The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories by Joan Aiken Read Free Book Online Page B

get through?”
    “Burrow, of course,” whispered the voice impatiently.
    He obeyed and, stooping a little, plunged his head and arms among the leaves and began working his way inside them like a mole. When he was entirely inside the doorway he wriggled around and pulled the door shut behind him. The leaves made hardly any noise as he inched through them. There was just enough air to breathe, and a dryish, aromatic scent. His progress was slow, and it seemed to take about ten minutes before the leaves began to thin out, and striking upwards like a diver he finally came to the surface.
    He was in a room, or so he supposed, having come into it through an ordinary door in a corridor, but the walls could not be seen at all on account of the rampart of leaves piled up all around him. Towards the center there was a clear space on the ground, and in this grew a mighty trunk, as large around as a table, covered with roughish silver bark, all protrusions and knobs. The branches began above his head, thrusting out laterally like those of an oak or beech, but very little could be seen of them on account of the leaves which grew everywhere in thick clusters, and the upper reaches of the tree were not visible at all. The growing leaves were yellow—not the faded yellow of autumn but a brilliant gold which illuminated the room. At least there was no other source of light, and it was not dark.
    There appeared to be no one else under the tree and Wil wondered who had spoken to him and where they could be.
    As if in answer to his thoughts the voice spoke again:
    “Can’t you climb up?”
    “Yes, of course I can,” he said, annoyed with himself for not thinking of this, and he began setting his feet on the rough ledges of bark and pulling himself up. Soon he could not see the floor below, and was in a cage of leaves which fluttered all around him, dazzling his eyes. The scent in the tree was like thyme on the Downs on a hot summer’s day.
    “Where are you?” he asked in bewilderment.
    He heard a giggle.
    “I’m here,” said the voice, and he saw an agitation among the leaves at the end of a branch, and worked his way out to it. He found a little girl with freckles and reddish hair hidden under some kind of cap. She wore a long green velvet dress and a ruff, and she was seated comfortably swinging herself up and down in a natural hammock of small branches.
    “Really I thought you’d never find your way here,” she said, giving him a derisive welcoming grin.
    “I’m not used to climbing trees,” he excused himself.
    “I know, poor wretch. Never mind, this one’s easy enough. What’s your name? Mine’s Em.”
    “Mine’s Wil. Do you live here?”
    “Of course. This isn’t really my branch—some of them are very severe about staying on their own branches—look at him .” She indicated a very Puritanical-looking gentleman in black knee-breeches who appeared for a moment and then vanished again as a cluster of leaves swayed. “ I go where I like, though. My branch isn’ t respectable —we were on the wrong side in every war from Matilda and Stephen on. As soon as the colonies were invented they shipped a lot of us out there, but it was no use, they left a lot behind. They always hope that we’ll die out, but of course we don’t. Shall I show you some of the tree?”
    “Yes, please.”
    “Come along then. Don’t be frightened, you can hold my hand a lot of the time. It’s almost as easy as stairs.”
    When she began leading him about he realized that the tree was much more enormous than he had supposed; in fact he did not understand how it could be growing in a room inside a house. The branches curved about making platforms, caves, spiral staircases, seats, cupboards, and cages. Em led him through the maze, which she seemed to know by heart, pushing past the clusters of yellow leaves. She showed him how to swing from one branch to another, how to slide down the slopes and wriggle through the crevices and how to