The Door In the Tree

by William Corlett

Jack dug a shallow trench at the side of the ride, in amongst a patch of bracken. Then, with William’s help, he lowered the badger into it and scooped the earth once more over the top so that, eventually, the body was covered.

  ‘D’you suppose we should say a prayer or something?’ Mary whispered.

  ‘Just “Rest In Peace”, don’t you think?’ Jack answered, quietly.

  Mary nodded and whispered the words under her breath.

  ‘Oh, let’s go away from here,’ Alice pleaded, ‘and never come back. I hate this place. And so does Spot.’

  ‘All over now,’ Jack said, breaking the mood. ‘Like Phoebe said, this sort of thing is happening all the time out here. We mustn’t be sad. It’s all part of nature. OK? So – are you all coming back with me?’

  ‘I’d quite like to try for the top of the valley,’ William said. ‘We saw real woods, yesterday, from a place where we got a view. D’you remember, Mary? They looked really nice. I’d quite like to go there, if we can.’

  ‘I don’t want to get lost again,’ Alice protested.

  ‘I think you should come back,’ Jack said. ‘At least until we have a proper map for you to use.’

  ‘Oh, please, Uncle Jack. We won’t get lost. I’ve got my bearings now. It was just confusing yesterday.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Jack hesitated. ‘Phoebe will never forgive me if you get lost again . . .’

  ‘Please,’ William pleaded.

  ‘What about you, girls? D’you want to go exploring again?’ Jack asked them.

  Mary shrugged.

  ‘Can if you like,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ Alice said, giving in and trying not to show that she was really quite eager to ‘go exploring’ as Jack called it.

  ‘We passed another path on the way up here,’ Jack said. ‘You could try there.’

  They retraced their steps down the side of the valley to where the path Jack had spoken of veered off, leading upwards once more through the drab brown light of the fir forest.

  ‘Back in time for lunch, mind,’ Jack called after them, as they parted. ‘And it’s already well after eleven, so you haven’t got long.’

  ‘We won’t go far,’ William called.

  Then, with Spot in the lead, the children started to climb the steep hillside, leaving behind them the Dark and Dreadful Path and the badger’s burial mound.

  Gradually, at first almost imperceptibly, the light began to change. The gloom beneath the trees was lifting, as thin rays from the invisible sun up above pierced the blanket of branches, making slanting patterns of light and shade that danced and flickered into the distance all around them.

  Somewhere not far away, a bird began to sing. The sound was so bright and cheerful that it lifted their spirits. Spot looked up, straining forward, and his tail started to wag for the first time since they’d left the dead badger.

  The air was fresher now. They could feel the breeze on their skins; they could smell the faint perfume of flowers.

  The sombre, evergreen firs gave way to leaf-shedding trees. The silver bark of birch mingled with the green-tinged trunks of sweet chestnut; the stately beech shared space with the weeping willow. Thin saplings grew in clumps and towering oaks reached above them to the sky. Pale spring buds decked all the branches and late catkins scattered golden pollen on the glossy leaves of trailing ivies. They came to a place where a drift of cherry blossom hung low across their path, its petals as white as driven snow.

  The ground beneath their feet was springy with grass and the long spiky leaves of bluebells, not yet in flower. Wood anemones grew in profusion and cushions of primroses pushed up between the roots of the trees.

  A squirrel, surprised by their sudden arrival, scuttled away from them, scrambling up into a spreading beech tree. They saw it, a moment later, leaping from branch to branch and tree to tree until, with a swish of its tail, it disappeared from view.

  The ground was rising now. Soon they were panting for breath as they toiled up the steep incline. More and more birds were singing and they caught flashes of yellow and blue as tits and finches darted in the branches, catching gnats and grubbing for food under the bark and amongst the leaves. A sudden, dazzling green streak was followed a moment later by the drumming of a woodpecker, and the loud, clattering cry of a startled blackbird disturbed the peace.

  At last, reaching the summit of the hill, they paused for breath. They were on the edge of a high escarpment. Beyond, the forest dropped away gently into a shallow valley, and then rose again towards the distant horizon. Behind them, back the way they had climbed, they were now high enough above the forest floor to be able to see the view.

