Life Stealer

  I think Mrs Pommerans could see both the rage and the doubt.

  “Come inside with me,” she said. “I have something for you.”

  It turned out to be a small, round silver box with a crescent moon on the lid.

  “Be careful when you open it,” she said.

  I did as I was told. The box contained a fine, pale-green powder whose scent was mild and heavy at the same time.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Vademecum powder. Vademecum is Latin, but it just means ‘come with me’. It’ll give you vivid and fruitful dreams.”

  “Why is it called that?”

  “I think it was originally intended as a joke. A very wildwitch sort of joke… I suppose the idea is that the powder takes you into dreams, sometimes whether you want to or not. Other people just call it dream dust.”

  I eyed the small, round tin suspiciously.

  “Is it a kind of sleeping potion?”

  “No. It won’t make you sleepy. It affects your dreams, not your sleep. Some people use it to make Journeying easier, sharper and more insightful.”

  “Is that why you’re giving it to me?”

  She gave me a mild, but piercing look.

  “You’re not really going Journeying,” she said. “You are not going outwards, but inwards into the soul tangle. You need to find the thread that belongs to the hungry one and follow it. That is, if you dare.”

  I would be lying if I tried to pretend I wasn’t scared half to death. I had no urge whatsoever to go looking for that disgusting, insatiable black creature.

  “Why?” I said. “I thought we were trying to make it go away, not seek it out.”

  “You can’t conquer it until you’ve found it,” Mrs Pommerans said patiently. “And you won’t find it until you know what it is.”

  Fair point.

  “Right,” I said. “So how do I use this stuff?”

  “Dip your fingertip in it and brush it between your eyes, like this.” She touched my forehead with a warm forefinger, and trailed it gently down past my eyebrows until she reached the top of my nose. “But remember – only a tiny amount.”

  My finger was shaking. As was the rest of my hand. But I took a little of the green powder and did as I was told.

  Almost instantly, the world went away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Grotto

  “Kimmie?”

  I yawned and scratched myself above the eye. Why was I so sleepy?

  “Kimmie, you’ve had enough time to rest! Come on!”

  The impatient voice was accompanied by a shove from a sharp elbow.

  “All right, all right…”

  Slowly I rose to my feet and brushed moss and leaves off my skirt. Slanted, shimmering beams of sunlight fell between the tree trunks and it was baking hot. Insects buzzed around us, and we still had lots of lovely long time left before it got dark and we’d have to be back at school.

  Pavola marched along the path in front of me. As always, her grey school uniform was as immaculate as her glossy, dark hair. It was only ever me who ended up with moss stains on my knees and twigs in my hair. I wished I were like Pavola: clever, attractive, perfect. But I wasn’t. I had no idea why she even bothered being friends with me.

  Pine branches rustled above my head and a nuthatch darted down a tree trunk with the speed of a squirrel. It stopped almost right by my hand and turned its neck to look at me.

  I stood completely still. The nuthatch made a half turn around itself and watched me, calm and unruffled. I felt a pang of longing in my chest, but I suppressed it hard. Never again. I’d once loved a bird too much, and it had proved to be once too often.

  “Kimmie, hurry up, or we’ll be late…”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming…”

  Wait. Stop. Suddenly I was in two minds. What was going on? Who was I, and who was Pavola? My name wasn’t Kimmie. My name was…

  Then my doubts evaporated. Of course my name was Kimmie. What else would it be? And Pavola was my best friend at Oakhurst Academy. She had been ever since my arrival two years ago when I was new and stupid and didn’t know anyone or where to sit in the dining hall. It was then that Pavola had smiled at me, made the others shift up on the bench and said: “You can sit here.”

  Now she was walking in front of me along the path, her dark ponytail bobbing up and down with each eager footstep.

  “Is it far?” I asked.

  “Quite far. That’s why you need to get a move on.”

  “Can’t we… cheat?”

