Fantasy Forest

by Greg Austin

Chapter One

The Quest Begins

Jack was dreaming.  He saw Mr.  Hawke standing alone in his dusty classroom, waiting for first bell.  Wearing a long purple coat that was buttoned up to his thin neck, he looked more like a magician about to perform a trick than the silver-haired headmaster of Woolly Vale Public.

Wind swirled dust about outside and blew leaves against the rattling windowpanes. 

In his dream, Jack heard someone skipping on the classroom veranda, a tap dripping, a tree scraping the tin roof above him, a bird pecking at the flagpole thinking it was a tree.  All these sounds seemed to get louder in his head.  Then a single storm cloud rushed in from over the mountain to hang swollen and black above the school grounds.  Lightning cracked, sending thunder booming across the hilly land.

The students were making a racket, lining up for assembly.  Jack knew something was not quite right.  He saw Mr.  Hawke take out his polished gold pocket watch and lift it up to dangle right in front of his face.  The watch hands were frozen at one minute to nine. 

‘Now isn’t that odd,’ Mr.  Hawke said, looking out the window, watching the churning storm cloud as wind howled over the roof.  ‘Something very strange is happening out there, that’s for sure, young Jack.’ 

The noises from the students outside abruptly stopped and Jack woke up suddenly, his eyes wide open.

* * *

Jack looked back to their little stone cottage, built on a grassy hill overlooking Woolly Vale village.  They were the furthest away from everyone else, but out here he welcomed the fresh air and the sounds of birds chirping and chattering in the morning.

       His gold-brown fringe came down to blue eyes that creased up as crimson sunlight filled the sky, turning the fields surrounding the cottage the deepest of greens.  Jack saw Abby close the yellow front door then she gave it a kick to make sure it was locked.  His twin sister caught up to him on the path that would take them to the village school.  They slung their schoolbags over shoulders and walked quickly to get to class on time.  He urged her along.  ‘C’mon, we may just get there before assembly is over.’

        Jack was surprised at how quiet his sister was this morning.  Usually, she bossed him around, even though he often teased her about being a little shorter.  He saw her eyes flash to his face.

      ‘They all suddenly disappeared,’ she murmured, staring at him.  

      ‘Who did? Is everything alright, Abby?’

      ‘Jack, I had this terrible dream.  About our friends—they vanished, gone, just like that.’ She snapped her fingers.  ‘Then another dream—a soft voice like mum’s telling me a riddle.  Something to do with magic and a King and Queen.’ Abby’s long fair hair lifted in the wind that blew up from the valley.

      ‘I had some weird dreams too, Abby.  What was the riddle?’ Jack was all ears.

      ‘I’ll try and remember it as we go.  I hope they’ll all be there when we arrive,’ she said. 

      ‘Of course they will.  It was only a dream.’ From the village, Jack heard the tower bell sound faintly.  It tolled over and over.

       ‘But it seemed so real.  I truly think something is wrong, Jack, and why are they ringing the bell so much?’          

       Now he started to worry.  ‘I’ll go back for my cart and we’ll ride in.  Wait here.’  Within seconds, it seemed to Abby, he came running, pulling his billycart with a frayed old rope.  ‘Hop in!’ he shouted as he approached.

       From the hilltop, they flew down the dirt track, both squeezed into the box nailed on the back of the cart.  Its wooden wheels were turning so fast they began to wobble and break apart.

       Jack steered the cart to a sliding halt on the cobbled main village street, right in the shadow of the town hall.  Its bell was clanging loudly. 

       The village guard, a big red-faced man, charged up to them on his horse, from which he yelled, ‘Have you seen the other students?’ 

       Jack knew his mouth had dropped open when he turned to Abby and shook his head.  Her tangled hair swept back from her face and a tear started running down.  Abby’s dream must have been real, he thought.  The guard pulled on the reins, kicked his heels into the horse and galloped around them without another word.  Jack felt Abby shake his shoulder.

       ‘The riddle, Jack, I’ve got to try and remember all of it!’ Abby looked pale.  She grabbed a pencil and a notebook from her bag and started writing.  ‘I’ve only got bits of it, but by the sound of this riddle we may be on a journey, into the Great Forest of all places, to look for our friends.  And this first part: ‘The quest is yours and yours alone,’ I think means we are not to tell anyone we are looking for them.’

       Jack let out a long breath; he dropped the rope and stood out of the billycart.  Up and down the street, people started to yell and run about in a panic.  ‘Right, Abby, I’ll get some food to carry with us.’ Abby was a fast thinker and usually, her hunches were right.  He grabbed her bag as well as his and took off down the street to the nearest shop.

