GRABBER
Kestrel shifted uncomfortably. Suddenly the forest seemed an awful lot darker. Even the trees were shivering, as though they were horrified by the word in the notebook.
Kestrel got up. She didn’t feel like writing notes now. She grabbed the lantern and her bag of missiles, which she’d hidden in the roots of a nearby tree, and started pacing. As she turned she saw a grinning face out the corner of her eye. Without thinking she grabbed her spoon and pointed it at the creature’s neck, a snarl rising in her throat. But it was only a scarecrow planted behind the trees.
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.
2
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.