Read Online Wolf Notes and Other Musical Mishaps by Lari Don - Free Book Online

sudden bright space and air. Then Lee gestured for her to go into the clearing without him.
    They were near the window to the faeries’ world and Helen had to go on alone.
    She stared at the clearing ahead of her. She didn’t glance back; she didn’t see the low grey blur of a wolf pack slipping through the trees behind them.

Chapter 7
    Huge dark shapes towered over Helen’s head as she stood at the edge of the clearing.
    At first Helen saw a dozen open trapdoors; all facing her, all inviting her in.
    Then her focus shifted and she realized that the shapes weren’t doors, but massive clumps of soil and stone, bound together by roots.
    She stepped to her right, to see the clearing from a different angle. The lumps of earth were the bases of a dozen dead trees, which she could now see lying stretched across the clearing.
    These tall trees had been torn from the earth, by a strong wind or a giant game of skittles.
    The trees hadn’t died easily. Each tree had ripped up all the earth its roots could grasp, leaving a deep hole in the ground, sheltered by a wall of soil and roots above.
    The ground beneath such big trees would have been almost bare last summer, but now it was ablaze with fast-growing ferns and brambles.
    But where was James? Was one of these holes his prison? Were these root caves doors to the faery world, to other worlds as well?
    Helen glanced at Lee and at Sylvie, and whispered , “Is James here?”
    Lee shrugged, his mud-brown cloak flying open to show his snot-green shirt. He is nervous, thought Helen.
    Lee spoke quietly. “If you want to find him, you should try walking round sunwise.”
    “Sunwise?” Helen frowned.
    “Clockwise,” explained Lavender in her ear. “The way the sun moves across the sky. Faeries are so old-fashioned.”
    Helen hesitated. Sylvie said, “I will go with you if you want, fiddler girl.”
    “No! You keep Lee company here, keep an eye on … each other. I’ll walk round the edge.”
    She looked back at Lee. “Sunwise?”
    He nodded. “Be very polite and don’t say anything you don’t mean.”
    “Be polite to James?”
    “No. To those who guard him.”
    Helen’s fingers tightened on the rucksack strap.
    Lee frowned. “You didn’t think he would be alone?”
    Helen didn’t answer. Of course she had thought he would be alone!
    One wee boy and a packet of sandwiches. That hadn’t been too worrying.
    But one wee boy guarded by human-sized faeries , while she had nothing to defend herself with but jammy pieces …
    Perhaps she should have brought Yann or Sapphire rather than Lavender.
    However, she had to feed James, so she imagined a clock face arranged round the clearing. If she wasstanding at six o’clock, to go clockwise to seven o’clock, she had to turn … left. Lavender, perching on her shoulder, murmured, “Well done.”
    Helen walked round the clearing sunwise. At first it was easy. The new growth was higher than her waist, but it was also springy, easy to push aside. Even the brambles were armed with soft new thorns, rather than bone-hard old weapons. As she walked, she looked into the holes. They were deep and dark, denied evening sun by the high walls of roots and stones above, but even in the shadows, Helen could see they were empty.
    The circuit became more difficult when she reached the side of the clearing where the trees had crashed down. Intact branches stuck up from the slain trunks like tall fences, while broken branches and smaller trees crushed under the trunks created an unstable decking of viciously sharp wood.
    Approaching the first fallen tree, Helen told Lavender to get inside her fleece so she wouldn’t get scratched or stabbed. She clambered over the debris, then forced her way over the trunk.
    She had to balance across splintered wood from trunk to trunk, until she had struggled over half a dozen trees. Finally, safely back in the new green growth again, she realized she’d forgotten to look for James. She stared behind her at