Into The Mist (Land of Elyon) (13 page)

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mountains where you belong, and Mister Clawson will never find you."

"The wolves are near," said Thorn, sniffing the air. "We have no choice but to make our way out of the Great Ravine."

Thomas smiled at Thorn's decision. He was most comfortable on a grand adventure, and it appeared that this one would continue deeper into the wild, to places we'd heard of but never seen. With the growing sound of wolves at our back we started into the narrow passage with Thorn close behind. I imagined the bellowing sound of Mister Clawson's voice becoming quieter and quieter the farther we climbed, up and away from his grasp.

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CHAPTER 16

THROUGH UNCHARTED LANDS

"I do not think it serves my story very well to tell you all of what happened on the journey from the Great Ravine through Fenwick Forest and into the realm of Mount Norwood," Roland told me and Yipes. The hour was getting late, but I was anything but sleepy. "So I will give a brief account of our passage to the Western Kingdom and the mystery of the Wakefield House awaiting us there."

"You will tell us something about Fenwick Forest and Mount Norwood in the olden days, won't you?" chirped Yipes. He'd been so quiet in the dark that I'd begun to wonder if he'd nodded off. I should have known he was only listening carefully, waiting on every word.

"It's getting on ten o'clock," said Roland, looking up into the sky, observing the stars. He took out his logbook and pen, scribbling something short and fast in the margin of a tattered page. "If we are to reach the end of this tale before we all have fallen asleep, I really must keep things moving along. However, I will not fail to give you a brief and colorful view of our journey through uncharted lands."

The wind had not returned, and there was a single candle sitting between us, its light bobbing softly over the

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wood of the deck. It was reflected in Roland's piercing eyes, and I sat up straight, unwilling to allow myself to grow sleepy and miss anything the old man of the sea might share with us. There seemed to be some reason for him to have chosen this night, some reason why he felt the whole story needed to be told before darkness passed into the light of morning. As if we might see something then that we would only understand in the telling of the tale.

"It was a long while before we found our way out of the Great Ravine. Day was like night in the deep and narrow crevice which held us, and there were times when the passageway became so thin we thought of turning back. The wolves had come only a little way in, howling angrily at missing a rare chance to capture such a fine dinner as two boys lost in the wilderness. There were places where we needed to climb and pull one another up, places where sharp corners turned us back and forth against jagged stones. All along the way, water trickled at our feet, and here and there we found small pools to drink from. Everything was damp and cold as we rose higher. Moss began to appear as we came nearer to the top and light wafted into the passage from above. There was plenty to drink, which kept us going, and we had the honeycomb in the bag. We broke off clumps and ate ravenously, and by the time we approached the top half, the honeycomb was gone."

"What did you find when you came out into Fenwick Forest? Was it the same as it is today?" broke in Yipes.

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He was very curious about the forest and what it had been like.

"This was a time before people had been into Fenwick Forest," said Roland. "It's quite possible that Thomas and I were only the second and third people to travel that way. As we entered the forest it certainly felt as though we were unwelcome, like we'd stumbled into a place we should not have come."

"Wait a minute," Yipes interrupted. "The second and the third? But who was the first to enter the forest?"

Roland smiled wryly. "Whoever left the circle and square images for us to follow."

"Who was that? Who do you mean?"

Roland took great satisfaction in his answer:

"Who indeed."

Yipes made a long hmmmmmmmm sound, carried away by the idea of who might have come before.

"We had a bit of good fortune there in the forest that made our passage less difficult than it might have been," Roland continued. "We weren't an hour into the towering trees and the sound of birds chirping all around us when Thorn told us to stop and remain very still. We listened carefully but heard nothing, and then Thorn motioned for us to continue on. There was something near, though I couldn't imagine what it was. I could feel it, big and deadly in our midst. We came through the trees into a rocky clearing, and Thorn looked off to one side, our gaze following hers. There, only a few feet away and standing on a large,

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round rock, was a gigantic grizzly bear. He growled ferociously, making his presence known to everything in the forest. There were no words and yet I understood, like I understood Thorn, by the sound of the bear's angry voice and the whipping back and forth of his huge head.

'"You know not to bring them here. Why have you done this wicked thing?' the bear roared. We were even more unwelcome than I had imagined. It sounded as though the bear would sooner bat us to the ground with its claws than let us retreat back into the Great Ravine from which we'd come.

"As Thorn and the bear spoke, Thomas and I listened. The bear was the Forest King of a time now long forgotten. Thorn told him of our plight and of her own capture by Mister Clawson so many years ago. As a gesture, she offered what remained of our honeycomb if only the great bear would let us pass through. The Forest King approached us, sniffing our hair so close I could smell his breath of pine and berries. It was the scariest moment of our journey so far, the powerful jaws of a grizzly close enough to chomp down on our necks.

