The Ragwitch Read online

  He noticed that She now had teeth as well—rows of thin, shark-like teeth, hideously out of place in that smiling, red-lipped doll’s face.

  She came closer, and Paul shuddered, watching the teeth as she leaned over him. But he made his eyes go out of focus—he wouldn’t look into Her eyes, not after the night before. Her breath struck his face, cold, and somehow smelling of darkness and fear. Paul stared his eyes into even more of a blur, and waited to be killed.

  Then the Ragwitch spoke, using Julia’s voice—a voice changed and tainted but still recognizably Julia’s.

  “You will stand here forever, boy, as a monument to those who would keep me penned here. Alive, unmoving, and wishing you were dead. Much like your sister. Yes, she still lives…but only inside Me!”

  The Ragwitch laughed again, and turned back to the pyramid of sticks. She extended her three-fingered hand, and began to chant: a rhythmic, dissonant series of words that rose and fell in a grating counterpoint, jarring Paul’s ears.

  As She continued the chant, sparks started to form about Her hand. The bright red flecks of light danced around, forming a globe of flickering light about her three fingers. Suddenly, the Ragwitch stopped chanting, and the globe of sparks flew forward into the pyramid of sticks, which exploded into flame. As the red flames flickered up, Paul felt a rush of cold bursting out from the fire, as though the fire itself were a giant, living icicle.

  The Ragwitch bent over and drew another sign in the red soil. The flames licked still higher, and turned green at the tips, and a dull roaring filled the air, like a rushing wave. She stepped into the fire and turned to face Paul with her arms outstretched. Paul saw that She was laughing again, but he could only hear the roaring and the cold blasting at him from Her magical pyre.

  Then the flames blew sideways, almost out to Paul’s feet. Each tongue of flame was like the petal of a flower, with the Ragwitch in the middle, cupped like a dragonfly in a water lily. The flames flickered once, twice, and then snapped back in a blinding flash. The pyramid exploded, sending burning sticks flying into the air, some landing on Paul, to scar him with their icy flames.

  There was no sign of the Ragwitch—and Paul found that he could move again. Numb from fear and disbelief, Paul’s first thoughts were of anger.

  “You were wrong,” he shouted at the sky. “Your magic’s no good. I’m going to find you and get Julia back! You won’t get away from me!”

  The shouting seemed to help a bit, and Paul felt strangely confident. Carefully, he began to gather the still-burning sticks, rearranging them into a rough copy of the Ragwitch’s pyramid.

  Together again, the sticks burnt heartily, washing Paul with cold. He looked at the red flames, had his second thoughts, and copied the last sign he’d seen the Ragwitch draw. The flames turned green at the tips, and the roaring sound began. Paul took a deep breath, screwed his eyes shut, and stepped into the icy heart of the fire.

  2

  The Forest of the May Dancers/The Sea Caves

  A VAGRANT WIND pushed leaves aside as it made an erratic progress through the forest, cooling the warm afternoon air. Birds called in the wind’s wake, hawking after insects that the sudden breeze had carried with it.

  Paul felt the wind against his face, refreshing after the stabbing cold of the fire. This was no sea air, he knew, for it was heavy with the dank, green smell of trees. The light that crept through his slowly opening eyes was different too: a cool, diffuse light, filtered through a thousand layers of leaves.

  Eyes fully opened, Paul looked about cautiously, already afraid of what he’d done, and where he might be. All around him, great trees towered, their upper branches interlocking to block out the sky. Vines crept around their trunks, growing out amongst the lesser trees and bushes that struggled to survive in the shady half-light of the lower forest.

  Something rustled in the undergrowth to Paul’s side, a slight noise, no more than a falling branch. Even so, he leapt away with a sudden surge of fright-born energy. But the noise faded and was lost in the silence of the trees.

  Gingerly, Paul began to pick his way through the spiky undergrowth. He thought about looking for Julia, but there was obviously no one about. Worse, he couldn’t see the sun through the leafy canopy, though even if he could, he still wouldn’t know which direction to take.

