The Velvet Fox Read online

  ‘If you hadn’t been so stupid and taken it off,’ the Crow snapped, ‘we might have been safe.’

  ‘How was I to know?’ she yelled.

  Then she screamed and had to hang on tighter. The wooden horse had opened its yellow eyes; it shook its mane. It galloped like a racehorse and the whole world was underneath her: small farmhouses in the folds of the hills, with lights in their windows; and a village of grey stone where the people were coming out from a church, a child pointing up in amazement. Rivers glinted like silver in the moonlight. Roads were empty in the darkness. A town with large bridges and a noisy inn flitted away behind.

  And always, far ahead, the Velvet Fox ran swift and secret across the stars as if they were stepping stones, the precious bracelet dangling between its teeth.

  The horse whinnied. Its speed slackened.

  ‘We’re going down!’ The Crow gripped so tight that Seren yelled.

  It was true. The horse was creaking and cracking. Bits fell off it. It gave a great shudder and plunged down towards the dark earth. Seren clung on, her hair streaming out.

  There was land below her, and it was suddenly far too close. Branches of trees slashed past, almost sweeping her out of the saddle. And then she was crashing down through the stiff spiny branches of a wood. With a scream she let go, fell off and hit soft mud. She rolled, over and over, and lay breathless, flat on her stomach, while the world swayed and roared all round her.

  Then she sat up.

  The wooden horse had landed in the clearing of a forest. As she watched, it dissolved, falling apart before her eyes. It became a shadow steed, as if woodworm consumed it, collapsing into dust, one yellow eye, a painted tail.

  Seren scrambled up on to her hands and knees. She felt breathless and winded. But there was no time to waste.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘In a wood, of course.’ The Crow landed beside her, and waved an irritable wing. ‘Keep still. Listen!’

  The silence was complete.

  As she listened, Seren realised they were standing in an enormous forest. Trees filled the darkness all around her, the ground running gently downhill. Shafts of silvery moonlight slanted between boughs and trunks and boles and branches. Apart from that everything was pitch black and, when she looked up, all she could see was a tangle of darkness overhead, with a few stars peeping through.

  An owl hooted, softly.

  ‘Spies,’ the Crow muttered. ‘That’s all we need.’

  Then, very far off, Seren heard the sharp bark of a fox. ‘Listen! There it is! We have to find it!’

  ‘What we should do, if we had the least modicum of sense,’ muttered the Crow, ‘is go straight home at once. This is no ordinary wood. If you ask me, we’re back in Their country, and that’s a place I swore I’d never go again.’

  ‘I’m not going home without the bracelet.’ Seren dusted off her hands and examined a rip in her dress. ‘Otherwise Tomos will have to sleep for eternity.’

  The Crow snorted. ‘They’ll get bored after a hundred years! And a hundred years is nothing. It will go like a flash.’

  Seren stared. ‘Really? How do you know? Actually, I don’t think you’ve ever told me how old you are. Are you more than a hundred?’

  ‘I have not told you and I have no intention of telling you, you impudent child. But your estimate is absurd. I’m still a reasonably young man. Well … maybe I won’t quite see twenty-five again…’

  Now it was Seren who wanted to snort. But she bit her lips and tried not to laugh because the last thing she wanted was the Crow to get all huffy and conceited.

  ‘Come on.’ She started to walk between the trees. ‘Let’s try this way. We have to hurry.’

  All round, in utter silence, the forest shed its leaves. They fell on her hair and her shoulders, and the Crow flapped through them; they drifted silently down like a snowstorm of copper and bronze. The soft fall made her feel sad and solemn, as if the faery world was a place of endless decay.

  Gradually, the trees grew closer together. Now Seren had to squeeze through, sometimes turning sideways to fit between the spindly trunks. The forest became darker and darker, until she couldn’t see a hand in front of her. It reminded her of the hedge that was keeping Plas-y-Fran enchanted, and that made her even more determined to force a way through it.

