The Door in the Forest

by Roderick Townley

  This time the woods grew even wilder, practically impassable, no sign of a path. Overhead, grapevines draped the closely set trees. Emily gasped when a brace of pheasants exploded out from under a holly tree.

  They almost passed the marker without seeing it, so thickly covered it was with vinca and Virginia creeper. Wesley just stood and stared.

  Daniel came up beside him. “This must be the way it looked long ago.”

  “I don’t believe that,” said Wes.

  The third marker, three massive boulders, looked the most different of all. The rocks were no longer leaning against each other, but standing upright, their back ends wedged securely in the hillside. Suddenly Emily grabbed Daniel’s arm as a silver fox trotted out of the shadows, its shiny coat catching the sunlight. The creature stopped to look at the humans, as if they were only mildly interesting, then disappeared into a thicket.

  “I’ve never seen one of those before,” Wes breathed.

  Daniel agreed. “Not around here. They were hunted to extinction before Grandpa’s time.”

  They continued on. Rounding the far side of the island, they broke free of the trees. To their amazement, the thistles, firethorn, and poison oak that had barred their way had mostly disappeared. In their place stood swaying, waist-high flowers, a tide of white and rose mallow blooms such as they had never seen.

  “This looks like an easy way to get to the stream,” Daniel said.

  “Why didn’t we know about this?” said Wes.

  They waded through the flowers as through waves of applause, and soon found themselves at the stream bank.

  “Hey,” said Wesley. “What happened?”

  Where wide, murky water had made its surly way around an unreachable island, there was now nothing more than a brook, clear and bright in the late sunlight, and so narrow it could easily be jumped across.

  “Impossible,” said Wesley under his breath.

  Emily looked at him, remembering. “That’s what Grandma Byrdsong said. It’s an impossible island.”

  “Actually,” said Daniel, “right now it looks very possible.”

  She nodded. “It kind of does.”

  “So,” he said, looking at the others. “Who wants to go first?”

  “Your son,” said Sloper as the men prepared to sit down to dinner. “Quite a boy.”

  “You mean Daniel?” said Crowley, taking his seat.

  Three of Sloper’s aides pulled out their straight-backed chairs and sat down heavily.

  “He risked a great deal last night to steal the map from me.”

  “Map?”

  “Please, my friend, don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know.”

  “Where is Daniel?” Crowley glanced around as if he might have overlooked him. “And Wesley.” He turned to his wife, just then coming in with the roast chicken—a skinny one. It had been the last bird left in the coop. “Gwen? Have you seen the boys?”

  She shook her head. “If you mean Danny, not since last night.” She set the platter on hot pads and stepped back. “When we were all out there searching for Bridey.”

  “He didn’t come back?” said her husband.

  “Ever since the boys started sleeping in the barn, I hardly know where they are.”

  “They didn’t show up at the store, either.”

  “Enough,” interrupted the captain, bunching his napkin in his fist. “You can stop the charade. I know what you’re up to.” He looked around the table. “Don’t look surprised.”

  Crowley’s face was a nest of confusion. “Captain,” he said, “you have to forgive me. My children don’t tell me what they’re doing. What were you saying about a map?”

  Sloper briefly closed his eyes. “Don’t.”

  “But …”

  “Next you’ll tell me you don’t know about the caches of weapons hidden in the woods.”

  “Weapons?”

  “It was all there on the map.” Sloper leaned back in his chair. “As you very well know.”

  “As I …?”

  Sloper held up a hand. “Please. You lie so badly.”

  “Gwen,” said Crowley, “do you know about this?”

  Mrs. Crowley lifted her head bravely. “Just that there was a fire upstairs in Daniel’s room.”

  “Well, we all know that,” said her husband. “You can smell it all over the house.”

  Gwen turned to the captain. “How is it up there now? Is it livable? I’ve been airing it out all afternoon.”

  Sloper slammed his fist down on the table. Wine sloshed from the glasses and the chicken jumped on the platter. “Damn it! Stop!”

