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?”