  ‘What’s that?’ the Crow whispered suddenly.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There. A light. See it?’

  Seren strained her eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ Far ahead in the darkness there was a tiny steady spark. ‘Is that a fire?’

  ‘Hmm. Something more sinister, I don’t doubt.’ The Crow ducked its head, irritably. ‘These wretched trees! I can’t even fly among them, they’re so close together.’

  As she crept on, tiptoeing through the rustling leaves, Seren came slowly towards the light. She realised that it came from a small lantern, just a candle in a jam jar. It had been propped by the roots of a tree, and the candle flame shone with a peculiar golden steadiness. A little further on another lantern hung from a branch.

  ‘It’s like a trail that you have to follow.’

  ‘So, let’s follow it,’ the Crow muttered, sarcastic. ‘But it’s bound to be a trap. They always are. Let me get on your shoulder, will you? My feet are absolutely killing me.’

  She let him climb up, feeling the creaky weight of his clockwork body. ‘Do you need a wind up?’

  The Crow balanced with dignity. ‘I’m perfectly fine. What I actually need are slippers. Slippers and a dressing gown and some toasted cheese. If you haven’t got those, then carry on.’

  Seren walked carefully between the lanterns. Now there was a double line of them, leading away under the trees. She travelled an avenue of shimmery light and odd, shifty shadows.

  Suddenly a hare raced away across the path, its large round eye staring at her wildly.

  ‘Scared,’ the Crow observed. ‘Don’t blame it, either.’

  The avenue of lanterns led down to a small bridge over a fast-running stream. The bridge had rickety wooden sides, and two gateposts carved with the slanting sly faces of foxes.

  ‘Don’t like the look of that at all,’ the Crow said at once. ‘Maybe we really should go back. Find some way home. Like I said, eternity isn’t the end of the world and…’

  ‘I’m not going back without the bracelet,’ Seren said stoutly.

  ‘Well, you won’t catch me on that bridge. It’s not safe.’

  ‘You’d better take off then.’ She put her right foot carefully on to the bridge.

  The wooden structure creaked alarmingly. Hastily, she grabbed the railings. The Crow flew up and circled over her head. ‘Told you,’ it said smugly. ‘But am I even listened to? No. It’s just Do something, Crow, when you’re in trouble.’

  Seren ran swiftly across the bridge and jumped down to a small island. ‘Crow,’ she said.

  ‘Never a please. Never a thank you.’

  ‘Crow, look…’

  ‘Never a word of apology when I’ve been right all along…’

  ‘LOOK!’ Seren hissed.

  The Crow looked up and screeched. It braked so hard it just missed smacking into the object, did a double somersault in the air and landed with both wings crumpled up underneath it. ‘Who put that there?’

  It was a garden gate.

  The gate was about the same height as Seren and painted bright red. It wasn’t in any wall; it just stood there, completely on its own. She was able to walk all around it, even though it was half buried in a drift of leaves. ‘This is so weird! What’s the point of a gate when you can just go round it? I mean it doesn’t lead anywhere…’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ the Crow said darkly. It preened its feathers angrily, then glanced around, tipping its head on one side.

  ‘But … we’re on an island.’ Seren was bewildered. ‘ I mean, there’s nowhere to go.’

  It was true. The bridge had led to a tiny scrap of land with a few willow tr
ees on it, and nothing else.

  There was only one thing to do, so Seren did it. She opened the gate.

  Beyond it was a garden, dark under the moonlight.

  She shook her head. ‘That’s not possible!’

  ‘With Them it’s all possible,’ the Crow said. He hopped past her. ‘Come on.’

  Seren crept through. She closed the gate behind her with a soft click.

  The garden was perfectly silent in the light of the huge full moon. It looked very neglected. Tall weeds grew in the borders, all dark and shadowy. Between them led a path made of white seashells winding through beds of sinister, tangled herbs.

