right. As she clambered wearily over the top, she saw a clearing in the thick forest below. A chaotic house was dropped into the middle. It looked as if it had once been a sensible sort of building, but someone had come along and muddled it all up: chimneys poked out of walls, the roof was peppered with cracked and dusty windows, the front door appeared to be balanced on top of an outhouse, and the front path jiggled and squiggled around and around the outside like a quite impenetrable maze. A misty haze hung low over the house, reaching to the very edges of the clearing.
“Can you see it, kiddo? Can you see it?” Marlon asked.
“Of course I can,” Gracie said. “Erm . . . it doesn’t look very . . . ordinary. There’s an awful lot of green smoke.”
“Knew you were a Trueheart,” Marlon said. “If you weren’t, you’d see nothing but forest. Smoke keeps prying eyes away, see.”
Gracie pushed her hair back from her face and squinted more closely at the house below. “The path keeps changing direction,” she said.
“Does it?” Marlon sounded surprised.
Gracie stared at him. “Can’t you see it? Look! It keeps twisting all over the place. Now it’s tied itself up in a bow!”
“I always fly in,” Marlon said. “No need for paths. Come on, babe — got to get in before it gets too bright out here.” And he zigzagged off ahead.
Gracie stumbled after him. As she traveled lower and lower, the trees grew thicker and the shrubby undergrowth was harder and harder to push through. Brambles caught her dress and pulled her hair, loops of grass tripped her, and small whippy branches flicked her as she passed. “I don’t think anything here likes me much,” she panted.
Marlon laughed. “You should see what happens to the Falsehearts, kiddo! There are bogs, and sinking sands, and all sorts of things!”
Gracie supposed she should be grateful, but as a shower of wet and soggy leaves soaked her the very next moment, she decided she wasn’t.
“Here we are!” Marlon flew a victory roll over Gracie’s head. “See the gateway? Just over there?”
Gracie peered through the branches and found that there were two towering gateposts only a yard or two in front of her. In between was a ramshackle gate that couldn’t make up its mind if it was open or closed. As Gracie watched, it opened wide, shut, quivered, opened a couple of inches, closed, and opened wide once more.
“Watch how you go through,” Marlon warned. “For a magical gate, it ain’t that clever.”
Gracie pushed her way out from the sheltering trees, and the gate immediately slammed shut.
“Talk to it, kiddo,” Marlon told her.
Gracie coughed politely and said, “Please, dear gate, may I come in?”
There was a long pause before the gate reluctantly creaked open just wide enough for Gracie to slide through. At once the path untangled itself and came zooming toward her, quivering like an excited puppy.
Marlon, high above Gracie’s head, said, “See? It’s pleased to see you. Be good, now, and I’ll be back soon. Just remember to trust your old friend Marlon. . . .”
To Gracie’s utter horror, he flapped his wings and vanished into the darkness of the forest. “Marlon!” she yelled, pulling at the gate to chase after him — but the gate wouldn’t budge. Instead, the path tickled her ankles and rippled encouragingly.
Gracie tried hard not to cry. She fished in her pocket for a hankie, but all she could find was the soft little cloth that had contained her Trueheart Stew. She stuffed it back and wiped her nose on the edge of her shawl.
“You can’t go back, Gracie Gillypot,” she told herself firmly, “so you’ll just have to go forward!” And to the path’s great excitement, she strode out along it to see where it took her.
The road between Gorebreath and Dreghorn was longer than Lady Lamorna had expected, and it was well past midday by the time she crossed the border. She kept Figs moving at a brisk
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