by David Ashby
“Goblin! Do I look like a goblin? Goblins are warty and wobbly and smell of stinky old apples and jimbleberry juice. Do I smell of stinky old apples and jimbleberry juice?”
Nils looked puzzled. “I… I don’t know what jimbleberry juice is.”
“Ex-stack-lee! If you could smell it, then you’d know it, and you can’t, so there you go. No goblin. Book, please.” He stretched his hand out even farther, wriggling his fingers.
Nils looked at his sister, who nodded slightly, and then carried on towards the little man, holding the book in front of him. He felt a slight tingle in his fingers as the odd little fellow took the book from him.
“Well, thank you muchly.” And with that, he slid the book into the front pocket of his waistcoat.
“Why… why couldn’t we open it?” asked Nils, rubbing his hands together to try to get rid of the tingling feeling.
“The book, you mean?” The little man adjusted his baseball cap and scratched his nose. The dog that wasn’t there could be heard licking itself a little. “It’s not that sort of a book. It’s not a book that you open and read, or even the sort of book you open and write in. It’s another sort of book.”
Anna stepped forward, still gripping her wrist. “What sort?”
“Well, you two are just dripping with questions today, aren’t you? And I’ve already told you that I am extremely late, so I must be on my way.” The little man pulled on the lead and started down the path again. Anna stared at him as he walked away, but Nils was staring intently at his fingers, the ones that had handed the book over. He wriggled them a little, blew on them, then stuck his hand out in front of Anna’s face.
“Look.”
Anna looked at her brother’s fingers, and her eyes widened. Scrolling across them seemed to be thousands and thousands of tiny letters and words, like when you whizz through text on a computer screen. She grabbed hold of his wrist and brought his hand closer to her face, so she could really see. After a moment, she looked at Nils.
“This probably isn’t good,” she said, and Nils gulped.
CHAPTER 6
Somewhere else, a smartly dressed man with oil-slick black hair and icicle-bright jellyfish-blue eyes was walking quickly and quietly, keeping to the shadows. In his hands was a very old, very heavy book and in his heart was nothing but greed and a longing for all he’d been promised.
His queen hissed and shivered with pleasure.
Soon. Soon she would be unbound. And then she would make up for all those lost years of steaming frustration, and the horrors within her would run wild once more. She laughed, and it was the sound of thorns scratching at a windowpane on an unfriendly and starless night.
CHAPTER 7
Jack Broadsword strode purposefully through the Darkwood. It was approaching dusk, and he knew it wasn’t wise to be here. Nobody should be alone in the Darkwood after sunset, not even a warrior with a hefty steel sword at his hip. He stopped for a second when he thought he heard the howl of the tanglewolves, but they sounded distant, so he thought it was safe to carry on. How long had he been asleep under that tree? And why on earth had he fallen asleep there at all? He had places to be and things to do.
Jack wondered again about the strange little book he had found with his name in it. Where had it come from? Why did those other names seem familiar? Who was this Mandy Musgrave, whose name he had in his head? There was something else scratching at him too—some other impulse or urge or worry tickling the back of his neck and niggling at him. Jack stopped short when it came to him: he mustn’t be late home for tea, or his mum would be worried. Jack put the heel of his right hand to his brow and pressed hard against his right eye. He needed to think straight, and he needed to get out of the Darkwood. The tanglewolves were howling again, closer this time.
CHAPTER 8
They had hurried home through Timberton Woods, not seeing the little man again. Maybe he had broken into a run or ducked into the woods themselves—they didn’t know, but they were eager to get home, somewhere normal, somewhere that felt safe. Now they were sitting in the small, cosy kitchen. It was a little after four o’clock and no one else was home, so it was only the two of them. Anna had made them some ham sandwiches and hot chocolate, so they were sitting there, leaning over steaming mugs of froth and staring at Nils’s left hand.
“Does it hurt?” asked Anna.
