The children discovered that they were in some sort of clearing just a few feet below the forest floor, and that the tall grass was pressed to the earth and warm, as if a collection of creatures had lain there recently.
“Well, we haven’t heard the rumbling in a while, and I can’t stay awake any longer,” said Elli. “Let’s get some sleep, guys.” All four of them lay themselves down, one next to the other, as if trying to fit into one bed, each one’s head on his or her backpack and an arm around another.
“Has anyone seen The Beast?” Elli asked, in a tone suggesting that the creature now had a name. All said no. “Goodnight,” Elli said.
“Goodnight,” each of them responded. And all four, with thoughts of home, a deep abiding fear of every next moment, and an inescapable weight of drowsiness, as if caused by the fear itself, went to sleep.
Beatríz was the first to awaken, feeling uncomfortably warm. “Guys! Guys! Is that the sun I feel?”
Alex awoke next, sat up quickly to the sound of Beatríz’s voice, and said, “Yes! The sun! And . . . hewz The Beast!” The Beast was lying, in a coil, next to Alex’s feet, its tiny beady eyes wide open. The creature licked his upper lip between his fangs and waited, as if obediently, for an order from someone. All four sat up, rubbing thick sleep from their eyes. If this were their home world, it would have been noon in the summertime. The sun was high overhead, and the sky around it was light blue and cloudless.
“What do you see?” Beatríz asked the others. The others were looking almost straight up, with amazement showing on all their faces.
“We are in a clearing, as you thought last night, Beatríz,” said Elli, “and the depression pretty well takes up all of it. But the trees—the trees around it are so high that we can barely see the leaves at the top. And the sky is like a small blue hole cut out of the trees, with the sun taking up almost all of the space. No wonder it’s so dark around here, even during the day.
“And the trees are so tall and dense, Beatríz, that it could be noon in the middle of the forest, and still we’d think it was night,” added Jamie. “Heck, it could have been daytime while we were traveling yesterday in the dark. I’m not sure in this forest it makes any difference whether it’s day or night. It’s just always . . . dark.”
In their hunger, they noticed, while the sun was still shining overhead, some yellow berries in the bushes growing tightly next to the forest’s edge. Elli took a closer look, wondering like all of them if they were okay to eat. They looked like yellow cherries, with thin blue lines encircling them, like the rings of Saturn. She picked one apart, and a single seed fell to the ground. Jamie noticed there were lots of seeds scattered about the bushes, including within the depression itself, and that all but a few were clean of any berry flesh.
“Guys,” Jamie said, “other things have been eating these. They must be okay.”
While the quickly waning light remained, the children decided to gather some of the fruit for their late breakfast and then gather some more to wrap in leaves and save in their backpacks for later. The berries were refreshing and renewing, as well as surprisingly filling. There were lots of long thorns growing around each berry, like sentinels standing guard in a tight circle, so Beatríz’s job was to take the berries picked by others and do the wrapping and packing.
They had nearly completed their work, all the while gathering and packing while eating, when the rumbling they had heard the day before at Hannah’s, and again while traveling in the dark, sounded shockingly loud and close. They also heard a brutal hacking noise near the rumbling, not unlike what one might imagine the sound of a hundred axes hitting simultaneously a stand of trees to be like. The combination of ominous sounds was so near now that the children had no time to lose in fleeing back into the forest. The chilling problem, however, was that they could not ascertain from which direction the threatening sounds were approaching, or whether those making the sounds had actually surrounded them and were rapidly tightening the circle.
“Ewi,” Alex asked, with urgency in his voice, “hwew do we go?”
“Which way, Elli?” asked Beatríz, with a tone of desperation.
“Look!” Jamie yelled and pointed. “The Beast is heading into the woods over there!” The Beast had trotted quickly to the forest’s edge and then stopped and looked back at the children. “I think he knows the way and wants us to follow him!”
“Let’s go!” ordered Elli. As the children headed for The Beast, he padded on beneath the leafy shroud of darkness.
They hadn’t gotten very far into the forest before the darkness was complete, despite the sun being still high in the sky, making listening attentively for the sound of his swift movement in the ancient undergrowth the children’s only way to follow The Beast. Not more than five minutes and about a hundred yards had passed when the children no longer heard the sound of hacking. In its place, however, they heard even louder rumbling accompanied by grunting—as if words were being growled.
The creatures making the sounds were now very close, evidently gathered in and around the clearing, voicing both their discovery of the children’s recent presence and their vile excitement at the thought of an imminent killing or capture. All of the children and The Beast stood still, waiting to learn what the creatures’ next move would be. The children then heard some low and barely audible conversation and bickering before all became once again deathly still.
Then, the rumbling began once again, together with strident screeching and triumphant yelling, as the creatures swarmed toward the children. The Beast continued his leading with greater speed, and the children struggled to keep up. But as fast as they went further into the dense, vine-entwined forest, it was all too evident that the gap between them and the creatures was fast closing, and that it would be only minutes before the enemy was upon them.
Beatríz, still leading the others, stopped suddenly for what was to be only the briefest of moments to listen for The Beast’s movements, but heard nothing, except the approaching creatures and their own panting of panicked alarm.
“Get down on your stomachs everyone, and stay quiet; maybe (just miraculously, she was thinking) they will pass by us,” Beatríz said, with a note of feigned hopefulness in her voice. They all immediately lay themselves down—and waited, in silence. Then, quite suddenly, the sounds coming from the creatures changed, no longer seeming to be approaching them. The children heard the collective hateful roaring of the enemy and, along with it, the shrill screech of a lone challenger summoning them to battle. The children lay frozen in fear as they listened to the roaring and screeching and wailing of pain in the tumult of battle. All four of them wondered, without saying a word to one another, and with tears welling in their eyes, whether The Beast was sacrificing himself to buy them time to escape. Elli wanted to give the order to move on, but she was uncertain about the direction to take now that they no longer had The Beast to lead them. Perhaps, she thought, they should simply remain where they were until they learned what the creatures would do next, but she just as quickly realized the inadvisability of that decision.
All at once, Alex, who just as inadvisably had raised himself in an effort to see what was pursuing them and how close they were to the ongoing battle nearby, said, in a loud whisper, “Ewi!”
“Shhh, Alex!” Elli said, and just as quickly added, sensing he was no longer on his stomach, “And get back down—we don’t know what they can see and how far in the dark!”
“Ewi!” Alex replied, in a louder whisper and more insistently.
“Alex, you have to get back down and be quiet until we all move together!” Elli insisted.
“But, Ewi, thew ah wites ovew thew!” Without hesitation, Elli got up on her knees and looked quickly all about. She saw the lights—perhaps two