  “You have to know where you are to know where to go,” muttered Paul, mostly to hear his own voice. It sounded strange in the forest, a short break in the silence, soon gone and instantly forgotten. Did I even speak at all, wondered Paul, or just think loudly to myself?

  After only a few meters, he came to a small clearing—a blanket-sized patch of grass and daisies, alone in the wilderness. Even that small distance had taken its toll. Shorts, while fine for the beach, were not the best clothing for thorn-laden undergrowth and spiked bushes. At least some of the scratches were from blackberries, Paul thought, comparing the purple stains on his fingers to the long red scratches on his legs. Starvation wouldn’t be an immediate problem, though he was already bored with a diet of blackberries.

  Beyond the clearing, the forest grew even thicker: darker, more impenetrable and daunting. Reluctant to enter that darkness, Paul sat down in the brightest patch of greenish sunlight and thought about his predicament.

  First, he thought, I am all alone in a forest. I have no idea where it is, as I got here by walking through a fire. My sister has been taken over by a magical rag doll, and I have to do something about it.

  But what? Julia was the one who had the ideas, and knew what to do. Paul was a follower. He needed programming for something like this—he needed someone to give him instructions.

  I wasn’t meant to be in impossible situations, Paul thought mournfully, eyeing the green walls that surrounded him.

  “It’s not fair!” he shouted at the forest. But the trees absorbed the shout, and it was gone. No one will come, said the darkness between the trees, you will wander the forest, alone until you die.

  “No, I won’t,” Paul whispered, brushing away the morbid thoughts that swelled up from the back of his head. “I’ll find a path, and people, and Julia!” With this whisper, Paul summoned up some reserve of determination, and got to his feet. Filled with resolve, he plunged forward into the dim forest.

  An hour later, much of the resolve and determination had drained away. There was still no end to the forest, and the light was getting dimmer. Cool breezes were no longer refreshing—they were just cool, and becoming cold. Worse, there were no more blackberries. Without their refreshing juice, Paul was drying out, his stamina fading as his throat parched.

  But he could think of nothing else to do, so he kept on, dragging his scratched legs through more bushes and brambles, hoping to find another clearing or a path. Gradually, the light slipped away, and the shadows steadily merged shifting from grey to black.

  The shadows at last became one, and the forest was in true twilight, if only for a short time. Paul paused to look at the darkening sky, and began to hear the noises of the forest night. Still he kept on, stumbling over the roots and vines he could no longer see. Panic was beginning to fill his mind, and he could not think of stopping.

  Suddenly, without notice, it was fully dark—a blackness so complete that Paul couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. Exhausted, he slipped to the ground, shivering between the two cradling arms of a giant root.

  Everywhere there were subtle sounds: leaves crunching, twigs snapping—each tiny noise magnified by the total blackness. Paul’s heartbeat filled his ears, vibrating up through his cheekbones, a bass rhythm in counterpoint to the tenor sounds of something creeping through the night.

  The noises became louder, and Paul stopped breathing, holding a hand over his mouth and nose. Whatever was making the noise was large, purposeful—and it was sniffing…searching…following his trail. Fear, sweat and blackberries, the scent of a hiding Paul.

  The noise became footsteps, gentle, stalking footsteps, coming towards Paul. It knows I�
��m here, thought Paul desperately. It’s coming quietly, hoping to catch me asleep, or unawares, it’s…

  Here! A sudden rush of footsteps, an abortive leap by Paul, and something cold and leathery wrapped around his legs. Ankles trapped, he crashed forward, facedown onto the brown mulch of the forest floor.

  More leathery tentacles wrapped around his wrists, and Paul’s mind gave way to fear and exhaustion, screaming back into the impenetrable fortress of unconsciousness.

  Paul awoke in sunlight, with the vague feeling that he was lucky to be awake at all. He felt strange, cramped, and in an unfamiliar bed. Then, fully awake, he remembered the events of the night before. In the daylight he saw that the leathery tentacles were just some sort of rope, and they were the reason for his cramped awakening.

