Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,108
said, grabbing hold of her cloak. ‘You’re only going to make it worse. This isn’t what the Society’s for.’
‘What? This is exactly what we’re—’
‘No,’ Morrigan insisted. ‘It’s not. Don’t you remember what you said? When we had that argument before the summer holidays? You were the one who was all about learning how to distract people. You’re the one who said how important it was. Containment and Distraction, that’s what the Society’s for. We’re meant to be helping people, not fighting them.’
Thaddea looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Oh, well I’m sorry I never learned how to distract an angry mob. What do you want me to do, JUMP OUT OF A BIRTHDAY CAKE?’
She yanked her cloak out of Morrigan’s hand and ran to join the Society members swarming down the drive.
‘Thaddea, come back!’ cried Anah.
Morrigan felt she was watching the scene in slow motion. The mob reached the Elders and, just as she’d feared, a tight, angry circle immediately formed around Elder Saga. She squeezed her hands into fists.
‘Look at yourselves!’ he shouted at them. ‘This is extraordinary behaviour, how dare you?’
The Concerned Citizens responded by swinging their wooden placards at him, acting as if he were a violent unnimal they were keeping at bay. Unfortunately, the bullwun lived up to their expectations by stamping his hooves furiously in defence, throwing his great horned head from side to side and bellowing loudly.
The Wunsoc crowd roared as they ran to protect Elder Saga, the two groups about to clash with no real sense of what came next, and suddenly it was all happening so fast and Morrigan found herself thinking of that tiny spark on the end of her fingertip, and the way it had grown from something so small into a roaring, uncontrollable fire.
A small hand grasped Morrigan’s wrist.
Lam.
‘Yes.’ She nodded fervently. ‘Do it. Now.’
Morrigan blinked. ‘What?’
‘Small sparks … big fires.’ Lam turned her gaze towards the drive, looking directly at one of the dead fireblossom trees, its black branches stretching up into the sky, splayed like great spindly fingers.
Morrigan had a sudden, vivid memory of her second visit to Wunsoc, on the day of her first trial. Instantly, she understood. She slipped out of Lam’s grasp, sidestepped a distracted Miss Cheery, and ran straight for the tree.
It wasn’t like being in class. It felt more like the first time she’d ever breathed fire. She could taste ash at the back of her throat.
Except this time it wasn’t fuelled by fear, rage or panic.
All Morrigan felt in this moment was calm and certain.
And needed.
And without knowing exactly how, she knew what to do.
Morrigan pictured a flame burning steadily inside her rib cage. She exhaled steadily, watching the tiny sparks being carried away on her breath, and caught one in her hand.
She reached out and pressed her palm to the petrified fireblossom tree. Warmth spread from her chest, all the way down her arm, coursing inside her veins and out through the centre of her hand, bleeding life into the cold, black wood.
She closed her eyes. She felt dizzy and glorious. The whole world had shrunk to the size of her palm, to that feeling of her skin against the smooth bark of the tree. That rushing sensation of fiery energy meeting cold decay and pushing it back, forcing it into the abyss. Shucking it off like a snake sheds its skin; a violent awakening of what was so deeply asleep it might as well have been dead. A rebirth.
Squall’s voice spoke softly in her head.
One day, Miss Crow, you may begin to understand how much of Nevermoor lies dormant or dead, waiting patiently for you to nudge it back to life.
Morrigan opened her eyes and looked up into the outspread branches above her. Cool green fire flickered like leaves. Here and there, a lick of orange flame, a slight turning to yellow, a dapple of deeper brown. An early autumn explosion of bright burning light that mimicked the colours of the Whinging Woods.
One by one, down both sides of the drive from Proudfoot House to the gates of Wunsoc, dozens of long-dead trees roared into life. The flames arched overhead to form a canopy above the two clashing groups, who stilled and fell silent at the spectacle.
After more than one hundred years of extinction, the fireblossoms had returned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A New Threat to Nevermoor
‘They’re giving tours,’ said Jupiter, swanning into the lobby the morning after the riot. It was only eight o’clock on a Saturday and he’d spent