by Tim Tilley
“Nox isn’t worth worrying about. You’ll get used to him. He’s just…”
“You okay with me being trained?” I say without thinking.
Nissa’s mouth makes a tight smile. “I’m fine. I just wish Papa had taken me to see the wood sprites. They could have seen my future, told me what I were meant to do too. I mean, what if I’m actually meant to be a Forest Keeper?”
“Why don’t you ask him to take you?”
She glances at Papa Herne, who’s over by the bird hangar. “I can’t. He’s our leader. I got to do what he wants. It’s not bad. I just wish I got to choose – like you did.”
“I can say something to Papa Herne—”
“There’s no point,” Nissa interrupts. “He wants to hold onto tradition. Words aren’t gonna change his mind.”
I walk for ages, following Papa Herne, who’s riding his blackbird this time. It alights on branches, moss-covered rocks and the forest path ahead as it waits for me to catch up. The land rises and falls. We stop where a small tree-covered hill is peppered with holes. Several rabbits sit near them, completely still, their ink-black eyes watchful.
“This is where the rabbits live,” he says. “Best watch where you walk though. You don’t want to step on a rabbit hole covered in leaves. You might injure yer foot.”
“I’ll be careful,” I say, noticing a half-hidden rabbit hole a few feet away.
“Rabbit homes are called warrens.”
“Warrens,” I repeat.
Papa Herne nods. “That’s right. They like eating flowers an’ grass an’ clovers. Though they can’t eat bracken or foxgloves – it makes them sick.”
“Fox gloves?”
“It’s a type of flower.”
“And is bracken a flower too?”
“No, no, it’s a plant.” Papa Herne takes off his hat and runs a hand through his dark hair. “Maybe I should go more slowly. I forgot you don’t know much about the forest.”
“I know some things,” I say.
Papa Herne’s smile turns into a twinkle in his eyes. “We should start with the trees. Trees are always a good place to begin. Trees are like yer clocks. Their shadows tell the time of day, their leaves the seasons.”
We examine the shapes of deciduous trees. We look at their outlines first, the shapes their bare branches make. Rounded oak, elm, beech. Oval ash and birch. We then move onto leaves. As the new leaves aren’t out yet, we hunt for old ones in the leaf litter on the forest floor. Lobed oak leaves. Eye-shaped beech leaves. Tooth-edged birch and hornbeam leaves. They feel like paper between my fingers.
“Evergreens an’ conifers are next,” says Papa Herne, climbing into his saddle and picking up the reins.
“Aren’t you afraid of heights? When you’re up in the trees?”
“A bit of fear is a good thing – it can keep us alive.” Papa Herne touches his hat. “But too much can stop us living.”
As I get to my feet, his blackbird skirrs into the air with swift wingbeats, then glides to land on another branch. Bright sunlight makes a mosaic on the forest floor. I step from sunspot to sunspot, as if they are stepping stones and the shade is water.
When I hear a tapping sound, not far off in the trees, I stop by an oak.
Papa Herne flies back and lands in branching shadows by my feet. “Why are we stopping?”
“What’s that knocking?”
We wait.
The tapping starts again.
“Woodpecker,” says Papa Herne.
I crane my neck to look at the upper branches of the oak. My fingers trace the ridges of the trunk’s grey bark. “How hard is it to climb a tree?” I think of the Bottomless Well and Old Ma Bogey. She’s the reason I’m afraid of heights, afraid to fall. Why should I let her hold me back? I tighten my jaw.
“You don’t have to do this. We got time enough.”
“If I’m going to be fully part of the forest, I need to climb.” I clench my insides and fold back the sleeves of my sweater. “I want to do this now.”
“Alright. But we can use something to help.” He points his staff to a patch of ivy on the ground.
I watch in wonder as a burst of green light shoots out and a tremor runs through the leaves.
A thick cord of ivy vine races across the forest floor, then climbs and winds around the oak until it reaches the crown. Then it tumbles down from a high branch.
I remember Half Crown twisting and transforming with wild magic. “Can you turn trees into other things instead of tree-stags?” I ask.
