The Magic Lands (4 page)

Jack peered down watching the
small figure moving slowly towards him. He could fall, thought Jack
and found that, oddly, the idea did not seem to worry him. In fact
he wouldn't mind at all if Tom fell. After all, an internal voice
sighed, there is only room for one up here.

Jack shook his head in dismay.
What was he thinking? Tom mustn't fall. He gazed down once more,
scanning the foliage and saw the blue of Tom's jersey working its
way upward.

"Almost there," called Tom, not
far below now.

Jack thought about offering his
hand to pull his friend up but decided he had best not, the
thoughts that still echoed in his mind alien and disturbing. His
head ached, a dull throb at the centre of his brow.

Then Tom was beside him.

"We must stop meeting like
this," Jack said with a weak smile.

"So this is where you were,"
chuckled Tom, although there was a tension in his voice that was
unmistakable.

"Now this is what I call a
tree!" Jack appraised, feeling a little more like his old self.

Tom nodded. "I've only ever
been here once before and I wanted to climb up then," he said
vaguely, recalling how he had felt the last time he had come upon
this place.

"Well now that we’re up,"
challenged Jack, "are we just going to sit here or are we going up
a bit higher?"

Tom gave his friend a
determined look. "Higher it is."

Ira was lost.

Lost! In his own garden, the
place he had known since he was a boy when his father had
introduced him to its many secrets. Secrets that maybe Tom was
uncovering at that very moment.

The garden was closing him out
he realised, barring him from reaching the boys in time to warn
them. The place had altered subtly, things not quite where they
ought to be, paths somehow backtracking to lead him toward the
house.

Ira stopped running and rested
his hands on his knees, breathing hard. "Tom…Jack," he said
quietly, "the land is shifting and the Wolf wants you both."

His heart was heavy, he was
just an old man after all. His time was over. Now it was for the
young ones to face the final test.

"Hold on a minute," said Jack
on the branch above.

"What is it?" Tom asked,
looking up but unable to see anything other than his friend's
hunched body.

"I've found something!"
Becoming excited, although he didn't really know why, Tom edged up
toward the other boy. "It's a hole," called down Jack, his voice
rising a little.

"What sort of hole?" Tom
questioned, clambering up over a leafy branch, before attempting to
hoist himself up beside Jack.

"A big one! I'm going in."

"Jack!" shouted Tom as he just
caught a glimpse of his friend’s red jumper disappearing into the
tree. It was as though the oak had just gobbled him up.

"I'm all right," came a muffled
reply, "come on, there's plenty of room in here."

Pulling himself up onto the
outstretched branch that Jack had just vacated, Tom peered into the
murky darkness of a large hollow. "Where are you?" he hissed, not
able to see anything but blackness.

"I'm in here! Come on, come
inside."

For a moment Tom hesitated, and
then with a last glance up at the seemingly endless array of
branches above him, he went into the tree.

Tom couldn't believe how much
space there was inside the hollow. Trying to adjust his eyes to the
darkness, he shuffled forward, crouching low and holding out his
hands like a blind man.

"Not bad, eh Tom?" said Jack,
somewhere to his left.

Dimly, Tom saw the outline of
the other boy. The daylight from outside hardly illuminated the
hole at all and when Tom glanced back toward the opening, all he
saw was a vague shape in the gloom. "This is weird," he commented,
finding a more comfortable position.

"Great hiding place though,"
Jack observed. "No one would ever find you in here.” He came closer
to Tom until they could see each other more clearly. “This is just
the sort of place I expected to find in your garden".

"How big do you think it is?"
queried Tom, feeling about with his hands and coming into contact
with nothing either above or beside him.

"Well," started Jack, "let's
see if we can stand up." With that he straightened to his full
height and Tom winced, waiting for the groan of pain that must
surely come when Jack hit his head. A moment of silence followed
and then. "It’s all right.”

