The Beginning Woods

by Malcolm McNeill

  The tooth?

  The Dragon Hunter’s tooth! Give it to the Dragon!

  He rolled onto his knees and tugged off his gloves. His frozen fingers jabbed the tooth further into his earhole.

  Stuck!

  The Dragon surged up the mountain.

  Run, Max! RUN!

  He didn’t move. There was no point. He couldn’t escape the Dragon.

  The tooth was their only chance.

  He used his pinkie. Jiggled it, like he’d got water in his ear. Then whacked the other side of his head again and again and again.

  It popped out.

  He fumbled it.

  Bounced it off one palm onto the other.

  Dropped it.

  It vanished into the snow.

  The Dragon came down with a rush and a roar—he threw himself to one side. Scooping up another mouthful of earth, it tossed its head back. Under the rattling hail of pebbles, leaves and branches he curled into a ball and covered his head. The mountainside was sliding out from under him. He tumbled past the Dragon’s thrashing body, dragged by the breaking earth. He clawed at the ground, but everything he grabbed was moving too. He couldn’t breathe. He could hardly see. Lost in a roar of rocks and snow, he gave up struggling and let it take him.

  A hand came out of nowhere.

  Courtz!

  Grunting, the scientist hauled him into the shelter of the tree stump as the landslide thundered around them. The noise passed down the mountain, rumbling and echoing, subsiding into an eerie silence in which nothing moved.

  Slowly, he twisted his head out from under Courtz’s arm.

  The Dragon was only a short distance away, already looking in the twilight gloom like a mound of rubble.

  Did it work? It worked! The tooth worked!

  He wriggled out from under Courtz. The scientist’s body was heavy and limp, his breath faint and shallow.

  I told you. And you never believed me.

  What did you tell me?

  Knights always win against Dragons!

  Max tried a smile—it trembled apart on his face. He could not stand, let alone help Courtz stand. Battered, freezing, exhausted—he simply lay there, barely able to breathe, watching Courtz, watching the scientist move.

  He was getting himself up.

  Why?

  After a minute or so, he was kneeling.

  What for? It would be better to just let night come. Night, and the cold.

  Courtz raised his head, his whole body trembling with the effort.

  Looked at Max.

  Deep within the scientist’s bright blue eye, a tiny spark was burning furiously. It was the unconquerable spark of life, of the desire to live and be alive.

  It was the spark that had died out in the Mulgans.

  Max got to his feet.

  He got Courtz to his feet.

  Together, they started up the mountain.

  He wasn’t going to see that spark die out again. Not in anyone.

  Four hours later, bedraggled, bloody and half-dead, they reached the cave.

  THE SEVEN LEAGUE BOOTS

  The Witch’s carriage was outside the cave entrance. She was there with Kaspar Hauser, sitting by the fire.

  Kaspar was toasting marshmallows. He glared at Max shiftily, and popped them all into his mouth, one by one, until his cheeks bulged.

  The Witch was playing a ukulele and singing a lullaby. As Max guided Courtz towards the fire, a single step at a time, she followed him with her eyes.

  Be snuggle be dapple

  Be drowsy be deep

  Be fallow be willow

  Be Little Bo Peep

  Be lithesome be mighty

  Be soul shall thou keep

  Be Tickle Toe Tommy

  Be tinkle be sleep.

  They collapsed just as the Witch strummed her final chord. With a final effort, Max rolled Courtz onto his back. He lay absolutely still, his skin clammy and cold.

  The Witch set her ukulele aside and peered over his shoulder. She read the entire story from start to finish in a glance.

  “Kaspar?”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “Go to the workshop and get my toolbox, two sheaves of Chitin, half a pound of Cobweb, four pairs of Socks and a Hacksaw.”

  “Tools, Chitin, Cobweb, Socks, Hacksaw,” repeated Kaspar, holding one finger to the side of his head. “Anything else?”

  “If I wanted anything else I’d ask for it! Take the Seven League Boots.”

