The Door In the Tree

by William Corlett

  Then, just as Mary might have discovered him, a movement on the other side of the track made her swing round.

  ‘Spot!’ she yelled. ‘I can see you!’ and the dog, hearing his name being called, came bounding out of the undergrowth, barking and jumping round her. Taking advantage of this distraction, William broke his cover, making a dash back along the track towards the block.

  ‘William!’ Mary yelled. ‘I can see you!’

  ‘You’ve got to tag me, Mary!’ her brother shouted, without looking back, as he ran for the block.

  Spot, seeing William racing away, thought this was a much better game and ran after him, jumping round his feet, slowing him up and forcing him off the track once more, back in amongst the trees.

  ‘Spot!’ William yelled, laughing. ‘You’re not supposed to do this. You’re not on Mary’s side . . .’

  Mary was charging at William now, her arms flung out as she tried to touch him. All the time Spot wound between them, barking and jumping, his tail wagging and his paws reaching out to them both.

  While Mary was distracted, Alice turned and sprinted along the path, crouching low behind the gorse bushes and then even lower as she passed out of their protection on to the bare hillside, in full sight of the path below. But Mary and William and Spot had now all tumbled together into a heaving, kicking, laughing and barking heap and were completely unaware of her.

  In front of her a line of fir trees blocked the way. They had been planted so closely together that, at first, she thought she wouldn’t be able to squeeze between them. But the path she was on wound round a first tree – its graceful boughs, covered in dark green needles, reaching almost to the ground – and then passed through a gap between two other trunks that until then had been invisible.

  At once she was in the gloomy interior of the forest. After the bright, blowy, day outside, it was like entering another world. Here the light was filtered, brown and dim, through a thick web of needle-less branches. The only sign of life on the trees was right at the top, where their green tips stretched for a sky that could only be guessed at from below. The ground was covered with years and years of dropped needles and dry cones. Scarcely any plants grew on the sour earth and those that did were thin and rank; a few ferns, a straggle of ivy, long thorny tendrils of bramble and, in one place, some almost-black and evil looking toadstools. But it was the stillness that Alice noticed most. The breeze, which outside had been fresh and invigorating, was reduced to a dull, distant roar as it forced its way through the mesh of interwoven branches and twigs. There were no birds singing. Even Spot’s barking and William and Mary’s laughing voices disappeared at once, as though they had ceased to exist. The air, which had smelt clean and sparkling, was here thick and dank with decay.

  The path became more difficult to follow. The ground was strewn with rotting branches and some whole, fallen trees – jammed in and balanced crazily amongst the rows of upright trunks. There were occasional mounds of loose stones, covered with moss and dull lichen and sudden ridges of rough, dark rock jutting up out of the earth.

  Rounding one of these outcrops, she was surprised to find that the ground fell away from her, almost sheer, down into a gloomy hollow where the trees were packed so tightly together that they appeared like a solid wall of trunks, too close even for her to slip between.

  Alice turned back and started to retrace her steps to the side of the forest from which she had entered. She didn’t at all like this dead, half-world that she’d strayed into, she decided, and would be glad to be back on the outside. But now the way looked completely unfamiliar; or rather, the very sameness of the view ahead made her unsure of precisely which route she had taken. She followed a narrow, beaten track – made, she supposed, by an animal – which led her more gradually uphill until, in front of her through the gloom, she could just make out some green shrubs and a sudden shaft of sunlight cutting through the trees. She hurried forward, hoping that she might have reached the side of the forest, and the open ground beyond, but when she reached the light, she found only a clump of holly bushes and a carpet of long, thin grasses where a few trees had been chopped down many years before. She could see the trunks piled in a mouldering heap at the side of the glade. All around her, the dark and silent forest pressed in, stifling her with its presence.

  She turned slowly in a full circle, searching for any familiar object that would tell her which way to go. But there was none. Wherever she looked, the same ranks of trees stretched away from her into the gloom. She had no idea now from which direction she had started out; she had no idea in which direction to continue.

  Alice was lost.

