"Me dad and stepmum moved away. They say their place is too small for me. Anyway, they're just booorrinnnng booorrinnnng, and I'd rather be bored here than bored with 'em."

"Oh," said David. He wondered if he should bring up the subject of the court case and the dwarfs' attempt to poison Snow White. He was very interested in it, but he wasn't sure that it would be polite to ask. After all, he didn't want to get the dwarfs into any more trouble than they were already in.

In the end, Snow White made the decision for him. She leaned forward and whispered, in a voice like two rocks rubbing together: "Anyway, they 'ave to look after me. Judge told them they 'ad to, on account of how they tried to poison me."

David didn't think he'd want to live with someone who had already tried to poison him once, but he supposed that Snow White wasn't worried about the dwarfs trying again. If they did, they'd be killed, although the look on Brother Number One's face made David suspect that death might almost be welcomed after living with Snow White for a while.

"But don't you want to meet a handsome prince?" he asked.

"I've met a handsome prince," said Snow White. She stared dreamily out of the window. "He woke me with a kiss, but then he 'ad to leave. He told me he'd be back, though, once he'd gone off and killed some dragon or other."

"Should have stayed here and taken care of the one we have first," muttered Brother Number Three. Snow White threw a log at him.

"See what I have to put up with?" she said to David. "I'm left alone all day while they work down't mine, and then I have to listen to them complain as soon as they get home. I don't even know why they bother with that all that minin'. They never find anything!"

David saw the dwarfs exchange some looks when they heard what Snow White was saying. He even thought he heard Brother Number Three give a little laugh, until Brother Number Four kicked him in the shin and told him to be quiet.

"So I'm going to stay 'ere with this lot until me prince returns," said Snow White. "Or until another prince comes along and decides to marry me, whichever happens first."

She bit a hangnail from her little finger and spit it into the fire.

"Now," she said, bringing the subject to a close, "WHERE'S. ME. TEA?" "WHERE'S. ME. TEA?"

Every cup, pot, pan, and plate in the cottage rattled. Dust fell from the ceiling. David saw a family of mice evacuate their mouse hole and leave through a crack in the wall, never to return.

"I always get a bit shouty when I'm 'ungry, me," said Snow White. "Right. Somebody 'and me that rabbit..."

[image]

They ate in silence, apart from the slurping, sc.r.a.ping, chewing, and belching coming from Snow White's end of the table. She really did eat an awful lot. She stripped her own rabbit to the bones and then began picking meat from Brother Number Six's plate without even a by-your-leave. She devoured an entire loaf of bread, and half a block of very smelly cheese. She drank tankard after tankard of the ale the dwarfs brewed in their shed, and polished it all off with two chunks of fruitcake baked by Brother Number One, although she complained when a raisin chipped one of her teeth.

"I told you it was a bit dry," whispered Brother Number Two to Brother Number One. Brother Number One just scowled.

Once there was nothing left to eat, Snow White staggered from the table and flopped down in her chair by the fire, where she instantly fell asleep. David helped the dwarfs to clear the table and wash the dishes, then joined them in a corner where they all began smoking pipes. The tobacco reeked as if someone was burning old, damp socks. Brother Number One offered to share his pipe with David, but David very politely declined the offer.

"What do you mine?" he asked.

There was some coughing from a number of the dwarfs, and David noticed that none of them wanted to catch his eye. Only Brother Number One seemed willing to try to answer the question.

"Coal, sort of," he said.

"Sort of?"

"Well, it's a kind of coal. It's stuff that used to be, sort of, in a way, coal."

"It's coalish," said Brother Number Three helpfully.

David considered this. "Er, do you mean diamonds?"

Seven small figures instantly leaped on him. Brother Number One covered David's mouth with a little hand and said, "Don't say that word in here. Ever."

David nodded. Once the dwarfs were sure that he understood the gravity of the situation, they climbed off him again.

"So you haven't told Snow White about the, er, coalish coalish stuff," he said. stuff," he said.

"No," said Brother Number One. "Never, um, quite got round to it."

"Don't you trust her?"

"Would you?" asked Brother Number Three. "Last winter, when food was hard to come by, Brother Number Four woke up to find her nibbling on his foot."

Brother Number Four nodded solemnly to let David know that this was nothing less than the truth.

"Still have the marks," he said.

"If she found out the mine was working, she'd take us for every gem we were worth," continued Brother Number Three. "Then we'd be even more oppressed than we are already. And poorer."