“It tingles, but it doesn’t hurt. I can almost kind of feel the words and letters tickling across my skin, but that’s all it is—more a tickle or a tingle.” He looked at Anna. “Is it dangerous, do you think?”
She blinked once, and then smiled kindly at him. She could see that he was scared. “I don’t know, Nils. I really don’t. But it’s good it doesn’t hurt.”
“Do you think I need to go to the doctor or something?” He bit his lip. Nils hated going to the doctor; he didn’t like the way it smelt and all the waiting on the sticky chairs.
“I don’t think it’s really a doctor kind of thing. It must be to do with the book and the little man. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.” She reached out and held Nils’s wrist, keeping his hand still. “I keep thinking I can read what it says, but then everything moves so fast and I can’t.”
Nils banged his other hand on the tabletop so hard that the plate of ham sandwiches fell to the floor. “Silly, stupid little man!” he exclaimed.
“Nils!” scolded Anna.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “But I bet he was a goblin, and I bet that was a magic book, and now I’ve got magic spilled all over my hand and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.” And he, very gently, started to cry.
CHAPTER 9
The Darkwood was home to many strange creatures. As long as you kept to the paths and didn’t venture in there after the sun set, there was a pretty good chance you wouldn’t get to meet any of them, and that would be a good thing. As Jack quickened his pace, with his hand on his sword, he remembered the rhyme they used to sing when he was a child:
Darkwood dark and Darkwood cold,
No one knows all the Darkwood holds.
Little Jimmy Tinderspit wandered on his own,
Little Jimmy Tinderspit never came home.
Darkwood dark and Darkwood cold,
We all know not to be bold.
Sweet Bonnie Applecheeks went to pick cherries,
Now Sweet Bonnie Applecheeks is set to be buried.
Darkwood dark and Darkwood cold,
There are blacker terrors still, yet to be told.
He shivered. Jack knew it was only a rhyme meant to scare children away from somewhere that wasn’t safe, but it still resonated with him. He really wanted to be out of the wood and back on the main road, heading for home. Why on earth had he ventured so far into the Darkwood so late in the day? And why had he fallen asleep? His stomach growled a little and again the thought came to him: Hurry home, you’ll be late for tea and Mum will be worried. Where did that strange thought come from? His parents were long dead. He sighed and looked up at what little of the sky he could see through the treetops—it would soon be night.
Suddenly he heard movement behind him. He whirled round with his hand on his sword and saw a tall, slender man leaning back against a tree. The man’s arms were crossed, as were his feet at the ankles. He wore high, scuffed, black leather boots, dark-brown trousers tucked into them, a frock coat of the brightest scarlet, a black T-shirt with a picture of a bat’s head and the words Drink Blood on it, and had blue-black hair that reached down to his shoulders. His eyes were bright and lively, and he was smiling at Jack.
“Hiya, Jack. You’re out late.” He moved his head down and to the left and spat something black and sticky to the ground. “And so are the tanglewolves. Lots of them.”
Jack relaxed a little at the sound of the familiar voice, but kept his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“I like your T-shirt, William.”
The tall man instinctively looked down at his chest and then back up at Jack. “This
? It was on sale, but it is apt, don’t you think?” He winked.
Jack nodded, then started walking again. “But, as you say, the tanglewolves are out in force tonight, and I don’t want to meet them. I don’t think you’d want to either, William.”
“Well,” said the man, pushing himself away from the tree and following Jack, “You know that the tanglewolves wouldn’t bother me, although I suppose they would be a distraction. But…”
William caught up with Jack and put one hand on his shoulder to stop him. He pulled him round slightly to look at him closely.
“Something’s changed with you, Jack. What is it? There’s something in your eyes, something—”
Before he could finish, Jack knocked the hand away from his shoulder and turned back to his path out of the woods. “Don’t touch me, William.”
William nodded his head very slightly. “Yes, sorry, I forgot. It still hurts?”
