The Door in the Forest (14 page)

“One more to go,” said Wesley.

Finding it was easier said than done—the brambles treacherous, the branches fiercely resistant. At last they came to a cavelike structure formed of several boulders thrown together. And there, on the side of the largest rock, half-hidden under ivy, was the third spiral. The kids jumped around, shouting and laughing.

“We did it!” Wesley cried.

“Miss Byrdsong,” said Daniel grandly. “If you please!”

She gave a little bow and dug her hand into the muck.

After she’d covered the spiral, the friends continued around the perimeter of the island, crossing bridges where necessary, till they arrived back where they’d started.

“Now,” said Daniel, giving the cave’s boulder a pat, “two more times.”

Emily nodded, her face flushed.

“Are we supposed to put on more dirt?” said Wesley.

“I hope not,” Emily said. “We just used up the last of it.”

“Let’s go around again and see what happens,” said Daniel.

Along the way, they noticed that the woods looked different—thicker, wilder than it had a few minutes before. By the time they reached the final set of boulders, they almost didn’t recognize the place, it was so grown over. A badger skittered out from the opening in the rocks and waddled away.

They continued on, breathing hard, until they made it back to the campsite.

“Ready for the last circle?” said Daniel.

Emily was leaning against the side of the cave, catching her breath. “Hey,” she said, looking around. “Where is everything?”

Wesley had a panicked look. “Where’s my stuff? Did somebody take it?”

Daniel stared at the place where the fire pit had been. The ground was thickly covered in scrub bushes. “We must be at the wrong cave,” he said.

Wesley shook his head. “Look at the rocks. Same slant, same shape.”

“I’ll check in the back,” said Daniel, heading inside. He came out seconds later, preceded by a burst of frightened bats. “The spiral’s still there. Still covered with mud. But nothing else.”

“What about our supplies?” said Wesley.

“Gone!”

“Okay,” said Emily, “I know I’m not crazy.”

Daniel rubbed his chin. “It’s like each turn around the island takes us to some other place.”

Emily looked down. “No,” she said slowly. “Not some other place. Some other time.”

“That’s dumb,” said Wes.

“You think so? It’s like the windows in my room. The spring window, say. You turn one handle, you see next spring. Turn the other one, you see last spring.”

Wesley raised an eyebrow.

“Where do you think I got the spring earth?”

“I don’t know,” said Wesley. “All I know is somebody stole my things.”

“Maybe they don’t exist back here.”

“Back where?”

She looked at him as though he were thick.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t believe in this stuff. It’s just a bunch of superstition.”

Emily checked the urge to fire back. She remembered saying the same thing to her grandmother. “Well,” she said, “we’ve got one more turn around the island. Why don’t we see what happens?”

This time the woods grew even wilder, practically impassable, no sign of a path. Overhead, grapevines draped the closely set trees. Emily gasped when a brace of pheasants exploded out from under a holly tree.

They almost passed the marker without seeing it, so thickly covered it was with vinca and Virginia creeper. Wesley just stood and stared.

Daniel came up beside him. “This must be the way it looked long ago.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Wes.

The third marker, three massive boulders, looked the most different of all. The rocks were no longer leaning against each other, but standing upright, their back ends wedged securely in the hillside. Suddenly Emily grabbed Daniel’s arm as a silver fox trotted out of the shadows, its shiny coat catching the sunlight. The creature stopped to look at the humans, as if they were only mildly interesting, then disappeared into a thicket.

“I’ve never seen one of those before,” Wes breathed.

Daniel agreed. “Not around here. They were hunted to extinction before Grandpa’s time.”

They continued on. Rounding the far side of the island, they broke free of the trees. To their amazement, the thistles, firethorn, and poison oak that had barred their way had mostly disappeared. In their place stood swaying, waist-high flowers, a tide of white and rose mallow blooms such as they had never seen.

“This looks like an easy way to get to the stream,” Daniel said.

“Why didn’t we know about this?” said Wes.

They waded through the flowers as through waves of applause, and soon found themselves at the stream bank.

“Hey,” said Wesley. “What happened?”

Where wide, murky water had made its surly way around an unreachable island, there was now nothing more than a brook, clear and bright in the late sunlight, and so narrow it could easily be jumped across.

“Impossible,” said Wesley under his breath.

Emily looked at him, remembering. “That’s what Grandma Byrdsong said. It’s an impossible island.”

“Actually,” said Daniel, “right now it looks
very
possible.”

She nodded. “It kind of does.”

“So,” he said, looking at the others. “Who wants to go first?”

“Your son,” said Sloper as the men prepared to sit down to dinner. “Quite a boy.”

“You mean Daniel?” said Crowley, taking his seat.

Three of Sloper’s aides pulled out their straight-backed chairs and sat down heavily.

“He risked a great deal last night to steal the map from me.”

“Map?”

“Please, my friend, don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know.”

“Where
is
Daniel?” Crowley glanced around as if he might have overlooked him. “And Wesley.” He turned to his wife, just then coming in with the roast chicken—a skinny one. It had been the last bird left in the coop. “Gwen? Have you seen the boys?”

She shook her head. “If you mean Danny, not since last night.” She set the platter on hot pads and stepped back. “When we were all out there searching for Bridey.”

“He didn’t come back?” said her husband.

