we lost all sight of the sun overhead. It was as if the trees were telling us that we were on our own.
There wouldn’t be a friendly wizard waiting to help us when we reached our destination this time. There would be a nasty witch looking to turn us into frogs.
Even if you are dead before I do!
Cleogha’s words came back to me as we carefully picked a path through the trees. I couldn’t control a shudder but thankfully Jozlyn didn’t notice.
For long, tedious hours we crept through the forest. Every so often we checked for moss on the trees and headed to the left from it. To the west, just like the wizard had told us to do.
With every step, the trees seemed to crowd closer together. Twisted roots stuck up from the ground like bony fingers trying to catch our feet and trip us. Strange birds that we never saw clearly cried out and flapped their wings loudly overhead. Their movements rustled the leaves and branches all around.
Once, we even heard a heavy crash and the sharp sound of snapping branches. The noises echoed for a long time afterward.
Hearing them, we crouched beneath a tangle of bushy ferns and counted to one hundred, then to a thousand. But we didn’t hear anything else. Even the birds had gone silent.
We headed west again. Dark-spotted white trees started to appear more frequently.
“Look, birch trees,” I pointed out to Jozlyn. I knew from the trees near Gurgleburp Creek that birches often grew near water. I lowered my voice. “We must be getting close to the swamp.”
I think Jozlyn wanted to respond but she started coughing instead. She waved her hand at me to keep going and nodded. She’d noticed the trees, too.
When I started coughing a few minutes later, I knew that something was seriously wrong.
I glanced back to see Jozlyn on her knees coughing hard. I couldn’t see her face. She had her head down, and her long hair hung in front of her.
I also noticed hundreds of mushrooms surrounding her. She knelt in a cluster of rust-colored stems, and a wispy orange cloud floated up around her head.
“Mushrooms!” I cried. Wizard Ast had warned us about the poisonous mushrooms, but we’d been too busy looking for moss on the tree trunks to pay attention to the ground.
“Get up, Jozlyn!” I shouted again and again as I ran to her side. But soon I was coughing too hard to say anything more.
I grabbed Jozlyn under the arms and hauled her to her feet.
“Back,” she gasped between coughs, waving her arms toward the way we’d come.
I agreed without question. Even though we were getting closer to the swamp, we couldn’t make it through the mushrooms. We had to turn around and look for a different path around the dangerous fungus patch.
Turning to run, my foot came down in the middle of another orange cluster and a dusty cloud puffed up into the air. It floated around my head like smoke and sent me into another fit of coughing.
As I struggled for breath, the orange dust slowly settled on the ground. Wherever it landed, new mushrooms popped up from the soil.
Pop-pop popop-pop! Mushroom after mushroom sprouted up from the forest’s dark floor.
“Run!” I screamed, shoving Jozlyn in the back to get her moving.
Coughing so hard that tears streamed down our cheeks, we stumbled back the way we’d come. We leaned against one another for support, and I had my arm around Jozlyn’s shoulder.
Thud!
The heavy crash we’d heard earlier boomed again. This time it came from somewhere ahead of us.
We were trapped and couldn’t turn back. The air around us was just starting to clear, and we were finally catching our breath.
Thud! The crash came once more, closer and louder.
I looked up to see the biggest creature I’d ever seen.
It stood taller than a man with another man on his shoulders. It had dark brown skin covered with short black hair and a body of enormous, bulging muscles.
The creature had two arms and two legs, but its face was flat and its bottom jaw stuck way out. Two yellow-stained tusks protruded from its long bottom jaw. It clutched a big sack in its hand and wore a club on its belt.
It’s probably looking to bring home a bag of children for dinner, I thought glumly.
I recognized the creature from Dad’s stories. I was sure it was an ogre. I could see it clearly. And any second, it would see us, too.
Jozlyn and I turned at the same time. We knew what had to be done. Choking dust or not, the ogre was bigger trouble than mushrooms.
We fled back into the mushroom patch as fast as our feet would carry us.
25: LEEDLE PEEPLES
WE held our breath and sprinted ahead deeper into the mushroom patch. Orange mushrooms sent up their poisonous clouds. New mushrooms pop-popped to life all around us.
The ogre had spotted us and was chasing hard. We could hear and feel the thunderous crashing of its heavy feet. No matter how fast we ran, the thumping of the ogre didn’t get any quieter. It rattled our teeth and the branches of nearby trees.