Jack ignored the question and kept his gaze and his stride ahead.
“Jack, wait. I’m sorry, really, I’m sorry. Let me come with you.”
Jack was about to reply when the low growl of a tanglewolf broke through the other sounds of the forest. He came to a sudden stop as two yellow eyes and a flash of sharp white teeth burned out of the darkness. “William!” exclaimed Jack, more out of shock than anything else.
But William Wynn was gone. Only Jack and the tanglewolf were left.
CHAPTER 10
Anna stood up, put her arms around her little brother and laid her cheek on the top of his head. She could smell the familiar scent of his favourite Spider-Man shampoo and the leafy smell of Timberton Woods.
“Shh. Shh, Nils. It’s all right, it’s all right. We can sort it out.”
Nils sniffed back a few tears and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “When will Mum and Dad be back? They’ll know what to do. Won’t they?”
Before Anna could answer, there was a loud, insistent banging at the back door of the kitchen. It was less like someone knocking to let you know they were there and more like someone trying to break down the heavy wooden door. Anna instinctively went over to it.
“What?” she snapped, as she pulled the door open.
Standing on the back doorstep was the little man from the woods. He still had the lead in his hand and he didn’t look happy.
“Thief!” he shouted, and he pushed his way past her and into the kitchen. “Thieves,” he said, when he saw Nils sitting at the kitchen table. “Just a pair of miserable, human, low-life, smelly thieves.” And he marched over to where Nils was sitting.
Nils stood up quickly and backed away; they could hear the dog that wasn’t there growling.
“You steal my book, throw it into the woods, ask me lots of ignorant, boring, human questions and then you suck the soul out of my book! Ugly, human weasels. Stupid, young thumbjabbers! Blotchy, pink FLESHBAGS! Which one of you smelly brutes has it?”
Now Anna was scared, but she was also becoming quite annoyed. She didn’t like that her brother was so scared and was crying. She didn’t like that this little man and his dog, that they couldn’t see, had scared her in the woods. And she most certainly didn’t like that this little man had come into the heart of their home, into a place that was meant to be safe and secure and warm and loving, and begun calling her and her brother horrible names. She especially did not like being called “smelly”. Anna followed him into the kitchen and called out: “You just stop right there, mister.”
The little man stopped his ranting and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Did the smelly human thief say something?”
Something snapped in Anna, and suddenly she wasn’t scared at all any more, or even annoyed. Now she was angry. “OUT!” she yelled, running towards the little man.
The dog that wasn’t there growled loudly, and she thought she could even hear teeth snapping, but she just looked down at where the dog ought to have been and yelled again.
“QUIET! You stupid invisible dog. Growl at me and my brother once more, and I’ll stick a broomstick up your stupid invisible bottom and use you as a stupid invisible broom!” She didn’t even know what that meant, but the dog stopped growling and whimpered a little bit.
“Now, you wait a grape-peeling moment…” began the little man, turning around to look at Anna properly.
“AND YOU!” yelled Anna again. “You are an ugly, badly dressed and rude little man. If there are goblins, and if there are unpleasant ones, then you are the most unpleasant goblin that anybody could ever wish to meet. This is my house and you…” and here Anna surprised herself—and Nils, and the dog that wasn’t there, and especially the little man—by reaching down and grabbing the little man by the scruff of his shirt and the back of his trousers, “…are not—”
“HEY! What are you doing? Gerroff!” complained the little man, as he was lifted off the greystone floor, dropping the dog’s lead in the process.
“…welcome in my house!” Here, Anna lifted the heavy little man to the door and actually threw him out. Nils’s jaw dropped open. “And you stay out!” she yelled, slamming the door.
Outside, the little man called out in pain as he landed in the nearest rose bush.
Inside, Anna looked at Nils, and Nils looked at Anna. Then they both turned towards the sounds of slurping and gulping, as the dog that wasn’t there wolfed down the ham sandwiches.
They could both, very clearly, see a disembodied tail wagging in mid-air.
