Dreamwood (20 page)

For there was Cranbull, squatting on his haunches by the small blaze, turning a small animal on a spit. He had
killed
something.

They were going to die—that was her thought as she flew in front of him screeching, “Put it out. Put it out now!”

“Hold on.” Cranbull grabbed her hands, so she tried to kick dirt onto the flames. “What are you thinking?” he said angrily. “You're getting dirt on my supper!”

He caught her and lifted her off the ground, so she could only hammer at his shins with her moccasins. For the first time she wished she still had her boots on; maybe then he'd have let her go.

And where was Pete? Was he all right? She twisted against Cranbull's thick, crushing arms.

Angus came striding toward the fire. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Cranbull, put her down.”

Cranbull dropped her as if she were a sack and Lucy struggled to her feet.

“He caught something.” Lucy trembled as she pointed a finger at him. “You were cooking it.”

“I got tired of the provisions,” Cranbull said, narrowing his puffy eyes. “And the rabbits here will walk right up and put their head in the noose for you.”

Lucy kicked dirt on the fire again. “You could get us all killed!”

“Now stop that,” Cranbull said petulantly. “You're ruining a good rabbit.”

“Go ahead, eat it,” Lucy shot at him. “You'll be sorry.”

The timber baron crossed his arms. “Where are the others?” he asked Cranbull.

Lucy scanned the forest, feeling she would burst out of her skin. “Where's Pete?”

“I don't know,” Cranbull grumbled, pulling on his suspenders. “The kid said something about looking for higher ground while you two confabulated. They went that way. Should have been back by now, unless something happened to them.” He sounded almost hopeful.

“Jank! Silas,” Angus called. “Get back here!” His voice fell as if he'd tried to shout through a padded wall. To Lucy it felt like the whole forest were watching them.

Cranbull bent to his rabbit and tried to clean the dirt off it. Lucy watched him in amazement. Surely he felt it, too? Any minute now he was going to die.

“Quit staring at me,” he growled at her. “Or I'll take a switch to you.”

There was rustling in the undergrowth behind her and Lucy jumped.

But it was only Pete and the others coming back. “What's going on?” Pete asked as he and Silas and Jank came into view. “Everything's gone dead quiet and we smelled smoke.” He saw Cranbull and the fire and he stiffened. “Now we're done for.”

“Be quiet, boy,” Cranbull said. “You and the girl are starting to get on my nerves.”

But he didn't need to warn them to be quiet. No one felt like talking.

“We should move on,” Angus said. He gazed around at the trees as if they displeased him. “I don't like the feel of this place.”

Cranbull took a last, defiant mouthful of his meal and then fell in behind the others.

For Lucy, the next few hours were torture. Her conversation with Angus Murrain left her feeling broken. She did not want to walk with him; even the sight of him was enough to bring back every painful revelation about her father. Pete was still angry with her. And Cranbull was a dead man. She couldn't understand why he hadn't been punished yet—perhaps His-sey-ak was toying with him first. The forest had never felt so watchful or malevolent.

Lucy fell farther and farther behind until finally she was behind even Jank, who preferred being last so he could guard their backs from devils. She could see his picnic-cloth shirt through the trees.

They were moving through a stretch of forest thick with dreary hemlocks when it happened. The light had turned, evening was still hours away, but she felt it waiting in the wings. Her nerves were frayed to nothing, her shoulders tight around her neck like a cowl.

She heard a sudden burst of birdsong, loud and jeering, and she stopped abruptly, staring wildly into the bracken.

But nothing appeared. And after a moment she started walking again, afraid of being left behind. Jank's broad back was already yards ahead.

They kept walking.

The sun, which had been hovering above the treetops, began to descend, urging on shadows. A nameless dread settled over Lucy.

Even Cranbull appeared to sense it. He took on the hunched, nervous look of a marked man, and he no longer had the confidence to spit.

Shadows reached out toward them like grasping fingers, and the feeling of being watched became excruciating. But no matter where she turned, she could see no sign that they were being followed. She felt it, though.

