“Boy,” he said, “if you ain’t figured out by now that there ain’t no monster on this mountain save that which you brought yourself, you’re a greater fool than you look.”
Leo took a step back. Mousehand’s face was so dark, so angry, so . . . disappointed. Leo gripped Bloodbiter’s Wrath and backed away, unable to break his gaze from those eyes.
Then Leo turned and pelted across the yard, his boots slurping in the mud. He was through the garden gate and up the beaten path in a matter of minutes, still running. He broke into the forest where the red-scarfed sapling indicated, the ground slick with wet leaves beneath him. But he climbed the deer trail leading up, past the place where he had first met Rose Red and her goat, past the turn that led to the Lake of Endless Blackness (which must be overflowing by now, he thought, with all this rain). He climbed through the gloom and the rumble of thunder until at last the trees began to give way and he reached the higher slopes of the mountain.
They’re all lying to me, he thought. There is a monster. I know that boy didn’t make it up. There is a monster, and I’m going to find it.
He wondered about Rose Red as he climbed. He hadn’t seen her in a week, had not come across her in the woods all afternoon. Perhaps the monster had taken her, or taken that dragon-eaten goat. All because those who admitted it existed were too afraid! Like Rose Red, always thinking up excuses not to hunt it. And the rest pretended it never was.
Well, Leo was not to be put off any longer. He would find that cave again, and when he did, he knew he would also find that monster.
But the first flush of determination wore off as the rain continued to pour and he continued to get nowhere. Out in the open above the forest, there was no protection from the gales, and he started to shiver. The stones were slippery too, and several times he fell and hit his knees or elbows hard.
“All right,” he muttered as he used Bloodbiter’s Wrath to support himself. “All right, this wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. Oof ! ” He fell again, and this time he remained where he landed for a long moment. The rain was beginning to lessen, and when he looked up, Leo thought he glimpsed the sun shining through in patches, low on the horizon. The afternoon was wearing out and evening drawing on. The rocks loomed lonely and dark around him, and the forest waited below.
“I’m lost,” Leo whispered. Somehow, it was better to admit it out loud than to sit there pretending otherwise. He’d climbed all over this part of the mountain, and still there was no sign of the cave or even of the impossible rock face up which Rose Red had led him that day so many weeks ago. Nothing, as though it had all been a dream.
The rain beat in one final rush like the last roll of a drum. Then it stopped. Thick clouds churned overhead, but the mountain was silent without the sounds of the storm.
Leo pushed himself back up on his feet. No point, as far as he could see, in wandering about the mountaintop searching for a cave that he must have imagined. He huffed a few irate curses between his teeth and made his way carefully back down the rocks and into the shelter of the forest.
But it wasn’t the same forest.
The difference was subtle. One would hardly notice it at first. Leo was several paces in before he realized the smell was wrong. It didn’t smell like rain. And though he could see the underbrush growing thick beneath the spreading trees, wherever he walked, there was none.
Leo’s heart beat in his throat as he passed between the sentinel trunks. Rain dripped all around, rolling down branches and leaves. But no droplets landed on him. The ground where he walked did not squish with mud, and wet leaves did not cling to his boots, for all was dry beneath his feet.
His mind hurt as it struggled to comprehend the impossible strangeness surrounding him . . . then suddenly stopped hurting as it refused to try. Instead, tapping the ground with Bloodbiter’s Wrath, Leo set off at a quick pace through the forest. So what if the underbrush grew in a thick snarl all around him but somehow just wasn’t where he walked? Why should he care? He could make good time this way, take a brisk pace back to Hill House and be home in time for supper.
But the Wood laughed at him.
He could feel the laughter if not hear it. Laughter as old as the world that had begun long before he was born and would continue long after he was gone. And Leo started to glimpse shapes that flickered on the edge of his vision, deep in the forest shadows. His heart beat faster and his pace increased. The laughter around him continued, and more and more often he kept almost glimpsing things not there. Or things he hoped were not there.