  They were looking down on Golden Valley. They could see the house, with the dovecote in the kitchen garden directly in front of it. Beyond the house, the side of the valley rose up almost like a cliff. The firs clung to the steep earth, green and thick. At the crest of this hill they were able to see, for the first time, a cleft in the forest. This gap in the trees was quite remarkable. It looked as if it had been cleared to accommodate a road.

  ‘I didn’t know there was a road up there,’ William said, sounding puzzled.

  ‘We’ve never been this high up before,’ Mary said.

  ‘Look at the mountains,’ Alice whispered.

  Above the tree line, through the gap in the forest, distant and dark against the paler sky, a ridge of higher hills was just visible. And as they stared at them, a shaft of light glinted on a distant summit.

  ‘Isn’t that odd . . .?’ William exclaimed.

  ‘What, Will?’ Mary asked.

  ‘It’s all in a straight line. Coincidence, I suppose.’

  ‘What is?’ Alice said.

  ‘You see the summit of that highest peak?’

  The girls both nodded.

  ‘It’s in a direct line with that gap in the trees. Then the chimneys of Golden House. Then the top of the dovecote . . .’

  He stopped speaking, looking round eagerly. Behind them a huge yew tree – more like a yew copse it was so vast and many-trunked – clung to the edge of the hill, blocking the immediate view. But going round behind it, William gasped.

  ‘Look!’ the girls heard him say and they hurried to see what it was that had so surprised him.

  Not far from where they were standing, a single rough-hewn stone poked up out of the undergrowth. As tall as a man, it leaned slightly to one side as though at some time the ground under it had settled. A holly bush was growing beside it, half covering it, but it was clearly there.

  ‘Like a marker,’ William said, quietly.

  ‘And look beyond, Will,’ Mary exclaimed, running forward a few steps and pointing as she did so.

  Deep in the woods, the sun was reflecting on a stretch of water.

  ‘A lake,’ Alice cried out. ‘And after the lake – look! You see where the ground begins to rise again? There’s another of those funny gaps in the trees . . .’

  ‘And really big mountains beyond,’ Mary said, pointing.

  Through the gap, etched across the horizon, the jagged peaks of high mountains could just be seen.

  ‘That must be Wales,’ William said and he turned slowly looking back across Golden Valley to the other gap in the trees. ‘You see . . .?’ he said, speaking more to himself than to the others.

  ‘All in a straight line,’ Mary agreed, thoughtfully.

  ‘I wonder how long this tree’s been here,’ William continued, walking slowly round the yew.

  ‘Yews are ever so old,’ Mary volunteered in a knowledgeable voice. ‘We had a project on them at school. Only I wasn’t really interested. I think we were told that they’re one of our oldest trees. We were supposed to measure the size of the trunks and note where they were growing. They’re usually planted in churchyards and other sacred places.’

  ‘Is this a sacred place then?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I do think it’s strange that everything’s in a straight line,’ William said, still staring at the tree. ‘D’yo
u suppose, if we were in the secret room at Golden House, we could see this tree from the circular window?’

  Mary ran back to the edge of the hill, looking down into the valley.

  ‘You’d see the top of it, anyway,’ she called.

  ‘Where’s Spot?’ Alice asked, realizing for the first time that the dog had disappeared. But the other two weren’t listening to her. William was walking away towards the standing stone and Mary was squatting on the ground, staring down into Golden Valley.

  ‘Spot,’ Alice called. ‘Where are you? Spot?’

  A quiet yelp drew her attention to the deep recesses of the yew tree. Its branches spread out in such profusion, reaching out and touching the ground. Now that she looked at it more closely, she realized that it was almost certainly more than one tree. But, however many there were that made up the clump, they grew so closely together that they seemed to form one immense whole.