  ‘William!’ she called, fighting back the panic that she could feel welling up from her stomach, making her heart beat faster and a lump of tears form in the back of her throat.

  ‘William? Mary?’ she shouted, louder this time. Then she paused, waiting, without much hope, for an answering call.

  The silence that surrounded her was almost throbbing. It seemed solid, like the great circle of trees that hemmed her in. She shouted again, but her voice sounded unfamiliar. It was like shouting into a pillow; muffled and lifeless.

  ‘William!’ she yelled. And, ‘Mary!’

  She made the words as long and as loud as she could. But no answering call came back to her; only an awful stillness and a terrible, booming nothing.

  At last Alice sat down on the pile of logs and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her anorak. She tried to calm herself and work out the direction in which she had come. She thought of William bragging about his compass but realized that even if she had one it wouldn’t be much use because she didn’t know which way she should be heading. She thought that if she retraced her steps back into the forest to the outcrop of rock then she might, perhaps, find her original path but now, with a gasp of fear, she realized that she wasn’t even sure which way she had entered the clearing in which she was sitting.

  ‘Oh, help!’ she whispered and she looked up to where a patch of clear sky glittered with light above her head. There the tops of the firs tossed and swayed in the breeze and clouds raced across the blue. It was like looking through a keyhole from a dark cupboard at the bright world outside.

  Alice took a deep breath and pursed her lips. It occurred to her that the easiest and most obvious way out of her predicament would be to fly. But of course that wasn’t possible. Unless;

  ‘If only the Magician would come,’ she thought. ‘He could help me.’

  A faint speck on the blue sky wheeled round and round above her head, gradually forming into a bird as it flew closer to the surface of the trees.

  Alice felt, in some peculiar way, that it was looking at her. Or, at least, as it was the only sign of life, she hoped that it could see her. She stretched out her hand to it, willing the bird not to fly away out of her sight. She saw it stretch its wings, like a swimmer treads water, and hover on the invisible air. She heard it cry out; a long, plaintive ‘Kee kee’ sound. Then it reached its claws downwards and dropped like a stone, to land, with a great flapping of wings, on one of the highest branches of a fir. There it settled and slowly arched its neck, peering down at her.

  For a moment neither of them moved.

  The eyes of the bird were like pinpricks of light. They seemed to hold Alice in their piercing gaze so that she was transfixed. But she didn’t feel afraid. It wasn’t an unfriendly stare, but cool and interested; the enquiring look of a scientist through a microscope or of an artist seeing his subject.

  ‘Please,’ Alice whispered, ‘I’m a bit lost.’

  ‘Kee kee!’ the bird called. The sound had a dying fall. It reminded her of high moors and lonely landscapes. A cold sound. It made her shiver. She dug her hands deeper into her pockets and bit her lower lip.

  ‘I was with my brother and sister,’ she continued, feeling that one of them had to make some attempt at conversation. ‘We were playing hide and seek . . .’

  ‘Kee! Kee!’ the bird called.


  ‘You’re not by any chance connected to the Magician, are you?’ Alice said.

  The bird darted its head forward then turned it sharply to the side, as though it was listening.

  Alice, released from its stare, turned quickly to look in the same direction and, as she did so, she heard Spot barking.

  ‘Spot!’ she shouted, jumping up off the log and running in the direction of the sound. ‘Spot! I’m here. Spot!’

  As the excited barking grew closer, Alice glanced up at the tree once more. The bird stretched its wings and launched itself into the air.

  ‘I’ll be all right now,’ Alice called. ‘That’s my friend, Spot, you can hear. He’ll show me the way.’

  ‘Kee! Kee!’ the bird called and then slowly it circled the sky above the clearing and a moment later disappeared from view.

  3

  The Two Paths

  IT WAS SPOT who first noticed that Alice was missing. William and Mary were sitting on the side of the track, gasping for breath after all the exertion of fighting, when he suddenly raised his head, his nostrils twitching, and raked the distant high ground behind them with his eyes.

