Philippa Fisher and the Dream-Maker's Daughter by Liz Kessler Read Free Book Online Page B

arms as I walked deeper and deeper into the forest. Mom had told me about doing this after she’d been on a yoga retreat once. It was something about getting oxygen into your body. All the trees would be giving off oxygen, and the more I swung my arms around, the more I’d help it to circulate through my body and release any trapped feelings of anxiety or tension. Something like that, anyway.
    It was hard to remember all my mom’s words of wisdom, since she had been on about a hundred strange hippie retreats and always came back with some new guide to life. “Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness” was her latest motto. She’d gotten it from someone on an anti-fur protest and had written it on Post-it Notes and stuck them all over the house. I didn’t have a clue what it meant, but it seemed to make her happy, so I didn’t complain.
    I swung my arms wider, shaking off the night’s horrible dream and shaking away my questions about whether I’d see Daisy again. Of course I would. I had to!
    As I quickened my step, I felt my mood lift even more. The pink streaks in the sky had deepened and lengthened, stretching all around the forest. Red scars joined them, weaving wiggly lines in between the pink. I watched the sky as I walked, twigs cracking beneath my feet. Until . . .
    The path — it had gone!
    I spun around. Where was it? I must have wandered off it a while ago.
    A cold feeling snatched at me, like a freezing hand grabbing my chest from the inside.
    It couldn’t be far away. I’d only been out here for — how long? I had no idea. I’d left my watch in my room.
    I started to walk back in the direction I’d come from. At least, I
thought
it was the direction I’d come from — but then it looked pretty much the same everywhere.
    Stay calm. Don’t worry. The path can’t be far away.
I took a few deep breaths and tried to look at the situation rationally. Tried to imagine how Charlotte might look at it.
Be sensible. Be logical. Make a plan.
    OK, I had a plan. I’d take fifty steps in one direction. If that led me back to the path, then I’d keep going; if it didn’t, I’d simply turn around, take fifty steps back, and try again in another direction. I’d keep doing this till I was back on the path. Nothing to worry about.
    Fifty steps later, I still hadn’t found the path. Fifty steps in another direction, and it was the same. And again and again and again. By now, the cold hand inside me had turned into a claw, scratching at my chest and throat.
    Think, think. Come on.
    I needed a new plan.
    Right. A hundred steps in each direction this time. By now, my heart was racing so fast it was louder than all the birdsong put together — the birdsong that only moments ago had been a gentle, comforting tune, raising my spirits and giving me hope. Now all I could hear was a sky full of squawks and screams. It was as if the birds were laughing at me. Telling one another how stupid I was to have gotten lost in their forest.
    Why had I done it? Why had I come out here? The birds were right. I
was
stupid.
    I could feel the sobs building up inside me in big lumps of despair and panic. My eyes stung with tears that I was determined to hold back. I wasn’t going to give the mocking forest the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
    As I walked on, trying new directions and turning back again and again, the trees started to look thicker. They were crowded more closely together, as if holding their secret more firmly to themselves. They stood utterly still and silent — but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they moved whenever I looked away.
    OK, now I really
was
being ridiculous! My mind was playing tricks on me. I had to just focus on finding a way out of here.
    Leaves littered the ground, crinkling loudly as I walked. It seemed to be the only sound. Nothing else was moving in the whole forest. Even the birds had fallen silent. The forest was watching me, every eye on me, waiting to see what mistake I’d