Beyond the Deepwoods by Paul Stewart, Chris Riddell Read Free Book Online

hammelhorn up the wrong way,’ Ma-Tatum chuckled. ‘I'm glad you like my gift,’ she added. ‘May it serve you well.’
    ‘It's very kind of you…’ Twig began. But Ma-Tatum was not yet done.
    ‘And this will protect you from the unseen dangers,’ she said, and slipped a tooled leather charm around his neck.
    Twig smirked. Mothers, it seemed, were superstitious, wherever they lived.
    ‘You would do well not to mock,’ said Ma-Tatum sharply. ‘I see from your eyes that you have far to go. There is much out there that would do you harm. And though there is an antidote for every poison,’ she added, and smiled at Gristle, ‘once you fall into the clutches of the gloamglozer, then you're done for.’
    ‘The gloamglozer?’ said Twig. ‘I know about the gloamglozer.’
    ‘The most evil creature of all,’ said Ma-Tatum, her voice cracked and low. ‘It lurks in shadows. It stalks us slaughterers, sizing up its victim all the while, planning its death. Then it pounces.’
    Twig chewed nervously at the end of his scarf. It was the same gloamglozer who was feared by woodtrolls – that monstrous beast which lured woodtrolls who strayed from the path to certain death. But that was just in stories, wasn't it? Even so, as Ma-Tatum continued talking, Twig shuddered.
    ‘The gloamglozer consumes its victim while its heart is still beating,’ Ma-Tatum whispered, her voice trailing away to nothing. ‘RIGHT!’ she announced loudly, and clapped her hands together.
    Twig, Sinew and Gristle all jumped.
    ‘Ma-aa!’ Sinew complained.
    ‘Well!’ said Ma-Tatum sternly. ‘You young people. Always scoffing and mocking.’
    ‘I didn't mean…’ Twig began, but Ma-Tatum silenced him with a wave of her blood-red hand.
    ‘ Never take the Deepwoods lightly,’ she warned him. ‘You won't last five minutes if you do.’ Then she leaned forwards and seized his hand warmly. ‘Now go and rest,’ she said.
    Twig didn't need telling twice. He followed Gristle and Sinew out of the hut, and went with them across the village square to the communal hammocks. Strung between the trunks of a triangle of dead trees, thehammocks swung gently to and fro, all the way up. Twig was, by now, so tired he could scarcely keep his eyes open. He followed Gristle up a ladder which was lashed to the side of one of the trees.
    ‘This is ours,’ said the slaughterer when they reached the uppermost hammock. ‘And there's your bedding.’
    Twig nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said. The quilt Ma-Tatum had left for him was near the far end. Twig wobbled across the hammock on his hands and knees, and wrapped it around him. The next moment he was fast asleep.
    Twig was not disturbed by the rising sun, nor by the sound of the stone slab being dragged across the ground until the fire was directly beneath the hammocks. And when it was time for Gristle and Sinew and the others of the Tatum family to go to bed, Twig didn't notice a thing as they climbed into the massive hammock and settled down all round him.
    Twig slipped into a red dream. He was dancing with red people in a huge red hall. The food was red, the drink was red – even the sun streaming in through the far windows was red. It was a happy dream. A warm dream. Until the whispering began, that is.
    ‘Very cosy, very nice,’ it hissed. ‘But this is not where you belong, is it?’
    In his dream, Twig looked round. A gaunt, cloaked figure was slinking off behind a pillar. As it did so, it scratched a long sharp fingernail over the red surface. Twig stepped tentatively forwards. He stared at the scratch in the wood: it was weeping like an openwound. Suddenly the whispering returned directly in his ear.
    ‘I'm still here,’ it said. ‘I'm always here.’
    Twig spun round. He saw no-one.
    ‘You silly little fool,’ came the voice again. ‘If you want to discover your destiny, you must follow me .’
    Twig stared in horror as a bony hand with yellow talons emerged from the folds of the cloak, reached up