The creature prodded him with a tiny finger and scampered over his shoulders, snuffling at his hair. He laughed.
Freya’s tail lashed faster as her eyes followed the creature. She launched herself at it, clawing into Arthur. He yelped.
“Freya—”
Chittering, the creature sprang from his shoulder onto a branch overhead. Freya followed. She and the creature chased each other along boughs, blue caps sprouting behind them, until, with a final, impressive leap, the creature reached the shelter of its birch. It vanished in the birch’s branches as if it had melted away. The tree’s yellow leaves trembled, then stilled.
Freya mewled, her hindquarters wiggling, but Arthur dragged her from her branch.
“I wish you hadn’t scared that thing off,” he told her.
He’d liked its liveliness, after the silence that had grated on him since he’d parted from Ira, but the cat merely grumbled. He contemplated luring the creature back with... whatever such a creature might like, food or a shiny trinket like his father’s pocket watch or—he didn’t know what. But Freya would undoubtedly go after it again.
The blue caps the creature had left burst and shriveled. Spores drifted through the air. Holding his breath, Arthur stepped closer.
His stomach clenched. Internally, the toadstools were threaded with black. Examining the birch, he discovered it also had black veins creeping up from the base of its trunk. More blue caps clustered there, similarly veined.
Arthur hugged the cat and continued on his way.
After a while, they came upon a stream. From a distance, the sight heartened him. Perhaps he could follow it to the heart of the wood, or a good chunk of the way, and he’d have fresh water to drink and fish to eat (if he caught any).
Then he reached the bank. Most of the trees nearby oozed black. The water was black, too, and smelled mechanical.
His stomach turned. Not quite the saving grace he’d hoped for. His throat was dry; he was suddenly thirsty, with only that black water to drink because he’d already emptied his bottle.
He shut his eyes and focused on his breathing. He’d been traveling for hours. He might be as little as a day from the heart of the wood. Surely he could make it that long without food or water.
In the meantime, the stream could guide him, the sound of it a comfort though the sight of that black water wasn’t. That would have to be enough, but the disappointment was hard to bear.
Gradually—so gradually that, at first, Arthur didn’t notice—a mist rose. Then he thought his spectacles were fogging. He put the cat down and wiped his lenses on his shirt several times, to no effect.
Freya twisted between his ankles. He stumbled over her and fell.
Cursing, Arthur pushed upright. His back twinged. He winced.
The mist had thickened to fog. Now Arthur could barely see six inches in front of him.
“What is this?”
Freya mewled uneasily.
The stream still burbled to their left. That was something, Arthur told himself, but a fog arising in the afternoon, that hehadn’t noticed until he was in the thick of it, made his skin prickle.
Around him, the forest had vanished. He could no longer see trees, stream, grass, or sky. Leaves crunched; his heartbeat pulsed in his ears. The cat kept underfoot until he picked her up. She burrowed into him.
Arthur didn’t like that. He’d figured that, as long as she was nonchalant about the forest, there was nothing to worry about. Her apparent anxiety about the fog increased his own.
He fell to his knees, narrowly avoiding dropping her. His knapsack crashed over his head. He swore and shook it off. His back twinged so badly he couldn’t get back up. In fact, he wanted to lie down on whatever nice, springy surface he was kneeling on. A thick bed of moss, maybe.
Bed. That sounded nice.
Freya seemed to agree. She climbed out of his arms and curled on the ground. In a moment, she was asleep.
“Freya?” Arthur gasped.
Gasping was all he could manage. The fog pressed on him like a physical thing. It should’ve been cold; wasn’t fog cold? This fog was warm. Had it been pressing on him? It was comfortable, now. Soothing.
The fuzzy black animal beside him seemed to think so. He was almost certain he used to know what the fuzzy black animal was, but he couldn’t remember. It was unimportant anyway.