  Pavola stopped and turned around.

  “Cheat? You mean… use the wildways?”

  “Yes.” My legs were starting to tire again and my body felt strangely drowsy and floppy, as if I were coming down with some bug. It was probably just the heat, but I had no wish to trek through the pine forest for hours just to see Pavola’s “secret”.

  “Sniff can always tell, you know that.”

  Sniff was the headmistress’s wildfriend, an old dachshund with a unique ability to detect even the faintest hint of wildways fog, no matter how careful we were. The students at Oakhurst Academy were allowed to move freely about the school grounds, but the wildways were strictly out of bounds unless you had special permission. Which we didn’t.

  “That dog is a pest,” I said. “I wish it would choke to death on one of its stupid bones.”

  “Kimmie, don’t say things like that. I know you don’t mean it, but… just don’t.”

  She was wrong. I did mean it. But I couldn’t explain that to Pavola, who was not only pretty and perfect, but also sweet-natured and good to practically every kind of animal. She was one of those people who would rather flap aside a fly than squash it.

  The walk ended up taking us all morning and a good part of the afternoon. It turned out we had to go all the way to the coast and, once we got there, Pavola insisted that we crawl through a dark, foul-smelling crack between two rocks.

  “Pavola, it stinks.”

  “It’s just seaweed. Come on, we’re nearly there.”

  And then I had to creep and crawl and climb after her for the best part of another hour.

  Her secret turned out to be a cave. In one way I could understand why Pavola was so proud of it. Had I been a bit younger, I too would probably have thought it was exciting and brilliant to know about a secret cave, and there was something almost magical about the light that fell through the cracks in its roof. But seriously – we’d already wasted half a precious day off getting here, and it would take us just as long to walk back.

  “Great, Pavola. Can we go home now?”

  Pavola looked disappointed and I felt a pang of guilt, but I said nothing.

  “There’s more,” she said. “It’s not just the cave…”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Here,” she said as she started sweeping aside the sand on the cave floor. “Help me.”

  I heaved a sigh. Once Pavola had made up her mind, there was no stopping her. I knelt down and started brushing away the sand.

  There was something underneath the sand. I could feel it with my wildsense almost the moment we started uncovering it. I got more excited and I stopped worrying about getting dirty or splitting two of my nails, which had just grown suitably long – that was another thing I argued with the headmistress about. “Talons like that belong on a bird of prey, Kimmie, not on human beings,” she would invariably say and force me to cut them so that I would have to start all over again.

  The floor under the sand in the grotto was flat. Completely flat and glassy, except for…

  “That’s the Wheel,” I whispered. The Sun Wheel, the Cross Wheel, the Wheel of Life… it had many names, but to a wildwitch it had only one meaning: Everything. All of it. The whole world, the universe, everything. “What’s it doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” Pavola said. “It’s always been here, or at least it has for as long as anyone in my family can remember. But… we’re not supposed to show it to anyone.”


  “Why not?” I trailed my forefinger around the circumference of the wheel. It was big – one of the biggest I’d ever seen, maybe seven or eight metres across, with four spokes and a hub in the centre. “It’s not the only Wheel in the world…”

  “No, but… this one is special.”

  “Why?”

  Pavola hesitated. “I don’t know everything yet. They say I’m not old enough. When I turn fifteen, then… but that’s ages away. All I know is that it’s absolutely ancient and massively… massively important. And secret.”

  I already knew more than that. I could feel it. There was something in this cave, a power, a force, something just waiting to be unleashed. And I knew what it would take…

  Quickly and without hesitation I swiped one of my unbroken nails across the palm of my left hand. I scratched myself as hard and as deeply as I could, and the blood started flowing immediately, not much, but enough.

  “What are you doing?” Pavola cried out in alarm. “Don’t. It’s dangerous…”

  I wasn’t listening. I clenched and unclenched my hand a couple of times to force out even more blood and I let it drip onto the centre of the wheel, the hub, the heart of it all.

