This thought struck him just as he came upon the silver-branched sapling tied with a red scarf. It was a threadbare scarf looped around the thin trunk. The red dye was so faded with age that it was lucky it caught Leo’s eye. Obviously, someone had placed it there as an unobtrusive marker, not for the whole world to see. Leo might have stopped to wonder how the gardener knew about it or why he had decided to point it out to Leo . . . but he didn’t. His mind was much too caught up in the sudden decision presented him.
The deer trail led around the mountain rather than up, and it led deep into the forest. The dark forest. Like a pathway into the blackness of a mine, the light dimmed and then vanished only a few paces in.
Leo had to make the choice. Did he truly desire the adventure he had come seeking? Did he truly wish to make that plunge and hunt the monster? Or would he rather turn around and call it a day after a brisk and relatively interesting walk? No one would blame him, after all.
For a terrible moment, he stood undecided, doubting his own courage, excusing his fear.
Then from the depths of the mountain forest, so distant as to sound like an echo, he heard a trill of silver notes from a bird that might almost have been singing words had Leo known the language.
And something about that song told him, It’s all right. Make the plunge. Hunt your monster and see what you find.
With a mighty cry to prove to himself how unafraid he was, Leo smacked his beanpole against the sapling as hard as he could, making it sway and tremble. Then he pushed through low growth and on down the narrow trail.
The going was slower now, since he had to watch the ground for roots and duck to avoid branches that swung at his eyes. His heart raced, but it felt good to let it race, and his grip on the beanpole tightened until his knuckles were white. In his mind he pictured the monster again and again, remembering the bits and pieces he’d overheard.
A demon, Leanbear had said. Leo imagined a towering, lurching, spine-shouldered fiend with dripping jowls and red eyes. He imagined his beanpole really was a sword, slashing away grasping claws and driving home to rid the world of this abomination.
A dragon, Redbird had remarked. Leo saw in his mind scaly wings, smoke-fuming nostrils, and a long, sinuous tail. Of course, it would be difficult for a dragon to crawl about in this overgrown forest without making a terrible racket.
Perhaps a sylph, a creature of the wind, wafting and horrible, with sharp white claws. Leo liked this idea better. Immaterial monsters were frightening, but they were less likely to cause physical harm . . . and when one was venturing out with only a beanpole for protection, this was just as well.
Monster after monster flitted across Leo’s imagination. The day lengthened, and the path beneath him did as well. He could not guess how long he had been traveling; it seemed like forever. All that tramping around, even sheltered as he was from the hot sun, made Leo hungry, and the monsters in his mind swiftly grew less interesting.
“Bah!”
His beanpole out at an awkward angle to push aside a clump of nettles, Leo froze. Then his heart started to pound wildly, yet still he could not move. Other than the birds’ random twittering and the crunch and crash of his own feet on the uneven terrain, he hadn’t heard a sound that deep in the forest. Not until this moment.
“Baaaah!”
It was closer now, he thought. Was it moving his way? He’d never pictured seven-foot spine-backed fiends making noises quite like that, but who was to say what monsters sound like? He brandished his beanpole, leaving the nettles to swing back and bite him in the leg. “Dragon’s teeth!” he yelped.
“BAAAAH!”
Leo whirled around, for the sound had come from behind him. Peering into the brambles through which he had just come, he saw fur and an inhuman body. And for a second, he saw the glint of an evil yellow eye.
Then the goat pushed her nose through. “Bah!” she said.
Leo only just stopped himself from swinging his pole. He stared at the goat, which stared back at him, and the accusatory gleam in her eyes made him feel very stupid.
“Dragon-eaten beast,” he growled. “What are you doing out here all alone? You’re not even wearing a bell. Did you wander away from your flock?”
“Bah,” said the goat, stamping a cloven hoof.