Angus had slowed his pace. They were barely walking, each of them trying to make as little noise as possible. The air had turned thick as molasses. It took effort to keep going forward and not simply stop and give herself over to fear.

They reached a streambed where the ground was soft and loamy. Even the water seemed to make no noise. The banks on the other side were a temple of wood and darkness. Angus crossed first, then the others in single file, disappearing through the trees.

Lucy had just leapt across the stream when the ferns ahead of her waved and shuddered.

She heard a soft rumble of breath. Lucy turned, feeling time slow down. A giant mountain lion emerged, padding on silent feet, its golden eyes glowing like a demon's in the gathering twilight. This was what had been hunting Cranbull all afternoon, the presence they'd felt but hadn't seen. It passed her by with a silent snarl of warning, long teeth shining like blades. Its whiskers bristled like wires.

And then suddenly time sped up. Lucy had a sense of fur, muscle, blinding speed.

She screamed to alert the others but it was too late. The beast was already in midair.

“Help!” Cranbull managed to say once, before he was seized in the big cat's jaws.

Lucy clapped her hands over her mouth in horror as she watched Cranbull being shaken like a rag doll. Then the cat bounded away, still carrying him.

They could hear Cranbull's screams echoing through the woods, and then, abruptly, they stopped.

T
hat evening, after they'd made camp, Angus gave them what Lucy supposed was meant to be a cheering-up speech. Only no one was particularly cheered.

“We can't panic,” Angus told them. “Yes, we've had some bad luck, but we knew that coming here would be risky. Let's all remain calm.”

“Four men dead now,” Silas said. He paced back and forth as if electricity ran through him. “Four men gone and we're supposed to remain calm. How can we do that when we're all wondering who's next?”

Lucy looked over at Pete. He'd laid out his blanket on the other side of the circle, as far away from her as possible. More than anything she wanted to bury her face in his shoulder, as if his rumpled shirt could muffle the screams she still heard in her head. But he'd made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

Jank, sunk into a slow-burning anger, leaned against a tree and watched the other two men without joining in. His dark beard spread like an ink blot over his face. He made Lucy think of the coals at the bottom of a fire. Every now and then he would send up some spark of outrage—“We're doomed!” he would announce, or, “There's evil in the forest. Can you feel it?
I can.
”—then sputter out, glowering silently by himself.

“The devil killed him,” said Jank, sparking now. “Killed him for spitting that rabbit and making a fire.”

“Oh, shut up,” Silas said, running a hand through his rooster's hair. “That makes no sense. You saw it was a mountain lion.”

“A devil,” Jank insisted, crossing his arms. His red-and-white shirt bulged with muscles.

“If there was a devil here, why, he would have loved Cranbull's fire,” argued Silas. “Joined in, in fact, and we would have had a good blaze.”

“Not all devils love fire,” said Jank sullenly, making it clear he had some insight into the matter.

“I suppose you've made a study of it,” Silas retorted, bouncing near and away from Jank like a bantamweight boxer.

Jank, bull-like, turned slowly to face him. “That's right.”

“Stop this!” Angus's voice was like a slap, and they fell silent. “Spirit, devil, lion—it doesn't matter. We take nothing, eat nothing, burn nothing. Is that clear?”

Jank glowered as if he'd had his knuckles rapped. “Yes,” he said sullenly.

Silas nodded and with an angry glance at Jank started to walk away. His narrow eyes glinted in the moonlight. He'd never looked so much like a weasel.

“Let's all get some sleep,” the timber baron said.

And that would have been it, but then Pete spoke up.

“That's fine, except why don't you tell them the kicker?” Pete said, his voice crackling with tension. He stood up and faced Angus.

Lucy stared at him with an open mouth. What was he going on about? She'd never seen him look so angry, like a spring wound tight. As if the day hadn't been bad enough already, now he was going to pick a fight?

“And what's that?” Angus asked, cool and composed.

“I guess I've got to spell it out.” Next to the timber baron, Pete looked small and scrawny.

“Please do, Master Knightly.” Angus waved his hand, extending Pete an invitation.

