5. The Eye

A few minutes later, Holly stood beside the spring with Grandma Hazel, Grandad Fir and Spruce.

The hidden door glowed between the roots. The opening was wider now.

The door clicked once. Then again. The crack widened. Holly’s leaf stood up.

Grandma Hazel stepped forward. “Hmmm.”

The opening widened again.

And then… something blocked the light.

Something very large.

Holly took a step back.

Through the doorway came a shadow. Then a shape. Then, slowly, pressed right up against the opening from the other side –

A gigantic nose.

And one big muddy eye.

Holly stood perfectly still.

The eye was enormous. Truly enormous. It filled almost the entire doorway, blinking slowly in the golden light, studying the spring and the moss and the tiny spirits standing beside it with an expression of total bewilderment.

Holly stared up at it. The eye stared back down at her.

It blinked. She did not.

Behind her, Grandma Hazel had gone very quiet. Grandad Fir had adjusted his spectacles twice. Even Spruce had stopped moving entirely, acorn halfway to his mouth.

The eye blinked again.

“Are you a fairy?”

The voice was muffled. It sounded deep and echoey, as though it was travelling from very far away, but unmistakably a voice.

“No, I am not!” said Holly.

“Oh.” The eye blinked. “What are you then?”

“I am Holly. A tree spirit.”

The enormous eye moved slightly, as though whatever it belonged to was thinking very hard. “Huh.”

That was not the answer it had expected.

Holly glanced quickly toward Grandad Fir, then back at the eye. “What is on the other side?” she asked.

“A forest,” said the eye. “Well – the edge of one. There’s a park just beyond the trees. Grass, benches, a playground.”

Behind Holly, Grandma Hazel had crept so close to the doorway that her nose was nearly poking through it.

“Grandma,” Holly whispered.

“I’m only looking,” said Grandma Hazel, not looking away for a second.

James laughed; a great booming laugh that filled the whole doorway. Grandma Hazel beamed. “Oh, I like this one.”

The eye blinked again. “My name is James.”

“I am Holly.” She nodded back at the others. “That’s Grandma Hazel, that’s Grandad Fir, and the little one is Spruce.”

Spruce held up his acorn, which he clearly felt counted as a wave.

“Nice to meet you all,” said James.

“You too.”

James peered through the doorway at the tiny spirits standing in their hollow beside their tiny spring. He looked for a long time. Then looked again, as though checking that what he was seeing was still what he was seeing.

It was.

“Wait,” he said. “You really live inside the tree?”

“Yes.”

“All of you?”

“All of us.”

“In there.”

“In here.”

James was quiet for a moment. Then: “Is it… big? Inside?”

“Big enough,” said Holly. “A village. Paths. Gardens. A spring.” She paused. “A kettle that smells of pine needles.”

James blinked. “A whole village. Inside the tree.”

He was quiet again. Processing.

“And what is that back there?” he said. “Running mushroom?”

“They escape sometimes,” said Holly. “Beetles too.”

James nodded slowly. “And the doors – spirit doors – are there more of them? Other ones, in other trees?”

Holly opened her mouth.

“There used to be,” said Grandma Hazel.

Her voice was quiet but very clear. James blinked and shifted slightly so he could see her better through the doorway.

“Used to be?”

“A long time ago.” Grandma Hazel’s eyes moved slowly around the doorway. “This whole forest was full of them once. Many forests were.”

“What happened to them?”

A pause. “They closed.”

“Why?”

Grandma Hazel looked at James for a moment. Then at Holly. Then back through the doorway at the forest beyond.

“That,” she said carefully, “is what we are trying to find out.”

The spring trickled beside them.

James said nothing for a moment. Then: “This is definitely the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Holly thought about that; about the door that wasn’t supposed to exist, and the carved leaf glowing blue in the dark.

“Me too,” she said.

For a moment, the only sound was the spring trickling between the roots.

Then Grandma Hazel stepped forward. She had barely spoken since the door opened. Which, with her, usually meant she was deciding whether to say something.

She looked at the enormous eye. “Tell me,” she said. “Do you know this forest well?”

James blinked. “Fairly well. I come here most days.”

“Hmmm.” Grandma Hazel adjusted her spectacles. “And have you ever,” she said carefully, “come across an old oak tree. Near the river.”

James looked at her for a moment. Then he reached into his pocket.

“I might,” he said, “have a map.”

• •  •

Beneath the Roots…

Pip set the beetle gingerly in the middle of the table. All three spirits leaned forward.

It was an unusually handsome beetle. Its shell gleamed. Its antennae twitched. It looked… polite.

“Hm,” said Mudroot. “I’ve never seen one quite like that.”

“It doesn’t look wild,” whispered Pip.

Thistle narrowed his eyes. “…It looks trained.”

The roots above them gave the faintest shiver. A ripple of blue light travelled silently across the ceiling.

Nobody looked up.

The beetle cleaned one tiny leg. Pip smiled. “I like him.”

“I don’t think it’s a him,” said Mudroot.

“I still like him.”

The blue light flickered again. A little brighter this time.

Thistle pointed at Pip. “Pip, just sit down.”

Pip sat.

At exactly the same moment… the beetle sat.

All three spirits gasped. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

The roots trembled once more. A soft pulse of blue spread through the tunnels.

Still nobody looked up.

Pip whispered, “…Did you see that?”

Mudroot nodded slowly. “I did.”

Thistle leaned in until his nose was almost touching the table. “I think…” A very long pause. “…he understands Tree Spirit.”

The beetle wiggled one antenna.

Pip’s eyes grew enormous. “Can we keep him?”

Far above them, a tiny spirit had just looked through an ancient doorway for the very first time.

None of them noticed.

You completed Chapter 5