“Tree-stags are traditional.”
“Could you turn the whole forest into tree-stags?”
“I wouldn’t have the energy. Magic takes a good deal of concentration. I’m still learning from the wood sprites. Mostly I use it to help seedlings an’ other plants to settle when I move them—”
When the ivy reaches me, it winds round my waist, tendrils corkscrewing around themselves.
“—an’ use it to lift heavy objects. There we go. Now, look for knots and whorls, bark-holes and nubs. Anything you can use for a hand- or foothold.”
I reach up for a knot and get a firm grip, then find a foothold on a curve of bark.
“That’s it.” Papa Herne points his staff at the slack ivy cord, which tightens. “If you slip yer not gonna fall. You’ll just hang in the air.”
“Do you climb trees yourself?”
“Occasionally…takes ages though. Never when it rains. You can’t climb wet trees. Now, see that branch there?” Papa Herne points to one nearby. “Reach up with yer hand an’ test its strength.”
I grab the branch and tug it. It doesn’t move.
“You can tell the strength of a branch by its size. An’ check for lichen. D’you know what that is?”
“No.”
“They’re circles of crust – they look a bit like scabs. Branches that are completely covered in lichen are dead an’ will snap easily. Unless there’s leaf growth on them. Remind me to show you. Now, find yer footing an’ shift yer weight.”
I follow his instructions. Even with the ivy rope clinging to me, I’m still dreading it. Blood roars in my ears. My fingers tremble and palms sweat as I climb. This isn’t like climbing stairs. You don’t always know where to put your feet.
Papa Herne and his blackbird flit from branch to branch. “Yer doing fine,” says Papa Herne. “Take yer time.”
As I secure my right foot on a hold, it slips. My leg slides down against the trunk.
All at once, my weight is being held by my fingers.
I’m going to fall.
The thought is overwhelming. Fear floods through me. The strength goes out of my legs.
I glance down, wide-eyed, as I lose my grip—
And fall backwards—
Maybe ten feet—
Then the ivy cord snaps tight, dangling me upside down over the forest floor.
My heart knocks hard against my chest. My hands shake worse than Bottletop’s.
“Yer alright!” hollers Papa Herne when his bird lands on a branch close to me.
“Get me down,” I say, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.
Papa Herne magics the ivy to lower me to the ground. “You did good. You were very brave. But next time, we should try with a smaller tree.”
We head back to Oakhome and find ourselves by the deer pond. The water is clear again, a mirror reflecting the sky. I think back to what Nissa said before Tiggs fell in. “What happened to the Hobs who disappeared?” I say.
“You know about that?”
“Not really. Nissa mentioned it.”
“It were five years ago now, in the summer. Nox an’ I went to Ferngrove in Sixways Wood, where we used to live.”
“Is that past Lightning Rock?”
“No, but it’s not too far away.” He takes a deep breath and tugs at his cloak. “Anyways, when we got to Ferngrove, everyone had disappeared. Then we went to Owls Hatch and Briarbank, the other Hob villages in the wood, an’ it were the same. We
tried looking for everyone, followed tracks. Thought they might have moved…but…” He taps his staff. “We found nothing. None of them came back.”
A shiver runs through me. It’s as if he’s talking about the Bottomless Well.
“Nissa said she heard you say something about a monster.”
Papa Herne flinches, uncomfortable at my words. “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he says quickly. “She must have heard wrong, I’m sure.”
He’s definitely hiding something, but then I am too, I realize. I clear my throat. “Old Ma Bogey had a dead Hob in a bell jar. I meant to tell you.”
Papa Herne looks at me intently. “Is that right?”
I remember the framed box filled with butterflies. “Maybe she’s behind them disappearing.”
He frowns. “There’s not been any disappearances in a long time. But we should keep an eye out for anything that don’t look right.”
My eye catches on a band of sparrows gathered on nearby branches, with twigs and leaves in their beaks. At first there are five or six, but soon there are twenty or more. Then other birds join them: wood pigeons, song thrushes, chaffinches, jays.
