by E E Rawls
This face had half a torso attached, its arms clinging to a tree as if in sleep, all smooth bark surface, hair and eyelashes a tangle of moss.
Madnes gripped Drisel’s hand. What light filtered down from the canopy was fading fast.
Was it a trick of shadow, or did one of those closed eyes in the bark move?
Chapter 30:
The Haunted Ones
MADNES TUGGED ON DRISEL’S hand, hurrying to get as far away as possible from the grove of trees and human faces sunk in bark. Daylight had fallen fast—faster than he had anticipated.
At nightfall, the Haunted Ones roam the forest in search of those who don’t belong.
He had to find Ash and Nico before they found them. “And before they find us,” he murmured.
The mist, hovering in the forest canopy during the day, now descended, its tendrils wrapping around roots and forest growth. He couldn’t see his boots. It was like wading through swamp water.
Damp air stirred around him as if the forest had let out a breath. Tree limbs cracked and wood groaned. Something rumbled briefly along the ground.
Drisel grabbed at his hand with both of hers, and her head turned every which way in the darkness. He could barely make out her features, the light vanished so swiftly.
“Mr. Madnes,” she spoke in a whisper. “The forest is waking up.”
A deep, throaty rumble passed through the surrounding trees before all went eerily silent.
“The children of the forest...they’ll find us.”
Madnes urged her to keep moving, his hand in hers a comfort. “You leave the worrying to me. For now, just focus on finding your friends.”
As soon as the words left his lips, a shadow moved swiftly from behind one tree to another, darker than night. He stared at the spot not far away. “Keep moving, Drisel.”
The mist took on a faint blue glow with the onset of deep night. Much as it unnerved him, the faint glow was a source of light that they needed, however dim it was. He hurried the girl onward, weaving around gray shapes of moss-buried trunks and reaching vines.
“Ash! Nico!” He called out as low as he could without actually shouting. It felt like his voice wasn’t carrying at all, the thick air grasped and extinguished the words.
A second shadow dashed across his vision. He whipped around to face it. Wood groaned and creaked in the night.
A tree limb suddenly reached for his back.
Madnes let go of Drisel and fell sideways, and the bark hand missed. He rolled back up to his feet.
A shadow in the shape of a human glided toward Drisel, a pair of eyes glowing void of life. A Haunted One.
She screamed, and Madnes yanked her by the wrist, pulling her away. He scooped her up in his arms, putting his power-charged legs to work. He dodged, ducked, and bounded—weaving his way in the opposite direction of the following shadows. Could he lose them somehow? The forest felt thicker, closing in around them.
Running on what was once a path, Madnes wondered if his vision was going double or if the trees now tangled closer and closer together, working to choke out the path and stop their escape.
The forest will do whatever it can to keep you...
He spared a glance over his shoulder. A shadow and glowing eyes trailed the path after them, gliding effortlessly and swiftly toward their fleeing backs. Hands encrusted in bark reached out, tangles of hair and leaves flowed back from a too-human face.
Madnes swung his head back around to speed up his pace, and came face-to-face with white, pupilless eyes.
“Ahh!”
A twig-and-skin hand swiped for them, lethally sharp.
He shifted his arms and torso, holding Drisel, pulling her out of the way but exposing his back. Twig claws sliced through his jacket. He winced.
“Your soul. We want your soul.”
A second twig-hand reached, and Madnes struggled to twist around and veer off the path. But the Haunted One behind them had now caught up and drew near like a ghost. The voice, the void eyes, pulled at him like invisible ropes. His body shuddered, his soul inside his chest weakened under their gaze.
“Give it to us. Become one with the forest. Appease the forest. Serrrve the forest...”
The tread of his boots pressed into the soil as he launched himself off the path.
Bark fingers clawed the air for his hair, his arms, his jacket—just missing him.
The children of the forest screeched in rage, coming after him into the vine-and-root tangled depths.
‘I won’t make it—I need help!’ Madnes thought desperately.
