by Tim Tilley
“It’s a shame that Petal didn’t escape too, she looked nice.”
A surge of guilt runs through me. “You would like her, she’s great.”
“Sometimes I miss not having other Hobs my own age around.” Nissa takes another rock from her pouch.
“Have you always lived in the forest?”
“Yeah, I grew up here. There used to be more of us. There were other Hob villages in Sixways Wood, not far from here. But then, when I were seven, everyone who lived there disappeared.”
“Really?” Nissa’s words worry me.
She fires off another shot.
Crack.
“Disappeared? What do you mean?”
“They just left their homes an’ went. No one knows why. An’ then a few nights before you arrived, I overheard Papa an’ Nox talking about a monster prowling.”
“A monster?”
“Somewhere near Havenwood Forest. They were afraid it were getting closer an’ closer. They stopped talking when they realized I were listening—”
“Help!” The cry comes from Linden. He stands rigid at the edge of the pond. The surface by the lily pads ripples, making the reflected trees sway.
“Where’s Tiggs?” shouts Nissa.
“He fell in…” Linden’s eyes are wide with shock.
I don’t think to take off my boots but climb straight into the pond. The water is about a foot deep. I wade cautiously over to where Tiggs last was, afraid I might step on him.
“He can’t swim! Do something!” yells Nissa. Her shrill voice scares the birds. They take to the sky, making alarm calls.
I cast about, frantically searching the water.
I feel a flash of hope as I see Tuff bobbing on his side on the surface, then it’s gone – Tiggs is nowhere to be seen.
Fear crashes through me. I gasp for breath. This isn’t happening.
Then I spot Tiggs lying in the murky water at the bottom of the pond.
He’s not moving.
My chest tightens as I plunge my hands in and scoop him up. I don’t know what to do, so I lay him carefully on the ground. His felt clothes and boots are soaked, heavy, swollen with water. A puddle pools around him as Nissa drops to his side. She shakes him and thumps him on the back. “Tiggs, wake up!”
Tiggs coughs up a mouthful of water, then coughs again. Nissa helps him to sit upright and pushes the hair back from his face.
A slick of snot runs from his nose to his mouth. He wipes it away with his tongue and looks up at me. “Can I have one of yer buttons?”
Nissa makes a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “He’s alright.”
As I let out a deep breath, Linden rushes over and hugs his brother until he’s soaked too. It looks as if they both fell in.
I pluck the lowest button off my shirt, near the bit I tore to make the acorn-baby nappy, and give it to Tiggs. Then I fetch Tuff from the pond.
“We can’t tell Papa Herne,” says Nissa firmly. “We must keep it a secret.”
Linden chews his lip. “I have to tell him the truth. He says we got to.”
Nissa’s eyes fill with more worry. “Please, Linden. Tiggs’ll get into trouble.”
Tiggs says nothing and hugs his toy squirrel.
Linden shakes his head. “No, it’ll be you an’ Wick that will get in trouble. You were meant to keep an eye on us.”
My chest tightens again. I feel bad for not keeping my word about looking out for Tiggs. This was my one chance at finding a home. Now it’s slipping away through my fingers. That’s it, I think. I’ll be back at Harklights by dinner time.
After Nissa wrings the water out of Tiggs’s jacket and trousers and wraps him and Linden in dry leaves, we decide to go back to Oakhome. I carry the Hob children in my hands again. They are as light as matches, but there’s a heavy feeling in my stomach. Mostly we don’t say anything.
I play out different paths for how the conversation might go when we get back. All of them lead to me being sent back to the orphanage.
I tell myself I’m not really bothered if they want me gone. I didn’t ask for them to take me in. And how good would life in the forest be anyway? I try to ignore how beautiful the speckled sunlight makes everything look.
Sparrows call out from the upper branches, but we don’t make bird whistles again. Instead, we listen to their song and the silence of the trees.
As we arrive at Oakhome, Mama Herne, Finn and the other Home Keepers are cooking dinner in a set of tiny metal pots. Nox sits away from them, hunched forward and brooding.
