driver’s head. Now it was too late. She knew they were nearly there—wherever there was—because the road was running out, petering into rubble until it disappeared into the bloated ocean.

  The taxi swerved so fast Sophie hit her head on the window.

  “Is this how you’re going to kill me?” she shouted at the driver, who she hoped regretted not gagging her. She’d been screaming at him for hours, but everything she said seemed to bounce off his black coat. “I can think of less messy ways to get rid of someone!”

  Then she thought of the way he probably would get rid of her, by feeding her to one of the ravenous sea creatures that haunted the coast. She started chewing the cord again, trying to pretend that she hadn’t already run out of time. As the taxi climbed the hill the sea rose back into view, dark and flat and thick as oil. For a moment Sophie stopped with the rope between her teeth, fascinated by how the water gobbled up the reflection of the moon. She was always getting told off by her parents for staring at the water, but she knew that was because they were terrified of the sea, just like everyone else.

  Her eyes refocused and her own face floated into view. There was a deep scratch on her cheek, and her white hair was grimy from being pressed against the seat.

  Maybe I’ve been sold to the circus, she thought, and quickly started chewing again. Mum always said I looked like a freak.

  She could feel the plastic fibers snapping one by one, but they weren’t breaking fast enough. A dull terror reared its head, but she forced it down. If she’d learned anything from school, it was that there was always a way out, whether it was from a locked cupboard or an attack coordinated by the boy whose teeth she knocked out last Sunday. A taxi should be easy.

  Through the other window she could see the edge of a grubby seafront town. Most of it was boarded up, but there was a fairground with a roller coaster carriage frozen at the top of a huge drop, and half hidden between houses were bonfires and the occasional electric light. Rubbish was piled up against the buildings, and old bags and scraps of paper tumbled over the gardens. Talismans against the sea creatures were carved into the walls, and huge bags of sand, spilling their guts all over the road, were piled uselessly against the shops and abandoned homes.

  As she pressed her teeth into the rope something huge and bright smacked the outside of the window. She jolted with surprise. But it was just a poster flying in the wind.

  Don’t be stupid, she thought.

  She didn’t need more than a glance to know what was on that poster. They were everywhere, all across the country, like fungus. That infamous watercolor of an emerald island with blue sky and frothy clouds. Rare butterflies, trees that look suspiciously like lollipops. A twenty-four/seven, blissful holiday paradise.

  The poster slid away from the glass, but the picture was still printed across Sophie’s inner eyelids: the New Continent. The place her parents had gone, abandoning her to start a new life.

  The driver slammed the brakes. Sophie’s bound hands dropped into her lap. She wriggled into a crouched position, ready to leap up and fight.

  “Has anyone told you you’re a terrible driver?” she said as he got out the front.

  The driver ignored her, inspecting his teeth in the side-view mirror before opening the door and grinning at her. He had the face of someone who knew he was going to enjoy himself.

  “I see you’ve been busy,” he said, looking at the chewed cord around her wrists. “Too late. We’re here now.”

  “Is this where you dump every girl you kidnap?”

  “Not anymore.” The driver leaned in and snapped the cords with his knife. “I’m done with this line of work. I’m off to the New Continent with the fat stash of money your parents gave me.”

  “You’re not,” she said. “There aren’t any boat tickets
left. You’ll never get across the sea.”

  “What would you know? You’re just a little girl.”

  “I’m twelve, actually,” she said, raising her chin.

  “Ooh,” he said mockingly.

  Sophie bolted, knocking him over and running toward the town, scrambling through torn-down fences and piles of washed-up oyster shells. The driver shouted and cursed behind her. She swerved, ducked into the shadows, and hid behind a house graffitied with squid ink.

  Everything was quiet. Only the sea grumbled to itself over the wind.

  She caught her breath and looked around. The town was empty; like her parents, most of the residents had caught Sea Fever and fled. There were shoes abandoned in the middle of the road, and the windows of all the tiny seafront houses were smashed. Curtains lolled out of the windows like tongues, and there was a terrible stench coming from the boarded-up fishmongers. Now everywhere in the country looked like this, rubbish-strewn and desperate.