  Nothing happened. At least, not straight away.

  Pavola had thrown herself onto her knees and was wiping away the blood as fast as she could. For once her neat school uniform wasn’t spotless – she had red smears of my blood on her sleeve.

  “Kimmie!” she said. “I should never have brought you here.”

  “Why not?” I said. “Nothing happened.”

  And I suddenly knew why. My blood wasn’t the right kind of blood. It would take a very special kind of blood to make this wheel spin. Something stirred inside me. A hunger. Not an ordinary hunger for food, or not just that. A hunger for life, for blood, for power. I bowed my head and sucked the blood from my torn palm. It helped a little, but I knew that it would take much more.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” Pavola said, looking at me nervously. “You won’t, will you, Kimmie? You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “No,” I said. “I won’t.”

  I knew at that moment that Pavola and I were no longer friends. She was always so sweet and loyal… so it would take time before she worked it out and knew it too. But I could feel it loud and clear. Something had come between us, something violent, cold and dark, something which meant that I was now a thousand years old and she was still only fourteen. I wasn’t going to reveal the secret of her cave. I had no interest in others knowing that it was there, and what it contained. It was enough that I knew.

  “Kimmie?”

  “What is it?”

  “Are you… your hand. Does it hurt?”

  “No.”

  I licked more blood from the scratch, but it had already started to close up again. Pavola looked at me.

  “I should never have brought you here,” she said again. And she was probably right.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Oakhurst Academy

  I could hear cooing around me. I was lying on my back on one of Mrs Pommerans’s old quilts, and four or five wood pigeons were mincing around me, pecking at the grass and the twigs, completely indifferent to the girl lying in their midst.

  Slowly I sat up.

  I wasn’t Kimmie. It had all been a dream.

  Kahla was sitting on the garden bench with Mrs Pommerans, but as soon as I stirred, she leapt up and a couple of offended pigeons flapped their wings.

  “So?” she said. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” I touched my hair tentatively. Smooth, mousey. Clara hair. Same as always. “Not really…”

  “What do you mean? It didn’t work?”

  “I just had a dream about two girls. Not… not dead ones. Not revenants.” The word felt strange and alien in my mouth. “It was just a dream about some girls who discovered the cave below Westmark. You know, where Shanaia’s family is from…” I looked to Mrs Pommerans. Of course she knew Shanaia, both of them had helped me against Chimera last autumn, but I wasn’t sure if she’d ever visited Shanaia’s childhood home.

  “I’ve heard about it,” was all she said. “What happened in your dream?”

  I told them about Kimmie and Pavola. Mrs Pommerans listened attentively.

  “It must be important,” she said. “More important than you think.” She had tipped seeds from the basket onto a plate and was removing some that didn’t seem to belong. Every time she threw a seed on the ground, the wood pigeons would start to flap and argue over it, as if it were a chunk of bread.

  “Silly birds,” she chided them. “As if there isn’t enough food around already…” Then she seemed to stop her train of thought. “Please tell me again,” she said.

  “All of it?” I said, somewhat overwhelmed.

  “No. Just what happened in the cave.”

  “But… nothing really happened. The girls brushed the sand away and looked at the wheel. Kimmie tried dripping some of her blood onto it, but it didn’t work. It wasn’t the right blood.”

  “Was that everything?”

  I struggled to explain the part about Kimmie suddenly knowing for sure that she and Pavola were no longer friends. I didn’t understand why, but Kimmie had believed it was hugely, terribly important.

  “She… Kimmie, I mean, she said… or rather, she didn’t say anything, it was more what she was thinking. That they had grown apart, or something like that. That she was too old to be friends with Pavola. That something else was more important now.”

  Mrs Pommerans watched me through narrowed eyes.

  “Yes. The question is what. Kahla?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know how to get to Oakhurst Academy?”

  “Along the wildways?”