  “Say please!”

  “I’ll do no such thing!”

  “Say it!”

  “Who are YOU all of a sudden?”

  “Mother. We talked about this. It’s just a word. But it has a nice effect.”

  “So’s WHIPPING! WHIPPING is just a word! AND it has a nice effect.”

  “Mother!”

  “A man’s dying, and you’re fiddling around with etiquette! What kind of monster have I raised?”

  “MOTHER!”

  “Please. Now SCRAM!”

  Kaspar disappeared into the carriage, then sat on its running board, pulling on a pair of knee-length boots. He walked clear of the cave, stopped, drew back a leg, and kicked an invisible football.

  BANG!

  He rocketed into the sky, reduced to a distant speck in a moment.

  Max watched with a dull sense of astonishment, then shifted away from the Witch as she explored the oozing stump of Courtz’s arm with her fingertips.

  “It didn’t work, you know, your little midnight alarm,” she muttered. “So you saved a few villagers—big deal! By the time the normal Dragons return, the Forest Folk will be ready for them. Flashlights and laser beams! We’ll cook those Lizards like marshmallows!”

  He just stared at the fire. “Is he going to be OK?” he whispered.

  “I’ve seen worse,” the Witch shrugged. “He could do with a few Snot Maggots I suppose.”

  She snorted, hocked a blob of phlegm into her hand, rolled it between her palms, added some Ashes and a couple of Swear Words, then began pinching off little balls, which became—after a brief incubation under her tongue—yellow, wriggling Maggots. One by one she spat them onto the stump of Courtz’s arm. They seemed happy there and began chewing about.

  “Their saliva numbs pain and fights infection,” she explained. “So even though they’re guzzling away, you don’t feel a thing! Terrifically effective against horses. Mind out!”

  BANG!

  A divot of earth flew up, and Kaspar landed beside them with a picnic basket under his arm. He took off the boots and left them at the cave entrance.

  “Here’re the things. Came as fast as I could!”

  “You think I was born yesterday?” growled the Witch. “You dillied and dallied! Now look sharp and lend a hand. Hoo-hoo! Lend a hand! Haha! Clear a space, you!”

  Max moved away and sat with his back to them, looking out of the cave over the Woods. They lay beneath him, seeming to snarl up at the cave, furious at his escape.

  Maybe they knew.

  What was about to happen.

  Maybe they could feel it coming.

  The Forest Folk would wipe out the Dragons with New Light. The Coven would try to stop it, and the Forest Folk would turn on them too. Once the Dragon Hunters, the Dragons and the Coven were gone, the Woods would be cleared, bulldozed and built over.

  The Woods would become like the World.

  And the worst thing of all: he didn’t know if it was good or bad.

  Dreams had left him with nobody. No parents. No home.

  Dreams were thieves.

  Dreams didn’t add things to life. They stole them away.

  Down with dreams!

  So what are you going to do? Sit here in this cave?

  What else can I do?

  You can go!

  Go where?

  Where you’ve always wanted to go. The Panthalassa Ocean.

  I don’t want to go there any more.

  Are you sure? It’s one last dream you can check.
Maybe it will come true.

  It won’t. It’s all nonsense.

  Then take me there. I would like to see it.

  Even if I wanted to, it’s too far. I saw the map.

  Not when Kaspar has left you the Boots…

  Max lifted his head. The Seven League Boots were only a short distance away.

  He left them on purpose?

  He still thinks you’re after his Mother.

  I don’t have a Mother…

  Neither do I, Max. But we’ve got each other. Let’s go and look at the Ocean!

  He glanced back at the Witch again. Kaspar caught his eye and made a secret signal, jabbing a finger at the Boots.

  See! Go Max! Go!

  Max scooted over and pulled them on. They came up to his knees, and fitted perfectly, even though they had seemed much smaller on Kaspar.

  He got to his feet.

  Took a cautious step.

  Nothing happened.

