Where the Woods End Page 2

  Kestrel lowered the spoon, then quickly looked around to check that nobody had seen her mistake. Some of the villagers thought that if you built a scarecrow that looked like you, your grabber would be confused and eat the scarecrow instead. It would have taken a lot of bravery for someone to put it there; the villagers only came into the forest in large groups, and even then, only rarely.

  But the villagers would do almost anything to keep themselves safe from their grabbers. You were as good as dead once your grabber came after you. Any other kind of death was a relief.

  There was a soft chittering sound high up in the trees. Kestrel swung the lantern and saw a giant moth, its wings the color of an old carpetbag, swoop away. She forgot all about the scarecrow. She loved hunting moths.

  “Come back!” she yelled, and all her worries fell away like an old cloak.

  If you got lost in the forest you could stumble in circles for days, not finding the way home even if it was right next to you. Sometimes the trees even seemed to shift behind your back. But Kestrel had spent so long sprinting, climbing, and swinging through the trees that they didn’t dare try to confuse her. She could slip through gnarled roots like a fox, find rabbit holes to hide in within seconds, and climb a trunk so fast she’d be doing acrobatics in the branches by the time a squirrel caught up with her. She knew which streams were poisonous and which just looked bad, and she knew exactly where to find a long, sharp stick to fight with.

  Kestrel skidded to a halt and rooted around in her bag for stones as the moth disappeared into a high tree. Her hand went right through the bottom of the bag. She turned it upside down and looked at it properly for the first time. There was a neat slit in the fabric where someone had taken to it with a pair of scissors.

  One of the village kids had found her burrow, where she hid her stuff, again. She’d thought the bag felt too light. What else had they done? Poured sour milk in her boots like last time? Thrown away all the objects, the trinkets and things from outside the forest, that she’d carefully collected?

  “Well done,” she said aloud, squashing the shame burning behind her eyelids. “A hole in my bag. Original!”

  There was a low, rumbling growl in the trees. Kestrel stopped, then very slowly lowered the slingshot. She knew what was making that noise.

  “Hullo, dog,” she said, turning around with her hands raised. “Good doggy. Good boy.”

  The dog was, in fact, the complete opposite of anything someone might describe as “good.” It was large and black with bristly fur and shining teeth, and an expression that suggested it had recently swallowed a wasps’ nest. It was also standing so close that she could feel its breath on her face. It wasn’t technically a real dog, but that hadn’t stopped it so far.

  The dog growled again. Kestrel wished she’d spent more time with the treecreeper, which at least had never bitten her.

  “My mother wants me back, right?” said Kestrel. “I’m coming, I promise. I just need to finish—”

  The dog leaped at her. Kestrel shouted as it barreled straight into her chest with all the force of a cannonball. She hit the ground with a loud oomph that knocked the breath out of her.

  Dead leaves puffed up and floated down over Kestrel’s face.

  “Why has she sent you?” Kestrel asked. She felt a small, sudden spark of hope. “Is Dad back?”

  The dog bared its teeth. That meant no. It bit her shoelaces and began to pull. As Kestrel slid through the leaves she tried to grab a tree root, but it snapped off in her hand.

  “Okay, so she wants me now,” shouted Kestrel. “I’m coming!”

  The dog let go. Kestrel was covered in dirt, and there was a dead leaf up her nose.

  Kestrel cast one last glare at the moth. “You were lucky this time,” she said sourly, dislodging the leaf with a snort.

  The moth surprised her by sticking its tongue out. The black dog jerked its head in the direction of the village. Then it padded away, and Kestrel followed with a scowl.

  If she disobeyed, she’d have to deal with something worse than a hundred treecreepers.

  MOTHER’S WEAVE

  The black dog herded Kestrel into the village, snapping at her ankles so she performed a jittery dance all the way back. It deposited her by the wolf fire before falling away and growling.

