Beyond the Deepwoods (3 page)

‘And I gave him my comfort cloth,’ whispered Twig. Even now he didn't like anyone touching it, and kept it tightly knotted around his neck.

‘That you did,’ continued Spelda. ‘And I can scarce believe it to this day. But that wasn't all, oh, no.’

‘Oh, no,’ echoed Twig.

‘He took your cloth and he sort of stroked it, all gentle like, as if it was a living thing, and then he traced the pattern on it with his fingertip, ever so lightly. ‘A lullabee tree,’ he said at last, and I saw that he was right. I'd always thought it was just a pretty pattern – all those squiggles and little stitches – but no, it was a lullabee tree all right, plain as the nose on your face.’

Twig laughed.

‘And the strange thing was, you didn't mind old
Taghair touching your cloth. You just sat there, all serious and silent. Then he gave you that stare of his again and said in a soft voice, “You're part of the Deepwoods, silent one. The naming ritual has not worked, but you are a part of the Deepwoods … A part of the Deepwoods,” he repeated, his eyes glazing over. Then he raised his head and spread wide his arms. “His name shall be…”’

‘… Twig!’ Twig exclaimed, unable to keep silent a moment longer.

‘That's right,’ said Spelda, laughing. ‘Out you came with it, just like that. Twig! The first word you ever spoke. And then Taghair said, “You must look after him well, for the boy is special.”’

Not
different
, but
special
! It was the one fact that had kept him going when the other woodtroll children had picked on him so mercilessly. Not a single day had passed without some incident or other. But the worst time of all was when he'd been set upon during the fateful trockbladder match.

Before then, Twig had loved the game. Not that he was very good at it, but he had always enjoyed the excitement of the chase – for trockbladder was a game that involved a great deal of running about.

It was played on a large square of land between the back of the village and the forest. The pitch was criss-crossed with well-worn paths beaten out by generations of young woodtrolls. Between these bare tracks, the grass grew thick and tall.

The rules of the game were simple. There were two teams, with as many woodtrolls on each side as wanted to play. The aim was to catch the trockbladder – the bladder of a hammelhorn stuffed with dried trockbeans – and run twelve paces, calling out the numbers as you went. If you managed that, you were allowed a shot at the central basket, which could double your score. However, since the ground was often slippery, the trockbladder always squidgy, and the entire opposing team was trying to wrest the ball away, this was not as easy as it sounded. In his eight years of playing the game, Twig had never once managed to score a trockbladder.

On this particular morning, no-one was having much luck. Heavy rain had left the pitch waterlogged and the game kept stopping and starting as, time after time,
woodtroll after woodtroll came sliding off the muddy paths.

It wasn't until the third quarter that the trockbladder landed near enough to Twig for him to seize it and start running. ‘
ONE, TWO, THREE
…’ he yelled out as, with the trockbladder wedged beneath the elbow of his left arm, he belted along the paths which led to the centre of the pitch. The nearer to the basket you were when you reached twelve, the easier it was to score.

‘FOUR, FIVE…’ In front of him half-a-dozen members of the opposing team were converging on him. He
darted down a path to the left. His opponents chased after him.

‘SIX, SEVEN…’

‘To me! Twig, to me!’ various members of his own team called out. ‘Pass it!’

But Twig didn't pass it. He wanted to score. He wanted to hear his team-mates’ cheers, to feel their hands slapping him on the back. For once, he wanted to be the hero.

‘EIGHT, NINE…’

He was completely surrounded.

‘PASS IT TO ME!’ he heard. It was Hoddergruff, calling from the far side of the pitch. Twig knew that if he chucked the ball to him now his friend would have a good chance of scoring for the team. But that was no good. You remembered who scored, not who set the goal up. Twig wanted everyone to remember that
he
had scored.

He paused. Half of the opposing team were almost upon him. He couldn't go forwards. He couldn't go back. He looked round at the basket. So near and yet so far, and he wanted that goal. He wanted it more than anything.

All at once, a little voice in his head seemed to say, ‘But what's the problem? The rules say nothing about sticking to the path.’ Twig looked back towards the basket, and swallowed nervously. The next instant he did what no woodtroll before had ever done:
he left the path.
The long grass whipped at his bare legs as he loped towards the basket.