“Ever since the boys started sleeping in the barn, I hardly know
where
they are.”

“They didn’t show up at the store, either.”

“Enough,” interrupted the captain, bunching his napkin in his fist. “You can stop the charade. I know what you’re up to.” He looked around the table. “Don’t look surprised.”

Crowley’s face was a nest of confusion. “Captain,” he said, “you have to forgive me. My children don’t tell me what they’re doing. What were you saying about a map?”

Sloper briefly closed his eyes. “Don’t.”

“But …”

“Next you’ll tell me you don’t know about the caches of weapons hidden in the woods.”

“Weapons?”

“It was all there on the map.” Sloper leaned back in his chair. “
As you very well know.
”

“As I …?”

Sloper held up a hand. “Please. You lie so badly.”

“Gwen,” said Crowley, “do you know about this?”

Mrs. Crowley lifted her head bravely. “Just that there was a fire upstairs in Daniel’s room.”

“Well, we all know that,” said her husband. “You can smell it all over the house.”

Gwen turned to the captain. “How is it up there now? Is it livable? I’ve been airing it out all afternoon.”

Sloper slammed his fist down on the table. Wine sloshed from the glasses and the chicken jumped on the platter. “
Damn it
! Stop!”

No one spoke.

“We know,” Sloper growled, “that three children are missing: your two boys and that girl over at the Byrdsong place. We also know that your boy was willing to burn down the house to keep me from reading the map.”

Crowley opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

“Why?” Sloper’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he do a thing like that?”

Again, Crowley almost spoke.

“I’ll tell you why,” the captain supplied. He refilled his wine glass and drained it in a gulp. “He was afraid I’d learn the secret. But we all know the secret, don’t we? We know the weapons are stored on the island!”

“What!”

“So simple,” the captain continued. “So clever. Who would think this quaint backwater town was a hotbed of insurrection? Very likely it’s the supply post for the whole rebellion!”

“Now that’s ridic—”

“An island no one can get to. A place everyone’s afraid of, surrounded by superstition, protected by quicksand and snakes.”

“Captain, listen,” Crowley objected.

“If I wanted to hide something, I couldn’t find a better place. But since your son has deprived us of the map, we don’t know the precise locations. So we’ll just have to shell the whole island.”

Gwen stood up, her hand fluttering to her chest. “You wouldn’t.”

“You know we’re planning to test out our new artillery,”
said Sloper. “Let’s see if we can’t blow up some weapons at the same time—along with anybody who happens to be over there guarding them.”

Gwen’s face froze.

Sloper looked up at her. The ghost of a smile played around the corners of his mouth. “What is it, Mrs. Crowley? You don’t look well.”

The island was edged with evergreens and curtained with vines. Stepping through them was like leaving the sunny outdoors and entering a cathedral, with ceilings so high they were lost in the gloom. Once within, the three friends found that the evergreens tapered off quickly. Beyond lay an open woods of massive trees. Daniel thought he knew every kind of tree there was, but many of these he didn’t recognize.

There was a scent in the air, too, familiar yet elusive, and the sounds, half-lost in the foliage, of many birds, whole choirs of them, singing and hushed at the same time.

Wesley, always the scientist, bent down to examine the dark-leaved bushes he was wading through. It was then that he saw the violets beneath. The forest was carpeted with them, the air giddy with perfume.

They walked on, marveling at how much taller these trees were than the ones they knew. These woods had never been thinned by loggers or tamed by campers. Muscular vines climbed huge trunks and disappeared in the forest canopy.

Daniel suddenly froze as he realized that one of those vines, thicker than the others, was not a vine at all. Large as a fire hose, a gleaming green snake was making its way slowly up over the chunky bark of a chestnut oak.

Wes saw it, too. Then Emily. No one said anything. Probably no one breathed.

They went on. They went on for quite a while.

“Did you see
that
?” said Emily suddenly.

The boys looked where she was pointing. A flash of red and a moment of black that could have been anything. Then the foliage grew still.

Daniel didn’t know whether to investigate or keep on the way they were going. They decided to keep going.

“Hey, Danny,” said Wes after a while. He stopped to catch his breath. “Shouldn’t we be getting to the other side?” He ran his arm across his forehead.

“You’d think,” said Emily.

They pushed on another ten minutes. Daniel would have been happy to keep going. Just breathing the scented air gave him a feeling of lightness, as if gravity were somehow less grave here, and his pack lighter. But his brother was worn out.

“Wait,” Wesley called out. “I gotta sit down.”

They found a fallen tree, like a giant’s outflung arm, and sat on its wrist.

“Sure this isn’t a snake?” said Emily, smiling.

“Drink of water?” Daniel offered. They all took sips from the canteen. He looked at his brother. “You okay?”

“In case you don’t remember, we didn’t get any sleep last night. And we’ve been hiking all day.”

“I know. The place looks a lot bigger from the inside than from the outside.”

“It’s like it doesn’t end.”

“Are you all right to keep going?”

Wesley shrugged.

Daniel nodded. “You too, Em?”

She lifted her head, listening. “Wait.” She held up a hand. “What’s that?”

A distant sound, almost like a woman’s voice, hovered in the air, sourceless. Then a breeze picked up, rustling through laurel and rhododendron, and for some seconds they couldn’t hear anything else.