But there was no help. No one was here to help, except for a fairy who wanted to eat away his life.
He thought back to his uncle’s faith, and made a decision.
‘God, if You do hear me and really care, please—please help us! If not for my sake, then for Drisel and her friends.’
Praying for help only when he absolutely needed it—that’s what most everybody did when they were in distress. Going about life, never thinking or caring about God until something bad happened. Then they prayed, then they cared. He was like that, and a part of him felt suddenly ashamed, asking for help when he’d never cared much about the Creator before.
‘If I never cared, then why should He care?’ he thought.
5 hours left, read the clock.
His leg muscles ached, tiring out. He would have to ask the fairy for more power than just muscle strength, and lose a portion of his life, if his body couldn’t continue.
He pushed on, struggling, and dove through a rising cloud of mist that suddenly billowed up before them. He desperately hoped it could somehow hide them.
“This way...”
Mist churned around him everywhere, stirred by the forest’s cool breath.
Groans and creaks sounded off to his left, then to his right.
He held Drisel close.
Something in the mist beckoned. A small shape with flowing hair. A palm outstretched like a ghost’s. “Come,” it said.
The voice sounded different from the others, an airy whisper.
Madnes took a chance and stumbled forward blindly after the fading image. The person vanished, and he used his free hand to feel out through the mist. His fingertips felt nothing but fog moisture at first, then a rough rock surface came across his touch, and he moved to duck down behind it, with Drisel huddled against his chest.
Chapter 31:
Child of the Forest
SHAPES MOVED THROUGH the billowing mist. Eyes like lanterns of the Haunted Ones came and went. Time ticked by like a steady rain, and Madnes feared to move and risk detection. His head started to feel stuffy, and his eyelids drooped down several times. He shook himself, trying to stay awake.
1 hour left.
No, no, there wasn’t time! Even if he found the orphan children, they’d still have to find their way out of the forest’s maze. One hour wasn’t enough—he had to find those kids now!
A faint beam of light drew softly through the mist.
It was followed by another, the faint light of dawn, he realized, and it broke through the canopy and gave the air a golden glow.
No more shapes moved about. The Haunted Ones were returning to their slumber. The thick fog retreated slowly back up into the shadowed niches of the trees, where it would wait until nightfall once more.
Madnes carefully stood and pulled a sleepy Drisel with him.
His boots sunk into wet soil, and he looked down to see they’d been hiding behind a boulder at the edge of a small pool, its water murky and layered with algae. A large tree overgrown with rich green mosses grew from the pool’s depths at a slant. An odd shape had perched on the lowest limb—and as sunlight chased shadows away, and dust mots glimmered in the air, Madnes watched the shape move and climb down.
Dappled light played across auburn hair, and a set of fair eyes locked onto him. The young kid hopped onto dry land and moved across the forest floor with ease on his bare feet. His tattered clothes rippled as if s
tirred by an unfelt breeze.
Drisel saw him and immediately wrenched herself free from Madnes. “Nico!” she cried and barreled into him.
He stumbled, and a faint smile touched his face. But there was a distant look in his eyes, a part that the smile wasn’t reaching. It made Madnes uneasy.
“Drisel...” Nico’s voice rustled like leaves in the wind. “You should not have risked your life to find us.”
“How can you say that?” Drisel held him by the arms, tears bubbling. But Nico’s gaze dropped down and away from her.
Madnes waited, studying the boy up and down. Tendrils of vines tangled throughout Nico’s hair, and velvety moss crawled up the sides of his face and the fronts of his arms and feet.
He was already a part of the forest.
“Nico?” Drisel asked again, concern marring her features. “What happened to you?”
Madnes stepped forward and placed a hand on her frail shoulder. “Is it too late?” Madnes knew he didn’t want to hear the answer the moment he asked. He was too late; of course he was. They never knew the exact time that Nico had entered the forest. They only had a rough guess based on when the other orphan, Ash, went in after him.
