Wirl's End Chapter 3.

Chapter Three.

 

The Dark Forest.

 

Brian pushed himself upright and spat out a mouthful of leaves. The clearing was the same shape as Wirl’s End, the same narrow space, the same four dwellings facing one another,  but everything was older, quieter, and made of different materials.

Where Brian expected brick walls and slate roofs, he found low thatched cottages with deep eaves and shuttered windows. A hedge formed the boundary instead of a wall, and in the middle of it stood a wooden Gate, grey with age.

No smoke rose from any chimney. No voices came from inside. The place felt paused, as if everyone had stepped out only moments before and forgotten to return.

Brian swallowed. “Lexa?”

Nothing answered him.

He went to the cottage on the left, the one that stood where Number 1 should have been. The door stuck a little, swollen by damp, but it opened with a groan. Inside, the air was cool and stale. A table and two chairs stood where someone had left them, both dust‑grey but otherwise untouched.

No bell. No speaking tube. No sign of Lexa.

He crossed the clearing and tried the cottage opposite. The shutters were closed, the thatch a little uneven at the edges, but the inside told the same story: dust, silence, a place left in a hurry.

“Brilliant,” Brian muttered. “Just brilliant.”

 

He stepped back into the clearing. An overgrown track led away into the trees. Someone had used it recently, he could see faint footprints in the mud. He hoped they were Lexa’s. There was no point staying where he was, so he followed the track.

The track narrowed into a winding path. To help himself find the way back, Brian took out his penknife and cut a notch into a tree trunk. He felt quite proud of himself.

He would not have felt so pleased if he had looked back. Each notch vanished as soon as he walked out of sight.

Eventually the path joined a wider one,almost a road. Hard‑packed earth, no footprints, no wheel ruts. Brian stood in the middle of it, scratching his head. Left or right?

Before he could decide, someone stepped out of the trees on the opposite side of the road. A boy — no, a young man, a few years older than Brian. He was carving a notch into a tree, just as Brian had done. When he finished, he stepped into the road and scratched his head in exactly the same puzzled way.

“Hello!” Brian called.

The young man spun round, startled.

Brian walked towards him. “Hello,” he said again.

The young man swallowed. “You’re… you’re not the Witch, are you?”

Before Brian could answer, he shook his head. “No, of course not. Silly question. You’re a boy.”

He looked terrified.

At the word witch, Brian felt his stomach drop. “Witch?” His voice squeaked.

The young man nodded. “This is the Dark Forest. She lives here. And we’re very close to her cottage.” He looked around nervously. “I think it’s that way. Unless I got turned around on that little path.”

He pointed back the way he’d come. The notch he had cut was gone.

Brian turned. His own mark had vanished too.

They groaned in unison.

Brian remembered Lexa. “Have you seen a girl anywhere?”

At the same moment, the young man said, “Have you seen a girl anywhere?”

They stared at each other.

“You first—”

“No, you—”

“No, you—”

They might have gone on like that for some time, but a group of green‑clad horsemen thundered into the clearing.

The riders dismounted. Two grabbed the boys by the shoulders and marched them to the leader.

“Well now,” the leader said, “this is not the safest place to be standing on the King’s Highway arguing. The Witch’s cottage is not far from here.”

Both boys tried to explain at once.

The leader raised a hand. “You. The older one. Speak first. Name.”

The young man straightened. “James. James Warder.”

Brian’s ears pricked up.

“I live in Scarrick,” James said. “Near the Lost River.”

“I know it,” the leader said. “Go on.”

“My girlfriend and I were looking for where my family used to live. We got lost in the forest. Then she disappeared. Please, you have to help me find her.”

The leader nodded once, then turned to Brian. “You.”

“My name is Brian Keeper,” Brian said.

James gasped behind him.

“I come from Wirl’s End. My friend Lexa is lost too.”

He didn’t get any further. At the words Wirl’s End, the leader grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him clean off the ground.

“Where did you say?”

Dangling in mid‑air, Brian squeaked, “Wirl’s End!”

“That’s where we were looking for!” James exclaimed.

“This is too much,” the leader muttered. “You two are coming with me to the King’s castle. You have a great deal of explaining to do.”

Before Brian could protest, he was hauled up behind a rider. At a word from the leader, the troop set off at a gallop.

Brian clung on for dear life. When he dared open one eye, he saw James gripping another rider just as tightly, eyes squeezed shut.

Brian felt a little better. At least he wasn’t the only one terrified.