Stardust

“Do you think it will be far?” asked Tristran. “To the star?”

“How many miles to Babylon?” said the little man rhetorically. “This wood wasn’t here, last time I was by this way,” he added.

“How Many Miles to Babylon,” recited Tristran, to himself, as they walked through the grey wood.

“Three score miles and ten.

Can I get there by candlelight? Yes, and back again.

Yes, if your feet are nimble and light,You can get there by candlelight.”

“That’s the one,” said the little hairy man, his head questing from side to side as if he were preoccupied, or a little nervous.

“It’s only a nursery rhyme,” said Tristran.

“Only a nursery . . . ? Bless me, there’s some on this side of the wall would give seven years’ hard toil for that little cantrip. And back where you come from you mutter ’em to babes alongside of a ‘Rock-a-Bye-Baby’ or a ‘Rub-a-Dub-Dub,’ without a second thought Are you chilled, lad?”

“Now that you mention it, I am a bit cold, yes.”

“Look around you. Can you see a path?” Tristran blinked. The grey wood soaked up light and color and distance. He had thought they were following a path, but now that he tried to see the path, it shimmered, and vanished, like an optical illusion. He had taken that tree, and that tree, and that rock as markers of the path . . . but there was no path, only the mirk, and the twilight, and the pale trees. “Now we’re for it,” said the hairy man, in a small voice.

“Should we run?” Tristran removed his bowler hat, and held it in front of him.

The little man shook his head. “Not much point,” he said. “We’ve walked into the trap, and we’ll still be in it even if we runs.”He walked over to the nearest tree, a tall, pale, birchlike tree trunk, and kicked it, hard. Some dry leaves fell, and then something white tumbled from the branches to the earth with a dry, whispering sound.

Tristran walked over to it and looked down; it was the skeleton of a bird, clean and white and dry.

The little man shivered. “I could castle,” he told Tristran, “but there’s no one I could castle with’d be any better off here than we are.... There’s no escape by flying, not judgin’ by that thing.” He nudged the skeleton with one pawlike foot. “And your sort of people never could learn to burrow — not that that’d do us much good....”

“Perhaps we could arm ourselves,” said Tristran.

“Arm ourselves?”

“Before they come.”

“Before they come? Why — they’re here, you puddenhead. It’s the trees themselves.

We’re in a serewood.”

“Serewood?”

“It’s me own fault — I should’ve been paying more attention to where we was goin’. Now you’ll never get your star, and I’ll never get my merchandise. One day some other poor bugger lost in the wood’ll find our skellingtons picked clean as whistles and that’ll be that.”Tristran stared about him. In the gloom it seemed that the trees were crowding about more thickly, although he had seen nothing actually move. He wondered if the little man were being foolish, or imagining things.

Something stung his left hand. He slapped at it, expecting to see an insect. He looked down to see a pale yellow leaf. It fell to the ground with a rustle. On the back of his hand, a veining of red, wet blood welled up. The wood whispered about them.

“Is there anything we can do?”Tristran asked.

“Nothing I can think of. If only we knew where the true path was . . . even a serewood couldn’t destroy the true path. Just hide it from us, lure us off of it....” The little man shrugged, and sighed.

Tristran reached his hand up and rubbed his forehead.

“I . . . I do know where the path is,” he said. He pointed. “It’s down that way.”The little man’s bead-black eyes glittered. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. Through that copse and up a little way to the right. That’s where the path is.”

“How do you know?” asked the man.

“I know,” replied Tristran.

“Right. Come on!” And the little man took his burden and ran, slowly enough that Tristran, his leather bag swinging and banging against his legs, his heart pounding, his breath coming in gasps, was able to keep up.

“No! Not that way. Over to the left!” shouted Tristran. Branches and thorns ripped and tore at his clothes. They ran on in silence.

The trees seemed to have arranged themselves into a wall. Leaves fell around them in flurries, stinging and smarting when they touched Tristran’s skin, cutting and slicing at his clothes. He clambered up the hill, swiping at the leaves with his free hand, swatting at the twigs and branches with his bag.

The silence was broken by something wailing. It was the little hairy man. He had stopped dead where he stood, and, his head thrown back, had begun to howl at the sky.

“Buck up,” said Tristran. “We’re nearly there.” He grasped the little hairy man’s free hand in his own larger hand and pulled him forward.

And then they were standing on the true path: a swath of green sward running through the grey wood. “Are we safe here?” asked Tristran, panting, and looking about apprehensively.

“We’re safe, as long as we stay on the path,” said the little hairy man, and he put down his burden, sat down on the grass of the path and stared at the trees about them.

The pale trees shook, although no wind blew, and it seemed to Tristran that they shook in anger.

His companion had begun to shudder, his hairy fingers raking and stroking the green grass. Then he looked up at Tristran. “I don’t suppose you have such a thing as a bottle of something spirituous upon you? Or perchance a pot of hot, sweet tea?”

“No,” said Tristran, “ ’fraid not.”The little man sniffed and fumbled at the lock of his huge package. “Turn round,” he said to Tristran. “No peekin’.”Tristran turned away.

There was a rummaging, scuffling noise. Then the sound of a lock clicking shut, and then, “You can turn around, if you like.” The little man was holding an enamel bottle. He was tugging, vainly, at the stopper.

“Um. Would you like me to help you with that?” Tristran hoped the little hairy man would not be offended by his request. He should not have worried; his companion thrust the bottle into his hands.