Y ou forgot your panther," Sam whispered.
Jenna, Septimus and Beetle stood outside Wolf Boy's bender in the gray-green light of the Forest dawn, blinking the sleep from their eyes. As far as Sam could see, they were minus the panther.
Too sleepy to get any words to work, Jenna took Ullr from under her cloak and showed Sam the little orange cat. Sam looked puzzled for a moment, then he raised his eyebrows and grinned. Trust Jenna to get her hands on one of those Transformers, he thought admiringly. The kid may not have any Magyk in her but she had something - that was for sure. Queen-stuff, he supposed. Morwenna didn't know what she would have been taking on. But whatever the Witch Mother did or didn't know, it was time to get them out of the Forest before the Coven came Looking. It wasn't a good feeling when the Coven was Looking.
Sam had packed three backpacks. They had belonged to Jo-Jo, Edd and Erik during their foraging days, but now that the young Wendron Witches kept them supplied with most of their food - except for fish - Jo-Jo, Edd and Erik had given up foraging and preferred to hang around the campfire all day, much to Sam's irritation. Sam was an expert on traveling in the Forest and had made a good job of stocking all the things he thought the travelers could possibly need.
Jenna put Ullr down. From her pocket she took the precious book of Nicko's papers, carefully placed it in her backpack and then heaved the heavy pack onto her shoulders. "Ullr," she whispered, "you must follow me." Ullr meowed. He understood Jenna's language now as well as he had understood Snorri's. He was a faithful cat and would follow Jenna anywhere.
Three laden figures and a small orange cat followed Sam out of the Camp Heap clearing. It was a damp, dull morning and moisture dripped from the trees, finding its way into their clothes and sending the Forest chill into their bones. Sam strode out along the broad track that led up the hill from Camp Heap. The long walking pole he grasped in his hand measured out his loping, easy stride and Jenna thought how much he looked like a man of the Forest.
They fell in and walked beside him but Sam's pace was deceptively fast. They were all glad when, after about a mile, he stopped by a large, round rock. Sam kneeled down and tapped the rock, which gave a hollow, bell-like sound. Satisfied, he nodded, then jumped up and plunged into the close-knit group of tall trees with slim, smooth trunks.
Sam set off, weaving his way through the Forest, following a path that only he could see. Septimus, Beetle, Jenna and Ullr were in single file now, concentrating hard on following Sam and trying not to lose sight of his brownish-blue cloak that blended so well with the dappled bark of the trees. Luckily it was easy-going underfoot - a soft mulch of a thousand seasons' leaf-fall mixed with tiny green fronds of bracken that were beginning to poke their heads up into the spring light like curious little snakes.
Suddenly Sam stopped. "We're here - at the Gateway," he said with a broad grin. "I thought I could find it again."
"You only thought?" said Septimus.
"Yeah," said Sam. "But it was a Forest thought. They're always right. You just have to trust your big brother, little bro. Okay, now we have to pass through. They'll let me through, as I smell of the Forest. But you smell of the Castle. They don't like Castle around here. You'd better put your cloaks on - they're in the backpacks."
From their backpacks each pulled out a wolverine-skin cloak. Ullr hissed as Jenna threw the cloak across her shoulders.
"Eurgh!" gasped Jenna. "It's so smelly. And it's still got legs."
"Smelly is the whole point, little sis," said Sam. "You need to smell right. And the legs are good for tying the cloak on. See?" Sam tied the legs of Jenna's wolverine cloak together tightly under her chin, just like Sarah Heap used to tie her cloak when she was little. "You've got two wolverines in that cloak," Sam told her. "You always leave the front legs of the top wolverine and the tail of the bottom wolverine. Forest tradition." Jenna looked down and saw that, sure enough, her cloak had a mangy-looking wolverine tail dangling from its hem.
"As long as they don't still have their teeth, I don't mind," Septimus muttered. He threw the cloak over his shoulders and was surprised by how warm it was - and how protected it made him feel.
Suddenly he was part of the Forest, just another creature going about its Forest business.
Sam surveyed the three new Forest inhabitants with approval. "Good," he said. "They should accept you as Forest now."
"Who should accept us?" asked Jenna, glancing around.
"Them." Sam pointed at a pair of huge trees that reared up in front of them like sentries. The trees were the first in a long avenue of identical pairs of close-set trees. From each tree a thick branch looped down and barred their path. "Wait here," said Sam. "Don't say a word and stay very still.
Okay?"
They nodded. Sam walked up to the trees and began to speak. "We are of the Forest as you are of the Forest," he said, his voice deep and slow. "We seek to go the Forest Way."