He saw a wolf.
It was as big as a horse, loping between the trunks. Faster and faster it approached, and Leo could not see its face, for it was nothing but a shadow, but he could feel eyes like daggers fixed upon him. Predator and prey. Yet Leo could not run. He came to a standstill and watched as the shadowed horror drew nearer. He could almost hear the panting of hot breath, could almost smell the musk of the hunter, until it was but a few feet away and leaping. . . .
It passed through Leo’s chest. Then it vanished.
Leo stood gasping, turning to search before and behind, desperately trying to comprehend what had just happened. But the forest continued to darken, and he couldn’t stand there forever. Besides, he must have imagined it. It would be easy to do in these shadows as the sun set farther behind the mountains. He must get home.
Leo walked on. Though the sun vanished and left the forest in blackness, still, like magic, his eyes could discern just far enough in front to allow him to keep moving.
He saw fire.
It was only for a moment. First he saw a tall figure running ahead of him, graceful as a dancer in that strange half-light. A woman, he thought, but not quite a woman.
In a flash, what he had thought was her long, streaming hair was a tongue of flame, lashing through the forest, catching branches and leaves and devouring them. The whole world was swallowed in heat and smoke.
In a moment it was gone.
There was no fire, no smell of burning, no blinding light before his eyes.
Leo started to run.
Running did not help. The trees continued to part before him, and that was terrible. The shadows continued to deepen everywhere but where he walked, and that was terrible too. And everywhere there were those wisps of nothing or something, little half whispers pleading to be heeded that he must ignore at all costs. Leo ran uphill and downhill simultaneously, and no matter how fast he went, he made no progress.
At last he collapsed, too exhausted to draw a full breath. The strange light that should not exist huddled him into a world of his own, surrounded by the darkness and the voices that were not quite there. Leo wrapped his hands over his head, willing himself to wake from this nightmare; for surely, he kept telling himself, he must be dreaming.
Out of the darkness, one voice spoke without language, and yet he understood. It sang a song of liquid light that fell softly through the dark branches and touched his ears.
Won’t you remember me?
It came back to him then, a faint memory.
He recalled the beginning of summer, climbing behind Rose Red up to the mountain cave. She had given him directions back to Hill House then, hadn’t she? And she had said, “If you have any trouble, sing out, and I’ll come get you.”
Leo sat up on his knees but kept his eyes closed, for he did not like to see the looming black around him. His voice trembled, yet he called as loud as he dared, “Rose Red! I . . . I’m kind of lost, I think!”
“Right you are, Leo. What are you doin’ all the way out here?”
She was standing beside him. Of all the frights Leo had experienced that evening, this one just about took the prize.
“Dragon’s teeth!” he cried, leaping to his feet. “How did you get here?”
Rose Red backed up a few steps, her shoulders hunched and the edge of her veil swishing. “You called me, didn’t you?”
The smell was right again, Leo noticed. The forest smelled like wet earth
and new rain, just the way it was supposed to. The light was almost gone, but it was not so impossibly dark and impossibly light simultaneously as it had been. It was simply the dimness of twilight. And the underbrush was back, for he stood in the midst of a bramble patch and struggled to extract himself. “Yes, I called you,” he said as he stuck his fingers on thorns. “How did you even hear me?”
Rose Red helped pull brambles from his sleeves, for the thorns couldn’t pierce through her thick gloves. “I’m always listenin’ for you, Leo,” she whispered.
“But how could you get here that fast?” His fright and the darkness and a long tramp through the rain left him exhausted and, worse than that, angry. He found himself wanting to break Bloodbiter’s Wrath over his knee. Instead he gave a last tug and pulled free of the thorns, then squeezed his beanpole hard in both hands as though he could somehow wring all the anger out of himself. “Were you following me all along?” That idea made him angrier still.
Rose Red shook her head. “I used one of the Paths. Looks like you got on one of them too, and not a nice one. How’d you manage that?”
