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?”