  No one spoke.

  “We know,” Sloper growled, “that three children are missing: your two boys and that girl over at the Byrdsong place. We also know that your boy was willing to burn down the house to keep me from reading the map.”

  Crowley opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

  “Why?” Sloper’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  Again, Crowley almost spoke.

  “I’ll tell you why,” the captain supplied. He refilled his wine glass and drained it in a gulp. “He was afraid I’d learn the secret. But we all know the secret, don’t we? We know the weapons are stored on the island!”

  “What!”

  “So simple,” the captain continued. “So clever. Who would think this quaint backwater town was a hotbed of insurrection? Very likely it’s the supply post for the whole rebellion!”

  “Now that’s ridic—”

  “An island no one can get to. A place everyone’s afraid of, surrounded by superstition, protected by quicksand and snakes.”

  “Captain, listen,” Crowley objected.

  “If I wanted to hide something, I couldn’t find a better place. But since your son has deprived us of the map, we don’t know the precise locations. So we’ll just have to shell the whole island.”

  Gwen stood up, her hand fluttering to her chest. “You wouldn’t.”

  “You know we’re planning to test out our new artillery,” said Sloper. “Let’s see if we can’t blow up some weapons at the same time—along with anybody who happens to be over there guarding them.”

  Gwen’s face froze.

  Sloper looked up at her. The ghost of a smile played around the corners of his mouth. “What is it, Mrs. Crowley? You don’t look well.”

  The island was edged with evergreens and curtained with vines. Stepping through them was like leaving the sunny outdoors and entering a cathedral, with ceilings so high they were lost in the gloom. Once within, the three friends found that the evergreens tapered off quickly. Beyond lay an open woods of massive trees. Daniel thought he knew every kind of tree there was, but many of these he didn’t recognize.

  There was a scent in the air, too, familiar yet elusive, and the sounds, half-lost in the foliage, of many birds, whole choirs of them, singing and hushed at the same time.

  Wesley, always the scientist, bent down to examine the dark-leaved bushes he was wading through. It was then that he saw the violets beneath. The forest was carpeted with them, the air giddy with perfume.

  They walked on, marveling at how much taller these trees were than the ones they knew. These woods had never been thinned by loggers or tamed by campers. Muscular vines climbed huge trunks and disappeared in the forest canopy.

  Daniel suddenly froze as he realized that one of those vines, thicker than the others, was not a vine at all. Large as a fire hose, a gleaming green snake was making its way slowly up over the chunky bark of a chestnut oak.

  Wes saw it, too. Then Emily. No one said anything. Probably no one breathed.

  They went on. They went on for quite a while.

  “Did you see that?” said Emily suddenly.

  The boys looked where she was pointing. A flash of red and a moment of black that could have been anything. Then the foliage grew still.

  Daniel didn’t know whether to investigate or keep on the way they were going. The
y decided to keep going.

  “Hey, Danny,” said Wes after a while. He stopped to catch his breath. “Shouldn’t we be getting to the other side?” He ran his arm across his forehead.

  “You’d think,” said Emily.

  They pushed on another ten minutes. Daniel would have been happy to keep going. Just breathing the scented air gave him a feeling of lightness, as if gravity were somehow less grave here, and his pack lighter. But his brother was worn out.

  “Wait,” Wesley called out. “I gotta sit down.”

  They found a fallen tree, like a giant’s outflung arm, and sat on its wrist.

  “Sure this isn’t a snake?” said Emily, smiling.

  “Drink of water?” Daniel offered. They all took sips from the canteen. He looked at his brother. “You okay?”

  “In case you don’t remember, we didn’t get any sleep last night. And we’ve been hiking all day.”

  “I know. The place looks a lot bigger from the inside than from the outside.”

  “It’s like it doesn’t end.”

  “Are you all right to keep going?”

  Wesley shrugged.

  Daniel nodded. “You too, Em?”