  “Hold it!” snapped the Witch. “Where do you think you’re going, Mr Vanishings?”

  She jumped up and ran towards them, hacksaw glinting.

  “KICK THE BALL!” yelled Kaspar. “KICK THE BALL!”

  He kicked the ball.

  BANG!

  Trailing a scream, he flew in a soaring arc over the trees—then he was falling, his feet peddling wildly, and the Woods were rushing up. He hit the ground with a jolt, staggered forwards, and—BANG! The stagger was transformed into an explosive bound that rocketed him up into the atmosphere, far over the lights of Gilead and into the beyond.

  BANG! By the third leap he’d managed to stop screaming.

  BANG! By the fourth he’d got his arms and legs under control.

  BANG! By the fifth he’d mastered the boots, and could choose his direction by making a quick pivot of his hips as he landed.

  OK, I think I’ve got the hang of it. Which way’s the Ocean?

  Go in any direction. It surrounds us. You’ll get there eventually.

  He swung his legs towards the moon, seven leagues to a stride. BANGBANGBANG! Soon he saw a mountain range on the horizon.

  It’ll be on the other side.

  He used the mountains like stepping stones, jumping from one to the other, higher and higher until he stood on the highest summit and could see what lay beyond.

  That’s it!

  There was no more forest. Instead, a rippling darkness, the Panthalassa Ocean, stretched as far as the eye could see. The moon lay broken across its surface, as though it had fallen and smashed apart into glittering shards.

  It’s beautiful…

  Yes. But it’s not anything else on top of that.

  What do you mean?

  It’s like my Forever Parents. Just something nice to look at once in a while.

  Martha came out of his finger and stood beside him. “Max,” she said. “It’s all right for things to be beautiful.” Then she smiled at him. “I want to show you something!”

  She looked about carefully, then ran a short distance away, stretched up and pressed her hand against the night sky. It gave slightly like sand, and she left a handprint there, which was carried off by the slow turning of the heavens.

  “See!” she said. “Mountains were made so the Wizards could reach the sky. But you have to get to the very highest bit.”

  Wonderingly, Max joined her on the highest bit and reached up to touch a star. It worked! The star came away on his fingertip and glowed there, a tiny, beautiful part of light.

  He collected one on each fingertip until he had ten, then placed them one by one in Martha’s hair.

  “A crown for my Queen,” he said.

  She watched him shyly. As the Three-Quarter Moon passed on the revolving Stuff of Night, she lifted it down and handed it to him.

  “A shield for my Knight,” she said.

  He turned it awkwardly, because there was no handle on the moon. So he held it against his chest and looked out again at the Panthalassa Ocean.

  “Do you think it’s true what the Dark Man said?” he asked.

  “What did he say?”

  “The stars are drifting apart, and people are doing the same. The forces holding us together are getting weaker.”

  She thought about it for a moment. “Didn’t he also say we have to hold onto each other as best we can?”

  “Yes. But that’s just what I’m not good at.”

  “Then we’ll start with each other,” she said, with a determined nod. “And work the rest out later.”

  Her tiny hand crept into his. They stood there watching the sky turn and the Ocean gleam.

  “Can you dance?” she asked then. “I’ve been wanting to ask you for ages.”

  “D-dance?”

  “Yes. You know.” She looked at him with serious intention, and his heart began to pound. “Dance.”

  “I don’t think so. I never tried.”

  “Why not?”

  “Nobody ever asked me.”

  “You’re supposed to do the asking, silly.”

  “Why me?”

  “I don’t know. It’s one of the rules.”

  “I thought you didn’t care about rules.”

  “You’re right. That rule is silly.” She turned to face him. “Will you dance with me?”

  He swallowed. “Here?”

  She nodded in a business-like way. “It’s romantic. I’m a Queen and you’re a Knight. We should dance. You’ll have to put the moon down. You need your hands free. I get to keep the stars.”

  Max turned to put the moon down.

  “Stay like that,” she whispered then. “There’s something I need to say and I can’t say it when you’re looking at me. Only turn round when I tell you to.”

