Darkest Part of the Woods Read Online Free PDF

had seen from his tree.
    He'd glimpsed movement at twilight, he seemed to recall now- movement at or rather, to have been visible, presumably above the middle of the woods.

    The moment he climbed out of the shivering Volkswagen, the wind did its utmost to frogmarch him away from the road. It felt as if the woods were panting to suck him in. He'd limped only a few steps across the earth that was shivery with leaves when the trees set about demonstrating how profound a refuge they offered. A stench of petrol followed him for a hundred yards or so, but the traffic was already being shouted down by the wind in the treetops.
    He didn't need to be able to hear the bypass; so long as he kept the sun to his left he would be heading for his goal.

    He tried not to glance directly at the sun. Dazzling himself with it only made him feel there was more to the woods than he was able to identify, though of course it was the sun itself that peered now and then through the treetops, the sun or clouds that the wind swept onwards before he had time to confront them.

    Ahead of him, above the tapestry of fallen leaves, the colonnades of tree-trunks held as still as their topmost branches were frantic. Now and then a tree swayed with a long slow creak, and once that was answered by another in the depths of the woods, as if great birds or reptiles were calling to each other. Apart from that he heard nothing but the wind and the muffled bursts of traffic noise it carried intermittently to him, playing such a game with the apparent location of the bypass that he turned more than once to reassure himself where it was.

    Before long it was hidden by trees, and the traffic was inaudible. Straining his ears only made him imagine that he could almost hear a huge voice muttering under cover of the wind.
    He still had hours of daylight, and how could he get lost so near the town in less than a square mile of forest? The notion seemed unworthy of the show the trees were putting on for him, the highest branches contorting them- selves into shapes he wouldn't have dreamed they could take, leaves fluttering or gliding through the air in patterns too elaborate for his mind to grasp, then fitting themselves into the mosaic of decay that was the forest floor. Some stirred as if they weren't entirely dead. Each one that settled gave him a sense that a design was another minute step closer to completion, but he was more intent on the dance of leaves in the air. Was that related to whatever sight he'd glimpsed above the middle of the woods? The leaves were most hectic between the trees at the limit of his vision, where they swarmed like insects caught up in some nervous ritual. At that distance the air looked solid with them. He limped fast towards them, and was within perhaps fifty yards of them when they swayed like a dancer's veil and parted, sailing up swiftly as ash above a bonfire. He could have imagined they were returning to their trees as he saw he'd arrived at his goal.

    He was at the edge of the clearing that had once been surrounded by infected trees. He knew how far he must have walked to it, though he had no sense at all of the time he'd taken.
    He couldn't recall his journey through the woods or anything he'd seen on the way. Somehow the sun had moved ahead of him to flare white between misshapen treetops. It made him feel as though cataracts of light were gathering on his eyes, so that he could barely distinguish a low mound as wide as a small house within a lower ring of mossy brick. Then two trees parted like the opposite of a prayer and seemed to focus on the mound all the light the sun contained.

    The top of the mound was scaly with lichen. Though the patch was no larger than a man, a shape it rather suggested, it was iridescent with so many colours Sam couldn't begin to number or to name them. He limped between the gesticulating trees and stepped into the open.
    At once the glittering mass stirred and then surged into the air. It was a