  She lifted her head, listening. “Wait.” She held up a hand. “What’s that?”

  A distant sound, almost like a woman’s voice, hovered in the air, sourceless. Then a breeze picked up, rustling through laurel and rhododendron, and for some seconds they couldn’t hear anything else.

  The breeze subsided. There it was again, distant but unmistakable, a woman’s voice. It was singing!

  “Mama!” cried Emily. She set off at a run.

  “Wait for us!” Daniel started after her.

  Wesley tried to keep up, but he was really tired. The girl was already out of sight and his brother nearly so.

  Daniel glanced back. He had to catch up with Emily, but there was his brother, struggling. “Hey,” he called, “come on!”

  “I’m coming!” He wasn’t coming very fast, though.

  “She’s too far ahead! We’ll lose her!”

  “You go on.” He was leaning against a tree.

  Daniel started back. “Hey, kid,” he said. The brothers sat down at the foot of a juniper. The ground just there was covered with moss, green, soft, and damp. “You okay?”

  Wes nodded.

  “Just winded?”

  No answer.

  “Let’s see that backpack,” said Daniel. “Anything left to eat?”

  “Sure.” The boy rummaged through and came up with bread, cheese, an apple, and half a brownie. The pine nuts had spilled into the bottom of the pack, among the lint and crumbs. Saving some food for Emily, he put together a sandwich and cut it in half.

  The brothers sat cross-legged, not speaking. The wind had died away where they were, but high above them, in the leafy canopy, it was making a racket. Underneath that sound was another, low-pitched and steady—not a human voice this time, but as if the world were humming to itself.

  “Strange place,” said Wesley, yawning.

  “It is.”

  They fell silent, hoping to hear Emily trudging back toward them, but she didn’t appear. There was only the wash of wind, the scuttle of squirrels, and the thousand barely audible sounds of an intense but invisible life.

  Wes got comfortable on a cushion of moss and leaves. The scent of violets drifted over him.

  “Tell you what,” said Daniel. “Why don’t you rest while I try to find Emily?” He pulled a red bandanna from his pocket and tied it to an overhead branch. “This’ll help me find you.”

  His brother answered with a grunt, already half-asleep.

  Good old Wes, thought Daniel. He’s had a tough day. He turned and headed in the direction Emily had taken, looking for scuffed leaves and the occasional snapped twig that would tell him where she’d gone.

  He thought he heard something—something beyond the noises he was making. Stopping to look around, he saw a tall linden tree some thirty feet distant, its top swaying unnaturally. There was that flash of color again, a patch of red within the dark green of the foliage. Daniel squinted and for a brief moment saw clearly: a man, small and wiry, wearing an old-fashioned red waistcoat.

  “Hey!” Daniel hurried toward him, but the man was gone. “Who are you?”

  Nothing.

  How can there be somebody on an island no one can get to?

  Well, he would find Emily, at least. But there were no signs to go by, no singing voice to follow. The light, dim to begin with, was growing vaguer as afternoon declined toward evening. The woods were crowded with shadows. He was up to his waist in them. Then up to his neck. He continued on, but with the sun going, and then gone, it was hard to judge his direction. Another ten minutes and he had to admit it: he was lost.

  “Wes!” he called out. “Emily!”

  He listened hard, but could hear only the whispered confidences of leaves and the occasional snap of a twig as night animals began to stir. Alone in the forest, he felt surrounded, hemmed in. To shake the feeling, he ran on, heedless now of his direction. He tripped over a fallen branch and went sprawling, scraping his forearm where he’d tried to break his fall.

  Now that was smart!

  Still on hands and knees, he looked up, and the breath suddenly caught in his throat, for he found himself staring at something not to be believed: a ghostly leopard, milk white, not twenty feet away, sitting in profile like a sphinx under the boughs of a juniper tree. Amazed, he watched as the great cat slowly turned its head to look at him, its eyes clear blue and impersonal as ice.

