The Spindlers (12 page)

“Wait!” Liza swallowed. There was an evil feeling to the Live Forest, and she had no desire to walk through it. But the nocturna had said it was a shortcut. “It'll be quicker to cut through the forest.”

Mirabella let out a mangled squeak. “
Through
the forest? Surely you don't mean … you're not suggesting …” She swallowed. “The Live Forest is a place for spooks and evil spirits. Very bad luck.
Very
bad luck.”

“We have no choice,” Liza said. “Now come on.” She took two steps along the crooked path, attempting to look brave. Instantly the mist engulfed her, as though she had been swallowed by a slick, damp throat. “There's nothing to be afraid of.”

Mirabella patted her wig nervously. “For the love of cheese …” she said, but she scurried along after Liza.

Liza squinted. There was a bit of pale white light that descended from above—from where, she could not have said, as they must have been miles and miles underground—just enough to make out the enormous silhouettes of the trees, and the mist clinging to them like moss.

The gnarled roots rose on all sides of them. Liza felt like a ship moving among large, glittering icebergs. It was the strangest thing: Even though the forest was perfectly still, with not a solitary shred of movement anywhere—just the terrible gnarled trees and the heavy, motionless mist—Liza still had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

Liza thought back to the nocturna's instructions. The nocturna had said to take the path through the Live Forest.... And it had said something else, too. Something important....

“Now let me think,” Liza murmured. “Watch out for the trees? No, no. It was something else.”

“What's that?” Mirabella whispered.

“Be quiet. I'm trying to think.” It
was
something about the trees, though … she was sure of it....

“You're buying a sink?”

“I said I'm trying to think.”

“You're eyeing a mink?”

“I'm
trying
to
think
.” Liza whirled around, losing patience. Mirabella had been creeping so close to her, they were practically whiskers to nose, and the rat hopped backward with a startled yelp. Her tail got entangled with her feet, or her feet became entangled by her tail, and suddenly she was stumbling backward. She pinwheeled her arms but could not regain her balance. She tumbled down at the base of one of the looming tree roots, bumping her head against the ancient wood.

“Mirabella!” Liza cried, and ran to her, dropping to her knees. “Are you all right?”

The rat's wig had slid forward so it obscured one of her eyes. She was rubbing her head and moaning.

“My head!” she cried. “My tender, pulpy head!”

Then the rat froze. Liza froze too. Suddenly, from all around them, came the low sounds of rumbling, as of distant thunder: cracking, too, and beneath it all, a horrifying, sibilant hiss.

“What is that?” Liza asked. All the fear had slammed back into her at once. The ground was rumbling and rolling beneath their feet, as though an earthquake was building. “What's happening?”

But even as she asked, the nocturna's words came back to her.

You mustn't wake the trees
.

At that moment the root—the dull, gray, lifeless root that had bruised Mirabella's head—shook itself and began to twist, and uncurl.

And uncurl.

And uncurl.

It extracted itself from the ground with a terrible tearing sound and raised itself in the air, and at its tapered point was the mossy, dirt-encrusted face of a grinning, wood-colored snake, with shining black eyes and terrible gray fangs.

The tree snake stared at Liza, swaying lightly on its enormous coils. Every time it moved there was a cracking sound, as of a giant crashing through a forest, and Liza watched in horror as little bits of bark flaked off from its skin.

“Run!” Mirabella screamed, and became a streaking comet of fur, rocketing past her.

But Liza couldn't run. She was so terrified she couldn't move, or breathe. Her whole body was filled with leaden weight.

The tree snake reared back, and the hissing sound in the air grew louder. A dark forked tongue flickered dangerously in its mouth, and Liza knew the snake was about to strike.

At that instant, the tree snake lunged for Liza, lightning quick. She barely had time to roll out of the way before the snake had plunged its fangs into the space where she had been kneeling, driving its mouth into the dirt. She bumped hard up against another tree root, and this one began to shake and crack as well.

Liza scrambled to her feet, holding tight to the broom, filled with blind panic. Around them, other trees were uprooting themselves violently, and from everywhere. All over the forest, the tree snakes were wrenching themselves from the ground, coughing up dirt. They loomed through the mist, their bark rippling terribly, sometimes three or four of them radiating in a circle from their trunks, like monstrous pets leashed together.

“Liza! This way! Follow me!” Mirabella was scrabbling ahead, weaving a path through the swaying, swirling forest and all the living, deadly trees. For once she had forgotten about walking like a lady and was running on all fours.

Another tree snake lunged for Liza, and she sprang out of the way, feeling a whistle of wind on her neck as the snake snapped its mouth on air. It came at her again. She struck out frantically with her broom, and the tree snake clomped down on the bristles, so Liza was left with only the handle. The snake coughed out a mouthful of straw, giving Liza just enough time to scamper out of its reach. It strained for her but was pulled back, sharply, by the tree trunk at its center; it gave a dissatisfied hiss as Liza plunged blindly forward.