“What are they doing?”
Papa Herne raises his hat to them. “Making a nest,” he says.
As the sun blazes overhead, we make our way back, lost in our own thoughts. I’m unsettled knowing there might be a monster making the Hobs disappear. What if it’s still out there – some vicious beast, like from one of Petal’s stories? All of the trees that surround us and usually make me feel safe and protected now feel different. The spaces between them are filled with doubt. I find myself looking for paw prints and prowling shapes.
When we reach Oakhome, the Hobs are bowling with pill woodlice on the forest floor. Papa Herne asks me to join in, but I stay at the edge of the clearing. Nissa sits alongside me on a cushion of moss. We watch the woodlice roll, watch some of them unfold and scurry away. Linden and Tiggs chase after them.
“I asked him about the Monster,” I say to Nissa, dragging a stick through the leaf litter to make a line.
Nissa’s eyes brighten. “What did he say?”
“He said you must have heard him wrong, but I think he’s hiding something.”
“That’s because he is hiding something.” Nissa stands up. “We should see if we can find out what he’s not telling us. You can see if there’s anything unusual when you’re out with Papa Herne an’ I can check Nox’s nest-hut for clues.”
“Why Nox’s hut?”
“His wife was one of the Hobs who disappeared.”
Her words hit me. “I didn’t know.” I realize that Nox nearly always seems to be on his own, unlike the rest of the Hobs.
“She were away from Oakhome, on a picnic…” Nissa swallows. “If we find out anything, we’ll tell each other. Right?” She reaches out a hand.
“Right.” I reach out my thumb. It’s not exactly a handshake, but it’s good enough for us.
Nissa steps over to the line I’ve drawn. “I think the answer is in the North, beyond where Nox and Genna patrol. Where only the deer are allowed.”
“Papa Herne got really flustered when I asked him about going beyond Lightning Rock. There must be something there. Or Sixways Wood, where the abandoned villages are.”
“Yeah.” Nissa smiles. “Whatever it is, we’re gonna find out. It’s good to have you as a friend. Even if you are so big.”
“I can’t help it,” I say, making myself lower.
“Yeah, well don’t go growing up any more.”
When Linden and Tiggs bring the runaway woodlice back, Finn wraps his sons in his arms and hugs them tight. It hurts to see how much the Hob parents love their children.
I wonder how long the dream of living at Oakhome will last – if one day I’ll wake up at Harklights on the dormitory floor covered in chalk dust, surrounded by smudged drawings of trees and birds and little people.
Papa Herne doesn’t say anything about yesterday’s failed climb when we head out into the forest. He flies ahead on his blackbird again. This time, as well as flitting from rock to roots and bough to branch, his bird boldly lands on my outstretched arm. It weighs no more than a couple of matchboxes. I wonder what the other orphans are doing right now. They’re probably packing matchboxes. This is my fourth day away from Harklights. I feel a pull to go back for Petal, but I’m not ready. Not just yet. I need to be strong enough. To make sure Old Ma Bogey doesn’t win this time.
After visiting the Milk Hare and the cubs, we follow Badger Path south, heading towards the southern end of Deer Path. I carry Papa Herne and his bird perched on my wrist. He tells me about patrol skills and how to read the forest.
“It’s not all the same,” he says. “Not when you look closely.” He points out the details of things I would have just called “forest”. Birch stalks cloaked to their throats in woolly apple-green moss. Scraggly ivy. Ranks of young nettles. Trees scuffed where deer have rubbed their antlers against them. A sunken amphitheatre, where the ground has collapsed on itself and revealed a ten-foot ledge dotted with large holes – a cross-section of burrows. Only they’re not just details, they’re markers too. Ways for me to get my bearings, like the paths – ways for me to find my way back to Oakhome when I need to.
In a hazel above us, high on a forked branch, is a messy nest of twigs and leaves.
“Squirrel’s nest,” says Papa Herne, looking up. “It’s called a drey.”
My toes ache and my pulse quickens at the thought of how high it is.
