Fire Girl (19 page)

‘I may have dropped off for a moment,’ Bramley blustered.

‘It’s all right, Bram,’ Hazel said, running her finger down his back. ‘I’m only teasing.’

He burrowed deeper into her hair. ‘I was so worried that they’d hurt you . . .’

‘I know,’ Hazel said. ‘Let’s not talk about it.’

Satisfied that they were far enough into the forest to be safe from pursuit, Hazel sat on a tree stump in a small clearing and spilt her bag on to the grass: tinderbox; bread (now rather hard);
cheese (now rather mouldy); map; apple; Entropy Goggles and the Grinder.

Bramley hopped on to the ground and stood next to the apple.

‘Hungry?’ Hazel asked.

‘A bit peckish. Although I don’t think my teeth will ever be the same after cutting through all that rope.’

Hazel cut off a slice of apple. ‘There – chew on that.’

Nibbling on some rock-solid bread, she laid the map on the ground. The title was printed in ornate gothic script across the top:
Wychwood and the Surrounds, in the Kingdom of England.

The ink-washed forest spread across the parchment like a patch of green mould. As well as the villages, towns, lakes and hills, the mapmaker had added delicately rendered pictures of wolves,
bears and deer. On the eastern edge was a walled city with a white tower and seven gates. It was labelled ‘City of London’.

Hazel traced her finger over the network of roads and rivers, trying to work out where she was. ‘This is Wormwood Lane, and there’s Watley. So, I think we’re here, by this
river.’

Having polished off his apple slice, Bramley trotted over the map and sat on Plymouth. ‘And where are we going?’

‘Here.’ Hazel pointed to a picture of a black tower. ‘Rivenpike.’

‘Where we’ll find Murrell?’

‘Yes.’

‘And maybe Hecate?’

‘I hope so.’

‘But more likely our near-certain doom?’ Bramley added, scratching at his tail with a paw.

‘Quite possibly,’ Hazel said with a grim smile.

Bramley snorted. ‘How do we get there?’

‘We find the river that leads to it,’ Hazel replied.

‘And how—?’

‘By walking.’ She scooped up Bramley and repacked her bag. ‘And listening.’

When they found it, the river turned out to be narrow, weed-choked, and following a seemingly aimless course through the trees.

Night rose like black vapour, creeping up the trees and swallowing the sky. Hazel’s breath misted and it wasn’t long before her damp clothes were sticking to her like a second skin.
Her legs ached; her back ached; everything ached. But worst of all, her heart still beat cold and empty.

‘It’s dirty back here,’ Bramley said, breaking the silence. ‘You need a wash.’

‘Wash?’ Hazel spluttered, tugging him out from behind her ear and dangling him by his tail. ‘When am I supposed to find time to wash? I’m too busy getting us out of
trouble.’

‘
Into
trouble, more like,’ Bramley said. ‘Put me down this
instant
!’

‘As you wish.’ Hazel said, dropping him into the top of her bag and leaving him to sulk in silence.

She was beginning to wonder if she was following the right course when the river broke free from the confines of the forest and widened, tumbled and foamed towards a precipice. Hazel followed it
out, picking her way between gorse patches and twisted saplings until the sky opened up overhead. Taking the last few steps carefully to avoid slipping on wet stones, she peered out over the
precipice.

Below was a gorge, wide and deep, with sheer walls of jagged rock. Moonlight glinted on a river far below and the rush of water echoed between the cliffs. With an eerie hoot, a snowy owl swooped
out of a nearby tree and glided down into the depths, outstretched wings shining like ivory as they cut through the air.

Bramley crept out from the bag and perched on her shoulder, their argument forgotten.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Over there.’

On the other side of the gorge, behind a screen of pine trees, rose the forbidding stone walls of a fortified town.

‘Rivenpike,’ Hazel breathed.

After a month-long siege, Rivenpike has fallen. The Witch

War is over. England is free from the tyrannical King.

The
Daily Thunderer
, July 1644

H
azel stood at the end of a neglected bridge spanning the gorge to Rivenpike. On the other side was a half-ruined gatehouse with two towers studded
with gun loops. The river churned far below.

Rivenpike’s vast defensive wall was carved from solid rock, sweeping round the natural curve of the gorge. Narrow windows squinted between towers and flying buttresses, and from behind the
topmost turrets peeked steep, grey-tiled roofs, gleaming like tarnished mirrors.

‘No smoke from the chimneys and no lights in the windows. Looks abandoned, just like Titus said.’ Hazel stepped tentatively on to the bridge. It groaned, as if deciding whether or
not to bear her weight. Trying to ignore the dizzying drop, she risked the other foot.

‘Rumour has it that some witches can fly,’ Bramley said.

‘Well, this one can’t.’ She grabbed the handrail, holding her breath as the bridge leaned with her. Inch by inch, she shuffled towards the middle of the span, feeling the
structure shift and wobble under her.

