Brackenbeast by Kate Alice Marshall

Author:Kate Alice Marshall [Marshall, Kate Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

“I’m sorry,” Eleanor said, gulping in air as tears and an embarrassing amount of snot streamed down her face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s quite all right,” Jack assured her. Otto put an arm around her, and Pip grabbed her hand. “When you spend all the day wearing armor, standing despite its weight, it is often the moment you remove it that your strength abandons you. For that is the brief moment that you do not need to hold fast to it.” His voice was calm and his eyes were sad, and he was so right that she started sobbing even harder.

It took her a long time to stop, but finally the flood of tears dried to a trickle. “I’m okay,” she assured everyone at last, disentangling herself. She wasn’t okay at all, but she felt like she could get there. She waved Pip and Otto away, wiping at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. “Let’s focus on the important stuff.”

Otto and Pip traded off while she collected herself, telling Jack an abbreviated version of everything that had happened since last October. Jack listened thoughtfully, asking questions here and there. Then they’d reached the present moment, and they all fell silent, waiting.

“So?” Pip asked after a few seconds stretched into nearly a minute. “What do we do?”

Jack let out a long breath that was not quite a sigh. “I wish that I could give you a simple set of instructions, but the truth is I don’t know very much about the brackenbeasts—mucks. Or the Wickerwood. If I did, perhaps I would have been prepared when I went to claim Gloaming. As it was, I was captured embarrassingly quickly, though I did first find the blade, else I would surely be dead. The mucks placed a foul substance on my face. I lost consciousness, and when I awoke I was in some kind of tree.”

“We saw the circle of trees,” Pip said. “There were skeletons in them.”

Jack grimaced. “They were alive when I was there,” he said. “The mucks had gathered around, and a woman was in the center of the circle, chanting. They seemed transfixed and did not notice when I wrenched myself free. I had only the strength to drag myself away—and that thanks to Gloaming. Holding it imbued me with some of its strength, but even that was not enough to reach the exit once more. Slumber claimed me again, and then . . . well, then I saw you, my ladies.”

“But you’ve been to the Wickerwood before,” Pip said. “In the story, right? The one that Bartimaeus put into Thirteen Tales. You and the hedgewitch rescued the children of Wick?”

“Ah,” Jack said. “How much do you know about me?”

Pip shrugged. “Just what’s in the book.”

“I haven’t read Thirteen Tales of the Gray myself, but I have an idea of its contents,” Jack said. “The tales within collect altered versions of the acts of my predecessors.”

“Predecessors?” Pip echoed.

“It means the people who came before him,” Otto said.

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