Chapter Eight
Paradise led them through the woods, weaving and zig-zagging all over the place. Once or twice she stopped, looked around, then set off in a completely different direction. Ben had begun to suspect she might be lost.
“I thought you said you could find anything,” he said.
“Then why haven’t you found it?”
Paradise turned on him sharply. “Because sometimes it isn’t easy. Sometimes the signal goes all wonky, like when it was supposed to be guiding me to a great warrior and it took me to you instead.”
“Hey, I am a great warrior,” Ben protested.
“Oh sure,” said Paradise. “The way the mayor’s feet knocked you over like that – really tough.”
“It caught me by surprise, that’s all!”
“What, like the toast did?”
“I saved your life,” Ben reminded her. “It would’ve splattered you if I hadn’t stopped you running at it!”
“I would’ve been fine!”
“Well, at least I didn’t almost run right off a cliff,” she said, then she about-turned and carried on walking. It was all Ben and Wesley could do to keep up with her as she weaved her way through the woods.
As they walked, Ben studied his gauntlet. When he’d stopped Wesley falling earlier he’d felt it tingle with power, almost as if it were somehow alive. Now it felt cold and still against his skin. He picked up a rock and tried crushing it, to see if the glove would make him strong like it had back at the bridge. The rock remained intact, though. Whatever magic the glove might possess, it wasn’t doing anything now.
They trudged on some more through the tangled undergrowth, and parts of the forest soon began to look very familiar.
“I’ve seen that tree before,” announced Wesley, as if reading Ben’s thoughts. They were striding through a small clearing, where the trees weren’t so tightly packed together.
“No you haven’t,” Paradise insisted.
“I have,” Wesley said. “Look, I carved my name on it when Ben stopped for a wee earlier.”
They looked at the tree. There, just below head height, was Wesley’s name.
“Someone else could have done that,” Paradise said.
“Why would someone else carve ‘Wesley Chant’ into a tree?” Wesley frowned.
“Oh … loads of reasons,” Paradise said.
Wesley looked at her. “Such as…?”
With a loud sigh, Paradise sank down on to the forest floor. “Fine,” she said, her voice suddenly small. “We’re lost. There, I said it. Happy now?”
“Ha, I knew it!” Wesley laughed, before Ben nudged him in the ribs.
They looked down at Paradise, but she turned away from them.
“Are you OK?” asked Ben.
“I’m fine,” she sniffed.
“Are you crying?”
“Of course I’m not crying,” she said, so sharply that both Ben and Wesley jumped back in fright. “I’ve got something in my eye, that’s all.”
“Perhaps I can help us find our way,” Wesley said. He rummaged around inside a sleeve until he found what he was looking for. The fading daylight glinted off a pair of circular glass lenses. “These belonged to my grandfather,” he explained, holding up what looked like two short telescopes attached together side by side. They were made of battered leather with two large lenses at one end, and two smaller ones at the other. “They’re called Peepsees.”
“What do they do?” Ben asked.
“Watch.”
Wesley pressed the smaller end of the Peepsees against his eyes, then turned two small brass cogs that were attached to the leather on either side. With a soft creaking, the end that housed the wider lenses began to rise. Each turn of the cogs raised them higher and higher, closer to the canopy of leaves above them.
Ben and Paradise watched in wonder as the Peepsees pushed through the treetops and vanished out of sight. Wesley stopped turning the dials, and instead began slowly turning himself on the spot. Ben could imagine the Peepsee lenses up there above the forest, their gaze sweeping the area in every direction.
“See anything?” asked Ben.
“No, not really,” Wesley said. He continued to turn, then he stopped suddenly. “Wait!” he whispered. “I do. There’s … something.”
“The Shark-Headed Bear-Thing?” asked Ben.
“The mayor?” asked Paradise.
Wesley shook his head. “N-no. It’s… something else. Something big. Really big. With eight huge hairy legs and … argh! Its eyes. So many eyes! It’s…”
Ben tensed. “Yes?”
“It’s…”
“What?” hissed Paradise.
“It’s… It’s…” Wesley blinked rapidly then pressed his eyes back to the lenses. “Oh, wait. It’s gone. Thank goodness.”
He pushed in both cogs and the Peepsees’ lenses quickly retracted down from the treetops. As the device clicked back together, Wesley saw that there, perched on one of the lenses, was a creature with eight hairy legs and more eyes than he could count.
“Oh, I see. It was a spider,” he realised, before remembering that he was absolutely terrified of spiders. With a shriek, he hurled the Peepsees off into the trees. There was a thud and a crash and a musical tinkling of glass.
“Well,” said Ben, as the last of the tinkling died away. “That’s the end of the Peepsees.”
Wesley blushed. “I should probably try to find them,” he said, taking a step in the direction they’d flown. “They were my grandfather’s, after all.”
“Yeah. It’s going to be getting dark soon,” Ben said.
Wesley froze. “Actually, I think I’ll just leave them. My granddad wouldn’t have minded,” he said. He gulped and took a backward step towards Ben. “And I feel I should probably warn you – I’m not a big fan of the dark.”
“You’re a wizard,” Ben said. “What have you got to be scared of? Aren’t you supposed to be all-powerful and everything?”
Wesley puffed out his narrow chest. “Oh yes. Yes, very powerful,” he said, then the air left him in one big breath and he seemed to deflate. “Actually, no,” he admitted. “Not really. I’m just a trainee. Was a trainee, I mean. Level one. I got kicked out.”