"But the Forest King was touched by Thorn's story and intrigued by the prospect of honeycomb from the Great Ravine, for every bear loves sugary treats and honeycomb the very most. I took the honeycomb from my pack, sticky and heavy with sweetness, and I held it out. 'Put it down,' said the Forest King, and so I did. My hand was sticky, and the great bear licked it clean with a coarse

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tongue the size of my grown foot. I laughed nervously from the tickle on my hand and watched as the Forest King lay down and began working at the honeycomb, mumbling happily to himself."

I licked my lips on the salty sea air and looked over at Yipes, who was doing the same. Roland had made the honeycomb sound so sweet and tasty it was hard not to want some for ourselves.

"So he let you pass?" I asked.

"He did more than that," answered Roland. "He walked with us for three days, showing us the way we should go, warning off predators. Thorn told him the story her mother had told -- about the bear tied to the rope -- and this made the Forest King very sad and reflective. He told us again and again that he was only taking us through so that there would be no trace of humans in Fenwick Forest. 'If I kill you here in the forest, some part of you will remain, but if I take you through to the other side and let you free, it will be as though you were never here.' He was convinced that having us out of the forest entirely would be better than having us dead within it. Thomas and I were afraid even to relieve ourselves along the way, and had to sneak off to one side or wait until the Forest King slept to do our business in secret.

"When we reached the end of the forest that sat at the foot of Mount Norwood, the Forest King turned to us with a graveness not unlike that which we'd seen when we'd first come upon him and given up our honeycomb. 'A time is

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coming when humans will enter the wild and kill the magic,' he said. 'You won't understand me then, so listen to me now. Stay away from Fenwick Forest. You will be sorry if we cross paths again.' And then he left us all alone, his enormous shoulders rising and falling as if in slow motion as he stepped away through the trees.

"We were on our way into the mountains, into the realm of the mountain lion. From the very start, there was something different about this place. There was a feeling of being watched in a way I had never felt before. It felt as though we were tracked by something much bigger than ourselves, something even larger than the giant bear. Whatever it was remained close but unseen, following us like we were prey -- and waiting until it was ready to attack us.

"Our journey quickened on the second day, near the top of the mountain. At all times, Thorn seemed to know the way we should go. It was as if she had entered into a place that sparked a hidden knowledge, opening her memory to a time before the rope and the stake in the ground of Mister Clawson's home.

"Higher and higher we went, feeding on the wild berries and drinking from the crackling clear streams. It was cooler next to the water and we stayed near its edge or walked right in and splashed one another, which Thorn found annoying. She was not the sort of cat who appreciated getting very wet, and so we cooled ourselves and she kept our pace a few feet off.

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"We never went to the very top of Mount Norwood, though we came very near to it. There came a moment when Thorn suggested we'd gone high enough, and she turned to the side, away from the stream we followed, into tougher terrain. The ground filled with underbrush and the trees thinned out. It was hotter away from the stream, and we complained as boys will do, but Thorn would not waver in her resolve to head us in the direction she'd chosen.

"After hours of walking through low brush and wild-flowers, we came to an aspen grove. It seemed to pop up out of nowhere, a whole world of long white trunks speckled with black and brown and topped with bright green leaves. There was a slight breeze on the air and the million tiny leaves danced and sang as we entered the grove. It was instantly cooler then, with the leaves overhead and the cool white of the rising white trunks all around us.

" 'We have come to the very end,' said Thorn. Another mountain lion must have heard her purring voice, for a moment later we heard a roar. We could hear something bounding through the trees, coming toward us, and we began to run out of the aspen grove and down the mountain. I remember running in front of my brother and seeing the thing that stopped us before he did. We had darted off at our fastest, and found a mountain lion even bigger than Thorn standing in our path. I tried to slow down and change course, but Thomas was close behind. He tumbled into me and we both fell in a pile on the ground. When we

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looked up, it became clear that we wouldn't be running away whether we wanted to or not.

"There were three mountain lions standing in a circle around us. One was Thorn, who had come down the hill after us. Standing beside her was an older, slightly smaller mountain lion. And then there was the third -- the one that had stopped us in our tracks -- and this one was bigger and fiercer than the other two put together.

'"Thomas and Roland,' Thorn said. Her voice was shaking and there was something new in the look on her face -- something magical -- as if she'd found her way home after a long and perilous journey. 'Meet my father.' She nodded toward the hulking beast that stood over us, then looked at the creature standing next to her. And this is my mother.'

"Tears of happiness were shed and stories were told in the aspen grove that day. It is a cherished memory, the first time in my life I felt as though I had the power to change things for good. Me -- an orphaned boy picking garbage at Madame Vickers's House on the Hill -- I could change someone's life and make it better if only I had the courage and the will to do it. That day in the aspen grove changed my life -- changed Thomas's life -- in a new and profound way. Before then we had lived only for the adventure in the journey, for the sights and sounds and thrills of discovering the wild and hidden places of The Land of Elyon. But from that point on -- all the way through Thomas's life, and through mine on the Warwick Beacon -- our