“This way, this way!” Mirabella was digging frantically in the soft earth, sending sprays of dirt pinwheeling out from beneath her paws. At every moment, even more tree snakes were waking. The cracking and hissing was almost deafening, the ground buckled and shook beneath them, and the air was a shower of bark, pattering down from above like a black rain.

Then Liza's world turned a cartwheel; pain slammed her blindingly from the left, and her feet were above her head and her head was skimming several feet over the earth, and it took her a full 3.7 seconds to realize she had been knocked off her feet. The patch of ground she had been standing on had cleaved suddenly and completely in two, opening up like a book upon which she had been perched; she was seesawed into the air and landed, hard, on her back. The air went out of her at once, and in those moments of breathlessness everything appeared to move in slow motion.

From out of the cleft in the ground rose, inch by inch, a coal-black head the size of a car. It emerged from the earth as if it were floating up through water—the most fearsome snake Liza had yet seen, dark and rotten, encrusted all over with dirt. Its fangs were looped with smaller brambles, and insects skittered out of its mouth; moss grew along its bark and down its chin, a long, tangled beard. It glowered at Liza, hissing, and its breath smelled terrible, like death and long-buried things.

Liza wanted to stand. She wanted to run. But her brain no longer seemed to send clear directions to her body. Her body was possessed by terror; her lungs had stopped working; she couldn't think.

The black snake hissed at her again, taking its time, sending a forked tongue through terrible cracked wooden lips. It shimmied a few feet closer, its ancient body snapping and cracking: a deafening noise echoed through the forest, and all the other tree snakes fell silent, watching. Somehow Liza knew that this was the oldest tree of all, the center of the Live Forest—its longest and largest root, and its meanest, evilest snake.

Then the snake struck. It lashed out without warning, and Liza saw nothing but a tunnel of black about to consume her. Instinct took over, and she rolled desperately to one side. The snake's fangs whizzed by her; she could feel a
whoosh
of air as its massive body missed colliding with hers by inches. She jumped to her feet. She could breathe again. The blood was pounding through her, her heart churning furiously.

“Liza! Over this way!”

Only Mirabella's head was visible, her snout protruding over the lip of a hole she had excavated in the dirt. Liza took off running as the snake lunged for her again. She turned around, flailing out blindly with her broom. She struck the snake in the eye, and it reared back, roaring with fury. Just four more feet and she would slip down into Mirabella's hole and then maybe, maybe, the snake would not be able to get them; just three more feet.

Behind her, the snake let out a screech. Liza saw its shadow swallow hers, and she knew it was headed for her again. She felt its hot breath on her heels, on her neck, on the crown of her head....

“Jump, Liza!” Mirabella screamed.

Liza dove headfirst. She felt a sharp pain in her left heel, and then cold air, as the snake clamped down on one of her sneakers, yanking it off her foot. She was flying; she was falling; then she was colliding with Mirabella and tumbling into the narrow dirt tunnel, head over paw over hand over claw, landing in a pile of matted fur and dirty newspaper.

“Mirabella?” Liza whispered as the rat let out a moan. “Are you okay?”

“Get—off—me,” Mirabella wheezed. “Can't breathe. On—my—stomach.”

“Sorry.” Liza disentangled herself from the rat. The tunnel was so narrow and low she had to crouch on her hands and knees, and she felt very much like a rat herself. Ahead of them was a solid wall of dirt; the rat had not had time to dig very far. “Now what?” Liza asked.

“Plan A! Plan A! We wait,” Mirabella said. In the dark, her eyes glittered. “We wait for the trees to tire themselves out and go back to sleep.”

“Do you think we're safe here?” Liza shivered. From above, they could still hear the horrible sounds of crashing and cracking, hissing and roaring.

“Oh yes,” Mirabella said, but Liza did not think the rat sounded entirely sure. “Very safe. Safe as a bug in a rug. Safe as a clam in a turtle shell. Safe as a needle in a haystack!”

“I don't think—” Liza started to say.

But she did not get to finish.

At that moment the black tree snake came crashing its way into the tunnel, lashing and snapping.

Mirabella screamed.

And as the mouth of the snake loomed over them, an enormous, black vaulted mouth hung with moss and coated with black and slimy things, Liza did the only thing she could think to do. She reached out with all her might and shoved the broom handle deep into the snake's throat.

The snake stopped, mouth gaping open, its fangs only an inch from Liza's neck.

It blinked at her.

She held her breath.

And then the snake began to cough. The broom handle had lodged itself sideways in the snake's throat.

The tree was choking.

“Mirabella,” Liza said in a low voice, keeping her eyes on the snake the whole time. It was now twisting and turning its massive neck, trying to work the broom out of its throat. And the second it did, Liza knew, they would be snapped up like mice in a trap. “I'm not sure waiting here is the best idea.”

“No, no. No. We mustn't wait any longer. Very
unsafe
here,” Mirabella squeaked nervously. “We must move on to plan B.”

“What's that?” Liza shuddered in the blast of hot, foul, musty air that emanated from the tree snake's mouth. A beetle dropped from one of its fangs onto her thigh, and she brushed it off quickly, pushing herself backward in the tiny, narrow tunnel.

“We dig,” the rat said.