  Kestrel growled back, but her heart wasn’t in it. The village made her feel uneasy. The houses were wedged between trees, facing one another in a cramped circle, their roofs groaning under the weight of fallen leaves. They were made of sagging planks of wood and huge, irregular stones, and covered in thick moss as though the forest was slowly digesting them.

  Many of them were empty, their occupants long since dragged away by their grabbers. The largest house had dozens of marks gouged into the outside wall. The villagers liked to keep track of how many people had been eaten by their grabbers, but the grabbers were now coming so frequently they were running out of space.

  The black dog butted her legs with barely contained rage.

  “Okay,” Kestrel said, exasperated, and tore her eyes away.

  She headed toward her mother, slipping quietly between the houses. Before she rounded the last corner, she heard someone muttering and froze.

  It was Ike, the candle- and soap-maker, who always smelled of the animal fat he worked with. Kestrel slowly poked her head around the corner. He was on his knees in the dirt, scrabbling around in the dead leaves, his breath hissing through his teeth.

  “C’mon,” he muttered urgently, dragging his hands over the ground. “Stupid pocket watch. Gotta be here, can’t have lost it. It can’t be—”

  Kestrel slowly backed away. She was nearly out of sight when a toad issued a loud and furious croak by her feet. Ike leaped to his feet like a frightened rabbit, a scream halfway out of his throat.

  “Oh,” he said, cutting himself off when he saw Kestrel. “It’s you.”

  “Hi,” Kestrel said, wishing her stomach wasn’t squirming. Ike’s face twitched as though her voice disgusted him. “Just passing by,” she added lamely.

  “Scram,” he snapped. “This is private.”

  A chill went through Kestrel’s bones. She knew why Ike was so desperate to find his missing pocket watch. If his grabber had stolen it, it was only a matter of time before—

  Well, before he—

  Kestrel edged around him, but he was already sifting through the leaves again, sweat beading on his pale forehead. Maybe I can stop his grabber before it attacks, she thought queasily. At least I know it’s coming.

  Ike would never openly tell Kestrel that his grabber was after him. None of the villagers would. They trusted her like ice in a bowl of hot water. Instead she had to watch for all the signs that a grabber was on the prowl—mostly, for things going missing.

  As she slid past something twinkled in the corner of her eye. She let out her breath, which she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “It’s there,” she said, pointing. “You must have dropped it.”

  Ike fell on the polished pocket watch and clutched it to his chest, his mouth open in a silent howl of joy.

  Kestrel turned away, feeling like she was intruding on something. She was just a few steps away from her mother’s house. Ten. Nine. Eight . . .

  Kestrel saw the stone a moment before it hit her. She ducked and it whizzed over her head, smashing into a nearby wall.

  She whirled around. Runo and his sister, Briar, were crouched in the bushes, their fingers stuffed in their mouths as they tried not to laugh. They weren’t much older than Kestrel, but they were as malicious as ferrets.

  “I was close that time,” said Runo, nudging Briar. “Did you see her stupid face?”

  Kestrel knew she could sling the stone back before they had time to blink, but she caught herself just in time. If she dared retaliate, the villagers would have the excuse they needed to permanently t
hrow her into the forest.

  “She’s too scared to fight us,” said Briar loudly.

  “Right,” said Kestrel, seeing red. She clenched her fists and the siblings squealed.

  “Watch out,” said a lazy voice behind her. “Little Kestrel’s lost her temper.”

  Kestrel groaned inwardly. She turned around, although she already knew who it was. She was used to that sneering voice and spiteful smile.

  Hannah was a couple of years older than Kestrel. She was pretty and clever and told good jokes, and everyone did whatever she said. If Kestrel was the most hated person in the village, Hannah was the most adored.

  “Stop bothering Kestrel,” Hannah said to the siblings in the bush, who sniggered silently. “She’s far too important to bother with the likes of us. Don’t you know she’s the queen of the forest?”

  Runo snorted so hard snot came flying out.

  “Why don’t you just—” Kestrel began.