  ‘Deadly nightshade,’ the Crow muttered, looking at the plants. ‘Henbane. Wormwood. Oh dear. All very nasty stuff. Not a garden where you’d want to pick anything to eat. Keep your hands in your pockets, for heaven’s sake.’

  Seren tiptoed down the path. White under the moon, the shells crunched softly under her feet. Gnarled apple trees leaned on each side of her, and she was sure there were grotesque faces in the tangles of their ancient branches.

  At the end of the path was the Fox’s house.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, dismayed.

  It was a low cottage, made of dark stone. The roof was thatched and so tumbledown that moss had grown on it, dripping with water. One twisted chimney smoked. Low windows were filled with tiny panes of dirty glass.

  ‘It looks like a witch’s cottage,’ she whispered. ‘Only it’s not gingerbread.’

  ‘A witch!’ The Crow sniffed. ‘We should be so lucky.’

  They crept past a well full of water, and a row of rancid buckets, smelling of old milk.

  ‘What a pigsty!’ The Crow shook its head. ‘You’d think he’d clean up a bit.’

  Seren came into the shadow of the leaning building. It made her feel so nervous she shivered. There was only one door. It had once been black but now looked green with rot and mildew. It hung askew, with great rusted hinges across it.

  ‘So do we just … go in?’

  The Crow looked around uneasily. ‘Nothing else to do, is there?’

  Seren blew out her cheeks. ‘But there’s no handle.’

  ‘You’ll just have to knock then,’ the Crow snapped.

  Seren reached out. Very softly, she knocked on the door.

  12

  The Fox’s house

  A room of dresses, a room of gold

  A room of stories left untold.

  ‘I didn’t mean you to actually do that!’

  The knock rang, loud and hollow; appalled, the Crow put both wings over its face.

  ‘You stupid girl, I was joking!’

  ‘Well, you’re stupid to say it if you didn’t mean it!’ she hissed back. And then stopped, because the door was opening.

  It swung wide in a completely silent movement. Seren bent under the lintel.

  By now she was so cross with the Fox and the Crow and everything that she lifted her chin and marched straight in.

  ‘Seren, wait!’

  She was standing in a peculiar corridor. For a moment she felt giddy, and wobbled. It was very strange. The floor seemed to slope upwards. It was made of black shiny floorboards and along the walls there were black candelabra with three paws, each holding a black candle. Not only that, but the ceiling seemed to get lower the further you went.

  Seren began to walk. Then she stopped and looked back. ‘Come on!’

  The Crow was silhouetted in the doorway, oddly large. Or had she grown somehow smaller in those few steps?

  The Crow hopped nervously from one foot to another. ‘Look, don’t you think maybe I should wait here. As a sort of … back-up? Then when things go wrong I can rush in and rescue you.’

  Seren shrugged. She looked down. ‘If you like. Only … well, as you’re so brave…’

  The Crow nodded. ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘And so wise…’

  ‘Of course.’ It puffed up a bit.

  ‘I might not be able to do it without you.’

  ‘Perfectly true.’ The Crow flexed its wings and crackled its talons. ‘Well, since you put it like that, I’d better lead the way. Stand back. Don’t be scared.’

  It took off and flew past her, ahead into the tilted space. Its voice came back, a little muffled. ‘This is very strange.’

  Seren thought so too. The more she walked into the corridor the more it sloped, but the ceiling seemed to be higher; it was as if she was shrinking with every step. So she wasn’t surprised when a beetle ran past her that seemed as large as a dog.

  It made her heart leap. But she had to keep going.

  Soon the corridor ended in a spiral stair that went up. ‘There are rooms up here,’ the Crow’s voice said from above. ‘Ah yes, I see. The usual temptations. So unoriginal.’

  Seren ran up the winding stair and ducked her head into the first room. She gasped.

  It was hung with dresses.

  Dresses of every colour and material, silks and satins and velvets and furs. Long dresses with trains and matching cloaks, ball dresses of silver and turquoise and tissue-of-gold.