‘I failed... Darn it all, I failed!’
A fine thread held his emotions back, keeping the scream inside him leashed.
Nico met his gaze, then turned his face to the side with a sad look that contradicted the peaceful smile on his lips. “It’s not too late for him.” He nodded up at the mossy tree.
Propped up on intersecting branches was another boy, flecks glinting on the curls of his ash hair. He slept balled up in rags.
Nico stretched out his hand, and a limb from the tree wrapped around and lifted Ash, placing him carefully down beside Drisel. Ash’s eyelids fluttered halfway open.
“Drisel... Drisel?” Ash murmured, his eyes half glazed over. He was barely conscious, and specks of green speckled the flesh of his cheeks.
“He doesn’t have long,” said Nico. “You must take him out of the forest. I will help guide you, while I still have control over myself.”
Madnes nodded and scooped Ash’s limp form up in his arms.
THE NOISE OF SCURRYING limbs and angry growls sounded behind the trees as Madnes and Drisel hurried after Nico, who held Harrey’s compass and led them through the maze of green. Trees appeared to shift and gather like a wall to block their path, and Nico swiftly navigated them around—dodging roots that rose to snatch their feet.
The forest was fighting to keep them in.
Krrsh! A pack of blurry creatures with many limbs burst out of the underbrush near Madnes’s right—the creatures from before. He tried to lift Drisel while still carrying Ash, but the blurs were moving fast. He placed himself between them and the children, and shielded with his body, bracing for impact.
Nico thrust his palms out, fingers splayed, eyes flashing a vibrant green.
Wood crunched and ripped, and vines like whips dropped down and flung at the creatures—tangling them up like spider webs.
“Hurry!”
The foliage weaved thicker. Madnes and Drisel shoved their way through, knocking and pushing ferns and thorny bushes aside, climbing over roots that reached to drag them under the soil.
Following behind, Nico focused, trying to force the foliage back. “The forest is fighting my influence...she doesn’t want to let you go. You must hurry! I can barely hold it back...”
“Drisel, hold my arm!” Madnes told her. She didn’t hesitate.
With both orphans in tow, he charged forward.
KRrsh, krnch! Wood broke and vines snapped as he tore forward, a trickle of power bolstering his muscles. Welts across his arms and back stung, but he plowed ahead, forcing a way out whether the forest willed it or not, and losing his hat to the clawing branches in the process.
One final crack of a shoved-aside bush, and bright daylight beat down on them from a blue sky. His boots crunched upon the soil of an overgrown field.
They were out!
Drisel gave a joyful shout, and Madnes set Ash down as he released the power and a wave of weariness flooded through his body.
The girl turned back around and paused at the forest’s foggy edge behind them. “Nico?” she called and held out her hand. “You’re coming too, right?”
Nico met her hopeful gaze with regret. “This was all my fault, Drisel. I’m so sorry... Ash, I’m so sorry.”
She kept her hand out, until he finally explained, “It’s too late for me, Drisel.”
“No!” Drisel’s voice choked. She tried to grab his hand, but he pulled back, deeper into the leaves.
Ash sat up and stared after their friend, slowly regaining consciousness. Emotions wrote across his face the words that his mouth couldn’t yet say.
Nico’s gaze moistened. “I should’ve known better. We were warned about this forest, but I didn’t listen. I wanted to find us a home, so badly... I didn’t want to wait for God to provide, so I listened to a stranger instead.”
Tears rolled down Drisel’s trembling chin. Ash shakily got to his feet.
Nico reached out to lightly touch her cheek and Ash’s chest. “Don’t be sad. Maybe I’ll still be me, in a way, though I can never leave this place. I...will miss my other life with you.”
“And we’ll miss you,” Ash finally spoke.
It was a heart wrenching goodbye. Drisel and Ash finally left to walk across the field toward where Harrey and Knight Pelur stood waiting for them, hand in hand and glancing back more than once.
Madnes brushed tears from his cheeks and was about to follow.