The ogre was really, really big!
“Don’ run, leedle peeples,” it called to us in a slow, slobbery voice. It sounded sleepy or as if it was already chewing on a crunchy dinner of children.
Funny, Dad’s stories never mentioned the fact that ogres could talk.
The trees ahead thinned out and we were running through thick yellow clouds, not orange like before. They swirled like dust from a shaken rug.
“What’s—?” I heard Jozlyn gasp in surprise as she stared at the ground.
I looked down to see that the floor of the forest was covered with mushrooms. More than we’d ever seen before. They covered the ground like a thick carpet. They even grew on the trunks of trees.
But these mushrooms were bright yellow, not dull orange. They were different than the ones that had choked us.
Jozlyn slowed and pointed to a short hill ahead. “We can hide up there,” she said, still gulping for breath.
The yellow mushroom clouds didn’t make us cough. I guess we were past the danger and it was all right to breathe.
“I’ll use the wand if the ogre gets too close,” Jozlyn added.
The ogre’s booming steps didn’t seem to be slowing. Using the wand was probably going to be our only option. We weren’t having any luck outrunning the monster.
“Hurry!” I said, drawing my rapier. It made the same metallic shing sound that Sheriff Logan’s sword had made when he’d drawn it on Cleogha’s snake. The sound made me feel a little better.
“Coom back, coom back!” the ogre shouted in its sloppy speech. It was almost on top of us. Knowing that made me run faster.
Jozlyn’s eyes widened and she let out a little squeal. She grabbed my arm and hauled me uphill.
The hill’s incline was steeper than it looked. When we reached the top and threw ourselves onto the ground, we were both panting loudly. Yellow mushrooms puffed their clouds and filled our every breath.
“I’m so tired,” Jozlyn whispered almost too quietly for me to hear.
“I know,” I agreed but couldn’t bring myself to say more. My arm ached and my rapier felt heavier than I remembered. Hadn’t Ast promised that it was light enough for a boy to use?
I fumbled with it clumsily and stuck it back into its scabbard. Even so, I could still feel its dreadful weight pulling my hand to the ground.
I glanced at Jozlyn. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed. She held the wand in both hands against her chest and didn’t move. I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. She looked dead, like a corpse arranged for burial.
A mushroom puffed right in front of me and its dust tickled my nose. I tried to cover my face but my hands and arms wouldn’t respond fast enough. I felt as if I was wearing wet clothes filled with sand.
Stay clear-beware of the mushroom patch. Wizard Ast’s croaked warning came back to me, and I suddenly understood what was happening. The yellow mushrooms weren’t choking us the way the orange ones had, but they we
re just as dangerous.
They were putting us to sleep in the middle of Everleaf Woods.
I struggled to roll over and sit up but my arms and legs wouldn’t work. They tingled painfully as if I’d been sitting on them for too long.
“Jozlyn …” I mumbled, “have to … wake …”
“Leedle peeples,” the ogre called again. This time the wet voice was much closer than it had been.
My eyelids drooped closed and I was powerless to stop them. I’d never felt so sleepy before. It took several seconds or maybe even minutes for me to force them open again.
When I did, I wished I hadn’t.
The ogre’s flat, big-jawed face stared down at me. The monster might have been grinning, but I couldn’t be sure. A thick strand of drool trickled out of its mouth and spattered its dingy tan tunic.
“Hallo, leedle bite-shized peeples,” it gurgled at me.
I tried to say something but couldn’t make a sound. My eyes closed again and I saw only darkness.
26: A SHORT CLIMB TO NOWHERE
WORMS. I’d been dreaming of worms. I started, trying to wake.
My eyes still didn’t want to open. They felt sticky and wet as if I’d been asleep too long or crying.
I rubbed them to get them to cooperate, imagining that I could still smell the scent of moist soil from my dream.
Rolling onto my side, I peered blearily about. An uneven dirt wall peppered with rocks and fuzzy roots loomed next to me.
Wherever I was, it wasn’t on the hill where Jozlyn and I had fallen asleep. I was somewhere underground, probably in a cave. The ogre must have—
The ogre!
I bolted to a sitting position and quickly patted my doublet and hip. With relief, I felt them