  ‘What, Spot?’ Mary asked. ‘Did you see Alice?’ and she sprang to her feet, turning at the same time, and calling out: ‘Come on out, Alice. We can all see you.’

  ‘You liar, Mary!’ William said, also rising. ‘You can’t see her at all.’ Then he frowned. ‘I wonder where she is.’

  ‘Still hiding,’ Mary answered, searching the tree line with her eyes. ‘You know Alice. She never gives in.’

  ‘But she’s had masses of chances to get to the block – while we were fighting,’ William said and, as he spoke, he started to run after Spot, who was already half way up the bank, his nose to the ground, following Alice’s scent.

  Spot soon reached the place behind the gorse bush, where Alice had crouched. He could smell her strongly here. He wagged his tail, yelping and barking as he searched the ground with his nose. Then he lifted his head, one front paw raised off the ground, and looked towards the distant trees. As he did so, his tail went down between his legs and he started to whine pitifully.

  ‘What is it, Spot? What’s the matter?’ William asked, catching him up and putting a comforting hand on the back of his neck. Then he also looked towards the bank of firs, rising like a rampart in front of them.

  ‘What’s up?’ Mary asked, panting as she ran up the hill to join them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ William said. ‘It’s Spot. Something’s upsetting him.’

  As he spoke, Spot whined, turning round and round, as though he was reluctant to proceed.

  ‘There’s something wrong, Mare,’ William whispered, and he knelt down on the ground in front of the dog. ‘What is it, boy?’ he asked, his voice sounding gentle. ‘Is it Alice? Is she in danger?’

  Spot’s whining turned to yelping and he jumped up and down, then turned and started to walk, with obvious reluctance, towards the trees.

  ‘He doesn’t want to go in there,’ Mary said, in a puzzled voice. Then she added, ‘Oh, Will! I wish the magic would start.’

  ‘I thought you were afraid of it,’ William mumbled, as though still not wanting to admit to the possibility.

  ‘If the magic would start – Spot could talk to us. That’s all I meant,’ Mary replied.

  ‘You think it really happened, then?’ William asked.

  ‘I know it did,’ Mary answered him. ‘And so do you, really. You do, don’t you?’

  William sighed.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered her. ‘But not like Alice does; I’m not sure, like she is. I find it easier to believe now we’re here, I suppose. But, at school, it all seemed so . . . improbable.’

  He looked at the dog. Spot was lying on the ground again, with his front paws stretched out in front of him, staring at the trees.

  ‘You don’t want to go in there, do you?’ William said to him gently, scratching him behind an ear. The dog looked up sideways at him and whimpered.

  ‘Is Alice in there?’ Mary asked, crouching down on the other side of Spot and putting an arm round his shoulders. The dog’s whining became louder and more anguished.

  William and Mary stared at each other.

  ‘We’ll have to go, won’t we?’ Mary said, at last.

  William shrugged.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It’s just a few trees. I’m not scared. Are you?’

  Mary shook her head, thoughtfully.

  ‘Spot is, though,’ she replied. ‘Come on,’ she said, gently, to the dog. ‘If Alice is in danger, we’ll have to, Spot. But I’d much rather you were with us. Please.’

  The dog rose slowly and licked her hand. Then it turned, sniffing the ground, and started to walk, head down and tail wagging slowly, towards the trees, following the route that Alice had taken.

  The gloom of the forest settled round them like a blanket. They had to walk in single file, following Spot who sniffed the ground and the trunks and even the air in front of him in his effort to pick up Alice’s scent.

  ‘The difficulty is the needles absorb the smell,’ Mary called over her shoulder to William who was following her. ‘It makes following her much harder.’

  William touched his sister on the shoulder.

  ‘How did you know that?’ he asked her, in a half whisper.

  Mary stopped and looked back at him, puzzled and frowning.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘The idea just came into my head,’ and, as she spoke she swung round, looking at Spot who was still prowling along ahead of her.

  ‘Spot?’ she called, stopping the dog in his tracks.

  ‘What?’ Spot asked.

  ‘You’re talking to us,’ Mary exclaimed. ‘Did you hear him, Will?’

