Toby ducked under a branch and kept walking. If he kept a straight path until he reached the hill, the woodcutter's cottage wouldn't be too far away from there.
Absent mindedly, he picked up a hefty looking stick from the ground. You could never be too careful.
The woods, despite being fully lit by the midday sun, were completely silent, and Toby could only hear his own soft footsteps brushing though the pine leaves. Most of this wood was made up of tall, thin pinelike trees, with branches that only really began at about two feet above Toby's head. The floor was littered with the little spiky needles, and, luckily for Toby, you could see for miles all around, as each tree had been methodically and evenly planted a certain distance away from the next. In the past, Harper Woods had been described as a labyrinth, but when you had a good sense of direction and a calm set of nerves, which Toby did, both,in abundance, it was really not that much of a big deal.
Crunch.
But that was.
Toby froze to the spot, listening hard. He'd just heard a footstep that was definitely not his own.
Slowly, he turned, stick in hand, to where the sound seemed to be coming from. He didn't dare call out, but Toby peered into the web of tree trunks keenly. He could hear clear footsteps now, stumbling every few seconds and moving pretty fast. When the sound of panicked whimpering also came to his ears, Toby lowered the stick and called quietly.
"Hello? Can I help you?"
The footsteps and the crying stopped instantly, and just in the distance, behind a tree, Toby spotted a little red cloak, peeping fearfully at him. He smiled, before checking there was nobody behind him, and waving.
"Hello?" he called again. The little red cloak seemed to shuffle a little way towards him.
"My name's Toby. What's yours?" Toby asked. Slowly, he managed to coax the little person in the little red cloak all the way over to him, so he could get a decent look. It was a girl, of about ten or eleven, and Toby didn't recognise her from the village. She had sharp green eyes, and mousy brown hair, a plain little face, pale skin, and she was small and willowy. She began to shiver as she stood in front of him, and it was only then that Toby realized she was soaked through.
"I'm Toby" he said again. "What's your name?"
"Rosie" came the nervous reply.
"Are you lost?" Toby asked, studying Rosie's muddy boots and cloak hem, and he bedraggled hair.
Rosie nodded, sniffing.
"I was playing with my sisters" she explained timidly. "By the river. I fell in."
"Where are your sisters now?" Toby asked. Rosie shrugged, hanging her head.
"I don't know. I don't know how far I came before I got out."
"I'll take you back to my village" Toby told her gently. "We'll warm you up, and see if we can't find your family. What's your full name?"
"Rosamund" Rosie replied. "Rosamund Winter."
Toby smiled, before looking around. They were still in the woods, but everything seemed an awful lot less familiar than it had done before he had started talking to Rosie.
"Toby?" the little girl asked, moving closer. She'd obviously seen the expression on his face, Toby realized.
"You do know how to get back to your village, don't you?"
"Yeah" Toby lied brazenly, trying to make sure Rosie didn't get all panicked.
"I know when people are lying, Toby" the little girl said, suddenly sounding an awful lot calmer than she had before. Toby looked at her in surprise, as she slipped her little hand into his.
"We'll be alright" she smiled, squeezing Toby's hand. "So long as we stick together. I feel safer with you around, anyway."
Despite their problems, Toby smiled genuinely back.
"Why were you out here?" Rosie asked curiously, as, hand in hand, they began to wander a little way in the direction Toby thought he had come.
"I was looking for my friend" Toby replied, skimming delicately over the truth. "She got lost."
"Then hadn't we better find her?" Rosie exclaimed, stopping and looking around. "It's horrible being lost in here."
Toby, who had been fighting that inner battle between saving Rosie or saving Bridget for at least the last five minutes, stopped too and bit his lip.
"What about you, Rosie?" he asked. "Don't we need to get you safe?"
"Let's find your friend first" the little girl said bravely. Toby shook his head, as the gravity of Bridget's possible situation won outright.
"We need to look for a hill" he explained, squinting up at the sky through the branches. "If my orientation's correct, it's that way." He pointed.
"What's that?" Rosie asked, as she looked where Toby was pointing. Toby, who had been still looking at the sky, looked too. A little scrap of red material hung from a branch a little way away, and Toby was amazed at how quickly Rosie had spotted it.
"Bridget had a red cloak today. Same color. I'm sure" he told the little girl, and the two of them hurried over to where it hung.
"There's another" Rosie pointed again, as they stopped.
"Come on. It's a trail" Toby called, and the two of them broke into a run, Rosie pointing out the following point in the trail just as they reached each one.
Their path began to slope uphill, and it seemed both of them knew they were now getting close. It was only when Toby spotted the sloping roof of the woodcutter's cottage that he pulled Rosie up short.
"Is that it?" the little girl whispered.
"That's it" Toby replied, before walking a little closer and frowning. "But it doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit anymore."
"What are you talking about?" Rosie asked confusedly. Toby sat down in the knoll of a tree, and his little companion joined him.
"Why would she bring Bridget here? It doesn't fit the story" Toby mused aloud. Rosie seemed to realize now was the time to keep quiet, but she spoke up anyway.
"Which story?"
"There's been a couple of...disappearances in my village recently" Toby explained, glossing over the truth once again. "And they all seem to mimic fairytales..."
There was a pause, as Rosie seemed to be thinking about something.
"Is this one supposed to be Little Red Riding Hood?" she asked. "Because it seems like it."
Toby sat up for a second.
"But I was told..." he trailed off, considering what Rosie had said.
"She lied!" he exclaimed. "Mrs. Horton! It's not Snow White that's next! I was reading that book just a few minutes before-and she would already have had to have gotten rid of all the copies! So you're right, Rosie! It's Little Red Riding Hood that's the next fairytale, which means Bridget..."
"Which means Bridget what?" Rosie repeated worriedly.
"Bridget's in there" Toby finished, clambering to his feet. Rosie got up and grabbed his hand again.
"Is it dangerous?" she asked.
"Dangerous? Little old me?"
Both children turned. An old woman was now shuffling down the path towards them. Toby gripped Rosie's hand.
"Look at you both!"she fussed. "You both look so starving! Come on inside, and we'll get you some food!"
Toby realized the woman was too close too late. She grabbed both of their shoulders and began to steer them towards the cottage. Rosie was still holding Toby's hand, gripping it so tight she was cutting off the blood supply, and Toby could hear his own heart in his ears.
"We're fine, actually" he tried to say, but the woman either didn't hear him or didn't care. The door of the cottage opened, and the first thing Toby saw was Bridget's red cloak, slung over the back of an armchair, with rips taken out of the bottom and a pair of scissors next to them. It seemed it hadn't been Bridget who had set them the trail, Toby realized with a twist of fear.
The next thing he saw was the big fairytale book lying open on the kitchen table, pages ripped out and scattered over the wooden surface. He couldn't tell exactly, but he did see an illustration of a girl in a red cloak on one of the ripped out pages, and also two children and a gingerbread house on the open spread of the book. Hansel and Gretel.
He turned to look down at Rosie, who hadn't seen the book. She was simply staring around her with wide, frightened eyes. Too late, Toby realized that the two of them, lost in the woods, did make an excellent replica of that particular fairy story.
Which meant, by following the story...
Thud.
For Toby, everything went black.
Have a double update today!! Cos I haven't been around for ages xxx