It was after midnight by the time Alex hurried down through the paddock and knocked on the alpacas’ door. Moraika nudged it open with her forehead.
‘We need to go get the feather now,’ Alex said, her voice low. ‘Kiala possessed Mum.’
Moraika’s eyes widened. She turned back inside. ‘Come on,’ she called. ‘Up, up, up! Duty calls. No time to waste.’
‘What’s the quickest route to the eagle?’ Alex said, once they were all gathered outside.
Ollin looked at Lilly, who turned to Alvaro, who glanced at Moraika.
‘Um … that way?’ Moraika bobbed her head in the general direction of the forest.
Alex groaned. ‘You’ve been here a thousand years —’
‘Nine hundred and ninety,’ Lilly interjected.
‘— but you don’t know how to find the white eagle.’
‘We’ve never had a need to before,’ Alvaro explained.
Alex took a deep breath. Right. Time to think of a plan B. She doubted any maps would have the nest marked on them, and she didn’t want to wait until daylight in the hope the eagle would show itself so they could follow. It left her only one other option. ‘Do any of you know how to get to Leeuie’s farm?’
‘The kid with the apples?’ Ollin smacked his lips, perking up a little. ‘Sure! I know a shortcut.’
Alex should have guessed the shortcut involved going directly through the apple orchards.
The Bremmer family home was a sprawling brick building, with a verandah wrapping all the way around. In the very last window, the curtains were parted and the lens of a telescope butted up against the glass pane. Alex peered inside. A small television silently played a nature documentary, the images flickering over poster-covered walls. In the single bed, a sleeping human-sized lump was wrapped in an apple-patterned quilt.
Alex tapped on the window. The shape in the bed threw off the covers and leaped up. Leeuie’s hair stuck out at all angles and he blinked sleep from his eyes. Alex rapped again. Leeuie moved the telescope then pushed the window open.
In a hushed voice Alex gave him the abbreviated version of the evening’s events. When she told him they needed to get to the white eagle his face split into a grin. ‘Give me five minutes!’ he said. ‘I’ll grab supplies and write a note for my parents. I’ll say I’m staying at Mr Ortiz’s place.’
‘What if they call him?’
Leeuie shrugged. ‘They won’t. They trust me.’
When Leeuie climbed out of his bedroom window four minutes and forty-five seconds later, he had swapped his pyjamas for an army style jacket and trousers, and carried a backpack that was straining at the seams. His eyes sparkled with excitement as he popped his hat on his head and clipped his knife to his belt.
‘Good morning!’ he whispered to the alpacas, way too enthusiastically. ‘It’s a great day for an adventure, isn’t it?’ He turned to Alex. ‘Hang on, do they actually know what I’m saying?’
‘Uh, yeah,’ Ollin said. ‘We can understand everyone.’ He now turned to Alex, too. ‘And you can tell this boy scout to tone down the enthusiasm a bit or we’re leaving him behind. It’s way too early to be this chirpy.’
Alex suppressed a smile. ‘Yes,’ she said to Leeuie. ‘They know.’
Leeuie sighed wistfully. ‘I wish I could understand them. It’s just all heehawing, snorting and spitting to me.’
Lilly pulled herself up to her full height. ‘We do not heehaw and snort and spit!’
Ollin hocked a huge spitball over Leeuie’s head, which landed on the grass with a plop.
‘Okay, maybe a little bit of that last one,’ Lilly said. ‘But definitely not the others.’
Leeuie looked blankly at Alex. ‘What’d they say?’
‘Nothing,’ Alex said. ‘Ready?’
‘Almost,’ Leeuie said. He scooped up a fistful of dirt, then spat into his hand making a mucky brown paste. With two fingers, he painted stripes across his cheeks then offered the mud to Alex.
She pulled a face. ‘Gross! No!’
Leeuie shrugged, unperturbed. ‘The best way to stay hidden is to blend into your surroundings.’ And then he started up the hill at a pace which Alex was positive she would not be able to keep up with for long.
As if reading her mind, Alvaro said, ‘I can carry you on my back, if you like.’
The offer was tempting, but Alex hesitated. Alvaro was definitely tall enough to carry her and she had wanted to learn how to ride a horse this summer — why not an ancient warrior alpaca instead? But Alex plus her backpack was a lot of extra weight for even a warrior to carry.
‘Please.’ Alvaro performed his funny little bow. ‘It would be my honour.’
Leeuie walked next to Lilly, casting furtive glances at the alpaca all the way up the hill. Eventually, Lilly rolled her eyes. ‘Oh fine, I’ll carry you.’
Leeuie looked from the alpaca to Alex. ‘What’d it say?’
‘She said you can get on,’ Alex translated.
Leeuie scrambled onto Lilly’s back, a grin on his face a mile wide. ‘This is brilliant! Oooh, her wool is so soft! And her ears are so silky! And —’
‘Tell him to cut that out or he’s walking,’ Lilly muttered. ‘I’m a warrior for crying out loud, not a prize poodle.’
They walked in silence the rest of the way up the hill, until they reached the threshold of the forest. Up close, the trees looked as tall as skyscrapers, menacing and shadowy.
‘Gosh, it’s really quite dark in there, isn’t it?’ Ollin sounded nonchalant, but his tail flicked nervously from side to side.
It was. Goosebumps tingled on Alex’s arms. The black and grey shapes of the forest morphed into every kind of monster Alex had ever imagined hiding under her bed. Even worse, enough time must have passed by now for Kiala to be fully recharged. The spirit would be able to attack any time she liked.
And they would never know she was coming.