I knew for sure now that this was no place for my friends!
I turned around to face them, crossed my arms in front of me to signal that they should stop. But they kept coming straight toward me—though apparently unable to see me as they ran. But of course!—until I made my way in here, I hadn’t been able to see anything inside either. How could they see me in these deep shadows?
I started back the way I came, but the roots seemed to trip me up and I fell flat on my face. How could this be? Coming in, I’d had no trouble running with my eyes closed, but now that I was trying to go back, the roots heaved up and prevented me from leaving. I had hit my knee in the fall and it hurt a great deal, but just as I was forcing myself to my feet again, Nulla and the others reached the edge of the forest and came rushing in.
“Kerstin!” Hejdanatt called when she caught sight of me. As I’d thought, from outside I must have been invisible, even though I’d stopped just a few steps into the forest. She ran straight to me and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t want to come with you,” she said, almost in tears.
I embraced her for a moment before taking a step back. “No, Hejdanatt,” I said. “You shouldn’t be here, and neither should the others. This is a terrible place. I want you to go back—all of you. I’ll go on alone.”
Inte looked at me for a moment, and then when he spoke up he said the oddest thing. “It may be terrible,” he said, “but we’ve already come all this way.”
“Don’t be silly, Inte. We’re barely past the entrance,” I said. But when I looked toward the edge of the trees and the patch of sunlight that should have been right beyond, I saw nothing but thick trunks and shadows. Worse still, there was no sign now of the narrow path I had followed into the forest. In its place I saw a thick carpet of dried fir boughs and the undulating web of roots.
A shudder ran through me, and my eyes drifted upward.
But like everything else that had disappeared, the blue summer sky that should have been above our heads was nowhere to be seen. Thick, dark branches crowded in from every direction, lacing together, and though the treetops were obscured somewhere overhead, I knew I had never seen such tall trees before.
As it finally began to dawn on me that we were now deep in the heart of the forest, my body started to tremble. The other girls were shivering too. Nulla and Inte were putting up a brave front, but Inte looked terribly pale even in the dim light. Nej and Adju held hands and looked around timidly.
“Why did you ever come so far into this horrible place all by yourself?” Hejdanatt said. I told them I had gone no farther than the entrance, but clearly they didn’t believe me.
“The entrance?” Nulla said. “We ran a long, long way from the entrance before we caught sight of you here, far off the path.”
How very odd, I thought. What had happened? How had I come to be here? I had no idea. But one thing was certain: there was something uncanny about this forest, something evil lurking around us.
“We can’t worry about that now,” I said. “Let’s get back to the path.”
Everyone agreed immediately, and Nulla led the way. I took Hejdanatt’s hand and followed him, and the rest came right behind. But no matter how far Nulla walked, we saw nothing resembling a path.
“It ought to be right around here,” Nulla said, his puzzled face swiveling back and forth. But there was no sign of it anywhere.
I knew then what had happened: the forest had hidden the path from us to make certain we stayed lost forever. And I knew, too, that there was a monster here, and that the forest was its ally. As for me, my only allies were these five children.
At this point Nej and Adju began to cry. There were tears in Inte’s eyes too, and even Nulla and Hejdanatt seemed to be struggling to keep calm.
I had to be strong, I told myself. I had led my friends in here, and I would find a way to get them out. But if I was going to succeed in this undertaking, I couldn’t let myself be beaten by these terrible trees.
“Why don’t we sing?” I said, and I started into a song myself.
Die! Die! Die! Die! Every last one of you’ll die!
Every last one of you’ll die! Die! Time is a-wasting! So die!
You’ll never get out of the woods, oh no!
Not one of you’ll get home alive!
My friends screamed as the words faded into the shadows, but somehow I wasn’t sure what I had just sung.
“What was that?” I murmured. It certainly wasn’t the song I had intended to sing, which would have been something bright, something to cheer us up. Then where had this song come from?
Inte burst into tears, and I knew Hejdanatt would be next. In fact, she was tapping me on the shoulder, and when I turned to look, great drops were collecting in her bloodshot eyes. “Why would you want to sing something so horrible?” she said.
“Never mind,” said Nulla. “I’ll sing.”
Now the fun begins, my dears!
One of you shortly will die!
It’s up to you to choose just who,
But one of you shortly must die!
So pick the one who’s not much fun!
Since one of you shortly must die!
Another scream met Nulla’s song, but this time I was screaming too.
“Stop!” I yelled, but one look at his pale face told me that he’d had no more control over the lyrics than I’d had. Those were not the words he’d wanted to sing.
Just then Adju called Nej’s name and reached out to
