Read Online The Story Traveller by Judy Stubley - Free Book Online Page A

of the footsteps of the two men behind her. At one point they got so close she could hear their ragged breath. This made Lucy go even faster. She ran and ran till she found she was completely in the dark. She’d run into that dreadful forest: a place she’d said she’d never enter again and this time it really was pitch black.
    Lucy tried to quieten her rapid breathing, as she realised she was in serious trouble. She stopped and looked behind her. A vague hazy outline showed that the men had stayed at the edge of the forest. It was obvious they’d no intention of following her, but this didn’t make Lucy feel any better.
    Lucy was in the Forest of the Furies. She’d no magic. She couldn’t make herself invisible. She rapidly became aware, once again, of those strange beings all around her. This time she couldn’t see any spindly legs and arms, but she could hear excited and heavy breathing in front, behind and above her and then two by two, as if someone had switched on the lights, she began to see eyes. Some were round, some cat shape, and some triangular, but they had two things in common: they were all intensely cruel and far too close. Lucy started to walk backwards, so scared she could hardly breathe. Eventually her back hit the trunk of a tree, which gave her some comfort. Her hands went behind her, as she tried to guess the size. It was a big tree, so her immediate back was protected, though she daren’t look up to see what was above her. As her hands felt round the trunk, her fingers closed around a stout broken branch. She grasped it, thankful she now had a weapon, but unsure how she could use it.
    All about her the eyes were closing in. She felt like a petrified rabbit caught in the headlights of cars.
    â€˜Trap the traveller, trap the traveller, trap the traveller,’ seemed to come from thousands of individual voices. Though each voice was chillingly unique, together they blended to make a really threatening sound.
    As Lucy pressed into the solid oak trunk, with the branch gripped tightly in her hands, she tried desperately think of a way out. Then she remembered Twinkle’s answer to her question about whether she’d seen hobgoblins in the forest. ‘You can never tell what is who and who is what in Storyland.’ If that was true for her, it had to be true for all these awful creatures. Lucy couldn’t throw her voice like Twinkle, but she might be able to make those bodiless eyes falter for a second.
    The first time Lucy tried to call out she found her mouth was so dry no sound came. She knew her life depended on her ability to find her voice, so she swallowed hard, ran her tongue over her dry lips, and tried again. This time she managed to yell out loud and clear.
    â€˜Hideous – you attack from the right. Eyesore – you attack from the left and show no mercy. Remember that story traveller is rightfully ours.’ As Lucy had hoped, all the eyes turned from her to look to the left, then to the right. She didn’t wait another nanosecond. She swung the branch wildly, from side to side, as she charged forward, and all the time she called out to her imaginary army to kill everyone.
    As she ran Lucy felt the thud of bodies against the branch, but luckily it didn’t break.
    She ran and ran and screamed orders repeatedly, until she no longer hit any bodies and no longer saw those luminous, evil eyes bearing down on her. Lucy sank to her knees, exhausted. As she placed her hands on the ground and felt soft grass, she realised she was back in Cinderella’s garden. Worn out, she lay back and looked up into the starry sky, then closed her eyes thankfully and took a deep breath, as she waited for her heartbeat to slow down. ‘I don’t know whether to scold you or praise you!’ Lucy sat up quickly. Twinkle looked at her with a serious expression. ‘Oh Lucy Chase! What did I tell you?’
    â€˜Never to let go of my cloak of