  “Whatever,” said Hannah. “I’m going home. Have fun plotting with your mom.”

  “I’m not plotting anything,” Kestrel protested, but Hannah had already turned tail and left with an impressive sweep of her skirt.

  Runo and Briar skipped away.

  “Morons,” Kestrel muttered.

  She swallowed the lump of shame in her throat and went to her mother’s door.

  * * *

  Kestrel’s home—her mother’s home—was set a little apart from the others, facing the rest of the village like a sulking cat. The last time Kestrel had gone inside was to steal a fork so she could prod an interesting-looking and, ultimately, very explosive mushroom. Whenever the dog made her stay at home, she refused to remain inside and slept in the gutter on the roof instead. Although, to the horror of some unfortunate and opportunistic monsters, she slept with one eye open. And she hated being disturbed.

  Kestrel stopped outside the door, raised her fist to knock, and hesitated.

  In that instant a bedraggled, fur-covered creature shot from the trees and skidded past.

  “Whaddya kill?” it shouted, thrashing around in the leaves, a fast-moving blur of teeth and claws. “Lemme geddit!”

  Kestrel grabbed the weasel and tried to shove him in her pocket, but he shot straight out again and ran up her arm.

  “Lemme geddit!”

  “Shut up, Pippit!” she hissed, snatching him up again. It was like trying to hold a lump of soap. “If she knows I still have you she’ll squash you flat with a frying pan!”

  “Gimme blood,” Pippit insisted, cycling his legs in midair. “Whaddya get?”

  “A treecreeper,” she said. Pippit was straining toward the trees like a bloodhound. “Will you stop?”

  “Ribs!”

  “Not now,” she said, finally managing to shove the squirming weasel in her shirt pocket. He burrowed through the lining and shot out at the back of her neck, where he started washing himself. It wouldn’t help, because he always looked like old flannel anyway. He was also horrible and rude and he smelled quite bad, but for some reason she couldn’t fathom, Kestrel couldn’t imagine life without him.

  She looked around, but the black dog had gone. Unable to hold herself back any longer, she plucked Pippit from her neck and hugged him as tightly as possible.

  “Urghhhh,” complained Pippit, but he didn’t try to run away.

  “Where did you go? You were meant to be helping me,” she told him crossly, still squeezing him tight. “You’re my lookout, remember? That’s our deal. You help me hunt, and you get to keep the gross old bones you find.”

  “For my nest,” said Pippit helpfully.

  “Sure,” sighed Kestrel, releasing him. She’d found him the first time she ever went hunting. He’d been trying to drag away a giant claw, happily mumbling to himself. Kestrel had lured him into a jam jar and taken him home to study, completely unaware of the fury she was about to unleash. She still had a scar on the back of her hand. Not that it made a difference; she had dozens more, all terrible reminders of her grandma’s training.

  “Whaddya doing?” Pippit asked, jumping onto her shoulder. He finally seemed to realize where they were standing. “Not her,” he said, sounding disgusted. “Not the Nasty.”

  “She called her stupid dog on me,” Kestrel whispered. “I don’t know what she wants.”

  “Nasty lady,” he chuntered. “Nasty dog. Nasty, nasty. I’ll bite ’im for you.”

  “He’d snap you up like a biscuit, and you know it,” she said, scratching his head. Pippit purred, and something dropped from his mouth. Kestrel picked it up. It was a small silver ring, old and tarnished, covered in weasel-dribble.

  “Found it inna bog,” Pippit said proudly. Kestrel turned the ring over. “Did a good,” he added, butting her with his nose.

  “You did,” she said, holding it up to the light. She would add it to her collection. She had dozens of things, bits of jewelry and cutlery and rotten trinkets, all from the forest. She didn’t know where all the objects came from; the villagers never went that far into the trees. But every one gave her a tiny bit more hope that there was something outside this place, and people other than the villagers.

  Kestrel slipped the ring into her boot and took another deep breath, then raised her hand to the door again.

  “Wait!” Pippit said in her ear, making her jump.