Mama Herne takes one look at us and says, “How come the boys are all wet?”
My stomach twists.
Nissa’s shoulders drop. “Tiggs fell in the water,” she says before Linden can say anything.
“I’m alright,” says Tiggs. “Look – Wick gave me one of his buttons!”
“Quick, get them by the fire an’ get them dry clothes,” says Mama Herne. “They’ll catch their death of cold.”
Finn drops his wooden spoon and gets moss-grown blankets to wrap round them. Genna and several other Hobs race off to one of the huts.
Nissa bites her lip. “He nearly drowned but Wick went in an’ saved him.”
“What?” Papa Herne’s eyes flash with anger. “You were s’posed to look out for him!”
“We were,” I say, clearing my throat, looking to the ground and wishing I didn’t stand out so much. “We turned away for a minute.”
I wait for Papa Herne to start shouting.
“He went on the lily pads.” Linden hugs the blanket around him. “He were trying to touch the frogspawn.”
“What did I tell you?” says Nox, getting up from his seat, his voice rising. “Told you the boy would bring trouble.”
I brace myself for what comes next – Papa Herne saying it was a bad idea that I live with them, telling me to go.
“First rule of Forest Keeping is to protect the forest.” Nox jabs his finger at me. “That includes Hobs.”
Papa Herne looks at me sharply. “Yer very lucky Tiggs didn’t drown. Wick, if you are gonna stay with us, you got to stick to Forest Law.”
“I – I – will,” I stutter, stumbling over my words.
“I’ll make an exception this once, but if you break one of the rules again…” Papa Herne turns to Nissa. “An’ you, you were supposed to be keeping an eye on Tiggs too.”
Nissa bows her head. “Sorry, Papa.”
“He broke a rule, he should go,” says Nox gruffly.
“Hold on, Nox,” says Papa Herne. “I’ve not even started training him yet.”
I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t think what to say.
“He has to go. He’ll bring destruction!”
“We don’t know that.”
“Are you gonna train Wick to be a Forest Keeper?” says Nissa.
She sounds as surprised as I am. Papa Herne said I would make a good Forest Keeper, but he never said anything about training.
Forest Keeper.
There’s a stab of guilt. This is what Nissa wants.
“I could do with someone to cover the South-East Quarter.” Papa Herne nods at me encouragingly. “Wick shows great potential.”
“Let’s face it,” says Nox, “he’s already failed once. It’s just a matter of time before he fails again.”
Nissa’s mouth draws into a thin line. She walks away towards Mama Herne, who’s wiping her hands down her apron and giving her a stern look.
“Thanks for, er, showing me the frogspawn,” I say, calling after Nissa.
She doesn’t turn around.
All of the Hobs are gathered in a half circle round the fire, sitting on twigs as if they are benches. I sit down on the ground opposite, but still feel too big, so I hunch forward, trying to make myself smaller. My wet boots and socks are close to the fire. Steam rises from them. We eat a dinner of something called nut roast and dried apricots with cheese. Each nut roast is like a matchbox-sized loaf of bread. I eat twelve of th
em.
“Where does all the food come from?” I say.
“The forest,” replies Papa Herne. “We got our own hens for eggs, hares for milk, we grow some vegetables an’ collect mushrooms, nuts an’ fruits. An’ some of the things are human things we found. That’s where we got the blanket from an’ yer sweater.”
“An’ the salt an’ sugar,” adds Mama Herne.
“Do you have contact with humans?” I ask.
There’s silence. Nox bristles at the word “humans”. Then Papa Herne says, “There’s not been any in the forest. Not since we moved here anyways. An’ we prefer to be by ourselves. Everything – mostly everything – we need is here.” After a moment, he turns to the other Hobs and says, “Who wants a story?”
“I do!” cries Tiggs.
“How about how the magpie stole away Tiya?” offers Mama Herne. “An’ how Wick looked after her.”
The Hobs cheer.
I feel a hint of warmth in my chest. They want me to stay. At least, most of them do.
Nox picks up his tiny plate, gets up and leaves the clearing.
