by Matt Haig
“Ibsen,” she said.
Uncle Henrik wiped the tear from her cheek. “I have never left your side all these years.”
“All these years,” echoed Aunt Eda, unable to hide the sadness in her voice.
They held the moment, and then Uncle Henrik said to Samuel, “Thank you for the cheese, by the way. It wasn’t as nice as the ‘Gold Medal,’ but it was tasty all the same. And not as deadly as Truth Pixie soup.”
“Oh,” said Samuel, embarrassed as he remembered how rude he’d once been to the dog. “That’s all right.”
Aunt Eda was going to say something else when she noticed a distant sound. A sound that hadn’t been heard in the forest for many years.
Uncle Henrik had heard it too, a strange but musical chanting. “I know that sound,” he said. “I heard it years ago. When I came into the forest before. It is the sound of huldres worshipping the sun. They must all be back in their village.”
Martha gasped in horror. “Huldres?”
Aunt Eda was confused. “But huldres don’t come out in the sun.”
“They used to,” said Uncle Henrik. “Before the changes.”
Samuel looked around at the trees that lined the clearing. They didn’t look evil or menacing anymore. They looked calm and peaceful and exactly the way trees should look. And then he saw a shape in the air. A raven, flying toward them.
The bird landed and turned into a beautiful woman. The Shadow Witch. She walked over toward them with her long, dark hair floating on the breeze. “The forest is at peace again,” she told them, breathing in through her nose as if the peace had a smell. “And I am young again, back to how I was before my dark deeds made me old and ugly. Everything is back to what it once was. It is a happy place once more. A paradise.”
Then the Shadow Witch looked at Martha. “Thank you,” she said.
“What for?”
“For saving my life.”
Martha looked confused, so the Shadow Witch explained.
“If you hadn’t walked into the forest, I would still be his servant.” And then she spoke louder, so everyone could hear. “All of you, you have saved me. And you have saved the forest. My sister’s death was not in vain. The Professor is dead. All his evil wishes will be reversed. And it is to you I owe my powers now. If you stay in the forest, you need never grow old. You need never die.”
“The forest will be a paradise again,” said Uncle Henrik.
And then they began to think about what paradise might mean.
“We could liff in peace and eat Truth Pixie soup and it wouldn’t hurt us,” said Aunt Eda, whose mouth watered at the thought.
“We could listen to songs all day long,” said Martha, who knew the Tomtegubb could sing wherever he wanted now.
“And we could sleep on a Slemp every night,” added Samuel, who was still rather tired. He noticed a tattered book lying on the ground near where the Professor had died. The Creatures of Shadow Forest. The book that had nearly squashed Samuel to death.
“Well, everyone,” said Uncle Henrik. “What shall we do?”
Aunt Eda considered. “Paradise is not a place,” she said. “If I am with you, all of you, I will be ferry happy whereffer I am.” Aunt Eda looked at the two children. “Samuel? Martha? Do you think we should stay in the forest?”
Samuel turned to his sister. “Martha,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
Martha frowned, as if thinking about a very hard sum. A sum that measured the value of singing Tomtegubbs against other things.
“I want to go home,” she said eventually.
“Me too,” said Samuel.
“Home?” Aunt Eda wasn’t sure which home they meant.
“With you,” said Samuel. “And Uncle Henrik.”
“Home, where you have to go to school?” Aunt Eda asked. “Where you have to eat smelly brown cheese?”
This was a good point, and Samuel considered it for a while.
He remembered what his dad told him. You can find happiness anywhere, son, if you look hard enough. It might be harder to find happiness among a foreign school and breakfasts of brown cheese than in a magical forest, but he was willing to try.
“Yes,” said Samuel. “Home.”
And so it was that they began their journey home, passing spickle-dancing pixies, harmless woodpeckers, sleeping Slemps and singing Tomtegubbs. They walked softly through Trollhelm, and by the stone house where the Troll family Samuel had known were inside asleep, still unaware that the forest outside had been changed.
They walked through the huldre village, where smiling creatures had returned and were carving sun sculptures out of wood and chanting their hymns to the sun. Samuel knew, in that moment, that huldres would never appear in his nightmares again.
“Now,” said Aunt Eda as they approached the edge of the forest. “Are you sure you want to leave the forest behind. Because when we are back in the outside world we will want to keep this a secret. We can be happy to live near such a magical place, but it might be best not to tell anyone. Do we all understand?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Henrik, Samuel and Martha all at once, like people saying a prayer in church. “We understand.”
Then they hesitated, just for a moment, before stepping out from the shade of those final pine trees. And there it was—the white wooden house, the driveway, the washing line. In the distance they could see the fjord, and the mountains, and the road leading to Flåm. Aunt Eda slipped the bracelet from her wrist and placed it in her pocket, not knowing if she would ever need it again.
Martha smiled when she saw the house and placed her hand inside her brother’s. It felt as natural as the grass beneath their feet.
“So,” said Uncle Henrik in his melted-butter voice. “Here we are again.”
As they walked down the grass slope, Samuel gently squeezed his sister’s hand, and she gently squeezed it back.
This is it. This is our home.
As he had that thought, Samuel looked up to the sky and saw a raven flying high above. The raven circled in the air and waited for the four of them to reach the house. It stayed there, flapping its wings, as Aunt Eda opened the door and led everyone inside. Samuel waited for a moment, on the doorstep, and cast one final glance at the bird. To any other eyes, it could have been the most natural sight. Just a bird flying near a perfectly ordinary forest.
Samuel smiled.
He knew it was the Shadow Witch, watching them safely home.
THE END
(Which was really just a beginning.)