  He was lying on a wooden bed that was a little like a shallow baby’s cot, with his hands and feet tied to the side-rails. Surrounding the bed were earth walls—he was obviously in some sort of hole. High above, the sun beamed down, harsh and bright without any leafy interference. On the far side of the hole, a rope ladder hung down from the surface, which was three meters or so above, at least by Paul’s reckoning.

  A prison-hole, thought Paul gloomily, just like in the film on TV the week before last. Only, in the film the bad guys ended up in the hole. But then, in the movies, heroes didn’t go running around weird forests in shorts, sneakers and dirty white T-shirts. They also didn’t worry about things like food and drink, Paul thought, acutely aware of his dry and cracking lips, and the dull, rumbling complaint of his stomach.

  He tried licking his lips, but there was no moisture in his mouth. Even tears were beyond his dried-out body, and he found himself unable to cry. Closing his eyes, Paul thought he might as well die then and there, and save himself the trouble later on—when a few lumps of earth fell onto his chest.

  “What were you doing in the forest?” a voice suddenly asked from somewhere above—behind Paul’s head, so he couldn’t see who it was. “And how did you get where you were?”

  Paul’s mind snapped back from his despairing thoughts, and he craned his neck back to see who was talking. But he couldn’t raise his body from the bed, and so couldn’t arch back far enough. He tried to answer, but only a dull croak came out.

  “You wish for some water?” asked the voice, though not in a particularly compassionate tone. “Open your mouth.”

  Paul did so immediately, and a cascade of water splashed over his face, and up his nose. A little found his mouth. Despite being nearly drowned, it was a very welcome drink, revitalizing Paul’s tiny store of determination, and lessening his feelings of despair.

  “Now,” said the stern, deep voice. “What were you doing in our forest?”

  “I didn’t mean anything,” croaked Paul. “I was just looking for my sister, and then…I was just looking for people.”

  “People?” said the voice. “What sort of people were you looking for?”

  Frightened by the voice, Paul didn’t answer for a moment. It sounded odd, murky, and overlaid with rustling sounds, as if the speaker had to think before talking, and move his lips through a layer of leaves.

  “I wanted to find someone. Anyone who could help me find Julia. A town, or a house, where I could find out where I was…where the forest is, I mean.”

  “Julia, towns, houses,” muttered the voice, as if cataloging items of interest. “You won’t find any of them here. And you say you don’t know where the forest is?”

  “No, I don’t…is it…is it very far away from Australia?”

  “Australia?” repeated the voice, with an odd pronunciation of the name—all drawn and twisted. “Perhaps you are even farther away than you can reckon. If it is of any use to you, this is the Forest of the May Dancers…I am a May Dancer,” added the voice, suddenly closer. “At least, that is what your kind call us.”

  Paul felt a slight shudder go through his heart—a tremor of fear that passed through like a metal sliver. Footsteps crunched on the dirt above, and Paul looked up.

  He had expected to see some sort of man. But the May Dancer who looked down on him had only the shape of a human. He was covered in shifting patterns of leaves, that rustled and moved about his body, revealing skin the texture and color of ancient bark. His head was also covered in leaves, which streamed behind him in a russet mane. And his eyes were those of an animal: the eyes of a cat carefully watching its prey.

  Paul felt just like a mouse caught in the petrifying gaze of a hunter. Even the smallest movement might cause this strange creature to spring, to suddenly snap the tension.

  “So,” said the May Dancer, half closing his fearsome eyes. “You have not seen our kind before.”

  It was a statement rather than a question, Paul understood. Somehow, he had become the mouse that the cat couldn’t be bothered chasing.

  “You have never seen a May Dancer before,” said the creature above, in a half-whisper, as if thinking aloud. “Therefore, you have never seen us dance on the borders of the forest. In fact, as you have never even heard of us, you cannot even be of this Kingdom. And you seek a…Julia.”

  Without warning, the May Dancer leapt across the hole, and was gone. Startled, Paul instinctively flexed his body to leap away—succeeding only in hurting his wrists and back, held by those leathery ropes.