  William nodded, not taking his eyes off Spot.

  ‘You’re talking to us, Spot,’ Mary said again, reaching out and stroking his head.

  ‘Not really,’ Spot replied. ‘I’m just thinking.’

  ‘But . . . we know what you’re thinking. It’s the magic, isn’t it? It’s the Magician letting it happen,’ and she looked around, impatiently, searching among the dense trees for a glimpse of him. ‘Oh, where is he?’ she sighed. ‘I do wish he’d come.’

  ‘He doesn’t always come when we need him,’ Spot told her. ‘Sometimes we have to work things out for ourselves.’ But as the dog thought this, he looked round also as if he too wished that Stephen Tyler, the Magician, would appear.

  ‘So – if Stephen Tyler isn’t making this happen . . .’ William said, using his working out voice. Then he stopped speaking.

  ‘What, Will?’

  ‘We must be doing it ourselves.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Mary asked him, impatiently.

  ‘Hearing Spot . . . it isn’t magic. It’s . . . something we’re doing . . . because we believe we can.’

  ‘That’s the secret of magic,’ Spot said, ‘believing’, and he growled the word, quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ William said, thinking deeply. ‘But, in order to believe, you have to sort of . . . give up questioning. It’s more like . . . stopping not believing. When I was at school, I couldn’t believe what had happened here . . . because none of it made sense. I asked myself questions and . . . couldn’t believe the answers. I didn’t believe . . . you see?’

  ‘Well, let’s start believing that we can find Alice,’ Mary suggested. ‘I don’t like this forest any more than Spot does,’ and she shouted: ‘Alice? Alice, where are you? Alice?’

  The sound of her voice was lost amongst the trees.

  ‘Which way, Spot?’ William asked.

  The dog looked round, sniffing the air and listening, his head on one side, his ears pricked forward, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

  ‘That’s the trouble with this place,’ he growled. ‘It’s dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Mary asked, looking round at the tall, brown trunks.

  ‘Oh, the trees are still living,’ Spot replied. ‘But they’re not na
tural. This forest used to be all bright and light. You’ve never seen so many shades of green as there were here. All this ground was covered with bluebells in spring, and grass that was sweet to eat. There were berries and butterflies. . . . The sun used to shine here through the branches and it was lovely and cool in summer. In autumn the leaves fell and covered the ground with a red and brown carpet – colour like you’ve never seen. Then, when the winter snow came, it was piled up so deep in some places that it was all you could do to get through it.’

  ‘But that must have been ages ago, Spot,’ William said, following the dog as it continued to snuffle along in front of them. ‘Long before your lifetime. I mean these trees must have been here for years.’

  Spot looked over his shoulder and growled.

  ‘There you go again,’ he said. ‘Working out.’

  William frowned and was silent. It was all very well, he thought. But that was what humans were good at – using their brains. That’s what made them the superior animal.

  ‘If humans are superior,’ Spot replied, without looking back at him, ‘how come they managed to make such a mess of the forest, then? Most of the creatures who lived here . . . have gone now.’ And he said the last words with such a sigh that Mary shivered.

  ‘I don’t see how you can blame humans,’ William said. ‘They had to use the forest, just like farmers use the land.’

  ‘But they took away the right trees and planted these instead,’ Spot growled. ‘These aren’t the sort of trees that used to live here. They chose them because they grow faster, that’s all. Birds don’t nest in them; plants won’t grow under them; nothing lives here . . .’

  They came to a place where a cliff of rock jutted out in front of them, with the ground falling away steeply on either side. Spot led them to the edge of rock, where it thrust forward, breaking out of the trees line as if it was heading straight for the sky. Below and all around them the forest stretched to the horizon. The tips of the firs revealed the straight lines in which they’d been planted.

  ‘It’s like a grid,’ Mary said, thinking out loud. And it was true. From their viewpoint, there was such a neat, ordered aspect to the forest. All the trees were of a uniform height and they followed the contours of the land beneath them in such strict, unvarying lines.