  Sophie waited for a minute, listening for footsteps, but heard nothing. She turned around slowly, checked the alleyway to either side of her, and slipped around the side of the building.

  Right into the arms of the driver.

  “Hello,” he said, and pointed a gun at her. It stopped her like a brick wall. She thought that looking a bullet in the face would be different. She thought she’d have something clever to say. Instead it felt like her bones had turned to sponge.

  They walked down to the beach, the driver just behind Sophie’s shoulder, his gun leveled at her head. For the first time in her life she couldn’t think of a way to escape, and the realization was suffocating.

  “You must be really scared of me if you need a gun,” she said. She couldn’t help herself. “I’d be embarrassed, if I were you.”

  “I’ll use it if you don’t shut up,” he snapped.

  There was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. So she kept going, the cold metal prodding her cheek, on and on as the sea stretched out before them, that huge nightmare that had the world in its thrall. She tried to focus on it.

  It’s not so bad, really, Sophie told herself, blocking out the gun that wavered on the edge of her vision. I don’t know why everyone wants to escape it so much. It’s beautiful.

  But also dark and deadly and ravenous. Sometimes she wondered if her mum was right, that there was something wrong with her to make her so drawn to the sea. It seemed weirdly suitable that she was going to die in the water, anyway.

  “Personally, I’d have locked you up to starve somewhere,” said the driver, almost conversationally. Sophie realized that he’d been talking for some minutes. “But lucky for you, mummy and daddy have found you somewhere to live while they enjoy their new lives without you. Isn’t that nice?”

  Sophie was too surprised to say anything.

  “Are you deaf?” he asked. “Don’t you want to know where you’re going?”

  To the bottom of the ocean, she thought, to sleep with the shells and the fish. She shook herself.

  “Where am I going?”

  “To the house on Catacomb Hill,” he said, and pointed at something in the middle of the sea. Sophie squinted. There was an island, just visible in the gloom, long and dark, sitting in the water like an arched backbone. Perched on its center was a sprawling mansion. The moon above it was a guillotine in the sky, the waves beneath it shivering and black.

  “Catacomb Hill,” she repeated. Relief flooded through her. He wasn’t going to kill her. “Why am I going there?”

  “Dunno. Don’t care.”

  But Sophie couldn’t—wouldn’t—go there. She had to get out of the country, away from the madness and the violence and the shrieking fear of Sea Fever, and she wasn’t going to be stopped by some hired thug with a gun. She had to get to the New Continent.

  No matter that there were no boat tickets left. She’d deal with that once she got to Portsmouth, where all the ships were.

  I’ll get there no matter what, she thought. Anger, a constantly bitter lump in her stomach, rose without warning. I’m going to hunt my parents down and turn up at their new front door and watch my mother faint when she sees me, seaweed in my hair, dripping fish because I’ve plowed my way through the entire damn ocean to get there!

  She unclenched her fists, which she’d only just realized were hurting. She tried to smile sweetly, but her mouth wasn’t used to the shape.

  “You’ve done your job,” she told the driver. “You took me away from my home and dumped me Neptune-knows-where. Why can’t you just leave me on the beach? It’ll be easier for both of us.”

  “’Cause I’m not an idiot.” The driver gestured at the house on the island. “You’ll go running back to your parents, that’s what you’ll do, and they’ll know I didn’t finish the job. You’ve been sold, and I’m making sure you reach the buyer.” They stopped walking. The air seemed like it was holding its breath. “There’s a path through the water that will be clear for, oh . . .” he checked his watch. “Another ten minutes? So you’d better get going.”

  Sophie turned to look at the water. If she concentrated she could just about make out a slick of rock running from the beach into the sea. It was a tidal path, the kind that gets swallowed by the water when the sea rises, so you can never turn back.

  “Start walking,” said the driver.

  “Make me,” she said automatically.

