“He will be aware of the shift in the balance of our forest, but we need to go to him to prepare what is to come.
“I am going to take a small band of courageous rangers deeper into the forest to seek support. Zephyr and Sylvane, I ask that you fly by my side.”
For a fleeting moment Alice felt her heart sink until Dianah turned to her and said, “Alice, we clearly need your leadership as well.”
Inadvertently her head bowed, ever so slightly, and her chest swelled with pride.
It would appear that, finally, she had been accepted by the woodland nymph elders.
She didn’t have time to worry about the dangers ahead, the uncertainties and the scale of the task. All she could think to herself was “I mustn’t let them down” as she headed back to her little house to pack a few things for the journey, which wasn’t easy, not knowing at all what to expect.
Yet, right on cue, she could swear that something yawned then stirred on the side table as if to suggest, in a voice that she may or may not have heard in her head, “Well, what more could you need?”
Mother had not been oblivious to the nocturnal wanderings of her children. Not oblivious at all.
In fact, she had secretly watched them coming and going from their cabin in this lost part of the forest since either was barely able to walk.
They were always so excited by their adventures that they never dreamed that she was watching them through supposedly tight eyelids.
And, like many children, they were so blinded by that innocence that affects most children, that notion that you are the first and only child ever to have grown smarter than the silly Olds, that you forget to notice that the adults really do see. Because, you see, they have most likely seen it all before.
For once, as hard as it may be to believe, they were special children too.
Alice had grown so used to the cloak of boring and preoccupied that Mother very deliberately wore that she had started forgetting she was there. And that is one of the sad parts of growing up, for parents and children too.
But, even if Alice had somehow bothered to watch her sleeping mother’s eyes, there was something she would never be aware of. Because her mother had never shown this side to either of her children. It was known as the power of the all-seeing or the third eye.
Reaching to the back of the large fire place, taking great care not to dip the frayed edges of her throw in the still-glowing embers, she found the hidden ledge and brought down a package wrapped in dark cloth.
Unwrapping it with well-practised hands, she revealed a small cast iron pot on legs. An ominous smile passed across her face as she took a flask from somewhere inside the folds of her covering, uncorked it and drank the contents.
She then crushed the glass flask into the bottom of the small cauldron, waited a few brief moments and then regurgitated the liquid from her stomach onto the glass, with a gasp. It instantly started to bubble and swell until a liquid with a quicksilver consistency filled the pot.
“Now, my little ones,” she whispered in a cracked voice, the strain of the dark magic showing. “Let us see how you do the bidding of your destinies. Show me where the darkness spreads as this deliciously dire disease takes a tighter hold.”
While she sat by the dying fire watching the story of the children’s adventures playing out before her in the flickering depths of the cauldron, she too had forgotten to remain entirely alert.
Something was watching the watcher.
In the furthermost recess of the roof, in a gap between the thatch and a wooden beam, a lone wood nymph was taking in the strange scene.
What the good-spirited Nimbus saw troubled him. It troubled him more than he dared to think or could say.
For he had seen the wicked person in this scene before him before and, for Alice in particular, this was going to be very, very bad news indeed.
What the cauldron revealed was Henry, now transformed beyond recognition, in full lycan, weirwilde form, arriving at what looked like a carcass of something recently slain.
At first it looked like a very large creature, but it soon became apparent that it was a number of his kind feasting in the same set of shadows.
The others became agitated at his arrival and started snarling and winnowing, making a sort of “whoop, whoop” noise, baring their teeth and slouching their backs.
It was clear that he had some form of respect amid their kind and that what appeared to be a decent-sized pack were well acquainted with each other.
Just then the quicksilver mirror misted over and the scene shifted to one Nimbus knew well, the fern canopy on the fringes of their glade.
The crystal force field was clearly barring the dark magic from penetrating further, but the picture became clearer the more the small band of travellers moved from its centre.
Something between a smile and a sneer spread on the face of the werewytch as she watched. The modest band was clearly heading across the fertile meadow to the deepest and darkest recesses of the forest where few venture. This seemed to please her as she cackled quietly to herself.
“Fly, pretties, fly. Soon you will have spun a path to the very beating heart of the final destruction of that odious family.
“They shall never possess your power.
“It will pass back to the shades and a new age will begin at last.”
Her cackling laugh froze Nimbus’s blood.
He dreaded to think how this dark news would affect his very special friend.
The party of winged warriors made its way carefully through the long grass and wild flowers of the meadow, where handsome gliss gliss foraged, startling a gathering of snuffling hedgehogs on the way.
They were unable to fly across this open space for fear of attracting unwanted attention. As everyone knows, enchanted creatures always leave a following stream of light when they take to the air and they were desperate not to be tracked.
Perhaps you’ve seen these trails yourself, out of the corner of your eye, when you’ve been camping in the woods, or on a nature walk after dark with the grown-ups?
