You are on a quest to save the forest. Exhausted you sleep for the first time in three days, and awake to find that you are in a dark woodland glade …
In the deep dark wood there is a deep dark pool and in the deep dark pool there is a key. When you reach in you find a key. It is silver and covered in slime.
When you wipe it on your new white jeans, the ones your mother told you not to wear in the woods, the key glows and becomes warm.
You spin round mesmerised by the number of trees and stop in a direction you think is North. You face one tree in particular, the largest in the forest. There is a door in the trunk, the closer you get the hotter the key in your hand becomes. By the time you put it in the keyhole and turn it your hand is roasting. You can check your knapsack or enter the tree.
You enter the tree and immediately find a spiral staircase which goes up and also goes down.
You decide to go up. This was not the right choice and you slip on the 13th step, half broken due to woodworm, had it been brighter you might’ve seen, but as it is. You fall to your death.
Try again.
You can check your knapsack or enter the tree.
You check your knapsack, inside there are three items: a torch, a sandwich and a flute. You turn on the torch as you don’t know how dark the tree will be, you enter the tree and immediately find a spiral staircase which goes up and it also goes down.
You decide to go up and because you have the torch you can see all the steps clearly and laugh noting that the thirteenth step that would have killed you in the dark.
When you reach the top of the tree there is a large bower, with vines hanging from the ceiling by a window. You look out and you can see the Silver River, the Wellan Hills and the Fortress Castle looming towers in the distance.
In here it is not black and looming. In here it is soft and warm. You sit down on a chair that is not yours and there is a faint breeze. On the table to the left there is a vial with green liquid and a comb. You are drawn to the vial. The breeze rises. There is a glass stopper which you remove and you tentatively sniff the contents. It smells like apple, and you are drawn to drink it. This was not the right choice and as the last drop hits your stomach you fall into a sleep on the chair from which you will not awake while a howling wind fills the room.
Try again.
You check your knapsack. Inside there are three items; a torch, a sandwich and a flute. You turn on the torch as you don’t know how dark the tree will be, you enter the tree and immediately find a spiral staircase which goes up and it also goes down.
You decide to go up and because you have the torch you can see all the steps clearly and laugh to note that it was the thirteenth step that would have killed you in the dark.
When you reach the top of the tree there is a large bower, with vines hanging from the ceiling by a window. You look out and you can see the Silver River, the Wellan Hills and the Fortress Castle looming towers in the distance. In here it is not black and looming. In here it is soft and warm. You sit down in a chair that is not yours and there is a faint breeze.
On the table to the left there is a vial with green liquid and a comb. You don’t want to touch the vial, because, as your mother told you, it’s never safe to drink or touch liquid from an unlabelled bottle. You pick up the comb. It is obsidian and shiny, much heavier than you expected and carved into the side are symbols, as you put it into your knapsack with the sandwich and the flute there is a faint breeze which chills. It’s time to leave.
You walk downstairs until you reach the main doorway and you begin to wind your way down to the roots of the tree.
Your torch leads you into the earth until you come up against a door. It has a lock but not like any lock you’ve ever seen. You press a button and a short tune plays. From your music lessons back home you think it is the sequence EGBD. There is a code panel to the side and it seems that to open the door the note F must be played to the door itself.
Thankfully the bridge troll you met yesterday gave you his flute and so you take it from your knapsack. How do you play F? You know what it sounds like, but experimentation is needed.
After fiddling with the finger holes you crack the note, the door swings open and this time you are in a different room. This is not a bower. It’s a bowel. It is dark, dank and dingy, there is a drip coming from … somewhere and you are instantly sticky and feel slightly sick. You can hardly see anything and, just your luck, the battery on your torch begins to fail.
Through the gloom, you hear a whimpering in the corner and, cautiously, you make your way nearer.
“Hello?” you say, quietly.
“Mmmnmmmgmmg,” the reply.
As you get closer you see a wood nymph gagged and bound in the corner. You quickly begin to undo the knots to the gag and bindings on their arms.
“Thank you!” says the nymph. “I am Edgar and I am so happy to see you, the witch of the bower trapped me here, she stole my wand and I don’t know what she plans to do with it. But I know she keeps it in a box in the Bower and I need to get it back.”
“My name is Arden,” you say. “I can help you, I’ve been to the Bower. The witch you speak of is trying to take over the forest and I am on a mission to stop her,” you take the sandwich from your knapsack and hand it to the nymph, “would you like a sandwich?”
“I am starving! I’ve never had this … sand witch … before” said Edgar.
“It’s just bread and cheese,” you tell him.
“I will try. It is not the usual slug stew, but I will gladly try,” he says.
After Edgar scoffs the sandwich you direct him out through the doors of the bowel and back to the main landing where you begin to ascend the steps to the bower once more.
“Be careful,” you say,
“The thirteenth step is wobbly,” he finishes.
Edgar skilfully avoids the step and you proceed to the bower. There is no-one around, as before, and you instantly begin to look for the box that Edgar is sure is there. You search under the chair, in the chest, on and beside the table but there is no sign of it.
“Are you sure it’s a box we’re looking for?” you say, but as the words come out of your mouth you realise that you haven’t checked behind the painting on the wall and there, as expected, is a safe. You smile. It has the same code as the door downstairs. Your mother always told you to have a different password for different things and you now see this is good advice. Taking the flute from your knapsack once more you blow the correct note and the lock clunks open. Edgar greedily grabs the box from you and demands that you use the comb to open it. You can see that there is a slot where you can place it and the symbols on the lock line up nicely, this opens the box with a whir and a tinkle of music. This was not the right choice. Edgar grabs the wand with a cackle and transforms, in a startling whip of light, from the gentle wood nymph into the Witch of the Bower.
“I’ll give Edgar credit, he casts a good spell. But no luck this time,” she squeals and zaps you with the wand transforming you into a stone statue, which she places on her mantlepiece with about ten others.
Try again.
Laura Cooney is a writer from Edinburgh with children’s work published both in print and online; most recently in The Dirigible Balloon and on Brian Moses’ Blog Spot. Find her children’s work on Twitter/X @lozzakidwriting and on www.lozzawriting.com. When she’s not writing, she’ll be found with her daughters, as close to the sea as possible, seeking shells. There will be ice-cream!