  Again Alice heard Spot yelping. It was a quiet, impatient sound, as though he was calling to her. She walked towards the tree and parted the branches, passing through into the dark interior. It was exactly like going into a room. The ground was quite dry because the thick, interlacing branches formed a roof and walls all around her. At the centre of this room the gnarled and twisted trunks of a number of trees formed a pillar several feet thick. Over the years many of the lower branches had broken or perhaps even been sawn away and where the remaining bits stuck out of the trunks they formed a ladder of most inviting hand and foot holds. Spot was nowhere to be seen, although Alice could still hear him occasionally yelping at a distance. She knew that she should continue to search for him, but the temptation to climb the tree was immense and finally got the better of her. She couldn’t resist trying to get to the top. Besides, she argued in her head, I’ll be able to get a much better view of everywhere from higher up and I’ll probably see Spot and so save a lot of time searching for him down at ground level.

  After the first few easy, inviting spurs, she reached the living branches of the tree. At one place she had to work her way round to the other side in order to find a foothold and, later, she reached a place where there were no available branches at all. But here, to her surprise, she found an old iron ring hanging from an iron band that went right round a limb of the tree and, above it, the thickly matted branches pressed in so closely, that she felt she must have reached the top. She was disappointed. She had hoped that she would emerge through the branches and be able to perch, giddily swaying in the breeze, like a bird on a bough. Instead there seemed to be an impenetrable barrier between her and the upper limits of the tree. She reached up and tried to part the thick mass of twigs and branches. But it was difficult because, at the same time, she had to cling on to the iron hoop with her other hand. Then, just as she was about to be defeated, she managed to reach across with one foot and get a firm foothold on another branch. She pulled herself up and round the main trunk at the same time. In front of her a few trimmed pieces of wood had been lodged into a fork in the trunk. They formed a narrow standing place.

  Alice stepped across, clinging to a loose branch for support. She was hot and gasping for breath, but elated. Her hands were covered with grime and her jeans were torn where a twig had caught her back pocket as she was pulling herself up. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and pushed the hair away from her face.

  Then she turned and started to edge her way round the main trunk, gripping hold of branches for support and not looking down. When she had almost done a complete circle of the tree she came to a place where a protruding branch made her duck low. Straightening up once more, on the other side of this branch, she found her way blocked. But this time the obstacle took her completely by surprise.

  There was a door in the tree.

  7

  The Magician’s Lair

  MARY HEARD ALICE’S voice calling her name. The sound came from somewhere near to her, but she couldn’t see where. She jumped up and ran back round the yew tree, calling:

  ‘William!’

  ‘What?’ her brother asked. He was still staring at the standing stone. He looked over his shoulder and saw Mary appear round the side of the big yew.

  ‘Have you seen Alice?’

  ‘She was there a minute ago,’ William replied, without showing much interest.

  ‘Well, she’s not here now,’ Mary told him. ‘Oh, bother! She’s gone missing again.’ Then she heard Alice calling her name again, in an urgent and excited tone. The voice seemed now to be coming from immediately above her head.

  ‘Alice?’ she called in a puzzled way, looking up as she did so.

  ‘Oh come quickly,’ her sister pleaded. ‘I’ve discovered the most amazing thing.’

  ‘Where are you?’ William called, running to join Mary.

  ‘Up in the tree,’ Alice called.

  ‘Oh, Alice,’ he complained. ‘We’ve stopped playing hide and seek.’

  ‘William Constant, come here at once,’ Alice said, sharply. But then her brother and sister heard her gasp, followed by a little ‘oh!’ of surprise.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mary called, charging through the branches into the depth of the tree, with William following closely behind her.

  ‘Of course she’s all right,’ a man’s voice shouted down at them. ‘Now hurry up.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ William asked, his heart pumping with excitement.

  ‘Where are you?’ Mary called, desperately searching the darkness above her. ‘Alice? Alice, are you all right?’

  But no answer came back.

  ‘Up here, Mare!’ William called, as he started to scale the trunk of the tree, using the spurs of wood to reach the upper branches.

  Mary followed him, scratching her knee on a protruding twig and scarcely noticing in her haste.

