The Children of Hare Hill (5 page)

Chapter 12

The map told them more about the fifth hare than it had for any other hare so far. They both knew where number five was—on the other side of the pond, which was criss-crossed by paths and bridges. This made for a pleasant walk when the sun was shining, but now, in the middle of the night, the reflection of the moon surrounded by thick green pondweed presented them with a haunting scene that gave them chills.

It was possible to reach the fifth hare by more than one route, but the map was telling them they had to go a specific way. Hand-drawn footprints led along the path, over two bridges, and through the trees to the waiting hare. They crossed the first bridge, hearing the creak of the old wooden boards beneath their feet, and thought of all the times their father had told them that trolls lived under the bridges of Hare Hill, just like in the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. As they stepped off the first bridge and onto the small island in the middle of the pond, they saw three long logs piled up in the grass, but thought nothing of them as they made their way along the short path to where the second bridge could be found. Or, as they now discovered, where the second bridge used to be.

They stood on the edge of the island and stared in shock at the wreckage of the bridge. Splintered wooden planks jutted out of the water and floated along its surface. Suddenly, they heard an almighty rumble and crash behind them. They saw ripples in the water around the remnants of the second bridge, then they ran back along the island's path, dreading what they might find at the first bridge. The bridge they had crossed just moments ago had collapsed into the water, smashed to pieces by an unseen force.

"The other bridge!" Charlotte shouted, remembering there was one more bridge off the island. They ran back up the path and took a right turn, just in time to see the wooden beams being torn apart and crashing into the water.

"We're stuck here, aren't we?" Ben said.

Charlotte said nothing. She was trying to think what options they had.

"Don't worry, Ben," she said. "Remember, everything we've had to do tonight has been a puzzle. There's no way that three bridges could all fall down at the same time by themselves. This must be a puzzle we have to solve, too."

"But who is setting these puzzles? The witch?"

"Stop talking about the witch!" Charlotte said. "There is no witch. That's just a silly thing Daddy used to say, and he's dead!" She immediately regretted her words as soon as they left her lips. Ben's bottom lip started to quiver and she failed to console him before he broke into floods of tears just seconds later.

"I'm sorry," she said over his sobbing as she put her arms round him and squeezed him tight. "I didn't mean it. All I meant was that witches aren't real. Whatever's happening here is happening for a reason, and if a witch wanted to take us away and lock us in her gingerbread house, she would have done it already. Why make us do all these puzzles first?"

Charlotte found a tissue in her backpack and handed it to him. They both sat down in the grass as Ben dried his eyes, then they looked at the map again. To their surprise, the drawings of the bridges had disappeared, but the footprints were still there, crossing the open water of the pond from the island to the wooden hare waiting for them in the trees.

"There must be a way of getting across," Charlotte said.

"Maybe we could take our shoes off and walk across. The pond didn't look very deep."

"How can we test how deep the water is?" Charlotte said, and they looked around for something that might help.

Ben pointed to the pile of logs. "What about one of them?"

"Good idea!" Charlotte said. They jumped to their feet, each grabbed an end of the log on the top of the pile, and carried it to the edge of the pond. Ben lowered the end of the log into the water and they both fed it down and down, further than they thought it would go, until they felt it hit the bottom of the pond. Only a few inches of the log still peeked out of the water at an angle.

"Well, it looks like we're not going to paddle across," Charlotte said.

They sighed and let go of the log, thinking they would have to dream up another way of getting across the water, but something happened to it. It seemed to rattle, then shifted itself until it was upright, providing them with what looked very much like a stepping stone. From that moment, they both knew what they had to do.

"We've got two more logs!" Ben said. They went back along the path, picked up the second log, and took it to the edge of the water. Ben was in front and stopped to judge the log that was already in the pond.

"Ready?" Charlotte said.

Ben nodded, then took a leap of faith and stepped off the shore onto the log. There wasn't much room for both of his feet. He wobbled, then righted himself and looked over his shoulder at his sister, relieved to still be upright and dry.

"Are you okay?" she said.

Ben breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at her. "No problem," he said. "Are you ready?"

Once again, they lowered the log into the water. When they felt it hit the bottom, they let it go and watched as it righted itself, one big stride ahead of the first log. Ben jumped back onto the island and they went back to get the third and final log. This time they stood on a log each; Charlotte on the first and Ben in the lead on the second. They took a few seconds to find their balance, then lowered the third log into the water. Just like the other two, this log rattled and stood upright, fixing itself in position as the third in a line of three stepping stones leading into the middle of the water.

"We need more logs," Ben said, looking at the wide gap between the third log and the shore on the other side. They jumped back onto the island and searched among the bushes for more logs to complete their path across the water, but there were no more. They stood at the edge of the water and looked at the three logs. The solution came to Charlotte in a flash.

"I know what we have to do!" she exclaimed.

"What?" Ben said.

"I'll show you. Get onto the third step," Charlotte said, pointing at the third log. Ben hopped across, now confident with his balance. Charlotte followed him and stopped on the log behind him.

"Okay, what now?" Ben asked.

"Now, we can make our way across with these logs. We don't need any more than three of them," she said as she bent down very carefully and grabbed the end of the first log with both hands. She pulled on the log and it came loose.

"Yes!" she gasped as she lifted it out of the water. "Here," she said as she moved it towards Ben, "take the other end and put it in the water in front of you."

Ben did as he was told. The log rattled and fixed itself in place, then Charlotte made an
after you
gesture to Ben. They each took a step forward and saw the gap between them and the other side close.

"Well done!" Ben said.

"We're not there yet," Charlotte said. "It looks like we've got a few more steps to go."

