Free Dreamwood by Heather Mackey Page B

and she’d followed it—or thought she had. Eventually, exhaustion overtook her and she stopped to catch her breath. Her side ached. Sweat soaked the heavy fabric of her dress. Her lungs felt raked with fire.
    So . . . the path.
    She put her hands on her hips and walked a circle, gasping for breath. It had to be here somewhere. But then even the starting point of her circle had disappeared, swallowed up in ferns. The trees all looked the same. The filtered light gave no hint of the location of the sun.
    Lucy tried to quiet the pounding of her heart. She had an excellent sense of direction, she reminded herself. The path was just over to her right. It had to be. She plunged ahead, the moments going by in hot, sweaty distress.
    Or maybe it was to her left?
    She stopped, knowing it was no use. She was lost.
    Lost in the woods of Saarthe!
    As soon as she thought this she felt the immensity of the forest, its wild and hidden life. Somewhere above her a bird gave a sinister croaking call. Ahead, the underbrush rustled, waving as some invisible animal slunk through it . . . toward her.
    Wolves. In her adventure novels, the forests were always full of wolves.
    She ran again, panic racing along her nerves. But before she had gone very far her foot snagged on a root and she went sprawling on the soft humus of the ground. She lay there, heart pounding, and spat dirt out of her mouth. Then she sniffed the air.
    Was that wood smoke?
    Cautiously she got to her feet, brushing off kodok needles and dirt from her dress. Ahead of her she saw a small peaked-roof cottage, so decorated it might have been made of gingerbread. Every surface was covered with wooden cutouts of animals, flowers, hearts, and stars—everything whimsical and charming.
    Lucy went toward it, pulling kodok needles out of her hair. The smoke she’d scented was streaming merrily out the house’s chimney. Someone was at home.
    Slowly she climbed the cottage’s wooden steps and stood before its door. An ingenious design of different colored woods made a scene on it as fine as any painting: a river valley cutting through forested hillsides.
    For just one moment she hesitated. In fairy tales, this was exactly the sort of place where witches lived, hiding their wickedness behind an enchanting exterior. But she was not the sort of girl to put stock in fairy tales.
    She swung the knocker three times and waited.
    The door opened, revealing a short, round little man about her own size. He had bandy legs, a full beard, and long white hair tied in braids on either side of his head. Slung around his waist was a leather belt bristling with tools. He had wire-rimmed glasses and on top of his head was a jaunty striped stocking cap.
    â€œMy goodness!” he exclaimed. “A child.” He peered up at her with bright blue eyes under bushy eyebrows. “And you’ve been crying.”
    Behind him, coming from the interior of the cabin, Lucy heard a strange click and clack; she had the strongest impression of something moving within.
    â€œNo,” she said, though perhaps a few tears had fallen during her flight. She wiped her eyes to get rid of them. “I’m lost.”
    â€œOh no,” the little man said, his eyes widening. “But come in, come in. I’ll make us some tea.”
    There was that odd noise again, almost like hundreds of dominoes softly falling against one another.
    Lucy hesitated. “Please, could you just point me in the direction of the road . . . ?”
    â€œCertainly. But have some tea first.” He waved her inside. “Come in, come in . . .”
    He was so small—and jolly as an elf—that Lucy gave in to his insistence and stepped over the threshold. When her eyes adjusted she found herself in a room filled to bursting with carved wooden toys: animals of all kinds real and unreal, dolls that had such lifelike faces they might have been real people, an army of