It was embarrassing how fast his heart was still drumming. Leo bent down to rub his leg where the nettles had caught him, muttering to himself about goat stew. What a waste this afternoon was turning out to be! He’d have been better off with chess pieces in the dirt like a stupid little boy rather than all this adventuring nonsense. Monster indeed! Nothing but a stupid goat.
Something cracked behind him.
Leo turned.
There it stood, not ten feet away. Swathed in veils, white and incorporeal and horrifying in the shadows cast by the tallest trees.
Leo did not wait for a second look. Pushing past the goat, he crashed headlong back through the forest as fast as his feet could carry him, leaving his beanpole behind.
2
HEROES DID NOT ABANDON their weapons.
The following morning was a mess of drizzle. A fine excuse to huddle inside all day, Leo told himself. But excuses were for cowards and children.
His nursemaid was busy, and Foxbrush was amusing himself by solving long algebraic equations and hadn’t time for a game of chess or a romp up and down the stairs. Nothing suggested itself as a distraction from his nagging conscience, so Leo sat in turmoil before the library fire, rolling marbles back and forth without ever settling on a game. His thoughts plagued him.
What had he seen on the hillside? When he thought back, he could not even give it a specific form. He remembered being terrified, but what had terrified him exactly? It certainly hadn’t been a monster in the traditional seven-foot, slavering-jaws sense. Which left him feeling silly. What excuse had he to run?
And to leave his weapon.
He thought of the heroes that peppered his history textbooks. Most of the stories were complete nonsense, he knew, but even so! Had not King Shadow Hand bargained away his own two hands to a powerful Faerie queen for the sake of protecting his kingdom? Had not the child Sight-of-Day stood up in the face of the Dragonwitch even when those around her surrendered? Had not Maid Starflower—the nation’s most famous and beloved heroine, for whom half the girls were named to this day—had she not done battle with the dreadful Wolf Lord and, well, if not lived to tell the tale, at the very least lived on in reverent memory?
And those last two were girls, no less!
Leo felt ashamed. Faerie queens, witches, and giant wolves were about as terrible as they came. He couldn’t pretend that whatever he had seen in the forest was anything so frightening as they. Especially when he couldn’t even say what he had seen. How could he ever hope to number himself among heroes if . . .
It was more than he could stand.
Leo got up. Foxbrush did not raise his eyes from his equations, so there was no need to offer an explanation. Leo found an oiled coat and a hat, both a little large for him, and slipped out the back door. No one saw him save that bush-bearded gardener, who was still about his work on the lawn, even in the drizzle. Leo waved to the old man but did not address him as he made his way to the garden gate and out to the path beyond.
Yesterday that initial hundred yards had been easy enough to walk, for the sun had been shining and the birds singing. Today the path was gloomy, and when he came to that turn into the deeper forest, his heart nearly gave out. His memory conjured up images of that wafting, shrouded thing, and he thought for a longing moment of his marbles by the fire, and even of Foxbrush and his wretched algebra.
But real heroes don’t leave their weapons behind. Perhaps he’d not hunt a monster, but if nothing else, Leo would retrieve his beanpole.
Pushing through the thicker growth caused dollops of accumulated water to splash on his hat and roll from the brim. Some went down the back of his coat, ice-cold. His boots were clumped with mud and wet leaves,
and his adventurous spirit was long since dampened to death. Nothing but pure stubbornness propelled him forward. At least his misery distracted him from his fright. It was difficult to be scared of a supposed monster when suffering the agonies of cold water down one’s collar.
He vaguely recognized bits of the trail. There was that spot where the trees opened up and he could glimpse the sweep of the mountain down to the valleys below. There was that odd tree that bent at a right angle three feet up, then grew straight to its topmost branches. There was that boulder that looked like a goblin’s ugly face, either leering or smiling; it was hard to say which.
And there was his beanpole.
It was leaning up against a tree, not lying in the trail where he had left it. As Leo drew nearer on tentative feet, he saw a red scarf tied near its top end, like a flag to attract his attention.
