Not far from the castle where Dimity had grown up, and somewhat to the east of the silent, thorn-guarded castle where her uncle’s court slept, there stood a great, dark forest that stretched for miles. It was known by many names in the different ands whose borders touched it, but in the land of Dimity’s people it was called the Grove of Nasty Nights. No one lived anywhere near the forest: the sounds which came from among gloomy trees after dark made it impossible to sleep.
Since it was impossible for Dimity to sleep anyhow, this was the first place she’d thought of going. Naturally, she didn’t mention this to the king or queen. Her parents would not have liked the idea of their daughter going into the grove at all.
Now Dimity stood before the forest trying to decide whether SHE liked the idea at all.
“You are supposed to be finding a prince,” she told herself. “Most princes are not likely to be waiting around in such a place as this. On the other hand, if there are really monsters in here, it could be that one of them has captured a prince, whom you could rescue. This will mean he owes you a favor, and can tell you how to get some sleep. So you’d be even, without any nonsense about marrying the prince, and like that.”
She unrolled her map of the Grove of Nasty Nights. This was mainly blank: hardly anyone ever went more than a foot or two inside, no matter how much they needed firewood, or shelter from a storm. If she didn’t meet any princes, she thought it would be useful for her to at least draw a few landmarks on the map, and take it back to the royal archives.
A little path led her between grey tree trunks. About half the leaves she could see were still green, and many of those were draped with dry brown moss. The moss rustled like whispers as the princess passed among them. Dimity looked around to see if anybody was actually whispering, and tied her hair up in back so it wouldn’t catch on any low branches.
She could see the path in what sunlight came in among the leaves, but these leaves moved in a breeze Dimity couldn’t feel, shifting the shadows and the useful spots of light. This made it impossible for her to be sure whether anything among the trees was moving. When she tripped, but did not fall, on a rough spot in the path, the moss rustled faster, like rain falling on the leaves.
Dimity glanced up to make sure the sun was still shining above the rapidly sliding shadows. “How do they tell around here when night comes?” she grumbled. She tripped again, and reached out for a trailing strand of moss to hold herself up. She jerked her hand away before she touched it, and moved along.
The shadows did make seeing the path difficult, but Dimity did not realize the true reason she stumbled twice more. She was getting tired. People need to sleep, whether they can or not, and though it was so gradual she did not notice it, Dimity was growing weaker and weaker. She had lost weight, too. In spite of getting four meals a day at home, she had been working too hard and resting not at all.
The path was dusty from disuse and lack of rain. Dimity had to keep reminding herself not to cough; someone or something might be listening. She felt in her pocket for the charms and amulets the king had given her to keep monsters away, and thought about where she was walking.
“If there is a troll or an ogre in this forest,” she told herself, “It would know right where to look for a traveler like you: right on this road. Maybe it would be better to walk next to the path, and hide among the trees.”
But were the trees something to hide in, or hide from? She blinked at the dusty branches above her. Were those all dead leaves, or did some of the branches have teeth?
She wrinkled her nose, and stepped off the path. Nothing bit her.
Always glancing back at the path, Dimity took a few steps into the grove. Alarming sounds of something rustling among the dead leaves made her stop. When the sound stopped, she realized it was the noise of her own feet moving through the clutter on the forest floor. She moved on.
Every ten steps, though, she paused to listen, to look back at the path, and to make a little line on her map. “Maybe you’ll be the first person to explore a safe way through this wretched old forest,” she told herself. “Not that anyone would want to know: there isn’t much to see. Oh!”
She had stubbed her toe again. This time, instead of a wooden horse trough, she had stubbed it against something made of stone. Brushing away dead leaves, Dimity found a statue of a squirrel. It had been lying on the ground for a long time, apparently, and had broken off a leg and part of its nose when it fell.
“Not bad,” she said, scraping away a little dirt from behind one ear. “Kind of cute, really.” She marked it on her map and started to move on. But something rustled that was not any foot of hers. The sound was followed by a thud.
Looking around her, Dimity spotted another squirrel statue she had not seen when she was cleaning the first one. This one was still sitting up. Its nose, though, looked just as bad as the one on the fallen squirrel.
Dimity looked from one statue to the other. “Oh!” she said again.