“How come?” asked Ben.
“You’re only supposed to remain a level-one trainee for the first few weeks.”
“How long has it taken you?” asked Paradise. “Six years,” replied Wesley, forcing a smile, “eight months, two weeks, five days. Give or take an hour or so.”
“Trolls’ teeth,” whistled Ben.
“Professor Daniels said I was the the most un-magical living creature he’d ever met. He said he’s seen sandwiches with more magical ability than me.” Wesley looked down at his feet. “So I probably won’t be much help to you, I’m afraid. Sorry.”
“You told us what the monster’s called,” Ben reminded him. “That was a help.”
Wesley shrugged, then slumped down with his back against a tree.
Ben looked up. The glimpses of sky visible through the trees were turning purple. Soon the night would draw in, bringing the darkness with it.
“We should camp here,” Ben said.
Paradise and Wesley both raised their heads. “Camp?” squeaked Wesley. “What, outside?”
“We can’t, we have to save the mayor,” Paradise said. “If I can just concentrate, I can find him. I know I can.”
“We’ll look again in the morning,” Ben said. “I know you’re worried about him, but anything could happen in the dark. We could fall in a hole, get attacked by wolves, trip over an ogre…”
“Right, yes, thank you!” Wesley said. “We get the idea.”
Paradise wriggled uncomfortably. She hated to admit it, but what Ben said made sense. Still, she didn’t like the idea of abandoning the search.
“He found me when I was about a year old,” she said, her voice barely more than a hushed whisper. “I was wandering in the woods, lost and alone. And he found me. I couldn’t tell him where I came from, or how I came to be in the forest. All I could tell him was my name. Paradise.”
“So what happened then?” asked Wesley.
“He took me back to Loosh,” Paradise said. “He looked after me and brought me up. He gave me a home, food, clothes… So yeah, he might not be my dad, but he’s the closest I’ve got to one.”
“Like Tavish,” said Ben.
Paradise nodded. “That’s why we can’t sit around here, why we have to find him. And I don’t understand why we haven’t. It should be easy! I can find anything.”
“Yeah, I still don’t really understand that,” said Ben. “How do you find things?”
“When you’re at home,” Paradise said. “How do you know where your bathroom is?”
“Because I’ve been there before.”
“Yes, but you don’t retrace your steps every time, do you? Once you know where it is, you know where it is. You can find it again. Well, I can do that, but with places I’ve never been to before. With things I’ve never seen.”
“Really, though?” asked Ben. “I mean … couldn’t it just be luck when you find things?” He looked across to Wesley. “Have you ever heard of a magical finding ability?”
Wesley shook his head.
“Yes, really and no, it isn’t luck,” Paradise snapped. She crossed her arms, signalling the conversation was over.
They all sat in silence for a while, listening to the sound of night creeping over the forest. The birds had fallen silent, replaced by the chirping of crickets. From somewhere nearby there came a loud hoot, which made Wesley let out a little yelp of fright.
“It’s just an owl,” Ben said. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m well aware it’s just an owl,” Wesley whispered. “Just an owl with its hooked claws and razor-sharp beak and big, staring eyes! They can turn their heads right around, you know? Right the way around.”
“Relax, it’s probably nowhere near us,” Ben said.
Paradise jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder. “Twenty-two metres that way,” she said, without looking. “Fourth branch from the bottom.”
Ben stood up. Keeping low, he tip-toed off into the darkness. Several seconds passed before he returned. “She’s right,” he said, sounding impressed.
“Told you it wasn’t luck.”
“Then why can’t you find the mayor?” Ben asked.
Paradise’s head snapped up. “How should I know? I tried.”
Ben held up his hands. “I know, I know, I wasn’t saying anything. It’s just … there must be a reason why you can’t.”
Wesley sat forwards suddenly. “Paradise, why did you stop here?”
“Ben was having a wee,” she replied.
“No, no. He only stopped because you did.” He pointed to the tree with his name in it. “And I only carved that because I was sure we’d passed that very same tree several times before and I wanted to keep track. So why did you keep leading us here?”
“I thought I felt something. Like we were close, but then we weren’t.”
“And yet you brought us back to this exact spot again and again,” Wesley said.
Paradise and Ben looked at one another. “So?” they both asked. “There’s nothing here.”
Wesley rummaged up his sleeve until he found the same leather-bound book he’d produced earlier. He flipped hurriedly through the pages until he found the picture of the Shark-Headed Bear-Thing. “Look what it’s doing,” he said.
The others leaned in close, struggling to see the picture clearly in the gloom. “Biting a rock,” Ben said.
“Exactly!” chirped Wesley. “And look at the background. What does that look like?”
Ben and Paradise went back to peering at the book.
“A tunnel?” Paradise guessed.
“Precisely! And where might one find a tunnel?”
Ben leaped to his feet. He stared down at the grass, his whole body suddenly twitching with excitement. “Underground!” he said, then he threw himself into the air as high as he could, and brought both feet down with a slam.
There was a groan from all around the clearing, followed by a sound like a giant bubble going pop. In a cloud of dust and soil and rotten bark, the entire clearing collapsed beneath them and they tumbled down into a wide hole in the ground.
When the dust settled and the noise faded, all was still. Then, from out of the darkness, Paradise’s voice rose up.
“Will you please stop jumping up and down on stuff!”