  The words sent a shock through him, and he remembered again how he’d stood at the kitchen sink, Alice and Forbes at the table behind him. This was how it had always been—if he turned his back on something, it disappeared. But Martha had given him an order, and he had to obey.

  “Do you remember you asked me when the end was going to come? When I was going to stop being the Queen and become yours for ever?”

  “I remember,” Max whispered. He knew what she was going to say, and he didn’t want her to say it.

  “The end is coming for us,” Martha said. “I can feel it. It’s coming like the sun comes, bringing colour to the trees, melting away the greyness. I’m going to melt away too, because that’s what the sun does to cold things. And I’m beginning to think… maybe it’s good. I’m grey now, but I used to have colours! I had red hair and my eyes were green. I like to think of you seeing me like that. If I went away I’d be in the place where all the colour comes back, the place where I get to become a dream. Your dream.”

  Max didn’t want to hear any more. “That’s all just a story. You wouldn’t know about it. You’d be dead. The place where people go and become dreams, it’s a nowhere place, it’s nothing. You wouldn’t know I’m dreaming about you.”

  “I know that, and I can’t explain it,” she said, “but when the sun is coming up and you’re melting away it doesn’t feel like that’s so bad. As long as you know someone is going to be dreaming of you, it doesn’t seem so bad to become the dream. Now turn round and look at me.”

  Max turned, afraid she was going to vanish the moment he laid eyes on her, to disappear into nothing the way everything else had done.

  But she didn’t.

  She stepped into his arms.

  “I’ve never danced with anyone,” she whispered in his ear. “I’d like to dance with you. I think this is a good place.”

  “There’s no music.”

  “The stars are making music.”

  “I can’t hear it.”

  “I can. It’s going Dum-Da-Da-Dum, Da-Da-Dum.”

  “Stars don’t go Dum.”

  “How do you know if you can’t hear it?”

  “I don’t think I believe in it…”

  “Then listen to your heart.” She placed her hand against his chest. �
�It sounds like the stars. Dum-da-dum-da-dum.”

  “Dum-da-dum?”

  “Da-DUM.” She smiled and pressed her cheek against his. “Now do what I do, and don’t let go.”

  3

  THE HOMECOMING

  They tore out handfuls of sky to make a hole, then crept into the soft darkness and covered it with the moon. Through its silvery transparency they looked down on the Woods. The revolving dome bore them up and away, away from the Ocean, and back over the trees.

  Martha soon fell asleep beside him. But Max could not sleep. Neither of them knew the Wizards had crafted the spongy darkness from Despair and Loss of Hope, trying to remove as much as possible from the Woods. Under their influence his thoughts turned to those questions that could never be answered.

  Who am I?

  Where do I come from?

  The Accursed Questions. In Russian it really had sounded like a magic spell cast by a Witch over a cradle.

  Pro-klyAT-ee-yeh-vo-PROSS-ee!

  The questions were like curses in fairy tales. Under their influence it was impossible to live like other people. You had to wander, driven by the curse until a cure was found.

  But there was no cure.

  And now Martha was going to disappear as well, like everyone else. What would he do then? He would go into the Woods and let the Wildness get him, like Boris’s Father. That’s what he would do.

  But that wouldn’t work, either. Every time he saw the moon he would remember this night, and Martha, and the Wildness would be driven from him. Just like when Boris remembered his Mother, the moon would bring him back.

  The moon would be his gravestone.

  The moon…

  He blinked suddenly.

  “Martha,” he whispered. “Martha, wake up!”

  She stirred beside him, blinking sleepily.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “What was it the Dragon Hunter said? If I came back before the Full Moon, he would tell us about the Books and the Light. That was it, wasn’t it?”

  She frowned, then nodded. “Yes. Yes he said that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what he meant?”

  “No. I just thought it had something to do with the Dragon Hunters. One of the things an Apprentice would need to know to take over. Why?”