It took three more moves to get within a footstep of the shore. Ben stepped onto solid ground first, then Charlotte, and they surprised themselves by sharing a hug, an expression of their collective relief.

They were about to take a step along the short path through the trees to the wooden hare when a noise from behind made them stop in their tracks. It was the sound of bubbling and deep rumbling, the feeling of someone or something exerting great power over the surroundings. They turned around and saw the water in the pond bubbling like boiling water in a pan. The noise grew louder and the bubbling became more and more violent. They felt searing heat from the pond on their skin. Then, all at once, the wreckage of all three bridges rose from the water and each one pieced itself back together, like an enormous jigsaw puzzle being completed by invisible hands. Splintered cracks in the wood sealed themselves and rusted metal rivets slotted back into their holes. When the final pieces were in place, the hot bubbling water stopped in an instant, returning them to a cool, still scene, as if nothing had happened.

Charlotte felt Ben's hand searching for hers and she grabbed it, gripping it tightly. Whoever, or whatever, was doing this was more powerful than they could have imagined, but while some of the puzzles had been challenging, they had never really been put in danger. Not yet, anyway.

"Let's go," Ben said, and they followed the path into the trees. They turned right and found the fifth wooden hare sitting next to the path, their father's ashes circling its feet.

As soon as they stopped, they witnessed the sight that, while it had become familiar, would never lose its magic. The ashes rose as they twirled round the hare, which emitted a golden glow and, in a bright flash, turned into a real hare, which rubbed its eyes and ran away.

They got out their magical dice and both rolled a one. Quick as a flash, they set off running towards the second hare, but decided not to go over the bridges this time.

Chapter 13

Charlotte and Ben arrived at the second wooden hare at the southeast corner of the park, but found no hints about the challenge that lay ahead of them.

"What's on the map?" Ben asked. They looked at the map and saw the wooden hare with a question mark over its head.

"That's not much help," Ben said.

Charlotte sighed. "What I want to know is, who is doing this? Is it really a witch or is it someone else with magical powers doing this to us?"

Charlotte and Ben jumped as they heard a booming voice in the distance. "Ask me one question."

The shock they felt at the interruption dissipated as they recognised the voice. It was the Guardian of Hare Hill. They ran along the path from the second wooden hare to the clearing where the sculpture stood, and saw the stone face smiling at them once again.

"Hello again," he said as they stepped onto the grass and into his field of vision.

"Hello," they both said.

"How are you doing? If you've got this far, you must know what you're doing."

They looked at the map and Charlotte said, "We're on hare number two right now."

"How many spells have you broken so far?"

"Five. This will be the sixth."

"Aha, so you'll be halfway there. Don't worry, this is an easy one. It's not really a puzzle—it's an opportunity."

"An opportunity to do what?" Charlotte asked.

"What I said before—ask me one question, and I will answer it truthfully."

"What kind of question?" Ben asked.

"Anything you want. Anything at all. But I think I know what you're going to ask me about."

Charlotte and Ben said nothing and looked at each other.

"Am I right?" the Guardian asked.

"I guess so," Charlotte said. She left a silence hanging over them, expecting the Guardian to tell them what they wanted to know, but all he said was, "So?"

"So what?" she said.

"So ask me one question. I know the answer, but you have to ask the right question to find out what you want to know."

"Okay," Charlotte said, holding up a finger that told him to wait a minute. "We need to talk about this."

Charlotte and Ben turned away and talked in whispers.

"Why not just ask him who's doing this to us?" Ben asked.

"That's not specific enough," Charlotte said. "We need to ask him the right question, which means we need to understand what we want to know."

"How about, who put the spell on the hares?" Ben asked.

Charlotte thought about this for a moment and shook her head. "No, that's not the right question."

"Why?"

"Remember what Daddy used to say?"

"Yes. A wicked witch cast a spell on the hares and turned them into statues a long, long time ago."

"Right. So even if there was a witch a long, long time ago that really did cast a spell to turn the hares into wooden statues, what makes you think she's the one who set up all the puzzles for us?"

Ben screwed up his face, like he was being forced to think so hard it made his brain hurt.

"What are we doing here?" Ben suggested.

"He might just say, 'You're doing puzzles,' and not say anything else." Charlotte thought for a moment about what Ben had said. "You're right, though. What we need to know most of all is not who is setting these challenges, but why we have to do them." She looked at the Guardian and announced, "I have a question."

"And your question is...?"

"Who is waiting for us at the thirteenth hare?" she said.

The Guardian raised his stone eyebrows and smiled. "Good question," he said. "I will leave you with a riddle. Solve the riddle and you get your answer. Don't worry—if you've already solved the number puzzle, this will be easy."

Charlotte opened her mouth to protest, but the Guardian talked over her.

"My first will glow and also has wings,

My second can't be found in town, but belongs to these things,

My third and fourth are in something that might scare,

My fifth is waiting at Pistol Pond, but isn't a hare."

Out of the corner of their eyes they saw a distant golden flash and knew it was the second wooden hare breaking out of its spell. They heard the scurrying of tiny feet and, as quick as a flash, the hare zipped along the path behind them and around the corner.

"Why has it turned into a real hare already?" Ben asked. "Why didn't it wait until we’d solved the riddle?"

"I don't think that's the point this time," Charlotte said. "All we had to do was ask a question and get an answer, which is what we did. Working out the riddle is our problem. Come on, we'll think about it on the way to the next hare."

With the riddle still gnawing at their brains, they rolled their dice. Charlotte rolled a six and Ben rolled a four, but before they could shout "Ten!" there was a bright, blinding flash in front of their eyes.