The sight of that scarf made his stomach lurch. Foolish, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Who had tied it there? It was the same fabric as the scarf signaling the turn in the path, though the dye was brighter. Someone knew he would come searching for his pole. But no one had seen him come this way.
No one but the goat and . . . and whatever that apparition was.
He could be pretty certain the goat hadn’t tied the scarf to his pole. But why would that . . . thing? If it was that thing. Who else, though?
He stood dithering, staring at his beanpole, which, for all that it lacked features, stared accusingly back. As though it were saying, “How could you leave me behind like that? Anything could have happened to me! Anything at all!”
Leo’s mouth twisted. Then he put out a hand and took his weapon, nearly expecting to be struck by lightning the moment his fingers touched the wood. Nothing happened. He stood in the damp and the drizzle of the mountain forest, alone with a beanpole in his hands. He felt silly.
“Monsters,” he growled. “Dragons eat them!”
And he turned to find himself face-to-face with the veiled apparition.
“Dragon’s teeth!” Leo bellowed.
“Silent Lady!” the apparition screamed at the same time, and each leapt back from the other, Leo landing in a damp patch of moss and slipping so that he came down hard on his rump. The apparition disappeared behind a thick tree trunk.
Leo sat on the moss, clutching his pole, his hat tilted back on his head, mouth open so that drizzle fell into it. His heart was racing so fast that he could scarcely breathe.
But the apparition did not come out.
It was still there. He could see the end of its white veil caught on a branch and also the edge of one sleeve. After a moment, he could have sworn he heard it breathing.
Did apparitions breathe?
“I’m not scared of you!” he said at length.
“Me neither” came a small voice from behind the tree.
“I’ve got a weapon!”
“Um . . . I don’t.”
Leo frowned. “You’re not supposed to have a weapon.”
“I don’t.”
“No, I mean, ghosts don’t carry weapons.”
“I ain’t no ghost.”
Well, that put things in a new light. Leo wiggled on the moss and noticed the dampness seeping into his britches. Using the beanpole for support, he got back to his feet. “If you aren’t a ghost, what are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Leo saw a hand reach out and take hold of the bit of veil caught on the branch. It was a tiny hand covered in a thick glove. After a moment’s struggle, it freed the bit of dirty linen, and now the apparition disappeared entirely behind the tree. But he could still hear it breathing.
“Are you a monster?” Leo asked.
“I don’t think so. Are you?”
“No.” Leo frowned. There was nothing horrible about the apparition’s voice. It sounded too much like a child’s. Did monsters take the shape of children to lure unsuspecting prey?
Then a terrible thought came to him, and he knew that he was right as soon as he thought it. He sighed and rolled his eyes, in that moment more irritated than even Foxbrush could make him.
“Wait a minute. You’re nothing but a girl!”
The apparition looked around the tree trunk. “Yup,” she said.
And she was.
The last thing, the very last thing Leo needed was some girl trailing after him. Not if he was going to seriously hunt this monster.
And hunt it he would. Now that the fright of the shrouded something was so prosaically explained, all his vigor renewed with driving force. The world had to be more exciting than marbles and algebra and sniveling girls, and he would discover the source of that excitement if it took him until suppertime! Leo would walk—soggily, to be sure, but walk no less—in the footsteps of his heroic predecessors.
Just not with an odd little girl following him.
“Go away,” he told the girl after squelching a few yards farther up the deer trail.
“Why?” she asked.
The drizzle had changed to full-fledged rain now, and Leo’s patience was as flattened as the hair on his forehead. Was it really so much to ask for a little somber ambiance without her snuffling three steps back?
“Because. You’ll get in the way.”
“Of what?”
