Bloodmoss squirmed quietly under Kestrel’s knees, trying to worm its way over her skin and into her boots.
Kestrel pushed herself to her feet, holding on to a rotten trunk for support. She felt very sick, as though the mold had finally worked its way into her body. She wanted to sink into the earth, let the bloodmoss take her. The more the seconds crawled by, the more difficult it became to pretend that she hadn’t just watched her father die.
There was a howl in the distance, followed by another, and another, until a chorus was all around her.
“The wolves,” said Kestrel, her voice strangely high. “They’re celebrating, aren’t they?”
Pippit growled, the hairs on his back standing up.
“Move,” he said. “Blood. Now.”
Kestrel had very little strength left, but she knew she needed every ounce of it to make it back to the village before they found her, too. Her dad would shake her if he saw her sitting here, staring at the ground, letting herself freeze in the snow. With a huge effort she stood up, the wolf skin clasped in her hand, and sank back into the forest.
11
THE DRESS
Kestrel was as clean and raw as the inside of an acorn. She’d been scrubbed with soap and polished with a flannel, and her hair had been painstakingly unknotted. The rubbish she’d collected in the forest, all the twigs and tree needles, had been picked out of her hair and tossed through the window by her mother. With every part of her that was cleaned or thrown away, Kestrel felt that part of herself had gone as well. The only thing her mother couldn’t strip away was the queasy feeling in her stomach.
Kestrel stared straight ahead as her mother laced her into a dress with frightening speed. Instead of the wall, all she could see was Dad slipping out of the tree, his arms outstretched for his grabber, and the grabber extending its teeth toward him.
Kestrel’s mother didn’t notice how quiet she was. She was in a fantastic mood. She hummed as she pulled the last pins out of the dress and tied Kestrel’s hair up, her fingers dancing over her scalp like spiders.
“Perfect,” she said, taking Kestrel by the shoulders and turning her around to look in a broken piece of mirror. Kestrel jumped, the image of her dad’s grabber scattering.
The dress her mother had made her was long and black, with a pinched-looking bodice and a high neck. It was covered in shiny green-and-black beads, and the sleeves were done up with hard black buttons like fish eyes.
She was a raven, a cockroach, a monster.
“How does it feel?” her mother asked, her hands still on Kestrel’s shoulders.
“I can’t breathe,” said Kestrel truthfully.
“That means it fits,” said her mother, and Kestrel saw her smile in the reflection.
It was a present for being good. Her mother had pulled her into the house last night and put her in a pile of blankets, and Kestrel had let her. She had been too tired to kick and scream, to climb up to the gutter. She tossed all night, dreaming about her dad being eaten. Whenever she surfaced from sleep, it felt like the blankets were suffocating her. Then, when she’d woken up this morning, the dress was ready for her.
Kestrel gasped as her mother yanked the laces on the dress to make it even tighter. The black dog sat in the corner of the room, watching Kestrel as though it knew exactly what she was thinking.
She fixed her gaze on it and tried to look impassive. But she couldn’t stop her dad’s words running through her head, again and again, just like his death had run through her sleep.
Remember the Marrow Orchard. Promise me you’ll get out.
Her mother made the finishing touches to the dress, tweaking the sleeves and the collar. Kestrel stared at the battered front door, wishing she could get out. For the first time in years, she could see the faces that the knots made, the ones that Granmos had terrified her with on her tenth birthday. They grinned at her nastily through the splinters, as though they knew that she was weak.
Splinters. Kestrel blinked. When did the door become so damaged, anyway? She thought back, but she couldn’t remember it looking like that when Granmos first conjured up the faces. Did something happen to it?
“You look pale, sweetie,” Kestrel’s mother said, interrupting her. She handed her a cup of water.
Kestrel slowly raised it to her lips, then she saw the bobbing, milky-blind eyes of the Briny Witch rotating in the bottom of the cup. She gasped and dropped it, splattering water all over the floor and soaking the bottom of her dress.
“What’s wrong?” her mother asked, snatching the cup and looking inside. The Briny Witch had gone.
“Nothing,” Kestrel said quickly.
Her mother watched Kestrel beadily for another few moments.
“You look good in that dress,” she said finally. “You should wear nice things while you’re young, while you can still get away with it.”
“It’s special,” Kestrel said, hoping her mother couldn’t detect the hint of sarcasm. “What gave you the idea?”
“I thought you’d like to look less like an animal, and more like a real girl. More like your mother.”
“I do look like you,” Kestrel said, turning around slowly, wanting to rip every single piece of the vile dress apart.
“I’m fully aware that certain people don’t treat you with the respect that you deserve,” her mother said, except she said the word people like most would say scum. “And I’m not saying it’s your fault, sweetest, but you don’t help yourself by charging around with dirt on your face and holes in your sweater, and certainly not by playing in the trees. But if you look more like me, who’s going to bother you?”
No one, Kestrel thought. She looked terrifying. They wouldn’t dare mutter about her now.
“You can even hunt in it,” her mother said. “There’s a place inside it for your spoon.”
Kestrel wondered what her dad would think of the dress if he could see her.
“Mum,” she said, her voice cracking.
“I know,” her mother said, and then her arms were around Kestrel and she was being pulled to the floor. She landed in her mother’s lap, dust balls scudding away from their feet. “I heard the howls from here. The whole village did.”
Kestrel felt a huge sob wrack her body, then she pressed her hands over her eyes and forced it all back in.
“Let me tell you something, sweetie,” said her mother, running her fingers over Kestrel’s newly shiny hair. “When you’re my age you learn that grieving is a waste of time. You should concentrate on the people you have left. You have me, don’t you? You could move back into the house, sleep in a real bed. It’s all here for you.”
Kestrel buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. For a moment, she imagined eating hot food by her mother’s side and sleeping in the warm bed every night. It was almost comforting.
Her mother ran a finger down Kestrel’s nose, then tapped it playfully. “In fact,” she said, “I think this might be a new beginning for us. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but things will change. You’re growing up.”
“I guess,” Kestrel said. She felt a million years old. Her mother smoothed her hair, and despite herself, Kestrel felt her shoulders relax.
For a moment she considered letting it all out. She could tell her mother that her grabber was coming. Maybe she’d even call the black dog off and let Kestrel go, and she could escape the forest before the grabber caught her. She wouldn’t have to steal any berries. For a second, telling her mother everything was the perfect answer.