David looked around the cottage. It wasn't very much to write home about. There were two rooms: the one in which they now sat, and a bedroom that Snow White had taken for her own. The dwarfs slept together in one bed in a corner beside the fire, three at one end and four at the other.

"If she wasn't around, we could do the place up a bit," said Brother Number One. "But if we start spending money on it then she'll get suspicious, so we have to keep it the way it is. We can't even buy another bed."

"But aren't there people nearby who know about the mine? Doesn't anybody suspect?"

"Oh, we've always let people know that we make a little from mining," said the dwarf. "Just enough to keep us going. It's hard work, mining, and n.o.body wants to do it unless they're sure of getting wealthy from it. As long as we keep our heads down and don't go wild spending money on fancy clothes or gold chains-"

"Or beds," said Brother Number Eight.

"Or beds," agreed Brother Number One, "then everything will be fine. It's just that none of us is getting any younger, and now it would be nice to take things a bit easier and perhaps treat ourselves to some luxuries."

The dwarfs looked at Snow White snoring in her chair, and all of them sighed as one.

"Actually, we're hoping to bribe someone to take her off our hands," admitted Brother Number One at last.

"You mean, pay someone to marry her?" asked David.

"He'd have to be really desperate, of course, but we'd make it worth his while," said Brother Number One. "Well, I'm not sure there are enough diamonds in the whole land to make living with her worthwhile, but we'd give him a pile to ease the burden. He could buy some really nice earplugs, and a really big bed."

By now some of the dwarfs were nodding off. Brother Number One took a long stick and nervously approached Snow White.

"She doesn't like being woken up," he explained to David. "We find this is easiest for everyone."

He poked at Snow White with the end of the stick. Nothing happened.

"I think you'll have to do it harder," said David.

This time, the dwarf hit Snow White a good, strong prod. It seemed to work, because she instantly grabbed the stick and gave it a sharp tug, almost flicking Brother Number One straight into the fireplace before he remembered to let go and landed in the coal scuttle instead.

"Unk," said Snow White. "Arfle."

She wiped some drool from her mouth, rose from her chair, and staggered to her bedroom. "Bacon in the morning," she said. "Four eggs. And a sausage. No, make that eight sausages."

With that, she slammed the door behind her, fell on her bed, and was immediately sound asleep.

David sat curled up in the chair by the fire. The house rumbled with the snoring of Snow White and the dwarfs, a complex arrangement of snorts, whistles, and dusty coughs. David thought of the Woodsman, and the trail of blood leading into the woods. He remembered Leroi, and the look in the Loup's eyes. David knew that he could not afford to remain with the dwarfs for longer than one night. He had to keep moving. He had to make his way to the king.

He got up from his chair and walked to the window. He could see nothing outside, so thick and heavy was the darkness. He listened, but he could hear only the hooting of an owl. He had not forgotten what had brought him to this place, but his mother's voice had not come to him again since he had entered the new world. Only if she called to him would he be able to find her.

"Mum," he whispered. "If you're out there, I need your help. I can't find you if you don't guide me."

But there was no reply.

He went back to his chair and closed his eyes. He fell asleep and dreamed of his bedroom at home, and of his father and his new family, but they were not alone in the house. In his dream, the Crooked Man stalked the hallway until he came to Georgie's bedroom, where he stood for a long time looking at the child before departing the house and returning to his own world.

XV.

Of the Deer-Girl

SNOW WHITE was still snoring in her bed when David and the dwarfs departed the next morning, and the spirits of the little men seemed to lift significantly the farther behind they left her. They walked with him as far as the white road, then they all stood around rather awkwardly as everyone tried to find the best way to say good-bye.

"We can't tell you where the mine is, obviously," said Brother Number One.

"Obviously," said David. "I quite understand."

"Because it's secret, like."

"Yes, of course."

"Don't want every Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry snooping around it."

"That seems very sensible."

Brother Number One tugged pensively at his ear.

"It's just beyond the big hill on the right," he said quickly. "There's a trail that leads up to it. It's well-hidden, mind, so you'll need to keep watching out for it. It's marked by an eye carved in a tree. At least, we think it's carved. You never can tell with those trees. Just in case, you know, you ever need a little company."

His face brightened. "Ha!" he said. "A 'little company'! See what I did there? You know, a little company, like friends, and a little company, like a band of dwarfs. See?"

David did see, and laughed dutifully.

