SandRider (22 page)

Heart beating fast, Tod set off. She had learned from Oskar
how to travel silently through a forest but she was not as skilled as he, and every time a twig snapped under her foot her heart jumped in fear. Her way was clear at first because Marissa had followed a well-worn path, but soon Tod came to a large, round rock where the path continued but Marissa's footprints did not. Tod stepped off the path into the mulch of thousands of years' leaf fall, across which Marissa's footprints glowed like a line of beacons. In the deep softness, Tod's footfalls were silent, and she soon became aware that all around her was silence too. A feeling of awe crept over her; she felt as though she was walking through a very ancient space.

Tod was now approaching a close-knit line of trees that presented a solid wall of trunks and branches. She stopped in front of two extremely tall, straight trees that stood remarkably close together, like sentinels. Marissa's footprints passed between them and Tod knew she must do the same, but her way was barred. Two great boughs were growing across her path, and a tangle of smaller branches formed a tightly woven net. Tod wondered how Marissa had managed to slip through—it did not seem possible.

Unable to rid herself of the feeling that the trees were staring down at her, Tod looked up at them. “Please,” she
whispered. “Please let me pass.” In the tops of branches Tod could hear a rustling that spread far in front of her, as though the trees were talking to one another. “It's really important,” Tod said. And then it came into her mind to say, “I mean only good for the Forest.”

The rustling above increased as though a strong wind was blowing through the treetops, and Tod began to feel scared—something very eerie was happening. Suddenly she felt very alone and exposed. What was she
doing
, following a witch deep into the nighttime Forest? Was she totally crazy? Tod's certainty left her. All she wanted to do was to get back to the treehouse. Fast.

As she turned to run, a movement of the two sentinel trees caught her eye and Tod stopped in amazement:
the great boughs blocking her way were beginning to rise
. To see a tree moving was awe-inspiring. As the arms of the trees lifted, Tod saw those of the pair of trees behind beginning to do the same and she knew she must go on. She stepped between the first two trees and moved slowly forward down the avenue of towering trees. Ahead of her she saw the rising branches rippling like a long wave. As she moved down the long, straight avenue she became aware that the branches were lowering behind her.
There was no turning back now. A sense of awe stole over Tod as she followed Marissa's glowing footprints through the trees. She understood that she had been allowed to enter a very private space. She was not sure why, but she did remember Galen saying that the Forest had its way of knowing what was good for it.

Tod had been prepared for something magnificent at the end of the avenue—some kind of tree temple, maybe. But as she stepped beneath the last of the raised boughs she found herself in a small clearing in which there were what appeared to be three large and unruly heaps of wood partly covered with turf, each with a ramshackle door in it. They looked, Tod thought, like the kind of camps she, Ferdie and Oskar used to build on the edge of their own forest, the Far, back at home. They certainly did not look like anything special. And where was Marissa? Tod put the
WitchFinder
to her eye and saw the witch's footprints leading to the middle heap. Puzzled, Tod stared at the ramshackle door and the random piling of the log and branches. Was this where Marissa lived? She supposed it must be. A wave of weariness came over Tod. She had been so sure that Marissa was up to something important. Now it seemed that all she had done was risk the dangers of the
nighttime Forest just to follow Marissa back to her scruffy dump of a home. How stupid was that?

Tod watched the door for some minutes but the little hut was silent. Marissa was clearly already fast asleep. Feeling very foolish and not just a little scared at the thought of the journey through the Forest back to the treehouse, Tod turned to go. The first pair of tall trees stood before her, impassive. Their branches hung low, the two huge boughs barring the path back along the avenue, their twigs intertwined in a tangled net. “Please . . . let me pass,” Tod whispered, spooked by the sound of her voice in the deep silence of the clearing. But the boughs did not move. Tod tried not to panic; she told herself that she had had to wait a few minutes for them to move before. And so she stood there, waiting patiently, but nothing happened. “Please,” she whispered. “Please let me pass . . .”

It was then that Tod heard behind her the creak of a door opening. She swung around to see Marissa gingerly stepping out. In the shadow of the sentinel trees, Tod froze. Marissa had yet to see her; the witch was looking back over her shoulder and speaking to someone. Her voice sounded strained. And then Marissa was out and stepping aside to let whoever was in the little hut come out too. How two people had fit,
Tod had no idea. The hut was tiny.