  William being taller than Alice found the ascent easier. He soon reached the iron ring and stepped across on to the platform. Then he reached back and took hold of Mary’s outstretched hand, helping her across to stand beside him.

  ‘Now where?’ Mary whispered. ‘Oh, Will! What is going on?’

  But William was already edging round the trunk until he reached the low branch.

  ‘Under here, I guess,’ he whispered, and he ducked out of her sight. ‘Hey!’ she heard him exclaim a moment later, from the other side of the branch.

  The door in the tree was wide open and Alice was standing on the other side of it, with her back to them. The room she was in was small and many-sided. The walls were made of dark wood and the ceiling rose to a point in the middle, from which was hanging an old iron lantern. All the sides of the room, with the exception of the one with the door in it, were pierced by little pointed windows with no glass in them. Each window had a pointed wooden shutter that opened inwards into the room, with a bolt so that it could be closed securely. At the moment, however, all these shutters were open and daylight filtered into the room through the screen of leaves that surrounded the windows on all sides.

  There wasn’t any furniture in the room apart from a wooden table and one high backed chair. This chair was at present pulled up to the window immediately opposite to the door and, what is more, it was occupied. Sitting on it, facing the window and with his back consequently turned towards the children, was a man in a long black coat. He was bareheaded and his thin hair surrounded his head like a red mist.

  ‘It’s Mr Tyler!’ Mary gasped.

  ‘Sssh!’ the man said, without looking round. Then he raised to his eyes a pair of binoculars, which had been resting on his lap, and peered through them.

  ‘Interesting!’ he muttered. ‘But what is it for?’

  ‘You’re holding it the wrong way round,’ William advised him, sounding more than a little nervous at his own presumption.

  ‘Wrong way?’ the man said, his voice stern. ‘Does this thing belong to you?’ and, as he spoke, he turned in his chair and for the first time the three children could see his face.

  ‘Oh, Mr Tyler,’ Alice cried. ‘I’m ever
so pleased you’ve come. I’ve been longing to . . .’

  ‘Silence!’ Stephen Tyler thundered.

  Alice gulped.

  ‘ . . . longing to ask you all sorts of questions,’ she determinedly finished her sentence, but in a voice that grew quieter and quieter until it ended in a whisper.

  ‘To whom does this thing belong?’ Stephen Tyler demanded, waving the binoculars in front of him.

  The three children shrugged but were too nervous to actually speak. The man seemed in a bad temper, which was offputting, but, more than that, now that they were once more standing in front of him, and in spite of their delight at seeing him again, they felt shy and uncertain.

  Stephen Tyler sighed, irritably.

  ‘Oh, come on! I haven’t got all day,’ he said, then he added, in a tone that betrayed a certain reluctance to admit his own ignorance: ‘Wrong way round, do you say?’ And, turning once more to look out of the window, he raised the binoculars to his eyes in the correct position and gasped with pleasure. ‘Oh, that’s splendid!’ he cried. ‘I couldn’t see any sense in an instrument that made the distance seem further away . . . But to bring it nearer to one is an altogether different matter. I say, how very clever.’

  ‘But haven’t you seen a telescope before?’ William asked.

  ‘Telescope?’ the man muttered.

  ‘The telescope was invented by Galileo,’ Mary chimed in, using her smug, I-know-because-I’m-good-at-history voice.

  ‘Galileo?’ Stephen Tyler said, swinging round once more and fixing her with his piercingly blue eyes. ‘You know this man?’

  ‘No!’ Mary snorted, as though she was about to laugh and then managed to stop herself just in time. ‘I mean, I learned about him in history.’

  ‘History?’ Stephen Tyler said, thoughtfully, then shook his head. ‘Oh, yes, of course. I keep forgetting. I am history to you and you are the future to me. It is all most. . . . Who is this Galileo?’

  ‘Well,’ Mary answered, stuffing her hands into her jeans pockets and staring at her feet, trying to remember anything at all about him. ‘He invented the telescope.’ Then she hesitated. The man was staring at her so fiercely, that he made her unsure of her facts. ‘At least, I think he did,’ she mumbled.