  Look at this!’ She snatched a white dress up and held it against her. ‘There’s a matching cloak, look. And a muff!’

  She stopped.

  The Crow was convulsed with its creaky sarcastic laugh. ‘Oh, dear me. Oh, that’s so funny. The very first thing They offer you and you fall for it! Try one on, why don’t you, and then another and another… And then, before you know it, a thousand years have passed and you go outside and collapse into a little heap of dust and everyone says, “Seren Rhys? Why she was just a girl in a story who went into the wood and never came out again.” I can’t tell you how They’d love that.’

  Furious, Seren flung down the white dress. She was angry with herself, because she knew the Crow was right. How could she even think of wasting time like this!

  She turned and stormed out of the room, even though the dresses rustled all round her.

  The next room was full of jewels.

  The Crow blinked. ‘Goodness.’

  It was a dazzling sight. There were rubies and emeralds and sapphires and diamonds, set in necklaces and crowns and beautiful earrings, and boxes of gold coins that slithered out into vast piles on the black floor.

  The Crow hopped inside. ‘I … dear me … it’s almost certainly all made of dead leaves but … I wonder if just one of those coins…’ Delicately it picked a shiny coin up in its beak and examined it closely. ‘Spanish doubloons! Real treasure that!’

  Seren put her hands on her hips, annoyed. ‘So pick another one up, won’t you, and then another and another? Until a thousand years have gone by and you go outside and…’

  ‘All right!’ The Crow threw the coin down angrily. ‘I get the message.’

  He turned and strutted out of the room. ‘You needn’t worry. Treasure doesn’t tempt me. I’m not greedy, and I’ve seen it all before. There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING that the Tylwyth Teg could offer me that would make me…’

  It stopped.

  Seren came up behind and looked into the third room. ‘Oh no,’ she murmured.

  There was the cosiest study she had ever seen. Large, really interesting-looking books lay everywhere. A fire was burning in the grate, and a comfortable chair stood beside it with a soft cushion on. There were slippers warming on the fender, a tartan dressing gown lying on the arm of the chair, a fob watch on a chain and a pair of looped wire spectacles on a side table.

  A kettle was hissing on the hearth.

  And there was food.

  A tea tray of scones, with raspberry jam and thick clotted cream. Small cakes with coconut icing. Hot toast, the butter dripping on the plate. And cheese, of every kind, piled in small slabs of creamy white and cheddary yellow.

  The Crow gave a strangled gasp. It tipped its head on one side.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Seren muttered. She turned. ‘Let’s go.’

  The Crow didn’t move. ‘Those books…’


  ‘I know! I want to read them, too, but I won’t…’

  ‘Yes, yes, but you don’t understand.’ The Crow was staring at the chair and the slippers and the dressing gown. ‘How could a silly child like you understand? You can’t see what They’re offering me here. Because I’m quite sure, that if I put that dressing gown on, and slide my feet into those slippers, and search those books, then I’ll find the spell thatwill turn me back into my proper shape.’

  Seren felt really worried. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can feel it! I can practically smell the magic!’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not toast you can smell?’

  The Crow glared at her. ‘Yes! All right! Toast and cakes and CHEESE.’ It hopped from one foot to another. ‘But if I just wriggle into the dressing gown. What harm can it do? A few minutes … just to see…’

  ‘NO!’ Desperate, Seren stood right in front of the tempting chair.

  ‘Get out of my way, you silly girl.’

  ‘I won’t. I thought there was nothing in the world that would tempt you? And you fall for a piece of cheese?’

  The Crow blinked. She expected it to argue and strut furiously but when it spoke again its voice was small and sad. ‘It’s not just the cheese. It’s being a human again. It’s being able to sit down, and wear clothes and put on those spectacles and read those books. It’s not being moth-eaten and scruffy and itchy anymore and having to be wound up all the time in case your clockwork runs down. You have no idea, Seren, what it’s like being under this spell.’