  The next few hours passed in a half-dream, marked by the slow drifting of clouds overhead. Faint sounds carried to him, the noises of the forest: strange bird-calls, and occasionally the heavier thumping of something larger passing nearby. From all this, Paul assumed that he was still in the forest, though the clear sky above indicated a large clearing.

  By mid-afternoon, the sun was high above the hole. Paul lay beneath a layer of sunshine with only his feet in shadow, unable to look up because of the glare. The sun made him tired, despite his hunger, and he began to slowly drift off into a nightmarish sleep.

  When he awoke, the hole was in darkness, though it was not cold. There were slight sounds all about the hole, sounds that might have been footsteps, or muffled whispers…sounds that Paul almost heard, and then wondered if he’d imagined them.

  Then the May Dancer spoke again. “We have talked of you amongst those of our people here, and you are to say more. Questions will be asked, and you will answer them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Paul. “Yes—anything you like.”

  Another Dancer, farther from the hole, asked the first question, in a softer, stranger voice than the original May Dancer. The words seemed to be more of a wind song than speech, and Paul couldn’t understand it, being mesmerized by the lilting tone, rather than listening. The first May Dancer repeated the question: “How did you come to be in the forest?”

  “I was following my sister,” replied Paul. He wasn’t sure how he’d come to the forest himself. “Her and that horrible doll. They’d built a sort of fire—and then they just disappeared. The fire was sort of scattered, but I rebuilt it and jumped through—and I was in the forest. I didn’t mean to be there—I was just trying to find Julia.”

  “Enough,” interrupted the May Dancer. Paul listened to him talking to the others, whispers like wind in the reeds, a tune played by the earth rather than by man. It was rather eerie, he thought, listening to the long, sighing notes in the darkness. Only then did Paul notice that there were no stars—none at all in the vast expanse of black sky.

  “Why did your sister build this fire?” asked the May Dancer, his voice loud above the whisperings.

  “I don’t know,” replied Paul, trying to make out the May Dancer’s form above him. “It wasn’t really her. I mean it was her building the fire, but she’d been taken over. The doll had her under its control.” Paul thought back to the Midden, and the words Julia had spat at him, in another voice. “The doll spoke to me before it…they jumped in the fire. It talked of being imprisoned, and it called itself…the Ragwitch.”

  “The Ragwitch,” echoed the May Dancer, the words twisting into a screaming wind, to
be picked up by the other Dancers, and made into a raging shout. A shout of anger and hatred, but also a shout of ancient fear. The Dancers were moving as well, no longer silently gathered around the prison-hole. Branches snapped and crackled, the ground thudded with their heavy, stamping footsteps. Paul closed his eyes, and turned his head to the side, blocking the sound from at least one ear. The noise above was like a violent storm, filling the darkness with threats and danger—the sounds heard by people found crushed by falling trees, or struck by lightning during a thunderstorm.

  Slowly, the noises died. The May Dancers crept back to the hole, drained of noise, if not the fear and anger. Paul listened to their whisperings again, tense, waiting for them to decide his fate. They seemed to be arguing in some fashion, for there were many interruptions, and changes of tone—but there was no foot-stamping anger, nor the sudden violence of their shouting.

  A few stars appeared in the sky. Paul watched them spring into sight, and dimly saw the ragged edge of the long black cloud that had cloaked them. The cloud was blowing north, and more stars began to sparkle, lightening the sky.

  The May Dancer leaned over to speak again, and Paul saw a dim silhouette, edged with starlight. Past him, Paul could vaguely make out “human” shapes, blacker than the darkness behind them. They moved slightly all the time, shifting positions to no apparent pattern or purpose.

  “We have decided to release you,” the May Dancer said flatly. “You will be taken to the edge of the forest, and from there you can go where you will—though you must not come here again.”

  Paul nodded dumbly, unable to speak. They were going to let him go, and the forest was the last place he’d ever go back to! But he was still wary of the May Dancers. They’d captured him and tied him up, and now they were going to let him go—just like that. But none of it made any sense! Why bother to tie him up, if they were going to let him go all along?