It was the autumn of the Red Moon, and Redwall Abbey smelled like baking.

It had smelled like baking for three whole days. Down in the kitchens Friar Clove, a round little mouse with flour up to his elbows, was shouting at everybeast and nobeast at once. Hedgehogs rolled barrels of cordial up from the cellars. Squirrels swung through the orchard throwing down the last of the apples. The moles had dug a pit by the pond for roasting chestnuts, and the Dibbuns, the Abbey babes, had been chased out of the kitchen so many times that Friar Clove had finally locked the door and put a bench in front of it.

Tomorrow was the Autumn Feast. And the Autumn Feast always began the same way it had begun for longer than anybeast could remember: with the ringing of the Acorn Bell.

The Acorn Bell was not like the great bells in the tower that rang out across Mossflower so loud you could hear them on the far side of the wood. It was small enough to hold in two paws, made of silver, and shaped exactly like an acorn, with a little silver leaf on top for a handle. Nobeast knew who had made it. It was older than the Abbey's oldest record book. For the whole year it sat in a niche in the belltower wrapped in a velvet cloth, and on one night a year it was brought out, and polished, and hung on its own little hook by the belltower window, and at sunset on Feast Day the Abbess rang it three times, and everybeast cheered, and then everybeast ate.

This year, for the first time, the job of polishing the Acorn Bell had been given to a novice mouse called Hollyberry.

"Gently," said Brother Hobb, the old bellkeeper, watching her with his spectacles on the end of his nose. "Gently, little one. In circles. It's been rung by more Abbots and Abbesses than you have whiskers."

"Yes, Brother Hobb," said Hollyberry, polishing in very small circles. She was so proud she thought she might burst. In her whole eleven seasons at the Abbey she had never been allowed to touch anything older than a soup ladle.

"Ooh, she do be a-shinin' loike the moon now, Brother," said a voice from the stairs. It was Dubble, a young mole who was Hollyberry's best friend, and who was supposed to be helping in the chestnut pit but was not. He had followed her up all ninety-nine steps of the belltower stairs just to look.

When the Acorn Bell was polished so bright they could see their three faces in it, Brother Hobb hung it on its little hook by the window, where the last of the evening sun lit it up gold. "There," he said. "Tomorrow at sunset, then." And they went down the ninety-nine steps to supper.

That night a wind got up out of the west and rattled the shutters, and Hollyberry dreamed she heard a bell ringing, very faintly, very far away. She thought it was only a dream.

In the morning, the hook by the belltower window was empty.

By breakfast the whole Abbey knew. By second breakfast they had searched every room, every cupboard, every barrel in the cellar and every one of the Dibbuns, who were very excited about being searched. The Acorn Bell was nowhere.

Abbess Clematis, a tall, quiet mouse who never raised her voice, called everybeast into Great Hall, under the great tapestry of Martin the Warrior. She looked very tired.

"We will not blame anybeast in this Abbey," she said. "Not until we know. Skipper, take your otters and search the grounds outside the walls. Foremole, your crew will check the gates and the walltops. Brother Hobb..." She looked at the old bellkeeper, who was sitting on a bench with his head in his paws. "Brother Hobb, go and have some hot tea. It is not your fault."

But Hollyberry knew Brother Hobb thought it was. And she knew something else, too, because before breakfast, before anybeast else was up there, she had climbed the ninety-nine steps by herself, and she had looked very carefully at the windowsill. And she had found two things.

She found Dubble behind the kitchen woodpile and opened her paw to show him.

One was a feather. It was long and black, but when she turned it in the light it shone green and purple at the edges, like oil on a puddle.

The other was a smear of dried red mud on the stone sill. In the mud was the print of a paw. It had long, thin claws, and it was much, much too big for any bird.

"Hurr," said Dubble slowly, wrinkling his nose. "That there be a magpie feather, Holly. Oi seen 'em in the woods. Robbin' birds, they be. Loikes anythin' shiny."

"But a magpie couldn't carry a silver bell all by itself," said Hollyberry. "Not that far. And a magpie doesn't have a paw like that." She held up the feather. "There were two of them, Dubble. One that flies and one that climbs."

"An' red mud," said Dubble. "Thurr bain't no red mud round the Abbey. Only place oi knows with red mud is down by the old quarry. Way out in Mossflower, past where Dibbuns be allowed."

They looked at each other. Then they looked across the lawn at Skipper and his otters, arguing about which way to search, and at the Abbess standing on the steps looking tired, and at Brother Hobb going slowly across to the gatehouse with his shoulders all hunched up.

"We should tell somebeast," said Hollyberry.

"Aye," said Dubble. "We should."

Neither of them moved.

Before the sun was halfway up the sky, a novice mouse with a satchel of scones and a young mole with a digging claw tucked in his belt slipped out of the little east wallgate, which never squeaked if you lifted it a bit as you opened it, and disappeared into the trees of Mossflower Wood.

Mossflower Wood in autumn is the most beautiful place in the whole world, and also the easiest place in the whole world to get lost.