“Manage what?”
“To get on one of the Paths?”
“What are you talking about?”
Rose Red tossed up her hands, exasperated. “I’m talkin’ about the Paths what run through the forest, but what you cain’t see when you’re on this side of the worlds. Beana showed them to me.”
“Your goat?”
“But she don’t like me to use them. Says they’re dangerous, though I ain’t never seen nothin’ so wrong with them. Usually other folks cain’t find them, though. I’m surprised you did.”
Leo rubbed the side of his head, which was hurting almost as bad as if she’d smacked him again. Worlds and paths and shadows and whispers . . . it was too much. He didn’t like it. “There aren’t any paths this deep in the forest.”
“There’s more Paths than you can count, Leo.”
His knuckles whitened. “I can count a lot better than you can. You don’t even know what algebra is!” He sounded like a little boy, he realized with embarrassment, not the great lad of eleven that he was. Licking his lips and drawing in a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down. After all, he wasn’t alone anymore. And he wasn’t dreaming either. It had been many days since he’d seen Rose Red, and here they were, back out in the forest on one of their adventures, just like always. Everything else that had happened this evening was all silliness brought on by his overtired imagination. He licked his lips again. He couldn’t see her anymore and wasn’t certain if this was because of the twilight or if she was doing her vanishing trick again. His hand started to reach out for her, but he stopped himself. Past experience had taught him that this wasn’t a brilliant idea.
“I’m sorry, Rosie,” he whispered. “I’m just . . . I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Leo,” she said, and her form became visible again. “I’ll take you home now, shall I?”
He nodded. Rose Red took hold of the end of his beanpole and started walking, and Leo, thus linked to her, followed. They said nothing as they went, but even in the midst of their silence, Leo couldn’t help but be glad to have found her again. To find her safe and whole, despite all the rumors of the monster.
“What were you doin’ out here late like this?” Rose Red asked him after a while. She proceeded quickly considering how dark it had become. Leo could scarcely make out the ground beneath his feet, but Rose Red led him straight and true, and if he walked in her footsteps he rarely stumbled.
“I was hunting for the monster,” he said.
Rose Red stopped, and he almost walked into her, dropping his end of Bloodbiter’s Wrath as he did so. “Careful, Rosie!” He knelt to find his end of the pole and realized with a flash of irritation that she had disappeared again. “Rosie! Come on, I don’t need this.” He found the beanpole, but the girl, for all intents and purposes, was gone.
Swearing under his breath, he hacked his way a couple of steps but lost his footing in the dark and rolled down an incline. Sticks and stones bit through his clothing, and he lost his floppy hat. When Leo stopped rolling, he heard running water nearby and guessed that he must be somewhere near the Lake of Endless Blackness. But that didn’t help in the dark. Bruises were cropping up all over his body faster than weeds in a rose garden. He crawled to a nearby tree and pressed his back against the trunk, tucking his knees up.
Somewhere far away a wolf howled. Leo swore again.
“You hadn’t ought to hunt the monster.”
“Silent Lady!” He swung about and could just make out the contours of her veil near his face. “Why do you keep doing that to me?”
“Please, Leo,” she said, and he felt her gloved hand gripping his shoulder. “Please, don’t hunt the monster no more.”
He drew several long breaths. “Why won’t you take me back to the cave, Rosie?”
She was so still that only the hand on his shoulder told him she remained beside him. At last she whispered, “Please don’t ask me to.”
Leo ground his teeth. Using Bloodbiter for support, he pushed himself back onto his feet. Her hand slipped away from his shoulder, but he felt her standing near. “I want to see this monster, Rose Red. I know it exists. And I’m not afraid. I want to face it, like a real hero, and . . . and see what happens.”
“You won’t like what you see,” said the girl, her voice atremble.
But Leo, his heart in his throat, said, “Show me.”