Getting to his feet slowly, Tom
was astonished to find that even when he raised his hands he could
not find the roof of the hollow.

"How can it be so big?" he
asked, turning full circle.

"Don’t know."

"Try moving about, let's find
the sides of this place. I want to see how big it is," Tom said and
began to inch forward, expecting to bump into the interior wall of
the tree at any second.

Jack held out his hands in
front of him and imagined he looked rather foolish as he lurched
blindly ahead, before tripping over something and nearly falling
flat on his face. "Ouch!" he cried out, rubbing his ankle before
kneeling to feel for the offending object. "Tom," he called as his
hands made contact with something.

"What is it?"

"I've found something
else."

Tom tried to pin-point his
friend and although he was no more than six feet away saw only a
blurry figure squatting in the darkness. His eyes were finding it
unusually difficult to adjust to their new surroundings.

"Come and look," urged Jack
almost in a whisper.

"
Look
!" mocked Tom. "That's a good one. I can
hardly see
you
!" As he drew
closer he could just make out a dark shape held in Jack's hands.
"Well, what is it?" he demanded impatiently.

"It's a box," came Jack's
simple reply as he brushed dirt from the lid.

"What sort of box?"

Jack tutted and shook his head,
a look of exasperation on his face. "How should I know," he rasped,
"I can't see much more than you can!"

Edging nearer, Tom came close
enough to examine the object. "I wonder how it got in here," he
mused. As far as he could tell it was a small box, smooth to the
touch, made from some kind of wood but with very little sign of any
workmanship. "Does it feel as if there's anything inside?" he asked
becoming curious, despite the objects bland appearance.

"No, it's as light as a
feather," Jack responded, weighing it in his hands.

"Try the lid and see if it's
locked."

Carefully Jack lifted the top
of the box and the two boys peered inside, expecting nothing and
yet hoping there would be something there and they saw what
appeared to be a rolled up piece of yellowed paper neatly held by a
white ribbon.

Ira came inside the house and
sat down heavily.

"Couldn't you find them?" Emily
asked, busying herself with preparing dinner.

The old man looked at her
quickly and wondered what he should say. "No," he said guardedly,
"I couldn't find them anywhere."

"Oh well," stated his wife,
wiping her hands on her apron, "they'll turn up soon enough when
their bellies start to grumble." She smiled, satisfied that this
was true.

Ira got up and left the room
without saying anything more. He wearily climbed the stairs and
went into his and Emily's bedroom and sat down on the bed. What
would his wife say when the boys still did not return long after
dinner time had passed and what when it became dark? How could he
explain to her that there wasn't anything that could be done? He
closed his eyes and lay back on the cool pillow.

Should he go after them? He
thought that he could do it. He knew the way.

But would he be permitted?

Perhaps he would be wrong to
even try to interfere. He closed his eyes.

Why did the Wolf come?

It came to eat you, Tom. That's
all its ever really wanted to do.

"Open it up," whispered Tom,
bursting with anticipation.

Jack loosened the ribbon and
carefully unrolled the scroll. In the dim light of the tree-hollow,
the two friends vainly tried to make out what was written on the
parchment.

"We'll have to take it
outside," Jack concluded moving back toward the opening and as they
came out once more into the daylight, both boys were struck by how
bright it was.

"It shouldn't have been that
dark in there," muttered Tom, concerned by this anomaly, but Jack
was too busy looking over the scroll to take much notice.

"It’s a map," he said, studying
the paper carefully.

They sat balanced precariously
upon the branches which hung around the hollow and spread the
parchment out before them.

"What's the writing at the
bottom?" questioned Tom, leaning over Jack's shoulder, pointing at
an ornate script that flowed across the page.

Jack read the words aloud.

"Seek and you will find,

Pandora's box

kept safe behind,

an arcane wall

of light and tone,

where sits a king,

upon his throne

of flesh and blood

and human bone.

To redeem the beast,

turn the key,

find the truth

and set it free.