There was a flash of white below. It was the snowy owl, drifting up the gorge with something dangling from its beak.
Death never sleeps
, Hazel thought, freezing as the wood under her feet
cracked.
It just waits
.

‘Why have you stopped?’ Bramley squeaked.

‘Bram?’

‘What is it?’

‘I want to apologize.’

‘
What?
’

‘I’ve taken you from your home and thrown you into terrible danger,’ she said. ‘And I’ve not thanked you once.’

‘Do you really think this is the time?’ Bramley’s squeak was so high it was barely audible.

‘Yes, because I might not get another chance,’ Hazel said. ‘Bram, you may be grumpy, and annoying, and rude, but thank you for sticking with me through all this
danger.’

‘I don’t want your thanks, I just want you not to get me killed. Now,
hurry up
.’

Feeling a little lighter, Hazel edged her way to the other side of the bridge and paused under the gatehouse arch.

‘We made it,’ she said. ‘Before we go on . . . is there anything you’d like to say to me?’

‘No,’ Bramley sniffed.

Hazel narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t you want to apologize for the nasty things you said to me earlier?’

‘My imperfect little witch,’ Bramley said, pressing his warm body against her neck. ‘There are two things you need to learn about dormice: we are always right, and we
never
apologize.’

Hazel shook her head in disgust. ‘I give up.’

She crept out of the gatehouse on to a cobbled street. Terraces of grey stone buildings brooded on both sides, their windows dark and empty. A sign fixed to a shuttered tavern read ‘Tower
Road’. The road sloped up, winding its way towards a forbidding castle keep in the centre of the town.

‘Look,’ Bramley whispered. ‘Mary was right.
Someone’s
home.’ Light glowed through the windows in the keep’s topmost floors.

Hazel wondered with an aching sense of hope if her mother was in there. ‘Let’s take a closer look,’ she said.

Silence pressed down on her as she crept up the street. Nothing moved except the silver-gilt clouds scudding across the sky. The shops and houses were as empty as nests in winter.

‘You do take me to the nicest places,’ Bramley said.

‘I do my best.’

A sign reading ‘Rumpole’s Butcher – Cuts, Chops and Hocks’ creaked in the breeze. Hazel peered through a smashed window at a counter and rows of bare shelves. A rat
crouched on a marble chopping block, licking at a smear of dried blood.

‘What happened here?’ she wondered. ‘Not even a ghost would want to stay in this awful town.’

She reached the top of the Tower Road, which opened out on to a paved square of houses and shops. A dried-up fountain marked the centre.

Ahead loomed the castle keep, a blank witness to the life and death of the town it had been built to protect. The water in the surrounding moat looked as black as tar.

‘It’s huge,’ Hazel said. ‘It’ll take forever to search it.’

‘I don’t know how we’re even going to get inside,’ Bramley said. ‘The drawbridge is up.’

‘We’ll have to wait until someone lowers it and then sneak in,’ Hazel replied. ‘They’ll have to come out at some point.’

‘Brilliant. I was hoping to get captured again.’

‘Do you have a better suggestion?’ Hazel snapped.

There was a silence. ‘I don’t, no.’

‘Well then.’

A wave of exhaustion crashed over her and she slumped in a doorway. She was cold, hungry, and hated the idea of just waiting around
.
An idea flashed into her mind when she saw a black
slug gliding up the wall, leaving a sticky trail in its wake.

‘Wait a minute . . .’ She opened her bag and pulled out the Entropy Goggles. ‘I could try these. They might give us a trail to follow.’

‘A trail to a demon, not to your mother.’

Ignoring him, Hazel looped the strap over her head and settled the goggles over her eyes. The world turned misty and indistinct.

‘I demand that you take those things off this
instant
!’ Bramley squeaked, scaling up her hair and trying to dislodge them from her face. ‘No good can come of
this.’

‘I’m just looking, Bram,’ Hazel said, fiddling with the levers.

‘But it never stays “just looking” for long, does it?’ Bramley huffed. ‘Soon we’ll be “just running” and “just screaming”.’

Hazel flicked a lever at random and gasped as a glowing trail of green footprints appeared. ‘Got some,’ she said. ‘Footprints leading from the keep up to that alleyway over
there.’

Bramley clambered to the top of Hazel’s head and squinted at the alley. ‘How big are they?’

‘The footprints? Oh, tiny. Petite, actually.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘You’re don’t really want to follow them, do you?’

‘It’s better than sitting here doing nothing,’ said Hazel, pushing the goggles up on to her head and forcing Bramley to scurry for the safety of her shoulder.

‘No,’ Bramley squeaked. ‘It most definitely is not.’

‘Witches spread through the land like a disease.

Hunt them down! Drag them into the glare

of their own execution pyres.’

Matthew Hopkins, Witch Hunter General