  Daniel hardly breathed, lest the apparition vanish, or worse, pounce and tear him to pieces. He was sure there could be no defense against those bright, in-curving fangs.

  Silently the leopard rose to its feet. It walked off a short distance, stopped, and looked back.

  Go on! I’m too scrawny for you to eat!

  The animal went a few steps farther, then stopped again, looking back.

  What do you want? Then the answer came. He wants me to follow him!

  “I don’t think so,” Daniel said aloud.

  The animal tilted its head quizzically. Then it turned, walked a few more steps, and looked back.

  The boy started to follow, keeping his distance and trying not to make noise in the ankle-deep leaves. The creature trotted ahead and again stopped.

  Daniel’s fear was great, but he went on, his heart beating hard.

  Evening, meanwhile, had perfected itself into night. Small, nameless creatures scuttled through nearby bushes, and a screech owl let out a scream from the fortress of an oak. Daniel hardly noticed. He was concentrating on the retreating whiteness ahead of him. Always beyond reach, it never disappeared entirely.

  Then it did, just as Daniel stumbled free of the underbrush to find himself in a clearing amid tall grasses silvered with moonlight. Nor was moonlight the only illumination. A glimmer of phosphorescent moss lit the grasses from beneath, giving the place an unearthly glow.

  Daniel searched the surrounding darkness, but the creature that had led him here was nowhere in sight. Had he seen what he thought he’d seen?

  Creatures like that don’t exist! he told himself. Not in this part of the world.

  The wind gusted up, turning the grasses into silver-tipped waves. That’s when he heard the humming, low and soft, and realized it was coming from the surrounding trees. In that part of the forest, the trees were tall and thin, like tuning forks, and Daniel guessed the wind blowing through them had created the strange, almost human sound.

  He started across. The thigh-high grasses were flinging about in the wind, and he was struck by the wild beauty of the scene. Then, abruptly, he stopped, fear spiking as he realized how close he’d come to walking straight into an immense spider web, some ten feet across. It was only because of the moonlight that he’d seen it, the myriad strands transmuted into spun silver.

  Gradually the panic subsided. There was no sign of the creature that had spun the web, co
nnecting it to trees on either side of the clearing, but it was bound to be nearby. He could only imagine its size.

  As a breeze made the web shimmer, something about it caught his eye. He realized there was a pattern within the pattern, and that at the center of the web’s great spiral stood an upright rectangle, several feet tall, outlined not in pale silver but in white gold, or golden white, like moonlight laced with sunlight.

  A door, he thought. He remembered the stories he’d heard from the old farmers when they’d come into his dad’s grocery store. They’d talked about a mysterious door in the forest that led—well, they didn’t know where it led. How could they? It was just a story they’d heard as children.

  Daniel didn’t remember their saying anything about a leopard, much less why it should lead him to this strange place. That was for him to discover.

  He dared not think the next thought, but the thought came anyway: It’s a door. I’m supposed to go through it.

  What, he wondered, if it were a trap? What if the island were evil, as some thought? What if he were being lured to a horrible death? After all, to be caught in a web and … and eaten!

  In spite of the warmth of the night, he found himself shivering. He wanted fiercely to turn back. And he should. Wesley needed him. His little brother shouldn’t be left alone out there in the forest.

  But Daniel knew he was making excuses. What he feared stood right in front of him, trembling.

  A door.

  I’m supposed to go through it.

  He could tell himself it was for Emily, to find and rescue her. He could say it was for Bridey Byrdsong, that strangely lovable witch-woman who had so thoroughly disappeared. But the truth, at that final, fateful moment, was that he just had to know what was on the other side.

  He held out his arm before him, took a deep shuddering breath, and stepped forward.

  Wes Crowley dreamed that he was dreaming.

  In the rustling darkness, he saw glowing eyes: split yellow eyes, heartless blue eyes, infernal red eyes, coming closer, closer still. But he refused to listen to his fear. It’s all right, he told himself. I’m just dreaming.