Moll woke suddenly. The compartment was no longer jostling from side to side – it was absolutely still, the chug of wheels and steam drained to silence. Moll felt a brush of fur against her arm and sat up, blinking into the darkness. Gryff’s eyes, burning green in the shadows, shone back at her and she placed a hand on his back.

‘Have we arrived?’ she whispered, nudging the others awake. ‘Is this Glendrummie?’

Domino crawled over the sacks, pulled the door back a little and peered out. Moll and Siddy stood up behind him and squinted through the gap.

It was still night, but they had pulled into a station. Millbury, the sign above the waiting room said, only just visible in the light of the lantern the man on the platform held. He was some distance away from the truck that they were hiding in, but Moll could see that he was dressed in uniform – a peaked cap and a large overcoat with shining gold buttons – and he was talking to a woman dressed the same way.

‘Train drivers,’ Domino whispered, ‘Looks like one’s finishing a shift and the other’s taking over.’

Siddy settled himself back down on the sacks. ‘Well, I hope the new one’s a better driver. That man had no idea how to take corners; I’m bruised all over.’

‘Look!’ Moll hissed. ‘There are more people on the platform – lots more people . . .’

A large group emerged from the waiting room: elderly folk hobbling on sticks and little children clinging to their parents’ hands. They shuffled towards the drivers, and Moll, Siddy and Domino strained their ears towards the conversation.

‘Congalton?’ one driver scoffed. ‘That’s five hours south of here. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow afternoon for the next passenger train.’

There were hushed whispers, then a woman’s voice rose up – desperate, pleading. ‘Please. There must be a train sooner. We’ve fled from our homes beyond the North Door and walked for two days to get here. We’ve nowhere to stay!’

More words were exchanged and a small child began to cry. Then a driver’s voice came, loud and firm.

‘This is madness, all this talk of evil stalking the northern wilderness and forcing you out.’

‘It’s not madness!’ an old man within the group cried. ‘There’s something poisoning people’s minds as they sleep and we’ve seen it! A blanket of darkness covered our houses and our farms, and people woke jabbering like madmen. Grown men reduced to wrecks, children with haunted eyes . . .’

Moll glanced at Siddy, wondering if he was thinking the same as her. When the Shadowmasks murdered Moll’s parents, they shaved their heads and, for a long time, Moll had never known why. But the second amulet had held her ma’s soul and she’d told Moll and Siddy that the hair had been taken to be used as thread. And, with it, the Shadowmasks plan to weave a quilt of darkness – those were the very words Moll’s ma had used. What if the ‘blanket’ this man was talking about was the quilt?

But before they could listen to any more a whistle shrieked and the train lurched forward. Once again they were off, bound for the northern wilderness.

Moll, Domino and Siddy sat in the shadows and for a while no one said anything.

Then Siddy took a deep breath. ‘Moll’s ma told us about a quilt of darkness. It can’t be a coincidence.’

Moll ran a hand down Gryff’s throat. ‘But the Shadowmasks’ magic has only ever been directed at those connected to the Bone Murmur. The witch doctors have stayed out of dealings with other people.’

‘Until now,’ Domino said. ‘We need to stop them – for the sake of the old magic and for all the people living here. Just a couple more hours and we can speak with the villagers up in Glendrummie and see what they know. We’ve got to trust the fire spirits’ message.’

Goosebumps peppered Moll’s neck as she recalled the words of the man on the platform: Grown men reduced to wrecks, children with haunted eyes.

‘What if the last two Shadowmasks have already reached Glendrummie?’ she said. ‘What if we’re too late?’

‘We’ve got to try,’ Domino replied.

They lapsed into silence again and listened to the wheels rattling on and on into the night, then Siddy gave a resigned sigh. ‘The whole country moves south, away from the danger, and we move north. Right into it.’

Moll pulled back on the pouch of her catapult and forced her voice to be strong. ‘I hate following what other people are doing.’

Siddy lay back down and looked at the roof of the compartment. ‘I miss him,’ he said after a while. ‘It feels all wrong going after the amulet without Alfie. We were a Tribe before – we broke rules, built dens and got stuff done – but now . . .’

Moll tried to reply, but the words choked in her throat.

Domino fumbled in his rucksack for a box of matches, then he struck one and light danced about the compartment. His face shone beneath it, stubbled and tanned from years of outdoor living. ‘We’re going to do this. All of us together,’ he said. ‘We’re going to find the final amulet, we’re going to destroy the Shadowmasks and we’re going to find Alfie.’

They were only words, but they were the ones that mattered and the confidence of them burned bright in the gloom.

Siddy pulled the blanket up to his chin. ‘I wish Porridge the Second hadn’t turned down the trip,’ he mumbled. ‘All that slithering out of my pocket and burying his head in the soil. I mean, I can see why Hermit wasn’t keen, what with the train being so far away from the sea and everything. But I expected more from Porridge.’

Moll smiled. Siddy’s latest pets, a terrified crab called Hermit and a depressed earthworm called Porridge the Second, hadn’t joined them on the journey north, despite Siddy’s best attempts at getting them fired up, so he had been forced to soldier on without them. But Siddy always knew when to lighten the mood and Moll was suddenly glad of the friends she had around her.

Eventually they drifted off to sleep again and, when they stirred hours later, they woke to a crisp slant of sunlight streaming through a crack in the compartment.

Domino pulled back the door and whistled. ‘Take a look at this.’

