Chapter 4

Chapter Four IN WHICH Jared and Mallory Find Many Things, but Not What They're Looking For Stepping into the woods, Jared felt a slight chill. The air was different, full of the smell of green things and fresh dirt, but the light was murky. He and Mallory stepped through tangles of jewelweed and past thin trees heaped with vines. Somewhere above them a bird started calling, making a harsh sound like an alarm. Beneath their footsteps, the ground was slick with moss. Twigs snapped as

they passed and Jared heard the distant sound of water. There was a streak of brown, and a small owl settled on a low branch. Its head cocked toward them as it bit into the small, limp mouse in its claw. Mallory pushed through a knot of bushes, and Jared followed. Tiny burrs caught on his clothes and in his hair. They sidled around the crumbling trunk of a fallen tree swarming with black ants. There was something different about his vision with the stone in place. Everything was brighter and more clear. But there was something else, too. Things moved in the grass, in the trees, things he couldn't quite see but was aware of for the first time. Faces made of bark and rock and moss that he only saw for an instant. It was as though the whole of the forest was alive. "There." Mallory fingered a broken branch and pointed to where clumps of ferns had been trampled. "That's the way they went." They followed the trail of smashed weeds and snapped branches until they came to a stream. By

then the woods had grown more shadowed, and the twilight sounds had increased. A cloud of gnats settled on them for a moment, then blew out toward the water. "What do we do now?" Mallory asked. "Can you see anything?" Jared squinted through the eyepiece and shook his head. "Let's just follow the stream. The trail has to pick up again." They walked on through the forest. "Mallory," Jared whispered, pointing at a huge oak tree. Tiny green and brown creatures were perched on a branch. Their wings resembled leaves, but their faces seemed almost human. Instead of hair, grass and flower buds grew from their tiny heads. "What are you looking at?" Mallory raised her rapier and took two steps backward. Jared shook his head slightly. "Sprites... I think." "Why do you have that stupid expression on your face?"

"They're just..." He couldn't quite explain. He extended his hand, palm up, and stared in amazement as one of the creatures alighted on his finger. Soft feet tickled his skin as the tiny faerie blinked up at him with black eyes. "Jared," Mallory said impatiently. At the sound of her voice, the sprite jumped into the air. Jared watched as it spiraled upward into the leaves above. The patches of sunlight filtering through the trees became tinged with orange. Up ahead, the stream widened where it ran under the remains of a stone bridge.

Jared could feel his skin prickle as they got closer to the rubble, but there was no sign of goblins. The stream was very wide, almost twenty feet across, and there was a darkness in the middle that seemed to speak of deep water.

One alighted on his finger.