"Now remember," said Brother Number One, "if you come across a prince or a young n.o.bleman, in fact if you see anyone who looks desperate enough to marry a big woman for money, you send him to us, right? Make sure he waits on this road until we appear. We don't want him making his own way to the cottage and, well, you know..."

"Being scared off," finished David for him.

"Yes, quite. Well, good luck, and stay on the road. There's a village a day or two from here, and there's bound to be someone there who can help you on your way, but don't be tempted to stray from the path, no matter what you see. There's a lot of nasty things in these woods, and they have their ways of luring folk into their clutches, so mind how you go."

And with that the little company of the little company was lost to David as the dwarfs disappeared into the forest. He heard them singing a song as they marched, one that Brother Number One had made up for them as they went on their way to work. It didn't have much of a tune, and Brother Number One seemed to have encountered some difficulty in finding suitable rhymes for "collectivization of labor" and "oppression by the capitalist running dogs," but David was still sad when the song faded away and he was left alone on the silent road.

He had quite liked the dwarfs. He often had no idea what they were talking about, but for a group of homicidal, cla.s.s-obsessed small people, they were really rather good fun. After they left him, he felt very alone. Although this was clearly a major road, David appeared to be the only person traveling upon it. Here and there he found traces of others who had pa.s.sed that way-the remains of a fire, now long cold; a leather strap, gnawed at one end by a hungry animal-but that was as close as it appeared he was going to come to another human being that day. The constant twilight, which altered significantly only early in the morning and late in the evening, sapped his energy and subdued his spirits, and he found his attention drifting. At times, he seemed to fall asleep on his feet, for he had flashes of dreams, visions in which Dr. Moberley stood over him and seemed to be speaking to him, and periods of darkness during which he thought that he heard his father's voice. Then he would awaken suddenly as his feet strayed from the path, his legs almost tangling beneath him as he moved from stone to gra.s.s.

He realized that he was very hungry. He had eaten with the dwarfs that morning, but now his stomach was rumbling and aching. There was still food in his pack, and the dwarfs had added to his supplies a little by giving him some pieces of dried fruit, but he had no idea how far he might have to travel before he reached the castle of the king. Even the dwarfs were of no help there. As far as David could tell, the king didn't have very much to do with the running of his kingdom at all. Brother Number One told David that someone had once come to the cottage claiming to be a royal tax collector, but after an hour in the company of Snow White, he left without his hat and never returned again. The only facts about the king that Brother Number One could confirm were that there was a king (probably) and that there was a castle, somewhere at the end of the road upon which David was traveling, although Brother Number One had never seen it. And so David walked on, his mind drifting, his stomach hurting, and the road glowing whitely before him.

It was during one of his near tumbles into the ditch that David saw apples hanging from the branches of a tree in a clearing near the edge of the forest. They looked green and almost ripe, and he felt his mouth begin to water. He remembered the dwarfs' injunction, their warning that he should remain on the path always and not be tempted by the gifts of the forest. But what harm could it do to take some apples from a tree? He would still be able to see the road from it, and with the help of a fallen branch he could probably dislodge enough fruit to keep him going for a day, perhaps more. He stopped and listened but heard nothing. The forest was quiet.

David left the road. The ground was soft, and his feet made an unpleasant squelching noise with each step that he took. As he drew nearer to the tree, he saw the fruit at the farthest ends of the branches was smaller and less ripe than the apples higher up at the heart of the tree, where each one was as big as a man's fist. He could reach them if he climbed up, and climbing trees was something that David was very good at indeed. It was the work of only a few minutes to scale the trunk, and soon he was seated in the crook of a branch, munching on an apple that tasted incredibly sweet to him. It had been weeks since he'd eaten an apple, not since a local farmer had quietly slipped Rose a couple "for the little 'uns." Those apples had been small and sour, but these were wonderful. The juice trickled down his chin, and the flesh was firm in his mouth.

He devoured the last of the first apple and discarded the core, then picked another. He ate this one more slowly, recalling his mother's warnings about eating too many apples. They gave you stomach pains, she had said. David supposed that stuffing yourself with too much of anything was a recipe for feeling ill, but he wasn't sure how that applied if you hadn't eaten for almost an entire day. All he knew for certain was that the fruit tasted good and his stomach was grateful for it.

He was halfway through the second apple when he heard a disturbance below. Something was approaching fast from his left. He could see movement in the bushes, and a flash of tan hide. It looked like a deer, although David could not see its head, and it was clearly fleeing from some threat. Instantly, David thought of the wolves. He cowered closer to the trunk of the tree and tried to shield himself with it. Even as he did so, he wondered if the wolves would detect his scent upon the ground as they pa.s.sed, or if the lure of the deer might be enough to blind their senses to it.

