Theodore & The 7 Layers of Space, Book 1: Brick & Bird

Chapter 36: Up Into the Faroff Wild

Trees see a lot. More than we give them credit for, really. Time passes very differently for a tree. It's not that a tree perceives things more slowly, but rather... more roundly. Their information is growth, their language is air, their fingers are branches and roots.

So when The Calamity came along and 'rapidly' grew the trees of the Faroff Wild – an already formidable forest – into a towering mass – the trees didn't think much of it at all. Just another day in the forest to them. They hardly noticed when half of the population of Gup fled up into their branches in order to survive.

***

Theodore, Terrycloth Green, and the Buddy Bot arrived on the back of Noodleboots at the edge of the Faroff Wild without much more fuss or ado. The sun shone brightly and the air was clean and crisp as they travelled over the hills and plains. Here and there they passed by what Theodore had come to know as normal landmarks of Gup – a derelict building covered in vines or an ancient wagon that was somehow swallowed by a mound of earth. But by and large the path was plain and beautiful, rolling lines of tall red grass waving them on by.

It took the relaxed approach of several hours to comprehend how extraordinarily large the forest was. The long line of trees slowly took over all of their sightline as they approached until it appeared more like a never-ending wall of logs than a forest.

"Geez these are tall," Theodore commented, as they stopped and all craned their necks upwards to take in the towering line of trunks. Noodleboots happily sniffed the perimter of the forest with the eagerness of a well-motivated detective.

"Don't you go in there!" TCG warned, and the big dog barked back happily and trotted to his side.

The giant trees extended upward past where they could see, their tops obscured by clouds. Each tree-base was enormous, ten times the size of any tree any of them had ever seen, as if the forepaw of some ancient elephantine beast had planted itself and its thousands of replicas all at once. A sharp line cut the border of the forest off – there was no gentle introduction of smaller trees, just the sudden emergence of incomprehensibly tall grey and brown giants, all so densely packed that it was impossible to see anything but darkness past them, the edge of the wood extending beyond the horizon in either direction.

"So, Professor Hero wanted us to somehow enter? I'm guessing we'll somehow know when we've reached the so-called entrance?" Theodore asked. There was a kind of collective shrug and no one protested, so they followed the line of trees through rolling grasses for many more hours, the wind blowing softly around them. Wafts of ancient moisture carried up on the breeze, a density that spoke only of forest.

"It's weird that this is somehow 'encroaching' on the rest of Gup. It looks like it's been here forever," Theodore noted, remembering back to what the Buddy Bot had told him about this forest slowly taking over much of Gup.

"It is difficult to comprehend," The Buddy Bot conceded, "but it is more like petals from a flower floating away and pollinating. But instead of gardens, there are more and more imposing forests traveling on the breeze."

"Wow."

They carried on in the Faroff Wild's long shadow until they reached the first change in the unbroken edge of the forest, a small indent into the tidy tree line. It would have been unnoticeable if it weren't for the sheer uniformity of all the trees that came before and after it, like a small quarter of a circle had been pushed into the imposing woods, setting the giant trees just a few feet further back than the rest. They guessed it might be the entrance to Botanya, but other than the disturbance in the treeline, there was no way that any of them could see to enter short of an impossible climb stepping into the formidable forest, an act they had been forbidden to do.