Free Soul Splinter by Abi Elphinstone

crawled towards him, her body slow and lumbering.
    She tugged his arm. ‘Sid, you OK?’ Her voice was a mumbled slur.
    Siddy snuffled, then rolled over and began to snore. Moll struggled against the unsettling tiredness spreading through her body; whatever the smugglers had done to her, it looked like they’d done it to Siddy too. She shook him again, hard, but he was sleeping deeply now. Moll glanced around. Plaster peeled from the walls, a single wrought-iron bed draped in musty sheets slumped in the corner of the room, and below a shuttered window was a table on which sat a pail of water and a lamp.
    Moll hauled herself upright and clutched her head. The ache pounded inside her skull, but it was the strange dizziness that clouded her sight when she moved that frightened her most. She stumbled over the creaking floorboards towards the door and pulled it. Locked. Fear twisted inside her. She’d been so worried about the Shadowmasks catching them she hadn’t even thought about the Dreads, not after they’d made it past Bootleggers Bay unharmed.
    She summoned up her energy and staggered over to Siddy. ‘Wake up,’ she hissed. But, when she shook him again and again and still he slept, dark thoughts clouded in. Why couldn’t she wake him?
    Shivering from the cold, Moll walked over to the wooden table, cupped her hands into the water and raised it to her lips. She felt the dizziness lift a little and the tiny writing etched into the bottom of the pail became clear:
The Gloomy Tap
.
    Moll bit her lip. Where was Oak? And Gryff? Had they raced into Inchgrundle after beating off the owls? A sickening feeling lodged in the pit of her stomach. What if something terrible had happened on the cliff top? Moll thought of Jinx suddenly, tied up beyond the harbour wall. Had she yanked her tethering rope free and wandered home or was she still there, waiting for Moll to come back? Moll found herself wishing that Mooshie was near to heal the bruise on her head and tell her it was all going to be OK.
    She pushed back the shutter from the window above the table and looked out. The cobbles were streaked with rain and it was already growing dark. Moll’s insides lurched. They’d been out cold
for a whole day
; whatever the Dreads had done to them had knocked their senses completely . . . She watched a fisherman hauling a net full of fish from his boat up on to the walkway running along the harbour wall, then a shuffling noise came from behind Moll and she wheeled round.
    ‘What – what happened?’ Siddy’s voice was thick with sleep, but Moll felt a surge of relief.
    ‘You’re OK,’ she breathed.
    Siddy rubbed his eyes and sat up against the wall. ‘How long have I been asleep?’
    ‘It’s night already – we’ve been asleep for the whole day.’ Moll shook her head. ‘I remember Grudge knocking me to the ground, then – then I must have passed out cold . . .’ She blinked back a wave of dizziness. ‘But you must remember what happened after that?’
    Siddy struggled to his feet. ‘The smugglers dragged us back here, then—’ He frowned. ‘I remember they forced me to drink something. Something hot and soothing. Then I’m not sure what happened next.’
    Moll blinked. ‘I get knocked out and you sit down to a cup of tea with the Dreads?’
    ‘It wasn’t like that . . .’
    Moll turned away to face the table, then she raised a hand to her mouth. ‘Siddy,’ she said slowly, her voice altogether different now. ‘Look.’
    She pointed to what appeared to be a handful of dried-out plants strewn on the table beside the pail of water: light brown stems with a circular pod at the top next to two tin cups and a pestle and mortar filled with ochre grains.
    ‘Poppy stems and seedpods ground up to make tea!’ Moll’s eyes widened, but then shock gave way to outrage. ‘The wretched smugglers drugged us!’ she cried. ‘We need to escape and find the amulet!’
    At that moment, the door handle turned, the door creaked