Marissa cast her witchy glance over the clearing, searching for danger—and saw Tod. The witch's blue eyes lit up so bright that they seemed to glow inside her head. “Stay right there,” she said to Tod in a low, urgent voice. “Do not move. Do not say a word. It will be all right, I promise.”

Tod stared at Marissa. She knew enough about the witch not to trust any of her promises. She glanced behind her but the boughs with their twisted network of twigs were as impenetrable as ever. Tod had no choice but to stay where she was anyway.

Marissa was now helping someone out of the hut and as the figure stepped into the clearing Tod could not suppress a gasp. There was no mistaking the close-cropped steel-gray hair and the deep-set, dark green eyes. It was the sorcerer, Oraton-Marr.

Marissa shepherded Oraton-Marr—resplendent in blue silks—into the clearing. “It seems,” she said, “that my threats have worked. The Witch Mother has thought better of her double-crossing plot. See, she has left the Apprentice here for you. As I suspected she would.”

The sorcerer eyed Marissa suspiciously. “You never said you suspected that,” he said. “You told me she had the Apprentice
captive and wanted to do a deal with me. And I told you—”

“That you do not do deals with witches,” Marissa finished for him. “And why should you, Your Highness, when the very mention of your name clearly strikes fear into their hearts?”

“Quite,” Oraton-Marr replied. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Tod, half hidden in the shadows. “But she's just a child. She'll know nothing of any use.”

“This is the
ExtraOrdinary
Apprentice, Your Highness,” Marissa said. “I assure you, she knows a great deal.”

Oraton-Marr did not look convinced. “It's a start, I suppose,” he said. “Bring the Apprentice to me. The deal was that you handed her to me, remember. So do it. Hand her over.”

“Oh . . . yes. I'll go and fetch her.”

Marissa set off toward Tod, then she suddenly stopped dead and said a very rude, unwitchy word.
Tod had disappeared
. Marissa stared at the spot where Tod had been standing only a few seconds earlier and began to creep toward it as if somehow hoping to surprise her. Tod, amazed that her panicked
UnSeen
had actually worked, stepped to one side. But she had not fooled Oraton-Marr.

“She's over there, you idiot!” he yelled at Marissa, his harsh voice cutting through the soft silence of the clearing.

“Where?” Marissa darted desperately from side to side, flailing her arms like a windmill in a vain attempt to grab hold of Tod. It would have been funny if Tod had not been so terrified.

While Tod moved slowly enough not to make a sound, but fast enough to keep out of Marissa's clutches, she became aware of two more figures emerging from the hut. How many more could it hold? And what was Marissa doing with them all? The first to emerge was another one she recognized: Drone, Oraton-Marr's servant. And struggling in his grasp was a small girl.

“Kaznim!” Tod breathed—and Marissa heard her.

After that everything happened so fast that later Tod could never remember exactly how it all came together. But it did. The sequence of events went something like this:

Marissa grabbed hold of Tod.

Tod kicked Marissa.

Marissa let go of Tod and yelled.

Tod's
UnSeen
evaporated.

“Get her!” Oraton-Marr yelled to Drone.

Drone let go of Kaznim and set off across to Tod.

Marissa screamed.

Kaznim, now free, pulled a stick from the hut and swung it at Oraton-Marr's feet.

Oraton-Marr fell over.

Drone lunged at Tod.

Marissa screamed.

Tod kicked Drone.

Drone fell over.

Kaznim jumped on him.

Marissa screamed, “Wolverines!”

At the edge of the clearing Tod saw the yellow eyes of a pack of wolverines. “Please!” she yelled at the sentinel trees. “Please let me pass!”

But Tod had no need to shout. In front of her the avenue was once again opening up. As Tod hurried forward she saw Drone try to grab Kaznim, so she grabbed her first. And as Tod and Kaznim made their escape, the avenue unfolded before them like a wave of green. Holding tightly on to Kaznim's hand, Tod pulled the girl along with her, scrambling beneath the rising boughs. Behind them she was aware of the boughs dropping to the ground unusually fast, like a portcullis guarding a castle. As Tod and Kaznim ran along the avenue they heard the screams of Marissa, the yelling of
Drone and the curses of Oraton-Marr grow ever fainter until they faded away. At the last pair of sentinel trees, Tod stopped and watched the boughs slowly come to rest. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for saving us.”