       Not many ventured into the Great Forest, Jack knew.  He remembered stories of strange things happening in there.  It was a land unchanged in thousands of years: full of magical creatures and very old castles.  Living so close to the woods, they had seen some of the wondrous creatures that dwelled in there and now, at last, they had good reason to enter and find out once and for all if magic really existed.  Abby always said it did, and lately, in her dreams, she had been flying over the woods with magical powers all of her own.                                      

    ‘Let’s go and find our friends,’ called Jack, returning fast with their school bags empty of books and stuffed with food.’

* * *

It seemed like ages since the twins had set out on their quest.  Abby knew it was only a day, but the journey so far had been hard going, following the clues in the partly finished riddle.  Now, travelling deeper into the Great Forest, they caught glimpses of huge flying creatures fluttering about in skies that swirled golden and pink and blue.  Everything was changing around them.

    ‘I feel as if I am walking into another world,’ she said.  ‘The same places in stories dad used to read to us.’ The air was thicker but she felt lighter.  How strange. 

    Jack moved his arms up and down in front.

    ‘And I feel if I jump up, I could float for a while before coming back down,’ he said.  Abby imagined Jack lifting off the ground and her hanging on to his feet, then both of them floating way up into a rich pink sky.

     Abby turned to her brother and said, ‘Ever since leaving the village I’ve felt...  somehow...  different.  And look at all the colours everywhere.’  The leaves on the tall trees rippled red and yellow as the wind passed through them.  Other strange looking plants with big blue seedpods sitting on long, green stems seemed to be leaning over, whispering to her as she passed.

    ‘They’re all here in the forrresst; the castle is where you start.  Go quick, go quick little girrlll... ’

    ‘Can you hear them, Jack? The plants.’ As Abby turned around, the rows of plants straightened up all along the path and the whispering stopped.

    ‘It’s just the wind,’ Jack said.  She watched him holding out the piece of paper with the riddle scrawled on it, trying to make sense of the jumbled sentences as he went along. 

    Mum and dad are good with riddles, thought Abby.  I wish we had time to tell them where we were going.  As it often happened, her brother was thinking the same thing.

    ‘They must be really worried, but we can’t stop, we have to keep going,’ he said. 

    A flash of orange crossed the path ahead, high up.  ‘What was that?’ Abby said, jumping with fright.

    ‘Oh, must be a Scallywag,’ Jack told her, trying to sound reassuring.  ‘Don’t you reckon they look like a cross between a cat and a monkey?’ Now they were jumping noisily between the trees, following the twins.

    ‘They don't look very friendly,’ said Abby, moving back from one that climbed down and sat on a branch that grew out over the path.  The strange animal bared sharp teeth and lashed its tail about before squealing and leaping back up the tree. 

     Night was falling and the woods closed in around them.  Jack folded the piece of paper and shoved it into his pants pocket.

    ‘We’ll have to find a place to sleep soon.’

    ‘Look, Jack, the moon is starting to come out.  That means we can keep going for a while.’ The sun slipped away, leaving just a touch of pink sky behind the moon’s faint outline.

     ‘Keep going? That might be best, I think.’ She saw Jack watching the Scallywags.  Hundreds of them gathered, hanging in the trees, watching them through red unblinking orbs.

      The moon outlined clouds with silver thread and all about glowed in the eerie ghost light, even the owls, hooting way up on the branches of the giant trees.  The delicate fronds of the tall fern plants moved in the wind, beckoning them to come closer.

    ‘Careful of those plants, Jack,’ Abby warned.  She had heard tales about those sticky fronds that could wrap around and pull you in if you got too near.  Suddenly the clouds parted and the moon lit up a massive stone wall.  A solid barrier rising up into the night sky right in front of them; vines clutched at the stones, trying to pull them back into the dark ground. 

    Abby shivered then, and not just from the cold.  She felt that the magic was strongest here.  ‘We’ll have to climb over, Jack.  Then we can sleep on the other side.’

    All the way up they used their hands and feet, grabbing the vines and finding grooves they could fit the toes of their boots in.  Finally, they stood up on top of the thick wall, puffing, looking across paved courtyards at even higher walls. 

    ‘It’s a castle!’ Tilting her head right back, Abby could just make out the tops of the towers that reared up like giant soldiers in the night, guarding whatever was inside. 

    ‘Jack, the last part of my dream-riddle says, “Beneath the King entwined in wood you’ll find the stone that really could, change all back to what they should.”’

    ‘So you think the King is inside here? And this magic stone will help us get our friends back?’

    ‘Yes, I do.’