“Dreys can look a lot like a rook or magpie’s nest. But you can tell the difference. Squirrels like to weave leaves into their nest, birds don’t.”
As I walk away, still carrying Papa Herne on his bird, something flashes in front of us: reddish brown fur, tufted ears, bushy tail.
The squirrel scampers across the forest floor and darts up the tree.
Papa Herne tells me that the leaves of sick trees turn brown before autumn, that willow bark or willow water is good for unwell animals.
I think about how fearless the squirrel was as it corkscrewed up the hazel, how much of the forest is off the ground. “I’d like to have another go at climbing,” I say, “but like you said, try something smaller.”
“Alright, I think I know just the tree.” Papa Herne grabs his blackbird’s saddle horn and snaps his reins. “Follow me!”
His blackbird shoots forward with a quick flick of its wings, then glides through the air along the path, before dropping with a sharp turn into a stand of silver birches.
“Hey, wait!” I say, but Papa Herne doesn’t stop.
I race after him through the silver-white trees, wondering where he’s going. I climb under and over fallen stems, pick my way round holly bushes.
I startle a robin. It rushes to a branch and calls tic-tic, tic-tic.
I don’t stop, trying to keep sight of Papa Herne’s blackbird. But it’s too fast, flying further and further away with every wingbeat.
Then they’re out of sight.
I carry on running through the silver birches until I reach a sunlit glade. Papa Herne’s bird is there, sitting in the sun. Papa Herne stands with his staff, looking towards a gnarled old tree. I’d recognize the tree anywhere – it’s the one from the yard at Harklights. It’s still bent over like a broken-backed man. The tree looks so much smaller now, surrounded by a circle of towering trees. I guess this is what living all those years at Harklights did to it.
Papa Herne raises his staff. A jet of green light shoots forwards and bursts when it hits the trunk, then spreads around the boughs and branches in a weaving, flickering dance of light.
The old tree trembles, twists, turns and transforms into Half Crown.
He’s still missing part of his rack of antlers.
“Half Crown, it’s good to have you back,” I say, as he trots over. I stroke his muzzle. Here and there on his antlers are tiny green buds.
“Will the broken bit grow back?”
&nbs
p; Papa Herne nods. “It’ll take a while. Trees heal themselves – they grow new branches an’ cover over old wounds with new bark.” He pauses, then adds, “I thought, if you wanted, we could try again with climbing onto his back.”
“Yes,” I say. “Let’s do it.” I take a breath.
“You can do this,” says Papa Herne. “You just need to take yer time.”
We start again with handholds and footholds, this time looking for them on Half Crown. He stands there, patient, not moving as I test a foothold on his leg.
Papa Herne lands his blackbird on Half Crown’s broken antler. “Yer okay if you fall off. The worst you’ll get is a couple of bruises. It’s not that bad.”
Climbing onto Half Crown’s back is like packing matchboxes. The more I practise, the better I get. I feel more confident with Papa Herne’s encouragement. Eventually, I climb up as easily as a key winding a clock.
As we leave the silver birch glade on the back of Half Crown, I run a hand down his rough bark. I’ll borrow him, I decide, when I rescue Petal. I just need to come up with a way of getting on the back of one of the steam lorries.
After Papa Herne finishes a story about sheltering from a storm in a badger burrow, the Hobs leave the fire circle and head to their nest-huts to sleep. Just as I’m settling by the fire, a rustling sound draws nearer and nearer to the clearing. As I sit up, Half Crown appears between two oaks, rolling a nest-hut with his wooden muzzle. This one is so big that I could fit in it.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Hope you like the hut. Make yerself at home,” says Papa Herne. “This is what the Home Keepers have been busy making. They had help from squirrels collecting up twigs an’ leaves. They’re as hard-working as bees.”
I grin, seeing leaves woven into the nest-home. No one has ever done anything like this for me.
Half Crown nudges the nest-hut to its final resting place close to the roots of a huge oak.
“An’ those sparrows we saw helped too,” adds Papa Herne.
I get up and go over to Half Crown. He nuzzles my hand.