Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest (20 page)

The Shadow Witch flew over the forest as a raven, scanning the ground for signs of the two human children. She flew over the Truth Pixie's small cabin and remembered the happy time she and her sister had once spent there, enjoying his wonderful soup. She remembered too the less happy second visit, when she had returned with her master and stolen the creature's shadow.

Of course, she had never wanted to turn the Professor's book,
The Creatures of Shadow Forest,
into reality. In fact, she had argued with him:

“But, master, it will destroy everything you love. Everything you want to protect. And it will bring great danger. You will be placing your life at risk.”

“Not if you make me the most terrifying creature of all,” said the Professor. “Make them scared of me. The one who changed their lives. Let them know me as…the Changemaker. Infect that name with terror. Do you understand?”

“Yes, master.”

“Then do as I command. Steal shadows and then make the changes I ask for. All of them.”

Of course, there were a few problems. Certain creatures couldn't be changed.

The Tomtegubbs, for instance, cast no shadow. And the trolls' shadows were too heavy to be stolen. So these Unchanged creatures became enemies of the Changemaker. That is, of Professor Tanglewood, although the Professor never let the creatures know his real name.

If the Unchanged were ever caught outside their own regions or trying to escape, the huldres placed them in prison. Then they might be sent to the Professor, who would command the Shadow Witch to kill them.

Another problem had been the Snow Witch, who made a blizzard that lasted for days, making it more difficult to change all the creatures. The Professor ordered the Shadow Witch to steal her sister's protective Hek bracelet, then rob her of her powers. After this was done, the Snow Witch was sent to huldre prison, never to return.

Now, years later, as the Shadow Witch flew over the forest, she remembered the appalling deeds she had done in order to fulfill her master's command. Such terrible things.

She scanned the ground but there was no sign of the humans.

Maybe they had escaped. The thought consoled her, but she knew it was unrealistic. The chances of two human children escaping the forest alive were close to none.

She swooped lower, and followed the main road from above. Gliding down through the air, she could see the tracks of the wagon that had carried the human girl. And the Snow Witch.

When she reached the empty cage, her raven feet landed on one of the top bars. She saw the huldres' skeletons, lying outside on the ground. Inside, she could see no sign of the human girl. There was nothing but some drops of troll blood and the last remnants of snow.

The snow was only on one side of the cage, and in the form of a mound. Body-shaped. Instantly, the Shadow Witch knew she was looking at her dead sister.

She flew down inside, and landed in a shallow puddle of icy water.

Sister. I am sorry. I never meant to weaken you. Forgive me.

The melting crystals of snow struck her as the saddest sight she had ever seen.

She flew away, her heart heavy with the order she knew she had to follow. Her eyes searched between the trees, and across the open plain, but there was no sign of the humans. Then, after half a day of looking, she saw something.

At first it was just two dark, slow-moving specks heading south through a wide path in the woods.

When she got closer, the specks became a human girl and a Tomtegubb riding on white horses. She landed in front of them and shocked them into a stop as she turned back into a witch.

“Get off!” the Tomtegubb shouted to Martha. “Get off the horse and find some shade! Hide your shadow!”

The Shadow Witch tried to shut the Tomtegubb up with a silence spell, but she had absolutely no power over him. Tomtegubbs, despite their very solid bodies, have no shadow whatsoever, not even in the broadest daylight. In fact, they have a kind of reverse shadow, leaving the ground beneath their feet even lighter than it would be otherwise. They had never been able to be controlled by the Shadow Witch, as they never had a shadow to steal.

“Get off!” he told Martha again.

But it was too late. Martha had dismounted from the horse, but before she could find shade, the Shadow Witch had almost finished her spell.

Martha stared at the ground and watched as her shadow detached itself from her feet and rose up from the ground in a dark vapor, before it was sucked inside the Shadow Witch's mouth.

“I am sorry, human child,” said the Shadow Witch.

The Shadow Witch turned herself back into a raven and flew away. The Tomtegubb turned to Martha and, for once, looked less than happy. “Oh no,” he told her. “You're going to change.”

And he was right.

Martha felt her dress tighten and sink into her as though it was a second skin. She felt itchy all over, and watched as blue feathers—the same color as her dress—sprouted out of her arms. This was such a strange sight that she hardly realized she was shrinking at the same time.

For once, the Tomtegubb was speechless. But in his head he couldn't help working on the final verse of “The Triumphant Tomtegubb and the Heroic Human.'

Martha spread her wings and flew up into the air, finding it as easy as walking. It was as if she had known how to fly all her life, but no one had ever given her the wings she needed to find out.

Martha flew over the forest and, finding the Shadow Witch, decided to follow her. In the hope she might be changed back to being a human.

The Shadow Witch caught sight of a familiar dog's tail sticking out from beneath a tree and swooped down to get a closer look. Martha followed, not realizing she was heading straight to the tree her brother was sleeping under. She landed on one of the branches, while the raven landed away from the shade, and turned back to the Shadow Witch's true form.

Ibsen awoke, and growled.

“So,” said the Shadow Witch to the elkhound. “We meet again.”

Ibsen barked, to wake Samuel, and moved out from under the shade.

“Ibsen, what's the matter?” Samuel asked.

Ibsen ran and jumped high into the air, with his growling jaws heading for the Shadow Witch's neck. Samuel opened his eyes and saw the old woman with long black hair and a long black tunic who breathed black vapors as she spoke.

“Still,” said the Shadow Witch. The dog duly froze in the air, as static as a photo. “Sleep.” The spell caused Ibsen to fall, and land softly. He was already deep in sleep as he touched the ground.

“Hey! What have you done to my dog?”