Moll and Siddy huddled behind him and gasped. It was like a different country out there. Fields rushed by, but they were no longer filled with haystacks or closed in by hedgerows. The landscape here was rugged – sprawling fields and tumbled stone walls – and everything was coated in a silver-blue frost that glinted in the dawn. Gates were dusted white, wild grasses had been stiffened and whole woods sparkled. Moll looked towards a forest in the distance. Even from the train she could see it was bigger than the one she’d grown up in – bigger and wilder somehow.

She glanced down at Gryff whose eyes were fixed beyond the trees, to where the valleys rose and fell, then built up into moorland that stretched for as far as she could see. The beast from lands full wild, the Bone Murmur called him, and as Moll looked upon this strange land she found herself putting an arm around Gryff. She understood that wild animals didn’t belong to anyone, but, even so, the thought of Gryff returning to the northern wilderness without her made her want to hold him tight and never let go.

They passed a field full of horned cows with shaggy orange coats which Domino pointed out were highland cows, then they turned back into the compartment and began packing blankets into rucksacks.

‘We’ll need to jump from the train before we arrive at the station if we want to avoid being seen,’ Domino said.

Moll climbed over the sacks and swung her quiver on to her back. ‘What time will we reach Glendrumm—’

The train horn blasted.

They looked at each other, wide-eyed, then hurried back to the door. The train bent round a corner suddenly and there, no more than five hundred metres away, was the station. Domino’s eyes flicked between it and the bank of frosty grass whirring past beside them. Then he lowered himself into a crouch.

‘Jump!’

Sid’s jaw fell open. ‘Now?’

Domino leapt from the train, Moll and Gryff followed and then, finally, Siddy hurled himself on to the bank after them. The train careered away and, as Siddy dusted the frost from his coat, the others picked their way towards him.

‘Train jumping before sunrise,’ he muttered. ‘What’ll we be doing by midday?’

Moll tugged on a moleskin flat cap and the leather gloves lined with sheepskin that Mooshie had made for her last winter, then they clambered up the bank and over the stone wall into the field. There were no highland cows or sheep around, just a rusted trough glazed with ice and a few scattered clumps of bracken.

Domino handed round the last of the bread and nuts, then he pointed towards the other end of the field. ‘We’ll head for that copse of woodland. It’s just past the station so we’re bound to stumble across the road to Glendrummie beyond it.’

Moll nodded. They’d found the first amulet by following an Oracle Bone clue that Moll’s pa had left for her and they’d unearthed the second using the reading Moll had deciphered after throwing the Oracle Bones herself. But now they were on their own, with only the fire spirits’ fleeting message to go on. Moll pulled the collar up on her coat and crunched over the frost after Domino.

‘It’s so quiet up here,’ Siddy said as he drew level with Moll and Gryff.

She listened for the coos of the wood pigeons or a robin’s trill, but she heard nothing. The landscape was mute and what had seemed almost magical before now made Moll’s stomach churn. It was only autumn and yet the countryside around them was on the edge of winter.

She looked at Domino. ‘I knew it was going to be colder in the north, but frosts in early autumn – that doesn’t seem right . . .’

Domino nodded. ‘I’d been thinking the same. Something’s amiss.’

Siddy tightened his grip on the bow slung over his shoulder. ‘When we were down by the sea, the Shadowmasks sucked whole woods and farmlands of life. What if this is the same?’

They glanced to their right to see the train pulled up into the station. Heads down, they carried on walking into the copse of fir trees, tall and dark around them, until they came across a dirt track. Moll placed one hand on her catapult, the other on her bow, and turned down it with Gryff by her side.

‘Glendrummie,’ Siddy murmured as they passed a sign on the side of the road with bold lettering stamped above a painting of a white plant with wiry brown stems.

‘White heather,’ Moll said. ‘Mooshie told me you only get it up here in the north – it’s meant to grant luck and protection, I think.’

Domino took a deep breath. ‘Well, let’s hope it does.’

Where the fir trees ended, the village began. Stone cottages with slate roofs and green doors lined a wide track and behind them frosted gardens glinted in the sun. Parked along the kerb were several carts and empty horse traps and, as the group walked on, they spotted narrow side streets leading to smaller roads fringed with cottages. They carried on walking, past a cluster of shop fronts with CLOSED signs hanging in the windows and striped awnings jutting out above: Glendrummie Grocers, Bel’s Butchers, The Tweed Tea Shop. There was a church too, further down the road, its steeple climbing high above the rest of the village. But there was one thing very obviously missing.

‘Where are all the villagers?’ Siddy whispered.

Moll scanned the cottages, but the windows were shuttered and every door was closed – some had even been barred with planks of wood – and a heavy silence hung over everything.

‘It’s like a ghost town,’ Moll murmured, reaching a hand down to Gryff’s back.

Domino twisted the rings on his fingers. ‘They can’t all have left. Can they?’

Moll gritted her teeth. ‘The old magic told us to come here – it’s the only lead we have.’

She glanced towards a cottage on her left, then frowned. There were no shutters on the upstairs windows and she could have sworn she glimpsed a movement behind the glass. Moll blinked and looked again, but there was nothing and so, shaking her head, she walked on.

They made their way through the village, the sound of their boots scuffing the track coarse against the silence. And then they heard a sound that made their blood run cold. It was quick and sharp, like silk being ripped. Only it wasn’t silk. It was something much, much worse and Moll and Siddy had grown to fear that sound almost as much as the Shadowmasks themselves. The noise came again and Moll’s spine pricked with sweat.

The air was tearing. Invisible thresholds were opening in the sky all around them. Gryff snarled. He knew as much as Moll and Siddy what that meant.

In moments, the Shadowmasks’ dark magic would pour in from the Underworld.