  “What?”

  “Something important.”

  “Later,” she said, exasperated, pushing his head away from her ear. The last time he said he had something important to tell her, he’d presented her with a half-chewed piece of pork rind.

  “Really important,” he insisted.

  “Later,” she said, and opened the door.

  The dark room was covered in an impossible tangle of thick rough wool. It stretched from ceiling to floor and wall to wall, multicolored and studded with scraps of paper, dead leaves, nail clippings, and teeth. The strands met one another in midair, tangling together and spinning away like roads on a map. Kestrel dropped to the floor and crawled through a tunnel in the middle, her throat itching from the dust. A string of someone’s milk teeth, their name carved into each one, brushed against the back of her neck. Kestrel shivered. She knew what her mother kept those teeth for.

  The door swung shut behind her and plunged them into gloom.

  Kestrel’s mother was crouched next to an empty plate. Her coarse hair was covered in dust; she had probably been sitting there for days. The floor was littered with empty cups and bowls and the odd bit of gristle. She rarely left the house and only ate what the villagers fetched for her. Later that day someone would scuttle in and clear it up, and as a reward, Kestrel’s mother might use the web of string, which she called the weave, to tell them something about their destiny.

  Not that anybody in the forest had much of a destiny. It was usually to be eaten by their grabber, except for the lucky ones, who died in some other, slightly less horrible manner first.

  Kestrel’s mother tugged the piece of black string between her fingers, and all of a sudden the dog was in the room with them, like it had melted through the wall. It padded to her side and lay down, its eyes fixed on Kestrel. Pippit stiffened around her neck.

  “Kestrel,” her mother said, stretching her cold arms toward her. Kestrel couldn’t help leaning back a little. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” Kestrel said, a little too quickly. “You didn’t have to use the dog,” she added, eyeing it with as much disgust as possible without actually rousing it to bite her. It returned the look. “It nearly chewed my feet off.”

  Her mother dropped her arms. “Nonsense,” she said. “It’s completely under my control. Besides, if you weren’t so feral I wouldn’t have to use him, would I?”

  “I like being feral,” Kestrel said, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what “feral” meant. “And I’m sick of it
following me everywhere. Its eyes glow. They keep me awake all night.”

  “You’re just like me,” said her mother, smiling. “A light sleeper.”

  Kestrel doubted that she was anything like her mother. She couldn’t even stand being in the cottage, breathing in the warm, stifling air that was filled with nothing but her mother’s breath.

  “I’m like Dad,” Kestrel said. “We’re both hunters.”

  Sometimes when she thought about him it felt like her heart was splitting. It was all she could do to hold the pieces together.

  “He sets traps for wolves, dear,” said her mother. “That’s different. He creeps about in the forest, hiding from us.”

  “He’s hiding from you,” Kestrel said angrily. She swatted a hanging feather out of her face. Her mother flinched at the sudden movement.

  Kestrel’s mother was tied into the weave. When Kestrel was younger her mother had suddenly become interested in magic—obsessed, almost—and she created the weave as a way of controlling it. Now she spent all day twisting wool between her fingers and murmuring to herself. It was everywhere, pressed against the walls and knotted around the furniture, trailing through soup bowls and snaking through holes in the floor. Strands of red wool disappeared up her mother’s sleeve and trailed all the way through the trapdoor in the floor. There was a cellar under the house, but Kestrel had never been down there. She guessed it was full of more wool.

  “What do you want, anyway?” Kestrel asked grumpily. “It’s not just to say ‘hello,’ is it?”

  The dog gave her a warning growl and Kestrel clamped her mouth shut again. She’d gone too far. Maybe there really wasn’t an ulterior motive. Maybe her mother did just want to see her. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “I have a job for you,” said her mother, cold now.

  Stupid heart.

  Her mother picked up a ball of wool, twisting the brown strands through her fingers. The strings closed up behind Kestrel, tangling around her ankles. Beads jangled loudly.