‘
TEN, ELEVEN … TWELVE
!’ he screamed, and dunked the bladder down through the basket. ‘A trockbladder!’ he cried, and looked round happily. ‘A twenty-four pointer. I've scored a tro…’ He stopped. The woodtrolls on both teams were glaring at him. There were no cheers. No slaps on the back.

‘You stepped from the path!’ one of them shouted.

‘
No-one
steps from the path,’ cried another.

‘But … but…’ Twig stammered. ‘There's nothing in the rules that says…’

But the other woodtrolls were not listening. They knew, of course, that the rules didn't mention keeping to
the paths – but then why should they? In trockbladder, as in their lives, the woodtrolls never
ever
strayed from the paths. It was a given. It was taken as read. It would have made as much sense to have a rule telling them not to stop breathing!

All at once, as if by some pre-arranged signal, the woodtrolls fell on Twig. ‘You lanky weirdo,’ they cried as they kicked him and punched him. ‘You hideous gangly freak!’

A sudden fiery pain tore through Twig's arm. It felt as if it had been branded. He looked up to see a wodge of his smooth flesh being viciously twisted by a handful of hard spatula-fingers.

‘Hoddergruff,’ Twig whispered.

The Snatchwoods and the Gropeknots were neighbours. He and Hoddergruff had been born within a week of each other, and grew up together. Twig had thought they were friends. Hoddergruff sneered, and twisted the skin round still further. Twig bit into his lower lip and fought back the tears. Not because of the pain in his arm – that he could bear – but because Hoddergruff had now also turned against him.

As Twig had stumbled home, battered, bruised and bleeding, it was the fact that he'd lost his only friend that hurt most. Now, because he was different, he was also alone.

*

‘
Special!
’ said Twig, and snorted.

‘Yes,’ said Spelda. ‘Even the sky pirates recognized that fact when they saw you,’ she added softly. ‘That is why your father…’ Her voice faltered. ‘Why we … That is why you must leave home.’

Twig froze. Leave home? What did she mean? He spun round and stared at his mother. She was weeping.

‘I don't understand,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to go?’

‘Of course I don't, Twig,’ she sobbed. ‘But you'll be thirteen in less than a week. An adult. What will you do then? You cannot fell wood like your father. You … you're not built for it. And where will you live? The cabin is already too small for you. And now that the sky pirates know about you…’

Twig twisted the knot of hair round and round his finger. Three weeks earlier he had gone with his father
far into the Deepwoods, where woodtrolls felled and fashioned the wood that they sold to the sky pirates.

Whereas his father could walk upright beneath the lowest branches, Twig had had to stoop. And even that wasn't enough. Time and again he knocked his head, until his scalp had become a mass of angry red grazes. In the end Twig had had no option but to crawl on his hands and knees to the clearing.

‘Our latest felling recruit,’ Tuntum had said to the sky pirate in charge of delivery that morning.

The pirate glanced over his clipboard and looked Twig up and down. ‘Looks too tall,’ he said, and went back to his paperwork.

Twig stared at the sky pirate. Tall and upright, he looked magnificent with his tricorn hat and tooled leather breastplate, his parawings and waxed side-whiskers. His coat was patched in places but was, with its ruffs, tassles,
golden buttons and braid, none the less splendid for that. Each of the numerous objects that hung from special hooks seemed to shout of adventure.

Twig found himself wondering who the sky pirate had fought with that cutlass, with its ornately jewelled hilt – and what had caused the nick in its long curved blade. He wondered what marvels the sky pirate had seen through his telescope, what walls he had scaled with the grappling irons, what distant places his compass had led him to.

Suddenly, the sky pirate looked up again. He caught Twig staring at him and raised a quizzical brow. Twig stared at his feet. ‘Tell you what,’ the sky pirate said to Tuntum. ‘There's always a place for a tall young man on a sky ship.’

‘No,’ said Tuntum sharply. ‘Thank you very much for the offer,’ he added politely. ‘But, no.’

Tuntum knew his son wouldn't last ten minutes on board ship. The sky pirates were shiftless, shameless rogues. They would slit your throat as soon as look at you. It was only because they paid so well for the buoyant Deepwood timber that the woodtrolls had anything to do with them at all.

The sky pirate shrugged. ‘Just a thought,’ he said, and turned away. ‘Pity, though,’ he muttered.

As Twig crawled back through the Deepwoods behind his father, he thought of the ships he had watched flying overhead, sails full, soaring off, up and away. ‘Skyriding,’ he whispered, and his heart quickened. Surely, he thought, there are worse things to do.