“Well, here it is.” Pete's voice was loud in comparison. “How are we supposed to take dreamwood out of here if the forest won't let us have anything?”

Lucy felt like she'd gotten the air knocked out of her.
Of course.
She hadn't thought of this at all. If they couldn't take gold from the river, if they couldn't eat a rabbit when they were hungry, how could they expect to walk away with the Thumb's most precious treasure?
You think I'm just a dumb country boy,
she heard him saying. She felt like the dumb one now.

How stupid she'd been, pleased to know every little thing they should do or not do. But she'd missed the bigger puzzle, something she should have realized from the day they first set out when Able Dodd had made his cryptic warning.

A strange look of respect came over Angus's handsome face. He bowed his head slightly to Pete. “You are right, Master Knightly. Bravo.”

Pete, evidently not expecting this, looked over his shoulder as if to say,
who, me?

“There better be a way around this,” Silas said, nearly bursting out of his greasy vest with indignation. “I came here to get my fortune.”

Jank's tiny eyes looked like two dark holes in his bulky head. “If we can't get the wood what are we doing here?”

“You'll get your fortune, don't worry.” Angus flicked some invisible speck from his shirt. He sounded almost bored.

“But this forest
is
cursed,” Pete said, turning to address Silas and Jank. “There's a spirit here”—he looked at Lucy— “a nature spirit. And it's not going to let us take anything.”

“Nature spirit,” the timber baron scoffed. “Let me tell you a story. When I first came to Pentland we couldn't float logs downriver half the year. Why? Because supposedly there was a spirit in the river that wouldn't let us. Do you think I got to be the richest man in the territory by letting that stop me?”

No one said anything. Of course Angus couldn't be stopped.

“We dammed part of the river for six months. After that we never had any trouble.”

Silas hung his head and Jank nodded silently.

Lucy should not have been surprised by this story, but she didn't realize how conflicted it would make her feel. Her father would never have done something like that, not without trying to understand the river spirit first.

Angus continued, pacing in front of them. “It doesn't matter if I believe or not. All I need to do is disrupt it.” He looked at Lucy. “That's something your father taught me. The people who lived here used to harvest dreamwood. If they could do it, we can, too. I did a little research of my own before coming here. They used a special ax blade.” With a showman's flair he went to their supplies and brought out an ax. In the starlight the blade shone like black ice.

“It's obsidian,” he said. “Sharper than steel. And this young lady's father told me something else. What else can obsidian do, Lucy?”

Lucy knew the answer, of course. “It can cut bonds on both the physical and etheric planes. It's one of the few substances that can. But—”

Angus cut her off with a thin smile before she could tell him that her father refused to use obsidian because it was so unreliable. “Thank you, Lucy. I think your father worried perhaps he'd told me too many of his secrets. But we're lucky he did. And when we find him, he'll be lucky, too. Because with this ax we'll cut dreamwood down when we find it
and
cut the bond that keeps the spirit here.” His heavy brows furrowed in mock consternation. “I don't know if you can ‘kill' a spirit, but it doesn't matter. This ‘nature spirit' will be broken, we can take as much dreamwood as we like, and that will be the end of Rust. We shall have several birds with one stone as it were, eh?” He stroked the gleaming black edge of the blade before covering it and putting it away.

He made it sound very simple, but Lucy doubted it would be that easy.

• • •

In the morning, a weak sun broke through runny clouds. The feeling of distrust lingered so strongly around the campsite it might as well have been a bad smell.

Angus thought that they were near one of the star-shaped marks on his map that he believed indicated dreamwood, and so he urged them forward as soon as they had breakfasted. He led the silent and miserable group along a streambed, heading slightly northwest.

This was not the direction that her vitometer pointed. But Lucy, her thoughts in a jumble, didn't correct him. The vitometer, when she'd looked at it a few minutes ago, showed a reading of Odic force well into the thousands, an unimaginable amount of energy. No one could hope to stand up to something like that, obsidian ax or no.

It was a weary trek, and no one spoke for long hours. At last, when it was well into the afternoon, the timber baron began to slow his pace; he clearly expected to find something soon. And even Lucy, tired as she was, began to perk up with excitement.