Kaznim stared at Tod, totally confused. The Apprentice girl who had chased her with a tiger had just saved her from the evil sorcerer and now she was talking to trees. Kaznim noticed that Tod no longer had hold of her hand—she was free to run away if she wanted to. But Kaznim did not want to. Something told her that the Apprentice girl did not mean her any harm, and so Kaznim stood patiently beside Tod watching the last two great boughs settle back into their sentinel position. As the trees relaxed, they gave a satisfied groan, knowing they had done right by the Forest.

In the depths of the Big Freeze, when the winter mornings were dark and cold, the Forest slept late. And so it was in the treehouse. As the pale light from the sun crept around the wolverine-skin door flaps of the pods, their occupants all felt
that it was much more sensible to stay curled up beneath piles of furs and goat blankets.

Galen was the first to emerge from her pod. Silently she set about making goat milk oatmeal laced with honey and setting the water on to brew Forest coffee, which Galen made from dried acorns—although Silas Heap was convinced that she actually used dried goat dung. The pleasant smell of the oatmeal drifted up through the trees, wandered into the top pod and woke Ferdie from a deep, leafy sleep. Slowly, Ferdie opened her eyes and remembered where she was. The soft morning light filled the pod with shifting shadows and Ferdie's gaze wandered around the cocoon in which she had spent the night. She loved the pod. It felt safe and yet exciting at the same time. As her eyes became used to the dim light, Ferdie counted her companions: there were three sleeping, breathing bumps of blankets.

Three?

Ferdie sat up fast. Who else was with them? A host of ghostly tales from the previous night flooded into her mind. Was it a witch child? A tree spirit? Or maybe even a were-wolverine, creeping into Forest beds at night and eating its bedfellows at the dawn of the new day. An awful thought occurred to Ferdie. Maybe
all three
bumps beneath the blankets
were were-wolverines. Maybe they had already eaten Tod and Oskie and were now waiting for her to wake up. In fact, maybe they had already eaten
everyone in the entire treehouse
.

Ferdie, still jittery after the Witch Circle, panicked.
“Aaaargh!”
she yelled.

Three figures leaped up. Not one of them was a were-wolverine.

“Oh,” Ferdie said, somewhat embarrassed. “Sorry. I thought . . .” Her voice trailed off. What she had thought seemed so stupid now. She looked at the young girl with the dark curly hair and wide-open eyes, and tried to remember seeing her the night before. She was sure she hadn't. And from Oskar's expression, he hadn't seen the girl either.

“This is Kaznim,” Tod said. “I was looking for her in the Castle. Remember?”

“You found her
here
?” Ferdie asked, puzzled.

“Well, not here in the pod, exactly,” Tod said evasively.

“So
where
, exactly?” asked Oskar, who always knew when Tod had something to hide.

“Um. Well, somewhere really weird. In the Forest.”

Ferdie and Oskar stared at Tod. “You've been into the Forest? While we were asleep?” asked Ferdie.

“Um. Yes,” Tod admitted.

“Well, you might have taken
me
,” Oskar said. “You know I wanted to explore.”

“Like Ferdie said, you were asleep,” Tod said. “Anyway, it was an emergency.”

Ferdie and Oskar looked unimpressed. “What about the Tribe of Three?” they both said.

“I know, I know,” Tod protested. “But you were
asleep
. Snoring, in fact. Okay?”

“Okay,” Ferdie and Oskar said reluctantly.

“Well, tell us then,” Ferdie instructed.

And so, while they all sat wrapped in blankets and furs and the warmth of their breath misted the chill morning air, Tod told them about her time in the Nighttime Forest.

As she drew to a close, Oskar and Ferdie looked dumbstruck.
“Oraton-Marr?”
they exclaimed.

“Yes,” Tod said. “It was him.” She turned to Kaznim, who had listened silently to the conversation so far. “Could you tell my friends what you told me last night?”