When they eventually made the fringe that led the deepest part of the forest, the group paused to drink a little warming nectarmead wine and to nibble on raspberry sweetmeats.
“We need to keep our strength up,” said Sylvane as she passed the provisions around.
You could always rely on Sylvie to look after everyone. She had the kindest of hearts and everyone loved her for it.
Predictably, Dianah paced while they snacked, ever keen to keep on the move.
She looked every inch the warrior in her scarlet tunic, owl helmet and boots. Her famous hawthorn spear was strapped to her back, with its needle-sharp tip and ability to fire blasts of concentrated, pure light.
Dianah may be tough. But she realised they had all been through an awful lot.
However, she had come face to face several times with the evil now facing them, didn’t mind admitting that she was frightened and privately doubted whether they had the resources to see this battle out. For they were a peaceful, gentle folk at heart.
After a short while, however, her companions, as if sensing her unease, quietly slipped what they had left back into their small packs and they were soon on their way again.
Zephyr handed round the everlight torches he had been carrying.
They each snapped them to wake the finding fireflies inside, releasing a treacly feast for their companions in return.
“Show us the way little friends,” whispered Sylvane as, one by one, the companions followed the dark path into the gloomy artery that led to a place few of their kind had visited before and from where even fewer had returned to tell the tale.
Their route took them through a long avenue of dead pine trees that the forest creatures called the Hall of Sorrows. This was on account of the fact that so many alien species had been plan
ted, all close together, in soil so foreign to them, that they had simply given up. They now waited, like tall but fragile guardians of something that would not be kind.
It was particularly unnerving in there as nothing stirred, the pine-needle thatch having suffocated any form or hope of life or regrowth. But they came out the other side without misadventure.
Next they encountered the area of deep holes and pools from which the humans had harvested the stones, rocks and minerals they treasure. Many of these had part-filled with rainwater down the years and they took great care to avoid the watching eyes of dragons, crested newts and toads that called this their home for fear that the reptiles, notorious for their fluctuating loyalties, would notice their passing. But the frogs were certainly too busy wrestling with each other to pay them any heed.
There now remained one last hurdle on their journey, the Sky Lark meadow, which acted as a living moat around the sanctum of the mid-forest, the Greene Man’s domain.
While they paused to plan beneath the rotting bough of a long-fallen ancient elm, Zephyr heard something move behind them.
“Quiet,” he gestured, by holding a long index finger to his lips. He then pointed to where a black fox was slowly zig-zagging across their scent trail a short way behind.
“It is Vulpe,” he whispered. “She cannot be trusted, especially not here. We must go.”
But as they made to move on, Alice noticed that something was wrong. As she patted the spider silk holster, she realised, with horror, that it was empty.
The Willowand had gone!
Vulpe, the vixen, was, like most foxes, full of versatile cunning.
Foxes are neither dogs nor cats, neither weak nor strong, neither fast nor slow. They are, in many ways, the best of all those animals and tread a fine line between most things, including the so-called forces for good and ill. That is the secret behind their survival. And foxes are to be found all over the round world.
When the werewytch had traded several unmolested winter trips to her chicken coop to visit the plump ladies without reproach, bar a future call on her services, Vulpe was aware of the bargain being struck. But she had pups to feed and was now doing this role alone, since the humans had cruelly hunted and then slain her mate. She could still recall the sound the pack of dogs made when they caught him.
The fact that the wytch then approached her with the task of tracking the woodland nymphs, however, was a surprise.
Balance in Ashridge Forest was a delicate thing and the mystical folk normally kept themselves to themselves.
Yet, here she was, on their trail and tasked with sounding the alarm (for what she had no idea) upon finding them. And, from the freshness of their scent, it would not be long now.
The vixen slunk even lower, her sable brush tail sweeping the ground behind her as, guided by her sensitive nose, she glided along the trail. Within a couple of dozen silent steps, she approached the landmark elm tree where the tiny mystical fellowship lay concealed. Then she felt the moonlight sky darken.
Her vulpine instincts warned her to roll, and she did, narrowly missing the vicious claw of a ghost raptor.
As she tumbled and twisted more attacks zeroed in on her position and the air was alive with their screeching attack calls.
The ghosts of the forest were formidable foes, especially in numbers impossible to counter. So she turned and ran, snapping at the air as they continued to dive-bomb, aiming at her ears.
She arched her back as she felt talons tear into her ruff then leaped as she ran, dislodging her attacker. Finally she could use the tree cover as protection and the nymphs heard the cracking of branches and twigs for some time as the frightened fox fled.
The owls didn’t stop to receive any thanks due. They were famously aloof, as all owls are, and not the sociable kind.
But one did swoop over Alice as it passed with phantom-like wings, to drop off something it carried.