Papa Herne stands on a branch and raises his voice. “Once there were a Hob couple called Genna an’ Finn Knowle. They had three children: Linden, Tiggs an’ Tiya. Tiya were the youngest, only a few months old…”
All eyes are fixed on Papa Herne as he spins his story. “…Genna took the acorn-cradle an’ polished it. One morning, when Tiya were asleep in the cradle, the sun shined on the wood so bright it looked like a diamond. A greedy magpie in a nearby tree saw the shining an’ thought it were a jewel…”
Tiggs hugs Tuff tight, when Papa Herne tells how the magpie snatched Tiya’s cradle and Nissa alerted everyone. He holds Tuff even tighter as Papa Herne tells how they flew on their blackbirds, chasing the magpie to Harklights. When the story reaches the part where I find Tiya and look after her, the Hobs peer up at me, smiling brightly. A small part of me wonders what would have happened if Petal had escaped too. If she had been with us, we would have had an extra pair of eyes and Tiggs might not have nearly drowned.
After Papa Herne finishes the story, the Hobs leave the fire circle and head to their nest-huts. Squirrels carry the ones who live up on the branches.
“Petal told stories back at Harklights…” I say, as Papa Herne climbs down from his branch.
He looks up at me. “Stories are a way of remembering who we are, but also a way of finding out who we want to be.”
I lie under the felt blanket on a bed of leaves, watching the flames curl round the firewood. I think again about Papa Herne training me instead of Nissa, and what he said about sticking to Forest Law. My first day in the forest didn’t go as I expected. I only just found out about Forest Law and then I go and break one of the rules. I didn’t protect Tiggs. I don’t want to be a destructive human that hurts things. All I want is to help and make things better. All my life, I’ve been part of the Machine, separated from nature. This is my time to be something different. I want to be a Forest Keeper.
Several dormice scuttle across the clearing and snuggle up by my shoulder.
I think about what Nissa said about the disappearing Hobs, about losing her friends. Maybe I could find them. Maybe this could be a way to show Papa Herne and everyone – even Nox – that I really can help.
Now, as I close my eyes, I try and come up with a plan. But I don’t know where to begin – all I can think about are the disappearing Hobs and Petal. And a monster prowling.
There are lots of different paths across the forest. Wide winding paths. Narrow paths edged with heather or bracken. Sunken paths with high rising sides that are more like tunnels. Faint paths that are nothing more than a thin trail of churned-up leaf mulch. Papa Herne shows me all of these from his perch on the palm of my hand as he guides me on another tour of the forest.
As we walk, I think back to the wood sprites. Are there more of them here, unseen, gliding about in the forest air, disappearing into tree trunks and flowers? I wish I’d borrowed the hexagonal lens, so I could see them.
“Are the sprites ghosts?”
“If you mean were they living an’ died, then no. They’ve always been spirits.”
We pass close to three deer. A stag, a doe and a younger doe. They stop and watch us. I wait for them to race away, but they are curious and brave. They draw closer; the young doe raises its head and whuffles at my sleeve.
“Stay calm. She’s just getting yer scent, there we go.”
I wonder if she can smell Harklights on me.
“Now you can stroke her. That’s it – slowly.”
The deer fur is warm, soft. It’s coarser than that of the orphan cubs, but nothing like the bark of Half Crown.
“We give them extra food in winter. We got underground stores, not far from Oakhome.”
The other doe trots over and bumps me gently with her head.
Stroking the deer calms me. All of my worries – about Papa Herne training me instead of Nissa, about Nox not wanting me to stay – fade like photographs left out in the sun. What was it Papa Herne said? I have a way with animals. Maybe this is a sign that I sort of belong here.
“Where in the forest do the deer live?” I ask.
“Most of them prefer to live northwards, on Wayland Heath,” answers Papa Herne. “Beyond the edge of the forest, past Lightning Rock.”
“Are we going to visit them?”
“No, no, no!” he says quickly, breaking out in a sweat. “The North is a wild place that’s just for them. We keep away so we don’t disturb them.” He flexes a shoulder as if he’s trying to shake something off.
