4. The Boy in the Forest

James was not supposed to be this far from the path.

This was mainly because it was getting late, tea would be ready soon, and his mum said not to be too long.

Unfortunately, James had discovered something interesting.

And interesting things have a habit of rearranging perfectly sensible plans.

He pushed through dripping branches with a stick in one hand and far too many things stuffed into his pockets. A feather. A smooth stone. Two bottle caps. And half a packet of squashed raisins.

James liked coming to the forest after school. Most days he came with his best friend Ben.

Ben was the smallest boy in their class and, by some distance, the bravest. Which their teachers agreed was the worst possible combination. He climbed things he shouldn’t, jumped off things he definitely shouldn’t, and had once got himself stuck up a drainpipe for reasons he was never able to fully explain. James was taller, and a good deal more cautious. Being Ben’s best friend mostly involved standing underneath things with his arms out, hoping.

This week, however, Ben was away. Something about his great-grandma’s birthday, apparently she was turning a hundred. Ben had declared the entire trip would be “extremely boring.”

James wasn’t so sure. Not many people had great-grandmas. Having one seemed quite impressive.

The forest floor squelched beneath his trainers. Rainwater dripped steadily from the trees. Rivelin Forest smelled of moss, leaves and wet bark, and James liked that smell. It smelled nothing like school corridors, or buses, or the laundry detergent his mum bought in big bottles.

The forest felt different from the rest of his world. Less noisy. Less hurry-up. You could think properly in the forest. Or at least get distracted properly.

Homework had an irritating habit of existing.

James kicked gently through a pile of wet leaves and crouched beside a fallen log.

There it was.

The strange mark. He’d noticed it yesterday. It wsa a long scratch across the bark of an old tree. Too straight to be natural. Too deep to be an animal claw.

James poked it suspiciously with his stick. Nothing happened.

He glanced upward through the branches. The light was changing. Definitely tea-time soon. He should probably head back.

Ben would have already found something by now. He would have climbed the tree, lost a shoe, and declared it the best afternoon of his life.

James smiled at that. Then looked back at the scratch.

He was just about to turn around when the woods went quiet. Not empty-quiet, the birds still sang, the rain still dripped from the leaves, but something had changed, and James felt it before he could work out what it was.

James frowned. Then he heard it.

Very faint. Very far away.

Click.

He turned slowly.

Somewhere beyond the trees stood an old trunk wrapped in moss and roots. He was fairly sure he’d never noticed it before. The tree looked ancient. Not just old, but so old that James had the odd feeling it had been here long before there were any roads or houses at all, back when the whole hillside was nothing but forest.

James stepped closer. The bark twisted into deep ridges. Roots curled across the ground like sleeping snakes. Moss covered everything. And yet something about it made him want to look closer.

He walked around the trunk. Once. Then twice. Then half a third time.

And there it was.

A narrow opening between the roots. No bigger than a crack. Golden light spilled from somewhere inside.

James stared. The light shouldn’t have been there. There was no torch, no lamp — no reason at all for anything to be glowing inside a tree.

He crouched down and peered in. The opening was hidden so cleverly he would never have noticed it if the light hadn’t escaped.

A little closer.

James balanced one hand against the moss. The bark felt surprisingly smooth. He leaned further in, tilting his head sideways to get a better look.

The moss had other ideas.

His hand slid. His foot shot out. One bottle cap escaped from his pocket, bounced twice off a root and vanished into the leaves. His stick flew backwards into a bush. The second bottle cap followed it.

“WOAH –”

James grabbed for the root. Missed. Grabbed again. Got it.

He hung there for a moment, nose approximately three inches from the bark, breathing heavily.

Very slowly, he turned his head.

The crack in the root was right there. Golden light poured through it, warm and steady, like a tiny fire burning somewhere deep inside the tree.

James stared and forgot all about the missing bottle cap. 

And somewhere inside the light, something moved.

You completed Chapter 4