  “Yes.”

  “Easily. I’ve been there three times with my dad,” Kahla said. “He thought about sending me there when… when my mum…” Her smile faded, and she clearly had to steel herself to carry on. “… I mean, when she could no longer be responsible for my training. But I decided that I would rather study with Isa.”

  I’d never found out what really happened to Kahla’s mother. All I knew was that she didn’t live with Kahla and Master Millaconda anymore – Kahla had never said a word about why or where she had gone. Now was probably not a good time to ask.

  “Kimmie and Pavola are quite unusual names,” Mrs Pommerans said. “I think you should visit Oakhurst Academy and ask if anyone there knows them.”

  “Alone?” I said.

  “No,” Mrs Pommerans said. “With Kahla.”

  That wasn’t what I meant, and she knew it. But after going on about how I wanted to do something, I didn’t have the nerve to add that I would like a grown-up to come with me.

  “Do you really think it will help save Cat?” I asked instead.

  “All I know is that it’ll be hard to save him if you don’t go,” Mrs Pommerans replied.

  O akhurst Academy looked more like a fortress than a school, or at least I thought so. But then again, I’d never seen a wildwitch boarding school before. It wasn’t covered with turrets or surrounded by a moat, but it was built on a peninsula in a lake and there were embankments that a long time ago must have been part of a castle’s fortifications. Now they looked peaceful and green, dotted with young and old oak trees, and dark-grey sheep grazing on the slopes.

  “It’s seriously impressive,” I said. “Why didn’t you want to come here?”

  Kahla hesitated.

  “I don’t think I’m that good at fitting in,” she said. “And I think it’s easier to be a student here if you are.” She shrugged her shoulders, so that both her stripy scarves rose and sank. “Besides, it’s quite expensive. I think my dad was relieved that I chose to study with Isa.”

  The bit about the money reminded me of something.

  “Wasn’t Oakhurst Academy the school Shanaia didn’t want to be at?” I asked. “I mean, when her aunt Abigael died, and Chimera convinced
everyone that Abigael had sold Westmark to her so that Shanaia could come here?”

  “Yes, that’s right. It’s a really good school, but… I can understand why Shanaia didn’t… fit in.”

  “And they kept all the money even though Shanaia ran away after only three weeks,” I said. Suddenly the peaceful embankments and ivy-covered walls looked more hostile. “That’s quite sneaky, don’t you think?”

  There was a fence and a gate, but the gate was open so we walked right into the courtyard that sat between the three wings of the school.

  We’d arrived in the middle of a riding lesson, but it was unlike any riding lessons I’d ever known. Instead of seven or eight lazy ponies and horses, there were two elks, a heifer, a water buffalo, a wild donkey and a stag that trotted around with riders on their backs, though I saw no signs of saddles or bridles.

  “Across the long diagonal, please,” commanded the riding instructor, a grey-haired woman in a green jacket and skirt, and dusty, high-heeled shoes. “Nadya, do get him to trot with a little more energy!” This seemed to be directed at the girl on the water buffalo, because she straightened up and kicked the buffalo with her heels. The buffalo scowled, shook its head, and stopped abruptly so the wild donkey behind it nearly bumped into its broad, dark backside.

  “No, no, no, Nadya. Don’t use your legs! Use your mind, for God’s sake. If you don’t ask him nicely, of course he’s going to get upset!” Then she spotted us. “Hello, girls. How can I help you?”

  “We have a message for the headmistress,” Kahla said.

  “I see,” the riding instructor said. “Nadya, for heaven’s sake. Get him going again! Well, in that case, you may approach.”

  “Eh… are you the…”

  “… the headmistress? Indeed I am. Edmina Stern. And wait… you’re Millaconda’s daughter, I believe? But you I don’t recognize.” She pointed a sharp finger at me.

  “Clara Ash,” I said as politely as I could. “Aunt Isa is my… well, my aunt.”