So walk the road of bitter
dream,

where nothing and no one

are what they seem."

Jack scratched his head.
"What's all that supposed to mean?" he pondered.

Tom made no reply. It sounded
just like one of Uncle Ira's poems and although he had never heard
this particular verse before, he felt as if he knew it. It was as
though he had heard a little here and a little there at different
times throughout his life, snatches of memory as elusive as dreams.
He didn't know what it meant, but it was important. Of that he was
certain.

"Well," declared Jack, glancing
at Tom, "any suggestions?" He handed the map over to his friend and
Tom examined it at close quarters.

"The map isn't of anywhere I've
ever seen before," he confessed after a moment.

"Must be somewhere foreign,"
Jack reasoned, beginning to lose interest.

Tom looked out over the garden,
his gaze taking in many of the places he knew so well, the apple
grove where he had spent summer days, the old pond where he had
thrown stones at his reflection, watching the ripples with childish
fascination. He could see the house too, over in the distance. It
seemed so safe and welcoming. He knew his Aunt was in there now,
preparing dinner, awaiting their return. In that instant, Tom
longed to be back at the house.

Turning toward Jack, he
looked past him and noticed for the first time that they were now
level with the top of the hedge that ran all along the rear of the
garden
. I wonder what's on the other
side
, he thought, the lure of new discoveries tugging
at him once more.

As if reading his mind, Jack
turned to him and said, "that branch just above us reaches right
over the hedge. Let's see if we can climb onto it and then we can
find out what's on the other side."

“
I’m not…” Tom began to
say. But Jack was already climbing.

"What you waiting for!?" he
shouted down and Tom quickly scrambled up after him, the map
stuffed roughly inside his shirt. He had tossed the box back into
the hollow, it could stay where they had found it for now. If his
Uncle thought it worth having they could always climb back up and
fetch it later.

On a particularly long, thick
branch that hung right over the hedge and beyond, sat Jack. "This
looks like a job for Tarzan!" he announced, swinging on the branch
above.

"Be careful," Tom warned. If
one of them fell from this height they might be killed or at best,
break an arm or leg, but Jack being Jack, seemed to have little
concern for his own safety.

Moving quickly, gripping the
bark with fierce determination, Jack began to shimmy along the
branch. Looking on anxiously, Tom wondered if this was such a good
idea, but the other boy was almost over the hedge now and dropping
out of sight, so with a last glance toward his house, Tom began to
move cautiously after him.

"I'm going down," called Jack
as he crawled further along the sinewy branch.

"Wait a minute Jack!" Tom cried
but his friend's head had already disappeared. Faster now, but
still making sure that he kept a firm grip on the tree, Tom gained
the part of the branch that reached out over the hedge and looked
down. The long bough wound its way crookedly almost to the ground
and peering out he saw that the vicinity below was quite similar to
his own garden, a wide area of vegetation, thick with trees.

But where was Jack?

Tom looked down to the ground
and then all along the side of the tall hedge but Jack was nowhere
to be seen. He must be a magician to disappear so fast he decided,
but without any humour. He wished Jack could have just waited for
him. Now things were getting out of hand.

Carefully he lowered himself
down along the rapidly thinning bough until it ended about seven or
eight feet from the ground, then with a grunt and a tightening of
his muscles, he dropped down, hitting the earth with a heavy
thud.

Jack couldn't understand
it.

He had jumped to the ground and
landed well, but when he had looked up to help Tom down, the hedge
had been gone. He knew it was ridiculous but that was what had
happened. The whole, gigantic hedge had just disappeared, and so
had the tree for that matter. He shook his head as if trying to
clear it and stared stupidly at a thicket of trees where he knew
the hedge should have been.

“
I don’t get this,” he
muttered, “I just don’t get this.”

He stood there like that for a
while trying to come up with some kind of explanation, but the
truth was it didn’t make any kind of sense.