The leaves were coming down all around them in red and yellow and brown, so thick on the ground that the path disappeared under them. The trees grew close together, and the farther they went the darker and quieter it got, until the only sounds were their own pawsteps and, now and then, a crow somewhere far off. Hollyberry had never been this far from the Abbey in her life. She held the magpie feather in front of her like a sword.

Dubble was in charge of finding the way. Moles are very good at that. Every so often he would stop and put his nose right down to the ground and snuffle, and say "Hurr, this way," and turn off in a direction that looked exactly like all the other directions.

"How do you know?" asked Hollyberry.

"Smells o' red mud," said Dubble, tapping his nose. "Gettin' stronger, too."

Hollyberry tried not to think about the Abbey. By now somebeast would have noticed they were gone. Friar Clove would be shouting for the novice who was supposed to be shelling hazelnuts, and Dubble's mother would be looking in the chestnut pit, and Brother Hobb would be sitting in the gatehouse with his cold tea, thinking it was all his fault. She thought about Brother Hobb's face and walked faster.

Once, crossing a little stream on a fallen log, Dubble stopped so suddenly that she bumped into him. He pointed. Caught on a bramble on the far bank, fluttering in the wind, was a second feather, long and black and shining green at the edges. Somebeast, or somebird, had come this way. Hollyberry tucked it into her satchel next to the first one, and neither of them said anything, but they both felt a little braver after that, and a little more scared too.

Around midday they stopped under a big beech tree to eat two of the scones, and a voice above them said, "Those look good. Are those Friar Clove's?"

They both jumped about a foot in the air. Upside down from a branch, hanging by her tail, was a young squirrel with a bushy red tail and a lot of freckles on her nose.

"I'm Fernpaw," she said. "I live up there. Well, my family does. Are you from the Abbey? I've never been. Is it true you have a pond with a fish in it as big as a badger? Can I have a scone?"

Hollyberry gave her a scone, mostly so she would stop asking questions. Fernpaw ate it in four bites, still upside down, which Hollyberry would not have thought was possible.

"We're looking for a magpie," said Hollyberry. "A big one. It took something from the Abbey last night. Something silver."

Fernpaw stopped chewing.

"Kekk," she said, in a much smaller voice. "That's Kekk. Everybeast in this part of the wood knows Kekk. She steals anything shiny. She stole my granny's thimble right off her paw." She swung herself right side up and sat on the branch. "But she doesn't keep things anymore. Not since the ferret came. She brings everything to him."

"What ferret?" said Hollyberry, and Dubble said "Hurr," at exactly the same time.

"He came in the summer. His name's Murkfang. He lives in the old stone cottage by the quarry, where the walls fell down." Fernpaw shivered. "Nobeast goes there now. He's got weasels with him, and he's always digging. My dad says he's looking for something."

The quarry. The red mud. Hollyberry looked at Dubble, and Dubble looked at her.

"Can you show us the way?" said Hollyberry.

Fernpaw's freckled face went pale under all the freckles. Then she lifted her chin. "Only to the top of the hill," she said. "And only if I get another scone."

From the top of the hill they could see the old quarry, a great red bite taken out of the ground, with stagnant water at the bottom and brambles all around the edges. Beside it, half hidden in nettles, was a cottage made of stone. Half its roof had fallen in. Smoke was coming out of the half that hadn't.

Fernpaw went back up her tree, and the two of them crept down through the brambles on their stomachs, slowly, slowly, until they were right under the cottage's broken back window. Through it came the crackle of a fire and two voices.

One was harsh and scratchy, like a door that needed oiling. "Shiny," it said. "Pretty shiny. Kekk keeps it? Kekk keeps it, yes?"

"Kekk does NOT keep it," said the other voice. It was smooth and low, and somehow that was worse. "Kekk did very well, and Kekk will get a nice bright button for her trouble. But this little bell is not for keeping, my feathery friend. This bell is for opening."

Hollyberry pressed herself flat against the wall. Beside her, Dubble had gone completely still.

"I've been digging in that quarry all summer," the smooth voice went on, "and do you know what I found? An old stone door, deep in the rock, with no handle and no lock. Only a little carving above it. A carving of an acorn. And a little hole underneath, just the size of something to hang on a hook." The voice laughed softly. "Those fat, foolish mice up at their Abbey have been ringing a key once a year for a hundred seasons and never once wondered what it opened."

Hollyberry's heart was pounding so hard she was sure they would hear it.

And that was when Dubble, who had been lying with his nose in the nettles for a very long time, went "Ah... ahh..."

"Dubble, don't!" whispered Hollyberry.

"...AHHCHOO!"

Inside the cottage, everything went quiet. Then a chair scraped. Then the window above them was suddenly full of a long, pale, grinning ferret face, looking straight down.

"Well, well," said Murkfang softly. "Visitors."

To be continued in Chapter 3... coming at Halloween!

Kathleen's note: I KNOW. I'm sorry! But Chapter 3 is going to be the scary one so it has to come out at Halloween. Do you think the stone door is a good idea? What do you think is behind it? (I already know. I'm not telling!) Write me at [email protected]