The feeling that Papa Herne is hiding something comes rushing back. He’s definitely uneasy. Maybe there’s something bad in the North. I make a note of it in my mind. It could be important.
As we visit other parts of the forest – Beech Hanger with its steep downslope, and a gorge by an old mine – the idea of going back to rescue Petal starts to take shape. I’ll go back alone; it’ll be safer. I don’t want anything happening to the Hobs. As I think about the orphanage wall, fear rises inside me. There’s no way I’m going over the top. I’ll have to sneak through the gates with one of the food deliveries. But what if I get caught? Or Petal gets caught trying to escape again? Both of us are bound to go down the Bottomless Well. The thought sends a shiver through me. But it doesn’t change anything. I must go back. I know I can’t leave her there.
The next day I wake to the sound of birdsong. Sunlight streams into the clearing. It still feels good not waking up to Old Ma Bogey thrashing the gong, as if it’s an orphan who woke her in the night. There’s a wonderful smell of something sweet baking. I get up to investigate.
A group of baker Hobs are taking a brick-sized loaf of bread out from a clay oven, which is framed by the roots of a broken oak stump. Nearby, a fox appears with a hen’s egg in its mouth and drops it into a pot of boiling water. I can’t remember seeing the oven yesterday and wonder if it just appeared by magic. Papa Herne, Mama Herne, Finn and some others are busy with even more preparations. Linden is with them, covered with a light dusting of flour. It reminds me of the time Flint covered himself in chalk and pretended to be the ghost of an orphan who went down the Bottomless Well. Old Ma Bogey was furious. She beat him till the air filled with clouds of chalk dust.
“Um, what are you making?” I ask.
“Honey cakes,” says Papa Herne, looking up. “Quarter Day is coming up the day after tomorrow. There are four of them in the year. They’re when we celebrate each season. This time it’s Bring Forth.”
I stretch. “Bring Forth?”
“Yeah, it’s spring. Seeds sprout, tree buds unfold, birds make nests and animals ready dens for their young. New beginnings.” He pauses, smiles. “Looks like you came along at the right time.”
“Thought you might like a bigger loaf,” says Finn. “I don’t know what it’ll be like though. I’ve not made bread so big before.”
“It smells delicious,” I say. My stomach a
ches, and I realize how hungry I am. “Do you want any help?”
“No, no. You go an’ sit,” adds Finn. “It needs a few minutes to cool down. Linden’ll call you when it’s ready.”
Linden nods proudly.
When I sit with Nissa and Tiggs for breakfast, Nox is sat close by, talking with several other Hobs. The rest of the Hobs sit around the fire, eating slices of tiny Hob-sized bread with smidges of scrambled egg and mushroom.
Nox raises his voice so I can hear him. “How’s he gonna look after the forest? He said he can’t even climb a tree. What happens if there’s a sick bird up in a high nest? He can’t go an’ fly up there on a blackbird.”
The Hobs he’s sitting with look up to see my reaction.
“What d’you think Papa Herne sees in him?” says one of them.
Nox scratches his beard. “I dunno.”
His words sting. Colour rises in my cheeks. I want to tell him that I don’t know either. He’s right. So much of the forest is off the ground. If anything needs help up a tree, there’s not much I can do.
“Leave him alone,” says Nissa.
“What’s it to you?” Nox scowls at Nissa. “Aren’t you meant to be washing acorn cups or looking after Tiya or something?”
“Ignore him,” says Nissa to me.
I’m surprised. I guess she isn’t upset with me any more.
When the loaf is ready, I tear off a thick wedge and put it on my slate with the boiled egg and a heap of cooked mushrooms. The eggshell is still hot – I peel it quickly. The bread is delicious.
Tiggs watches me, open-mouthed. “Look at how much he eats!”
“Stop staring at him,” says Nissa. “He’s got feelings, you know. Go see if Linden wants some help.”
“Okay,” replies Tiggs, running off with his toy squirrel.
“I don’t mind,” I say, biting into the boiled egg. “Thanks for, you know, sticking up for me just now.”