Un Lun Dun

62. Into the Trees

Deeba stepped into a realm of rustling hush, and warmth, and green light. The door closed behind her. She gaped.

“Oh my gosh,” she said.

To either side were walls in bright wallpaper, and some way ahead she could just see stairs leading up on the left, and a corridor on the right. It was hard to make out the details of the inside of the house, because everywhere around them, filling it, were plants.

The carpet and the floorboards were rucked with lichen, moss, ferns, and undergrowth. Ivy clotted the walls. The corridor was full of trees. They were old, gnarled things that twisted around themselves to fit into the cramped space. Vines hung from them, and from the ceiling, and trembled as little animals and birds scampered up them.

Deeba could only just see through trees and bushes to where thick brambles and creepers plaited through the banisters. She could hear the call of birds, the whisper of leaves, wood knocking gently against wood, and somewhere, the gurgle of running water.

Light shone greenly through leaves from a bulb Deeba glimpsed hanging from the ceiling.

“We should get going,” the book said. “It isn’t that long till dusk.”

What happens at dusk? Deeba thought. She didn’t say anything. They were all too busy dragging themselves through the thickets.

The utterlings were making the most of their new freedom, roaming and foraging as the little group made their way. Diss snuffled enthusiastically and rooted around in the tangles and thickets and leaf mold, emerging from piles of old vegetation wearing temporary hats of compost. Bling leapt from tree to tree with ostentatious springs and backflips. If they strayed more than a few feet from their cautiously progressing companions, Cauldron would click his little fingers and beckon them back.

Having the forest wedged into the house seemed to have done something to the space. The walls’ dimensions didn’t work quite as they should. Deeba felt as if she couldn’t see as far as she should be able to, and as if shadows sometimes fell in odd directions. It took them a long time to reach the base of the stairs, and Deeba didn’t think it was just that the plants were so thick they impeded their progress— although they were.

She was quickly exhausted. She ducked under branches, climbed over others, held them gingerly in front of her and let Bling and Diss and the others pass, so the thorns wouldn’t spring back and whack them. Sometimes, when they were confronted by a particularly tangled thicket, Deeba saw Hemi roll up his sleeve or trouser leg, strain his half-ghostly muscles, and pull his flesh right through the blockage.

It was warm. The leaves were rubbery and thick. Deeba gripped a vine, and a tree frog crawled over her fingers, making her jump. Strictly speaking, she thought, this place was a cross between a forest and a jungle.

“This is a jorest,” she said to Hemi.

“Yeah,” he said. “No, it’s a fungle.” They grinned.

She hopped over a rotted stump jutting from the carpet and wiped sweat from her face. Mr. Cavea leaned against the stair’s bottom rail, the bird in his cage-head staring at her. Through a gap in the forest canopy, Deeba saw the lightbulb, the air around it dusted with midges.

“Which way do we go?” said Hemi.

“My chapter about the featherkey isn’t clear,” the book said. “We could go right. That’s probably the kitchen at the end of the hall. Or we could go up the stairs.”

Mr. Cavea whistled.

“He’s right,” the book said. “We don’t want to go the wrong way. There are predators in here. This isn’t a safe place.”

Cavea whistled.

“Are you sure?” the book said.

“What?” said Deeba.

“He says he’ll find out where Claviger is. Cavea’s the only one who can ask the locals. And he can get about quicker than us. And probably stay out of trouble easier.”

“Can he?” said Deeba doubtfully, eyeing him.

“We should camp,” the book said. “It’s late. We can’t keep going all night.”

He was right. Deeba needed to stop.

The caged bird sang.

“He has nocturnal cousins he can ask,” the book said. “And he’s too polite to say so, but he thinks he’ll be safer if he doesn’t spend the night with us. Isn’t that so, Cavea?”

Deeba had never seen a little bird look sheepish before.

They decided it would be too risky to sleep in the open corridor, so they fought through tangles of stalks and leaves to a door nearby. They shoved it open past the resistance of months of plant life, and entered the living room.

Past a copse of twisted trees there was a sofa and several chairs in front of a television, burrowed through by voles and little digging beasts, and wound around with leaves. The TV was on, with the sound turned down. Through the ivy that crisscrossed its screen, it lit the clearing with the colors of a game show.

The travelers swept the little hollow free of stones and sticks, and made camp. They were just in time. Twilight came, and one by one, the lights in the house went out. The noises of the forest changed. A new chorus of night-things began.

“Are you really going to go looking now?” Deeba said. Mr. Cavea nodded his cage.

She watched him in the television’s colors. Mr. Cavea reached up and opened the door to his birdcage-head. The bird twittered.

“He’ll be back by morning,” the book said. “He says to keep his money fresh.”

“I have to admit he’s earning it,” Deeba said.

The bird hopped onto the threshold of the cage and gripped it with its little claws, then took off. The instant it flew out, Cavea’s human body froze, swaying slightly on locked legs.

The bird fluttered away, through loops of vine and under the dark shadows of trees, through the doorway, out of sight. As it went, it sang.

When no one was looking, Deeba gave Mr. Cavea’s leg an experimental prod. It was warm and fleshy— it felt like a leg. But it didn’t move or respond. Cavea’s vehicle just stood, the door to its cage open in its hand.