This Leo did not like to answer. It was bad enough when Foxbrush laughed at his ideas. But Foxbrush was his cousin and a boy, so there was nothing to stop Leo from taking a swing at his offensive face if necessary. If this strange girl—all wrapped up in her veils and scarves against the rain so that he couldn’t see even a bit of her face—made fun of his heroism, he didn’t know what he would do. Leo picked up his pace, pushing quickly through a sweeping pine bough, which splattered him with soggy needles. But the girl kept pace behind.
“Of what?” she repeated.
“Nothing,” Leo growled.
“Then why cain’t I come?”
“It’s dangerous, that’s why.” He brandished his beanpole as he spoke, glaring over his shoulder at the girl. She stood there, rainwater dripping from the edge of her veils, unmoved.
“I ain’t scared,” she said.
“You should be.”
“I ain’t.”
Leo had no younger brothers or sisters. He was friends with Foxbrush and knew a handful of other children close to his own age that his mother deemed “acceptable” playmates. They were easy enough to bend to his will, except Foxbrush, who didn’t count. Leo and his cousin could hit each other a few times and usually come to a quick solution. But rational argument with irrational children was not a skill Leo had ever seen the need to develop.
He tried an age-old approach. “Your mum wouldn’t like it.”
“I don’t have a mum.”
Leo paused in midstride, his beanpole upraised to hold a branch out of his face. A pang of sympathy shot through him before he could stop it. He found himself looking down on her with new eyes. “No mother?” he said.
“Nope,” said she.
“What about your father?”
She put her head to one side. “What about him?”
“Do you have one of those?”
“Just me old dad.”
“He will mind if you’re doing something dangerous.”
The girl shrugged. “Dad don’t care. He knows nothin’ can happen to me.”
She was a strange-looking child. Her clothing was ragged, but it covered every inch of her body, from the top of her head, to her fingertips, to the soles of her feet. She wore a dull red outer dress over a dirty white shift, and a frayed red belt, the same color as that tied to his beanpole. And over all she wore a tattered veil that, in the rain, clung to the sides of her face. Even then, Leo could get no clear impression of her features.
“Why are you wearing that fool thing?” he demanded, gesturing at the veil.
She crossed her scrawny arms. “Why are you wearin’ that fool thing?” she snapped, indicating his floppy hat.
Leo put a hand to his head and straightened the brim, caus
ing water to gush down his cuff and sleeve. “It keeps the rain off,” he said.
“Not well, it don’t.”
“Better than those silly wrappings of yours!”
“I ain’t wet.”
Leo rolled his eyes and turned to continue his exploration of the trail. “Somebody is going to mind you being out with me, so you had better run off,” he called over his shoulder.
“Nobody’s goin’ to mind,” she insisted. “Except Beana.”
“Who’s Beana?”
“My nanny.”
Leo made a face back at her. There was no chance this mountain urchin could possibly have a nanny. Not even the son of the village elder in the valley had a nanny. Nannies were for rich people’s children, and this girl was not within dreaming distance of that kind of wealth.
“Now you’re making up stories.”
“I ain’t!”
“Yes you are.”
“You’re makin’ up stories!”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes and continued tromping up the narrow trail. She followed. A few times as they went, he tried turning on her, baring his teeth and threatening with his beanpole. Every time, she stood there still as stone, all but yawning with boredom. When he gave up and continued on his way, she followed as close as a shadow.
The rain let up after a while, and not long after that Leo saw sunlight struggling through the canopy of leaves overhead and the canopy of clouds still higher up. The trail was longer than he had expected. The old gardener had told him it would loop back to Hill House eventually, hadn’t he? Not that Leo cared about that; he was hunting a monster, not taking a stroll. But the sun was crossing the sky, and he might be missed if he wasn’t home for supper.
These weren’t the thoughts of a warrior. He scouted ahead and saw a gnarled tree trunk that had almost the look of a troll. Taking his pole in both hands like a club, he charged that old trunk and hit it a few times, feeling better about himself and his mission immediately thereafter.
The girl behind him put her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “You’re silly,” she declared. “Why’d you beat on that poor tree?”