Seconds later, the deer broke from cover and entered the clearing beneath David's tree. It paused for a moment, as if uncertain of which direction to take, and in that moment he got his first clear look at its head. The sight made him gasp, for it was not the head of a deer but that of a young girl with blond hair and dark green eyes. He could see where her human neck ended and the body of the deer began, for a red welt marked the place where the two beings had been joined. The girl glanced up, startled by the sound, and her eyes met David's.

"Help me!" she begged. "Please."

And then the sounds of pursuit drew nearer, and David saw a horse and rider bearing down upon the clearing, the rider's bow drawn and ready to release its arrow. The deer-girl heard them too, for her back legs tensed and she bounded toward the cover of the forest. She was still in midair when the arrow struck her neck. The blow threw her body to the right, where it lay twitching upon the ground. The deer-girl's mouth opened and closed as she tried to speak her final words. Her back legs kicked at the dirt, her body trembled, and then she stopped moving.

The rider trotted into the clearing upon a huge black horse. He was hooded and dressed in the colors of the autumn forest, all greens and ambers. In his left hand he held a short bow, and a quiver of arrows hung across his shoulder. He dismounted from the horse, drew a long blade from a scabbard upon his saddle, and approached the body on the ground. He raised the blade and struck once, then again, at the neck of the deer-girl. David looked away after the first blow, his hand against his mouth and his eyes squeezed shut. When he dared to glance back again, the girl's head had been severed from the deer's body and the hunter was carrying it by the hair, dark blood dripping from the neck onto the forest floor. Using the hair, he tied the head to the horn of his saddle so that it hung against the flank of his horse, then placed the carca.s.s of the deer across the horse before preparing to remount. His left foot was already raised when he paused and stared at the ground. David followed his gaze and saw the discarded core of the apple at the horse's hooves. The hunter lowered his foot and stared at the core, and then in one swift movement drew an arrow from his quiver and notched it to the bow. The tip of the arrow was raised toward the apple tree and came to rest pointing straight at David.

"Come down," said the hunter, his voice m.u.f.fled slightly by a scarf across his mouth. "Come down or I'll shoot you down."

David had no choice but to comply. He felt himself start to cry. He tried desperately to stop himself, but he could smell the deer-girl's blood on the air. His only hope was that the hunter had enjoyed his sport for the day and might see fit to spare him as a result.

David reached the base of the tree. He was tempted for an instant to run and take his chances in the forest, but it was an idea that he rejected almost immediately. A hunter who could kill a leaping deer with an arrow while riding on horseback would surely be able to hit a fleeing boy with greater ease. He had no choice but to hope for mercy from the hunter, but as he stood before the hooded figure, he looked into the deer-girl's sightless eyes and wondered if there was any hope of mercy from someone who could do such a thing.

"Lie down," said the hunter. "On your belly."

"Please, don't hurt me," said David.

"Lie down!"

David knelt on the ground, then forced himself to lie flat. He heard the hunter approach, and then his arms were wrenched behind his back and his wrists bound with coa.r.s.e rope. His sword was taken from him. His legs were tied at the ankles, and he was lifted into the air and slung over the back of the great horse, his body lying upon that of the deer, his left side resting painfully against the saddle. But David did not think about the pain, not even when they began to trot and the ache in his side became a regular, rhythmic pounding, like the blade of a dagger being forced between his ribs.

No, all that David could think about was the head of the deer-girl, for her face rubbed against his as they rode, her warm blood smeared his cheek, and he saw himself reflected in the dark green mirrors of her eyes.

XVI.

Of the Three Surgeons

THEY RODE FOR what seemed to David like an hour, perhaps more. The hunter did not speak. David felt dizzy from hanging across the horse, and his head hurt. The smell of the deer-girl's blood was very strong, and as their journey drew on, the touch of her skin against his grew colder and colder.

At last they came to a long stone house in the forest. It was plain and unadorned, with narrow windows and a high roof. To one side was a large stable, and there the rider tethered his horse. There were other animals here too. A doe stood in a stall, chewing on some straw and blinking at the new arrivals. There were chickens in a wire run and rabbits in hutches. Nearby a fox clawed at the bars of its cage, its attention torn between the hunter and the tasty prey just beyond its reach.