“You don’t need to keep reminding me,” she muttered, feeling hot and cold at the same time, like she was being swallowed by a fever.
It had happened years ago. Kestrel was sick of being mercilessly trained by Granmos. She was sick of being thrown down wells and tossed to the bats, tied only to a piece of rope for safety. By the time she was seven Kestrel could wrestle a wolf one-handed, but her grandma only said it wasn’t good enough and thought of some other highly unusual, punishing test. Even now the thought of her grandma coming toward her, her thin lips pursed, her tarnished jewelry flashing, made Kestrel more nervous than any forest creature did.
Granmos had made her life miserable, but Kestrel felt sick that she was ever stupid and selfish enough to let her grandma’s grabber into the house. That she’d actually been terrible enough to want to kill her.
At least Kestrel would never wake up with a knife dangling over her head again. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about someone jumping out at her from behind every door.
Kestrel’s thoughts fled as she saw something move at the edge of her vision. She twitched her head out of the way as a knife flew past her left ear, half an inch from lopping it off.
The knife stuck in the splintered, boarded-up door, and quivered.
“Good,” her mother said, satisfied. “Your eyes are as sharp as ever.”
Kestrel was wrong. The tests hadn’t stopped. Her mother was always testing her, too.
“Sharp as a spoon,” said Kestrel.
The weave shivered and her mother licked her lips. Kestrel automatically looked through the window. Seconds later a thin, high-pitched scream curdled the air.
“There,” said her mother triumphantly.
The woodchopper’s grabber. Kestrel, seeing her chance to escape, turned and pushed through the forest of string. The black dog snapped its jaws behind her, but she kicked it away and wriggled free. As soon as she was out of the house Pippit escaped from her sweater and hopped onto her shoulder.
“Which way, Pippit?” Kestrel said urgently.
Pippit spun around on her shoulder, sniffing, then strained in the direction of the woodchopper’s house. People were already opening their doors, drawn by the terrible scream, but when they saw Kestrel they retreated. They knew what her presence meant.
Leaves flew up from under her feet as she ran.
The woodchopper had destroyed the trees around his house with careless, almost joyful abandon. Kestrel had always thought this was a terrible idea. The forest had a mind of its own, and nobody likes having their fingers lopped off. She raced through the predawn gloom until she could see the front of the house.
The door was off its hinges and streaks of lamplight fell out, spilling over the ground. A trail of broken crockery and bits of furniture led from the front door and into the darkness of the woods. It looked like the forest had taken a deep breath and tried to suck everything into its belly. There was even a sagging armchair with a large bite mark in it. Half the leather had been pulled off like the skin from an overripe plum. The grabber’s trail was slippery with yellow grease, and it had left a deep scar in the ground, a trench that twisted heavily through the earth.
“It was big,” breathed Kestrel. “It was huge.”
Kestrel squeezed her eyes shut and tried to imagine what the woodchopper would be most scared of. That was the shape the grabber would take. That’s why they stalked their victims—not just to steal their things, but to find their weak spot.
Kestrel never knew what she’d find. Grabbers built their bodies out of anything, vegetation and bones and rubbish and, very often, other animals. The result was a stitched-together mess, a patchwork of body parts and stolen objects, held together by slime and sheer willpower.
Pippit tugged her ear.
“Something important!” he said, as though he’d just remembered.
“Not now,” Kestrel said.
The woodchopper had tried to run from the grabber. The grabber’s trail circled the cottage several times, following the woodchopper’s footprints, which stopped abruptly. Then the grabber’s trail went back into the forest. It had dragged the woodchopper into the forest to eat. She had to find it quickly.
She jumped into the scar in the ground. Her heart was hammering, and she could feel a familiar nausea in her throat, but she forced it away like Granmos taught her.
“Les geddit,” Pippit hissed, snapping his teeth. “Les geddit’s bones!”
“Sharpen your teeth, Pippit,” said Kestrel. “We’re going hunting.”
3
THE GRABBER’S TRAIL
Kestrel ran, following the scar as it curved around the woodchopper’s house and plunged into the forest.
The trees swallowed her. Even though it was daytime there was a permanent darkness, with the occasional patch of sick greenish light that made everything look ill. The trail twisted left and right, and Kestrel had to dodge foot-snagging roots and animal burrows. The birds were silent. Few creatures dared come out when a grabber was on the loose.
The trail became softer and muddier, which meant that it was fresher, and she was getting closer to the grabber. But Kestrel was struggling. The trees were so close together, she could barely squeeze past them. The grabber, despite its obvious size, seemed to have slipped through with worrying elegance.
Her feet sank into the mud, and soon she was wading almost up to her knees. Kestrel gritted her teeth and plowed on, but she knew she wasn’t going to catch up like this. The grabber was too quick. Her only chance of killing the grabber was when it had finished eating, when it would be slow and sluggish. When it was too late.
“Important,” Pippit said. “Something important!”
“What?” Kestrel said, exasperated.
But then she heard a rustling sound high in the trees and pushed him back into her pocket. A shower of razor-sharp leaves drifted from the sky. Kestrel heard a whoop of joy. Despite everything, she felt a grin unravel.
Maybe this hunt would be different.
“Finn!” she shouted. “Down here!”
A pale hand dropped down in front of her. Kestrel grabbed it and was yanked into the trees, breaking through a sheet of leaves which shattered like glass. For the first time in days she could see the pale, chilly sky.
Finn was a chaotic vision of red and brown and gold. His hair was stuck with leaves, and there were streaks of mud on his face.
“Hunting rabbits?” he said with infuriating nonchalance.
“Of course not,” Kestrel said. Her heart was hammering at the thought of catching up with the grabber before it ate. “I need your help. It’s too muddy to run down there. There’s a grabber on the loose.”
Finn stiffened, and the grin died on his face.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“Come on!” she yelled, fighting the urge to shake him. “We’re not scared of anything, remember?”
“You only had to ask,” he said, but he still didn’t smile. Kestrel opened her mouth to shout again, but he took a deep breath, leaped into the next tree, and started to run. Kestrel braced herself, ignoring her wobbling knees, and forced herself to jump after him.
Then she was running, too.
Finn’s world at the top of the forest was filled with light. Planks of wood stretched dizzyingly between tall trees, and the fraying rope bridges he’d built twisted between the thick trunks like bunting. There were platforms and handholds, hiding places and lookouts. The system spread for miles, from the village to the darkest parts of the forest. You couldn’t always see it, but it was there—a rope here, a plank there—a highway through the trees that only Finn knew how to use.