Martha waited for Samuel to become a bird but he didn't. The Shadow Witch knew that birds all understand one another, and she knew that the two children talking to each other, even as birds, would be against her master's wishes. So she had to think of an animal of the land, not the air. And one hopped along the path, just at that moment.

“Please,” said Samuel, standing up. “Don't hurt me. I'm only in the forest to find my sister.”

Samuel ran out from under the shade of the tree, his shadow stretching before him in the morning sun. Then he had a sudden feeling of lightness as he ran straight over the shadow, as if it was a black rug on the ground. He watched it rise into dark vapors that floated back toward the Shadow Witch.

Not knowing what to do, he pulled the book out from under his sweater and held it between him and the witch to try to block her magic. It was no good. The witch closed her eyes, and spoke words that crept inside Samuel's ears like insects, making his head feel itchy from the inside. Soon his whole body itched.

He dropped his book and felt his face. Soft fur was growing on his chin, his cheeks, his forehead. His clothes were all disappearing into fur. And then he noticed his ears begin to change shape, stretching high over his head.

“I'm sorry…We didn't mean to enter the forest…”

His mouth, his tongue and his teeth were changing as he spoke.

“Please, I won't—”

Before he had time to finish his sentence, the transformation was complete. Samuel the human had become something else.

Not a bird, like his sister, but a rabbit.

“I must leave you,” said the Shadow Witch as a black tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek. She became a raven again and flew back to her master, leaving the rabbit and the blue-feathered bird to fend for themselves.

Samuel the rabbit tried to wake Ibsen.

“Ibsen! Wake up! Wake up!”

It was no good.

Either Ibsen couldn't understand rabbit language, or he was so deep in sleep he wouldn't have heard anything anyway.

The blue-feathered bird was still sitting on the branch. Still watching.

“What do you want?”

The bird didn't answer.

Samuel tried Ibsen again. “Wake up! We've got to find Martha. We've got to go to the Changemaker.”

Of course, Samuel didn't have a clue what he was going to do when he
got
to the Changemaker. What match was a rabbit going to be for a creature who terrified a whole forest? And even if his sister was still alive, how was she going to recognize him?

All he knew was that he had to keep trying to find her no matter what. So he tried to wake Ibsen one last time and then set off, hopping down the path, with the blue-feathered bird landing on branches in front of him, watching his every move.

Before long, he was completely lost. The afternoon turned into evening, and the forest became bathed in orange light. Trees loomed for miles above him, casting shadows that seemed to stretch forever.

It grew dark.

The infinite shadows disappeared under the blanket of night. Rabbits ran past him, looking desperate. They were all headed in the opposite direction.

One stopped in front of him.

“They're coming. They're coming!” she told him.

“Who are coming?”

The rabbit had no time to answer. She hopped toward the undergrowth while Samuel turned and watched her fluffy tail bounce away into the distance.

Then his newly sensitive ears heard something. Something behind him, getting closer. It sounded like a stampede of elephants, but when he turned around he discovered it was in fact a stampede of giants, running in a line toward him.

Oh no,
thought Samuel as he realized he was totally exposed.

He started to hop toward the ferns and high grass where the other rabbit had headed. But Samuel was too slow, as he still hadn't got used to having his back legs bunched up by his sides.

“Come on! You can make it!”

Who was that? Where had that voice come from?

And then he saw a pair of eyes in the grass. It was the rabbit who had told him “they're coming.” She was now giving encouragement from her hiding place.

“Hop! Use your legs!”

“I can't,” Samuel said. “I'm not used to it!”

“You're thinking too much. Stop thinking! As soon as you stop thinking, it will come naturally.”

Samuel couldn't stop thinking. He tried and he tried, but his brain was working far quicker than his body.

“Push down on the ground. Thump that earth! That's it! That's—”

Just as Samuel was starting to get the hang of hopping like a proper rabbit, something tugged him by the ears high in the air.

“Agh! Get off! Get off my ears!”

He was pulled upward, feeling sick as he watched the ground shoot away from him at incredible speed.

“Help! Please! Get off me!”

He was hanging in the air face to face with the giant who held him.

No. It couldn't be.

The huge eye, perched directly above the enormous red bulbous nose, stared in wonder at the furry creature in his hand.

“We be having a fine one here, Troll-Mother,” he said. “A right tasty specimen, I reckon. He'll bubble up real good, this one will.”

Samuel could see the three eyeless members of the troll family behind, holding on to one another's dirty clothes. They passed the rabbit sack down the line toward Troll-Father.

“No!” Samuel said, the furry skin above his eyes stretching back to the point of pain. “No! It's me! Samuel! The human boy! You liked me. You gave me directions. You gave me rab…food.”

But it was no good. Troll-Father might have understood the fear in Samuel's eyes, but as far as he was concerned, it was fear belonging to just another rabbit, not the human boy who had run into their house.

“Right, into the sack with you.”

The next thing Samuel knew he was dropping through the air and into blackness.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

He landed on the rough woven fabric and tried to get his balance, but the sack was bouncing on Troll-Father's back as he walked. A tiny hole let in the light of distant stars.

The trolls marched on, but found no more rabbits. Samuel's heart thumped fast inside him, and his furry skin itched with fear. He remembered the knife he had held, soaked with rabbit blood.

Amid such bleak thoughts, something else grew inside his mind. A feeling that, whatever happened, things might still be all right. This was the most ridiculous feeling he had ever had in his life.

After all, he was a rabbit. He was trapped in a sack. He was intended for a casserole.

But like the distant stars that kept shining through the hole in the rough weave of the sack, this feeling of hope stayed with him. After all, he'd survived evil huldres, murderous pixies and a deadly Slemp. And he'd done this by concentrating on what really mattered—finding Martha.

So in his mind, he kept saying his sister's name. Just her.

Just Martha.

Martha.

Until there was nothing else.