She waved to him as he turned and whirled away with an ear-piercing cry that doubtless set many a mouse aquiver.
Then she bent down and replaced the Willowand in the sheath about her waist before it decided to stray again. As she did so she noticed that all had become deathly silent since the owls had departed.
There was not even a vague rustle to be heard in the leaves, not a breath of a sound.
They began their onward journey to this backdrop of a silence that, if it were possible to do so, actually grew as they crossed the grass moat towards the royal copse of interlaced yew and oak.
Songbirds slumbered in their ground nests, brooding cleverly concealed eggs. Even the shrews and voles, usually so busy in the smallest of hours, seemed to be tucked tight away tonight.
Only Sylvane seemed unperturbed by the unmistakable force they could all feel as they approached the sentinel trees.
Her family were tree-life specialists, a very important role within woodland nymph society.
They are especially sensitive to the needs and the feelings of trees and plants and she could sense the warmth and energy in this gathering space upon the slight rise.
The crescent moon was positioned directly above giving everything a dream-like feel, as they tentatively crossed the threshold.
It took a while for even their magical eyes to adjust, but what they saw then filled them with awe.
For there, standing on an island in the middle of a crystalline pool, its mirrored surface highlighting every magnificent detail, was the noblest and most radiant being any of them had ever seen.
Everything about the space he occupied and touched seemed fertile and rich, bathed in a soothing and nurturing, gilded light.
“I have been expecting you.”
He spoke in a voice that didn’t so much travel across space but ran straight down each individual spine.
“But I know the news you bring is not what I had hoped to hear.”
The werewytch howled her disappointment and derision when the pulse of her incantation spell was broken by a positive power surrounding the owl mob attack.
She was furious and in her wretched anger threw over the dark, three-legged pot, spilling its hissing contents onto the cabin floor where it sank into the thirsty old boards.
“That filthy vixen must have alerted them somehow,” she cursed. “I shall see to it that those pups starve for what she’s done.”
Then she realised the consequences of her temper and that she would no longer be able to track Henry’s progress either. Her third eye would be blind for the night and this didn’t help her humour at all.
She drew her dark shawl about her and flew from the cabin in a hunched rage.
Perhaps a check of her animal snares would throw up something else for the pot.
As she disappeared in a hurry, Nimbus, undetected in the dark rafters, gingerly made his way down to the table. Then he noticed that there was something else inside the bunch of rags that she had taken from the back of the chimney stack.
He opened the folds carefully and came across a leather-bound black book. It was a fairly unassuming kind of a book, but something about it made him look closer.
He moved it towards the fire so he could see better. Opening it carefully, right on the preface page, was a picture of a tattered ship, barely afloat on a fierce and very angry sea. But that was it; the rest of the pages, although old and well thumbed, were blank and empty.
Flipping back to the cover, there appeared to be writing embossed on the front. But the years of soot and grime had partially obscured the words, making them hard to read.
So the brave nymph took off his bright green neckerchief, dipped it in a pot of water he found by a fireside chair and started to carefully rub away the dust and the dirt.
Eventually, he could make out a sentence in gold leaf, which read:
The Legend of the Lost
The tragic tale of a family, of love and
of hope.
But, as he paused to take in what he had just read, a creeping sensation warned him that he now had company and was no longer alone.
Book 3:
Voyage of the Romany Soul
Back at the village school the nastier children had laughed at him in human form for as long as he could remember, called him “slow brained”, “stupid” and, worst of all, “special needs” just because he was quieter and therefore different.
Well, if only they could see him now, in his true form as he ran miles without catching his breath, bounded over the highest of boulders with ease and, with one call, summoned up his friends, his pack, his gifted like minds.
Now that was being alive; that was being popular for what you truly are; that was power.
Alice tried everything she could to get more of a response from her willow companion, hoping that the enchanted wand would be able to tell them more about Hearne’s quest.
However it remained stubbornly lifeless for now, as if resigned to fate.
Dianah was ashen-faced and Sylvie almost hysterical, tears streaming down her lovely face.
“But we are just a few tiny, faerie folk, Di. How can we be expected to carry the fate of the forest on our shoulders?”
“We have to remember what Hearne said about destiny,” Alice said, speaking slowly and softly, almost as if she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else. “Everything about these events is happening for a reason; it has a purpose.”
“And our purpose, right now,” said Dianah, “is to get to that meeting place, across the Chalk Downs at the crest of the Fireills…”
Savannah didn’t surface from beneath the waves while Holly waited, so she half ran, half flew down the rocks back towards their crystal cave.
The tide was much higher and had cut off the entrance, but she was soon skimming over the foaming white horses, through the foliage curtain and into the magical space.
There, she was hugely relieved to see, was her recently fallen friend. She appeared a little scratched and battered and bruised but she sported a smile as well.
Legend of the Lost Page 6