The trees did not react. Sam did not move. He stood, arms folded, feet apart, staring unblinking up into the depths of the trees. Jenna, Beetle and Septimus waited expectantly. Ullr lay down at Jenna's feet and closed his eyes. The silence of the Forest enveloped them. Sam stood, immobile, waiting.
The minutes passed slowly and still Sam stood waiting...and waiting. No one dared move. After about ten minutes, Beetle got a cramp in his leg and did a strange, slow pirouette to try and relieve it.
Septimus watched him, his eyes laughing. Beetle caught the laugh and made an odd choking noise.
Jenna flashed them a warning look and they both did their best to look serious once more - until, with a sudden crash, Beetle fell over and lay on the ground shaking with suppressed laughter. And still Sam did not move.
At last, just as Jenna was beginning to wonder if Sam had made the whole thing up, the branches barring their way began to move slowly upward and like a spreading wave, all the other trees along the avenue followed suit. Sam beckoned them forward and silently they followed him along the newly opened path between the trees. As they went the trees lowered their branches behind them once more.
At the end of the avenue they emerged into a small clearing dominated by what appeared to be three large and unruly heaps of wood partly covered with turf, each with a ramshackle door in it.
"They're old charcoal burner kilns," said Septimus. "We used to really like those in the Young Army.
They were always safe at night - and warm."
Sam looked at Septimus with new respect. "Sometimes I forget you were in the Young Army," he said. "You know the Forest too."
"In a different way," said Septimus. "It was always us against the Forest. You are with the Forest."
Sam nodded. The more he saw of Septimus the more he liked him. Septimus understood stuff - you didn't have to explain; he just knew.
"But actually," said Sam, "these aren't really charcoal burner kilns. These are the Forest Ways. Each leads to a different forest - so they say."
Jenna looked at the three heaps of wood with dismay - it hadn't occurred to her that there would be a choice of forests. "But how can we tell which one is the forest we want?" she asked.
"Well, I suppose we could open the doors and take a look," said Sam.
"Really?" asked Jenna. "We don't have to go in?"
"No, why should you? There are no rules in the Forest, you know."
Beetle wasn't so sure about that. There seemed to him to be a lot of rules - rules about wearing smelly wolverine skins and rules about keeping quiet, to name but two, but he didn't say anything. He felt like a new boy at school, trying to keep out of the way of creatures that were bigger than him and understand a strange place all at once. He watched the confident Sam pull open the door to the middle heap. A blast of hot air hit them.
"That one's desert," said Sam as a swirl of sand blew out over his feet.
"But I thought they were forests," said Jenna.
"These are Ancient Ways, and forests change," said Sam. "What was once a forest may become a desert. What was once a desert may become a sea. All things must change with time."
"Don't say that," said Jenna sharply.
Sam looked at Jenna, surprised - and then realized what he had said. "Sorry, Jen. Nik will be the same old Nik when you find him, you wait. Let's see if this is the one you want." Sam closed the door on the desert and opened the door of the left heap. A humid heat drifted out and the raucous sound of parrots invaded the Forest peace. "That one?" asked Sam.
"No," said Jenna.
"You sure?"
"Yep," said Septimus.
"Okay, must be this one, then." With a dramatic flourish Sam pulled open the door to the last heap. A flurry of snow blew into their faces. Jenna licked her lips; the metallic taste of a snowflake from another land brought her a little closer to Nicko.
"That's it," she said.
"You sure?" asked Sam.
"I know it is. Nicko made a list. Of warm stuff and furs."
"Right. Okay...if you're sure." Suddenly Sam no longer seemed his usual confident self. It was one thing for Sam to guide the occasional lost stranger from a desert caravan or a capsized jungle canoe back to their own forest, but quite another to send his young brother and sister off into the unknown.
"Let me come with you," he said.
Septimus shook his head. This was something he wanted to do without his older brother telling him how to do it. "No, Sam. We'll be fine."
"You sure?"
"Really, Sam, we will," said Jenna. "And we'll be back soon with Nicko."
"And Snorri," added Septimus.
Another flurry of snow blew out. Sam undid the red kerchief he wore around his neck. He tied it to the top of his walking pole and gave it to Septimus. "Put this in the ground to mark where you came in," he said. "I hear it's hard to tell once you're in there."
"Thanks," said Septimus.
"'S'okay," mumbled Sam.
"Oh, Sam," said Jenna, hugging him tightly. "Thank you, thank you so much."
"Yeah," said Sam.
They stepped into the kiln and their feet sank deep into the snow.
Sam waved. "Bye. Bye, Jen, Sep, Cockroach. Take care." And then he closed the door.