The Book Of Lost Things

“No, that followed after me. My name is David. I came through the tree trunk. There was a hole, but it disappeared. That was why I was chipping at the bark. I was hoping to cut my way back in, or at least to mark the tree so I would be able to find it again.”

“You came through the tree?” he asked. “From where did you come?”

“A garden,” said David. “There was a little gap in a corner, and I found a way through from there to here. I thought I heard my mother’s voice, and I followed it. Now the way back is gone.”

The Woodsman pointed again at the wreckage. “And how did you come to bring that with you?”

“There was fighting. It fell from the sky.”

If the Woodsman was surprised by this information, he didn’t show it.

“There is the body of a man inside,” said the Woodsman. “Did you know him?”

“He was the gunner, one of the crew. I’d never seen him before. He was a German.”

“He is dead now.”

The Woodsman touched his fingers to the tree once again, lightly tracing its surface as though hoping to find the telltale cracks of a doorway beneath his skin. “As you say, there is no longer a door here. You were right to try to mark this tree, though, even if your methods were clumsy.”

He reached into the folds of his jacket and removed a small ball of rough twine. He unraveled it until he was satisfied that he had the correct length, then tied it around the trunk of the tree. From a small leather bag he produced a gray, sticky substance that he smeared on the twine. It didn’t smell at all nice.

“It will keep the animals and birds from gnawing upon the rope,” explained the Woodsman. He picked up his ax. “You’d better come with me,” he said. “We’ll decide what to do with you tomorrow, but for now we need to get you to safety.”

David didn’t move. He could still smell blood and decay on the air, and now that he had seen the ax at close quarters, he thought he spotted drops of red along its length. There were red marks too on the man’s clothing.

“Excuse me,” he said, as innocently as he could, “but if you care for the woods, why do you need an ax?”

The Woodsman looked at David with what might almost have been amusement, as though he saw through the boy’s efforts to conceal his concerns yet was impressed by his guile nonetheless.

“The ax isn’t for the woods,” said the Woodsman. “It’s for the things that live in the woods.”

He raised his head and sniffed the air. He pointed the ax in the direction of the headless corpse. “You smelled it,” he said.

David nodded. “I saw it too. Did you do it?”

“I did.”

“It looked like a man, but it wasn’t.”

“No,” said the Woodsman. “Not a man. We can talk about it later. You have nothing to fear from me, but there are other creatures that we both have reason to fear. Come now. Their time is near, and the heat and the smell of burning flesh will draw them to this place.”

David, realizing that he had no other choice, followed the Woodsman. He was cold, and his slippers were damp, so the Woodsman gave him his jacket to wear and raised David up onto his back. It had been a long time since someone had carried David upon his back. He was too heavy for his father now, but the Woodsman did not appear troubled by the burden. They passed through the forest, the trees seeming to stretch endlessly before them. David tried to take in the new sights, but the Woodsman moved quickly and it was all David could do to hang on. Above their heads, the clouds briefly parted, and the moon was revealed. It was very red, like a great hole in the skin of the night. The Woodsman picked up the pace, his long steps eating up the forest floor.

“We must hurry,” he said. “They’ll be coming soon.”

And as he spoke, a great howling arose from the north, and the Woodsman began to run.

VIII Of Wolves, and Worse-Than-Wolves

THE FOREST PASSED in a blur of gray and brown and fading winter green. Briars tore at the Woodsman’s jacket and the trousers of David’s pajamas, and on more than one occasion David had to duck down to prevent his face from being raked by high bushes. The howling had ceased, but the Woodsman had not slowed his pace, not for a moment. Neither did he speak, so David too stayed silent. He was frightened, though. He tried to look back over his shoulder once, but the effort almost caused him to lose his balance and he did not try again.

They were still in the depths of the forest when the Woodsman stopped and seemed to be listening. David almost asked him what was wrong but then thought better of it and remained quiet, trying to hear what it was that had caused the Woodsman to pause. He felt a prickling sensation at his neck as his hairs stood on end, and he was certain that they were being watched. Then, faintly, he heard a brushing of leaves to his right, and a snapping of twigs to his left. There was movement behind them, as though presences in the undergrowth were trying to close in on them as softly as possible.

“Hold on tight,” said the Woodsman. “Almost there.”