They were traveling through a flat stretch of forest where the tall kodoks were spaced far enough apart to let in columns of sunlight. But ahead of them, up a gradual slope, was a dense grove of giant trees, their low-hanging limbs linked together in a way she'd seen once before.

Lucy ducked behind a tree, pretending she had to relieve herself. But instead she squatted with her vitometer, frowning. The needle pointed away. Whatever this was on the map, it wasn't a dreamwood.

She quickly put the vitometer back into its pouch. Angus, at the head of their party, was waving them on. “This is the spot.” Without waiting, he went striding up the slope.

Silas's eyes glittered. He'd been worrying his protection stone throughout the day, but now he thrust it back into a pocket of his greasy vest and began to jog ahead. Lucy could see his rooster's crest bobbing up and down.

Jank, who would never be called quick, followed like a slowly moving boulder.

“Wait,” Pete called out. Silas and Jank both turned to look at him.

“There's nothing up ahead but a bunch of smelly old mushrooms,” he explained. “And if you go in there, especially this time of day, you'll see faces in the trees.”

It was near twilight, and Lucy remembered the way the tree faces had emerged from the wood their first night on the Thumb.

“He's right,” Lucy said, coming to stand beside Pete so he would know she was on his side.

Jank's small dark eyes considered the clotted shadows in the trees. “Jank,” Pete said seriously, “don't go. I've seen those faces, and they're really frightening.”

Now Lucy understood: Pete was looking out for Jank. If the big man saw the devil in normal trees, what would he do inside the grove where the trees actually did have devil faces?

“Stay with us, Jank,” Lucy urged.

Silas, who'd been watching them suspiciously, spoke up in his reedy voice. “Well, I'm going. If there's dreamwood, I'm getting my share.” He started off.

“It's not that easy, Silas,” Pete called after him. As Lucy expected, Silas ignored him.

Jank, meanwhile, was slowly rubbing his hands together. He sniffed the air warily. “The devil is strong here. I feel him.”

Without any warning he took out his ax and began swinging it in menacing practice circles.

They jumped back.

“Listen, Jank,” Pete said, speaking with extreme caution, “you really should put that ax away before you cut something.”

But Jank merely twisted his head from side to side, black beard wagging. His tiny eyes seemed alight with eagerness—whether to find dreamwood or to face the devil he feared, Lucy couldn't tell. He grunted once and took off after Silas and Angus, who were now climbing through the latticed branches. She could see Silas in his weathered vest scampering past the branch barriers like a rat disappearing into a thicket.

“Oh no,” Pete said. He turned to Lucy, his forehead creased with worry.

“What can we do?” She didn't dare get near Jank when he had that ax.

“I don't know.” Pete began to run up the slope toward the knot of trees. “But I'm worried something bad will happen if we don't stop him.”

Lucy followed after him, dread increasing with each step.

Then they heard a bellowing roar.

They ran for the edges of the tree circle and climbed into the branches, looking in. The linked trees shut out the late-afternoon light, and Lucy could see the terrible faces in their trunks starting to reveal themselves.

Angus stood with a stunned expression at the center of the grove. Silas was bent to the ground. “Mushrooms!” he cried in a cheated voice.

Jank spun in circles, his ax raised. The giant lumberjack was a red-and-white blur.

For a moment Lucy hoped Jank might simply spin himself dizzy but at last he seemed to focus and stop, standing square in front of one of the trees. He was panting, tiny eyes staring at the tree's leering face.

“DEVIL!” Jank cried.

He ran straight at the tree, ax raised high.

Lucy's breath stopped in her chest.

With a terrible
thunk!
the shining blade dug deep into the wood. The entire grove shuddered as if it were one being.

All at once the air exploded with
cracks
as a flurry of twigs, sticks, branches flew forward with tremendous force—like arrows being loosed at close range.

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut. She heard a gurgling cry. When she could bear to look she saw Jank lying on the ground. His red-and-white shirt was all red now, and he bristled with twigs and branches like a pincushion.

He spasmed once and was still.