8
THEY WALKED IN SILENCE through the wood, Rose Red clutching one end of Bloodbiter’s Wrath, Leo clinging to the other. He smelled rain and dampness and all the scents of night, and he shielded his face with his free hand as sticks and branches went for his eyes.
Then they emerged into the open high country, and here Leo used his free hand to support himself in the upward climb. Rose Red moved without hesitation, never stumbling on the wet rocks, never turning to check Leo’s progress as he followed.
When they came to the sheer rock face and Rose Red began to climb a path Leo could not see, he felt the change in the air. The smells of the night vanished, replaced with nothing, and the darkness was acute. Leo’s head went fuzzy. He wanted to support himself on the rocks, but when he reached for them, they weren’t there. Instead, he clung to the end of his beanpole with both hands and all but shut his eyes as Rose Red led him up and up.
At night, the cave’s mouth looked so like a wolf that Leo had to bite his own tongue to keep from crying out. His feet stopped moving, and his grip on Bloodbiter’s Wrath tightened so that Rose Red, who kept on walking, dropped her end. Only then did she turn around.
“What?”
Leo shook his head, staring at the cave’s mouth and telling himself not to be a fool. He’d seen it by daylight and knew it was only a cave.
“You want to see the monster, don’t you?” said Rose Red. Her voice was tight and thin as a bowstring.
Leo nodded.
“Then come.” She turned and marched right to the cave’s mouth. Hating every step he made, but hating himself still more for being afraid, Leo followed. He raised his beanpole and muttered, “I am a warrior. I am a hero. I am going to face the monster.”
What a tale this would be at breakfast tomorrow. Foxbrush would drop his teeth! This thought comforted Leo, and he followed Rose Red all the way to the cave’s mouth.
She vanished inside.
He couldn’t say how long he stood there, his courage twisting and writhing in his heart. At length he heard Rose Red calling from the blackness. “Ain’t you comin’?”
“I . . . I can’t see anything.”
“It’s not that dark.”
Leo gulped. “I can’t see anything,” he repeated.
He felt her hand, so tiny in its glove, reach out and take hold of his. Then her veil wafted against his cheek as she spoke softly in his ear: “Come along, Leo. I’ll take you.”
He followed her into the darkness, and it was dank and st
ale and close. His feet gingerly felt out each step before he trusted his weight to them. Rose Red was kind and waited for him as he made his hesitant way, and she kept a tight grip on his hand. Bloodbiter’s Wrath scraped against the low ceiling, and Leo was obliged to angle it forward as he went.
He heard running water, and the sound brought his heart hammering to his throat. “Is that the stream you mentioned before?” he asked, amazed at how loud his whisper sounded.
“Yup,” she said. “We’re close now.”
“To the monster?”
“Very close.”
“How . . . how will I see it?”
She did not answer. They proceeded several more paces; then she pulled him to a stop. From the sound of it, the water was near. “Kneel here,” she said.
Leo obeyed, keeping hold of his beanpole in his right hand, but Rose Red dropped his left. He put it out, feeling for her in the dark, but found instead the edge of the water. He gasped and pulled back, for it was scalding hot.
“Careful,” Rose Red whispered.
He had to work to find a voice again. “So where is it?” he managed at last, speaking all in a rush.
“Look in the pool.”
“I can’t see in here.”
“Lean forward, then, and keep your eyes open.”
He obeyed. A rustling sound, like fabric moving, startled him, and he wondered for a split second if Rose Red had removed her veil.
“Look in the pool,” the girl repeated. Leo, straining his eyes against blindness, looked.
A light.
At first faint and distant, glowing from deep, deep down, no more than a pinprick but impossible to miss in that darkness. It grew, and now Leo could see ripples moving on the surface of the water. The light continued to grow, and he thought it might be fire, but that was impossible, so deep underwater. Strange too, for this pool by which he knelt couldn’t be more than a few feet deep, and that light seemed to shine from leagues away. And still it grew, drawing nearer and nearer.