  The driver sighed and prodded her in the back with his gun. Sophie turned to face him, still thinking she might be able to reason with him, but he looked impatient and she suddenly doubted her powers of persuasion. She took a step backward. And another. They edged toward the sea until the water was lapping at her heels.

  “You’ll like it on Catacomb Hill,” the driver said. “Interesting place. There’s a whole family living there. The old man killed himself, and they go through servants like they’re putting ’em through a sausage machine. That’s right. You’re not the first. They have a bit of a monster problem, so I reckon they’ll feed you to the sea. There’s rumors, you know, about the people on that island. That they’re all mad.”

  He cocked the gun. Sophie turned and walked into the sea as calmly as she could. The narrow path into the ocean was very thin, and very slippery, and in all probability led to nowhere but death.

  She swallowed and turned to the beach one last time.

  “I forgot to tell you,” she said. “After you so kindly pressed my face against the floor of your car this morning, I looked under the seat and found the money my parents gave you. You might have tied my hands up, but you forgot about my teeth.”

  She spat out a shred of green-and-white paper, and had just enough time to see the driver’s mouth open with fury before she ran into the sea, his gunshots hitting the water behind her.

  Chapter 2

  Welcome to Catacomb Hill

  Sophie cautiously walked along the wet line of rock that split the sea. She knew there were dark and dreadful things below her, whale-sized fish and whirlpools, plants with mouths, and sea snails as huge and old as the rocks themselves. All she had to do was get to the house on the island, but dread had made her freeze up.

  Move, she willed herself, but now that she was halfway across her knees wouldn’t even bend. I’m being stupid. There’s nothing to be scared of.

  Except there was. Even if she got to the island without being eaten, she’d be trapped until the path came back. She’d never catch up with her parents, and the last boats would leave without her. She wasn’t even comforted by imagining their fear as they crossed the sea. I bet they’re stuffing their faces on the New Continent right now. The pigs!

  She looked at the shore. The driver and his taxi were gone, but so was the path. It was closing behind her like a zipper. Her ribs crumpled in on her when she realized there was no way but forward.

  She forced herself to move toward the island. The path was coat
ed in fresh seaweed, and every time she put a foot down she slipped. The stench of kelp mixed with rotting fish was so overwhelming she had to breathe through her hand. She recalled tales of sea draugrs, undead sailors that preyed on children out after dark, and quickened her pace.

  The sea was no longer calm, but rose and fell like it was excited to have someone to play with. Water lapped at her feet. Sophie fixed her eyes on the house on the island, trying to ignore the vastness of the sea on either side of her. If there’s anything here, she told herself, it’ll be sleeping at the bottom of the ocean with its tail curled around its nose, dead to the world. Not worrying about me.

  Left foot, right foot, slip, slide. The house was slowly growing in detail. It was monstrously big, haunted-looking, and decayed to the point of ruin. There was one light burning on the top floor. Left foot. Right foot. She was making better progress now, and she felt, just for a second, more confident.

  Something caught her eye, and she dodged as a dark shape whipped over her head. Black tentacles rose from the churning sea and slithered toward her, slapping the ground at her feet. Monsters! Sophie stumbled back, tripped, and fell into the water. The water was so cold it felt like being stabbed. She scrambled up, her ankles already stiff, her lungs like blocks of ice.

  But she wouldn’t let them get her—not without a fight. She clenched her teeth and raised her fists as she plowed forward, ignoring the freezing water around her knees.

  A tentacle lashed itself around her ankle. She screamed and wrenched it free, and heard a roar like a cliff falling away from the earth. She ran, but a wave came after her, and the sea hit her with deafening force. She was thrown from the path and tossed in the brine.

  The whole world turned upside down. For a moment her eyes were still open, and she could see a chaos of junk—an old suitcase thrown open, a strand of beads, a doll’s face attached to a limp body. She struggled to kick to the surface in her wet clothes. It was too far away. She was about to take a lungful of water, the first step toward drowning.