The first statue was gone. Dimity realized it was still around, though. There was no second squirrel statue. The first one had simply decided to sit up after the princess had decided to move on.
When the squirrel decided to walk forward, then, Dimity began to walk backward. That big stone tail waved back and forth. The squirrel moved faster. Dimity backtracked faster, glancing behind her but quickly returning her gaze to the squirrel statue.
“I hope I didn’t disturb your nap, Friend Squirrel, brushing away those leaves,” she said. The squirrel said nothing.
Even as she ran, Dimity wondered A) where she was running, and B) what she was afraid of. “It’s only a squirrel, right?” she told herself. “Nothing but a big stone squirrel in a haunted forest. Why, it might even be friendly!”
She studied the squirrel, trying to smile in a cheerful way. Its eyes were glowing red now. Dimity kept running.
This was dangerous in such uncertain light. One foot caught under a root and Dimity rtumbled toes over top. Her head bounced against a tree trunk, dropping dust and dead leaves on her. She grabbed the trunk to pull herself up the rough bark. When she looked down, the squirrel appeared to be smiling.
“Squirrels climb trees,” she told herself, and reached into her pocket for an amulet or charm.
With a leap and a lurch, the squirrel came on, not as fast as real squirrel, perhaps, because of its chipped feet, but faster than a princess. Dimity, with no time to choose a charm, drew out a crystal key on a silver chain. She dropped this over the squirrel’s head so it hung round the stone neck.
A snarl turned into a hiss, and the squirrel tipped over, lost in a pile of leaves.
Dimity kept her eyes on the pile of leaves, listening for rustles, watching for something else to happen. Nothing moved until she let herself down the trunk and set her feet on the ground again Neither tooth nor claw came out of the leaves. Dimity decided not to reclaim her crystal key.
Backing her way around the tree and away from where she was sure the stone squirrel was lying, she started off again, dry, dusty, but cheerful, too. “There! You’ve had a bit of an adventure without help from Mom or Dad, or any prince, too.”
Once she felt far enough away to feel comfortable, she sketched the squirrel onto her map, and ate a little of the bread and cheese she’d brought along. This was refreshing, if not as good as a nap might have been, and she was able to walk on for another hour or so without noticing anything new about the glum, grey grove. When she did notice something, it was the last thing she had expected.
The path she had been keeping an eye on as she walked went straight on, but here a second path branched away from it.
“No one makes paths except to go somewhere. Who has anyplace to go in this place except out?”
Setting one hand on one hip, she considered both paths, the one she had been following east, and this new one which turned north. East, if her map was anything like correct, would be the quickest way out of the forest; this northward path might involve days and days of travel to noplace in particular. Or someplace unpleasant. She shrugged. OR hidden treasure tucked away here for the first person brave enough to find it. Trolls, treasures, ogres, or princes: anything might be waiting.
“So what do you want?” she asked herself. “A short, easy road to sunlight, or a long, dusty one with trolls and treasure?”
She jumped and looked around when she heard a faint voice say, “This way.”
Her eyes went back in the direction of the treacherous squirrel statue first, but the voices—she heard several now—were coming from the other direction, from the east, and under the voices was the definite sound of hoofbeats. She hurried to the side of the path that went east, taking up a position behind a tree to spot any trolls or treasure coming her way.
Treasure seemed more likely. The man riding at the front of the group was so good-looking Dimity wondered at first if it was the sun himself, coming down to walk in the shade. Her eyes slid quickly past a man riding in the first man’s shade, carrying a helmet, to what she thought at first was someone’s prize bull being transported in a wagon. But this was really a third man, with more muscles than she’d seen on one human being before. Were these three human?
The four horses were good ones: Dimity had spent time enough in the stables to recognize that. The men wore armor that was expensive, and highly polished. No doubt they were knights, and important ones at that. And they were obviously looking for adventure, much as she was, for when the man in the lead spotted the fork in the road, he stopped, frowning, much as she had.
“That’s the short way,” said the man riding in the first man’s shadow. He raised a hand to point out the path Dimity had followed this far.
“Ohm I can see that,” said the man in front. The voices of the two men were very similar, and their accent was that of the east. “You don’t need to be the wisest prince in the world to see that. But do we want the shortest way?”
The horses had kicked up a lot of dust along the path. Dimity was finding it hard not to….
Blogsy Babbles 