EXCERPT

A CHILL RIPPLED up Norman’s arms and legs. Without opening his eyes he reached for the covers, but found them out of reach – kicked them off the bed again probably. His mom could never believe how he twisted sheets. Who were you wrestling with? she always asked.

It was the whispers that finally made him decide to get up.

“By the maker what creature is that?” one nervous, hoarse voice asked.

“Musts be a bear, by the size of it,” another replied unconvincingly.

“That’s never a bear. Just look at it. It ’as hardly a hair on it. What manner of bear looks like that?”

“A sickly one per’aps.”

“Aye, mebbe a sickly bear mebbe.”

At this point Norman opened his eyes.

“You’ve done it now, Makkie. I told you to keep quiet. You’ve gone and wakened it.”

There was a rustling in the bushes in the direction of the voices, but Norman could see no one. Norman’s bedroom did not normally contain bushes, nor was he used to sleeping on damp moss, but it was the sort of things a few blinks usually sorted out.

He rubbed his eyes and looked out again wearily. Blinking was apparently losing its magic. Norman climbed to his feet from his unfamiliar moss bed. His pyjamas were damp and grimy, but they were still his pyjamas. Nothing else was familiar. Pale sunlight streamed through the forest of pine trees. Somewhere behind him was the sound of a swiftly churning stream, but that was it, no other forest sounds, no insects or birds, certainly no people. If there had been people in the clearing when Norman woke, they had run away now.

Norman took a few tentative steps in the direction he had heard the voices. Gingerly, he poked the bush with a stick. No one emerged from it. He had imagined it, like he had imagined all of this, and imagined things, he knew, disappeared as easily as they appeared. He wouldn’t worry about the voices he decided. He’d worry about the forest. There was really only one question, was this the sort of imaginary forest you were supposed to try to find your way out of? Or was it smarter just to stay here in this little clearing. It seemed safe enough. Nothing had tried to eat him yet.

He patrolled the clearing for a while, examining the tops of the trees and straining his ears, until he thought he could hear his own blood rushing through his veins. Occasionally he stepped on a twig, making him jump into a stance that he imagined a ninja or a black belt would take when faced with peril. When no danger presented itself he stood up straight again, and pretended to himself that nothing had frightened him.

Waiting finally became too much. He couldn’t stand around in his pyjamas all day. There was no obvious entrance to the clearing. If the bushes seemed less thick in any spot it was in the direction from which he’d first heard voices. Norman’s first instinct was to go the exact opposite way, but he found that that direction not only covered with thick thorny brambles, it also concealed a deep ravine that almost guaranteed a twisted ankle. For a moment he considered climbing a tree to see if he could get a better view, but the saplings around him weren’t quite tall or strong enough for climbing, so slowly and carefully he pushed into the bush where it appeared most sparse.

It was only slightly better than the opposite direction, but at least the ground seemed level. The thick brush forced Norman to shuffle forward with his arms in front of his eyes to avoid poking his eyes out on a branch. He tried to bend the pine boughs out of the way and edge through the gap he made, but the trees got their share of swipes in. After a few minutes his pyjamas were ripped in two places and he had a nice scratch on his forehead from a pine branch he’d failed to duck.

It was slow going and tiring work. Maybe if he hadn’t been concentrating on keeping his eyesight, he might have seen what was coming next, but it’s unlikely. What was coming next did not want to be seen yet, and was very good at keeping itself concealed when it wanted to. A gap of sunlight finally opened up in the brush, just a small one. Above and around it the bushes seemed thicker than ever. Norman got down on his hands and knees to get through it, keeping his head down and his eyes half shut as the brambles and bushes grazed his head. He kept going, steadily, his teeth gritted and his eyes squinting towards the growing gap of sunlight, until an authoritative voice commanded him to stop.

“Heel, beast,” it ordered. “Advance no further.”

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