CHAPTER 11
Backing slowly away from the growling shape in the dark, Jack’s fingers tightened round the handle of his sword. If the tanglewolf leapt at him, he knew he wouldn’t have time to unsheathe it before he felt the creature’s ragged, hot breath and cutting teeth. Tanglewolves lived to kill. As he backed away, it moved slowly out of the darkness, its head down low and hackles raised high. Jack could smell the animal now: a rangy, sour-meat smell. This beast was only the scout, searching for prey. Jack knew the rest of the pack would soon be here, and then he would have no chance at all. If he was going to survive, this was his only opportunity to escape.
As he edged back and the tanglewolf prowled forwards, he could more easily make out the wolf’s fur standing up on its back, the ears dropped low, the skin around its mouth pulled back to better showcase those sharpsliver teeth, and of course, its tail. The tail was a tanglewolf’s most dangerous weapon and what gave them their name. The tail coiled around behind the animal, at least twice as long as the body and head of the wolf itself, moving like an angry, swaying snake. The tail allowed the wolf to hang from branches of trees, to grab prey and squeeze until that prey had no breath left. And when that tail moved fast enough, it could knock a horse to the ground.
Tanglewolves could kill with teeth and tail, savage you in a second from any angle. But that wasn’t what was scariest about them. What was scariest was how, suddenly and without warning, a dark, wet mist would start to rise up from the tanglewolf’s fur. First you wouldn’t be able to see the creature, then you wouldn’t be able to see your own hand in front of your face; next the mist would wrap itself greedily around you, and you’d know that in just a heart’s breath you’d hear the beast launch itself at you, and you would feel claw or tooth or tail, and the ripping would begin…
That same dark mist was appearing now, steaming up from the silver-grey coat of the wolf and shrouding it, as the shadowbeast edged closer to Jack. The tanglewolf raised its head and howled a song into the nightening sky. The pack, close now, responded with a wild chorus of sharp delight.
Funny, thought Jack, I never thought it would be a tanglewolf that did for me. The mist grew thicker and darker all around him.
All at once, there was a beating of wings behind him, above him and around him. The mist fluttered a little and Jack thought he could see something ragged and fast, moving through the air with a high, keening screech of anger. Jack heard the tanglewolf growl again, louder this time, and then the sound of ripping, of tearing flesh, and a splatter of blood landed on
his face. He wiped it with the back of his hand, and as the mist cleared he saw the body of the tanglewolf lying motionless on the ground, its throat torn open.
William Wynn was standing over the wolf, buttoning up his so-scarlet frock coat and smirking slightly.
“They certainly are a distraction, these tanglewolves. But the others are closer than I’d like. We should be on our way, Jack, and quickly. Shall we?” He beckoned to the path with one delicate, white hand, as if inviting Jack into a parlour.
“I thought you’d gone,” said Jack coldly, moving towards William.
“Did you really think I’d leave you to the mercies of the tanglewolves? On a Wednesday?” William smiled and winked again, a bright blush of beauty in the dark. “And besides, I have a small favour to ask you.”
Jack scowled. He was still paying for the last time he’d done William Wynn a favour.
CHAPTER 12
“You were awesome,” said Nils to Anna, who was standing with her back to the door, gripping one wrist with her hand and shaking very, very slightly. “Like a superhero. Or Granny C when she gets angry with Dad. But…”—he looked over at the wagging tail—“we still have that dog you can’t see. Except… except, well, you can see a bit of it now, can’t you?”
Anna nodded silently, and looked over to where they could hear the dog happily licking the last morsel from the now empty—and surprisingly clean—plate.
“What are we going to do with it?” asked Nils.
“I…” began Anna, still with her back to the door. She jumped forward with a start as an angry little face banged up against the kitchen window and misted up the glass with hot breath. The little man’s baseball hat was missing and he had a few leaves in his hair and a long, thin scratch across one cheek.