“Madness Solver.”
He halted and turned back.
“Don’t blame someone else for the choices I made.” Nico’s gaze held him. “This wasn’t your fault, nor the Creator’s. I was warned, but I didn’t listen.”
Madnes was tempted to look away. He did feel like it was his fault. If he had been stronger, better at using the power, more clever, fearless, and...and...
A light hand touched his chest. Green tendrils stirred from an unfelt breeze along Nico’s arm.
“Don’t despair just because I couldn’t be saved, Madness Solver. Oswick still needs you.” A vine carried his top hat over and Nico brushed it off. “You dropped this.”
The familiar hat plopped down on Madnes’s head.
“How do you know about the Madness Solver?” asked Madnes.
“The forest told me. It’s a part of Wonderland.” Nico’s green gaze intensified. “Do this for me, will you? Save our world. Don’t let anyone else become like me.”
Madnes held the boy’s hand in his for one brief moment, one last goodbye. “I will...I promise.”
Nico’s smile was almost serene as Madnes left, looking back over a shoulder one last time.
“Tell me, who was the stranger that talked you into coming here?”
“He was like a crow, and yet human,” recalled the orphan. “He had blond hair and a smooth voice that tempted me to believe anything he said.”
Anger flared inside Madnes’s chest, and it felt like the air itself crackled.
“Oz.”
Chapter 32:
A Very Unmerry Day
RESTING SNUG INSIDE the Madness Solver office, Ash’s health steadily improved, the color returning to his cheeks. The group discussed where the orphans should stay now, since Madnes didn’t feel right about sending them back to the orphanage—a place they’d sacrificed so much to escape from.
“There’s plenty of room at my uncle’s place,” suggested Harrey. “It’s where I live, and I don’t think he’d mind having more pairs of hands to help out around the workshop.”
“It’s a workshop, Harrey. Not exactly kid friendly.” Madnes frowned.
Harrey waved that aside. “I was younger than these squirts when I first started tinkering in the shop! Besides, they look like clever kiddos.” He patted the orphans’ heads. Drisel smoothed her hair back down.
Madnes hesitated, but th
ere really wasn’t any other place they could stay. Harrey’s workshop-house had plenty of room, and he was good with kids. ‘Probably because he’s just like one,’ he thought. “Fine. But I’m holding you responsible if anything happens.”
Harrey waved his palms, “Okay, okay! Don’t get your knickers in a twist, dude.”
Madnes rolled his eyes and headed for the door.
“Where’re you off to?” Harrey called after.
“Out,” he replied tersely, “I need to clear my head.”
MADNES WALKED WITHOUT a destination, letting his feet take him wherever they willed. The day was too pretty for what had just happened that night, for the young life that had been lost.
Rain; he wished it would rain.
Nico, why couldn’t he save him? Why did it have to be too late to save him?
‘I’m to blame, no matter what he said. It’s my fault.’
And Oz’s fault. This was something that could not be forgiven. A life couldn’t be brought back.
Madnes spotted a bench and sunk down onto it, letting his face fall in his hands, blocking out the merry daylight from his sight.
“Broooody~ broooody~”
Madnes lifted his head a fraction. Someone was singing? Tiny, high voices were whining a tune.
He tilted his ear. It was coming from under the bench.
He craned his neck down to look underneath him.
A cluster of daffodils swayed there, merry and yellow, and their petal-mouths opened and sang: “Broooody, you are so broooody~ You’ve got nobooody to call your own~”
He grabbed a nearby bucket of rainwater and dowsed them.
The flowers coughed and hissed at him.
He hissed back. “Stupid daffodils. I am not brooding!”
They whined and hissed some more.
“Taking your anger out on flowers? Really, Madnes.”
His head whipped around, and his face went wide seeing Alice there.
She approached, sunshine playing in her short blonde hair, a purple bow in it today. She wore a skort, vest, and shirt blouse, all green shades like a forest elf.
