trained Auror, sending red Stunning Spells into the thrashing brush and leaves. The creature changed course, skirting around them and into a gully. The flickering blue glow marked its progress as it skittered over dead logs, retreating deeper into the wood.
'Stay with Grawp, you two,' Hardcastle growled, setting off after the creature at a run. 'Grawp, if anything other than me comes back, crush it.' He moved with amazing agility for his size. Within fifteen seconds, neither he nor the retreating creature could be seen or heard. The two boys jumped off Grawp's shoulders to peer down into the gully.
'What was that?' Zane asked breathlessly.
James shook his head. 'I'm not even sure I want to know. It definitely wasn't the guy we're looking for.'
'I'm glad of that,' Zane said with conviction.
They watched the gully that Hardcastle and the creature had vanished into. The incessant chorus of crickets and the flashing of the fireflies filled the woods again, seeming to deny that anything unusual was happening. There was no noise or movement from the gully.
'How far will he chase that thing?' Zane finally asked.
James shrugged. 'Until he catches it, I guess.'
'Or it catches him,' Zane added, shuddering. 'You know, I felt a lot better about this when we were up on the big guy's shoulders.'
'Good idea,' James agreed, turning. 'Hey, Grawp, how about--'
He stopped. Grawp was gone. Zane and James glanced around for several seconds, both too stunned and spooked to say anything. 'There!' Zane said suddenly, stabbing a finger in the direction of the lake. James looked. Grawp was just disappearing around a gigantic, moss-bearded boulder, lumbering slowly. 'Come on! Don't let him get out of sight!'
Both boys scampered after the giant, crawling over huge fallen trees and slipping on leaf-covered rocks. They rounded the house-sized boulder they had seen Grawp pass. Grawp was even further away, ducking under a leaning, dead tree.
'Where's he going?' Zane cried exasperatedly.
'Grawp!' James called, hesitant to yell too loudly for fear of attracting any more of the horrible, scuttling creatures. The night had gone dim. Heavy, marching clouds obscured the moon, reducing the woods to a muddle of grey shadows. 'Grawp, come back! What are you doing?'
For several minutes, Zane and James followed Grawp's trail, struggling through creek beds and over tree trunks that the giant traversed in one step. Finally, they caught up to him near the edge of the lake, where a group of small, wooded islands obscured the view across the water. The air smelled damp and mossy and was dense with buzzing insects. Grawp stood under a gnarled tree, methodically plucking walnuts off the branches and popping them into his mouth, shell and all. He crunched them audibly as the boys approached, panting.
'Grawp!' Zane cried, struggling to catch his breath. 'What're you doing?'
Grawp glanced down at the sound of Zane's voice, his expression quizzical. 'Grawp hungry,' he answered. 'Grawp smell food. Grawp eat and wait. Little man comes back.'
'Grawp, we're lost now! Titus won't even know where we are!' James said, trying to control his anger. Grawp stared at him, still crunching walnuts, his expression one of mild bewilderment.
'Never mind,' Zane said. 'Let him chomp some nuts, then we'll get him to carry us back the way we came.' He plopped onto a nearby rock and examined the scrapes and bruises he'd gotten during the chase. James grimaced in annoyance. He knew there was no point in arguing with the giant.
'All right,' he said tersely. 'Grawp, just carry us back when you're done. Got it?'
Grawp grunted agreement, pulling one of the larger tree branches down to him so that it creaked ominously.
James wandered disconsolately toward the water's edge, pushing reeds and bushes aside. The lake looked more like a creek here, with only a narrow stretch of mossy water between the shore and one of the marshy islands. The island was wild, covered with densely packed bushes and trees. It had the look of a place that was underwater at least part of the year. Twenty feet away, a group of trees had fallen away from the island. James assumed they'd been pried loose from their watery roots by a recent storm. The scene was remarkably ugly and foreboding in the shadowy night.
James had just decided to turn back, worried that Hardcastle would be looking for them, when the moon came out. As the silvery light spread across the woods, James stopped, a slow, gravid chill shaking him from head to toe. The crickets had fallen suddenly and completely silent. James felt rooted to the spot, frozen except for his eyes, which roamed the surrounding woods. The silence of the crickets wasn't the only change. The perpetual, myriad flashes of the fireflies had also ceased. The wood had gone completely and suddenly still in the wash of moonlight.
'James?' Zane's voice came, tentative in the sudden, oppressive silence. 'Is this… you know… normal?' He joined James at the edge of the lake. 'And what's the deal with that place?'
James glanced at Zane. 'What place?' He followed Zane's eyes, and then gasped.
The island that lay just off the shore had changed. James could tell that no individual part of it was different, exactly. It was just that, what had appeared as totally random trees and bushes a minute before, now, in the silvery moonlight, looked much more like a hidden, ancient structure. There was the unmistakable suggestion of pillars and gates, buttresses and gargoyles, all crafted out of the island's natural growth as if it were a sort of incredibly complex optical illusion.
'I do not like the look of that joint,' Zane said emphatically, his voice low.
James looked further. The group of trees that had fallen across the water, connecting the island to the shore, had changed as well. James could see that there was order to them. Two of them had fallen together so that they formed what was obviously a bridge. The bridge was even stylized, fashioned to resemble a gigantic dragon's head. A brown rock jutting from the upturned roots served as the eye. Two more trees, only half collapsed, formed the open upper jaw, jutting out over the bridge as if to snap down on anyone that attempted to cross.
James walked carefully toward the bridge.
'Hey, you're not going in there, are you?' Zane called. 'That doesn't look so healthy to me.'
'Come on,' James said, not looking back. 'You said you wanted adventure and really wild stuff.'
'Well, actually I think I just want those things in little bitty doses. I had enough with that crazy monster we saw already, if you don't mind.'
James skirted an outcropping of bushes and spindly trees and found himself standing at the mouth of the bridge. Closer to, it was even more perfect. There were handrails formed by fallen birches, smooth and easy to grip, and the two trees that formed the floor of the bridge were so close together, with vines and leaves packed between them, that they made an easy walking surface.
'Fine, stay here,' James said, not really blaming Zane for his reluctance. The mystery of it was strangely attractive to James, though. He stepped onto the bridge.
'Ahh, sheesh,' Zane moaned, following.
On the island side of the bridge, a complicated growth of vines and small trees had formed into a set of tall, ornate gates. Beyond them was impenetrable shadow. As James crept closer, he could see that the vines formed a recognizable pattern across the gates.
'I think it spells something,' he said, his voice almost a whisper. 'Look. It's a poem, or a rune or
