The Last Scarecrow

10 | Island of Trees

Mist swirled around the Island of Trees as Twelve manoeuvred Lazarus between a tangle of muddy ridges. Each was covered with a mass of dark trees, their roots, bark and withered branches spreading like a cancer, straining towards the lifeless sky.

Erin let her fingertips drag in the grey water.

Raven sat shivering in her lap.

Two days had passed. Erin had slept for most of journey after eating a meal of tinned beans and wholemeal crackers. When she was awake, Twelve had peppered her with more questions about what it was like to dream and where all the stars came from.

She wriggled onto her knees, drying her hand on her oversized jumper.

"It's not quite what I imagined," she said. "I guess I thought it'd be an island of palm trees and tropical fruit and parrots, a huge volcano rising from the centre. Like something out of King Solomon's Mines. But it's just the top of some inaccessible mountain."

"A darkness has fallen here," Raven said looking around. "The leaves have lost their colour. The trees look sickly and foreboding."

The sky rumbled overhead, but there wasn't a cloud in sight.

Twelve pulled on the oars, circling the island.

High on the southern face, cutting through the black and grey wilderness was a spark of glorious red and gold.

Erin rose to her feet and pointed.

Twelve nodded.

Just as Raven has said, a great fire was burning. A thick, acrid smoke rose between the trees and joined the swirling mist. Twelve dropped the oars into the water, slowing the boat thirty feet from the shore.

"Fire," she said, almost mesmerised by it.

"Are you afraid?" Erin asked.

"Of fire?" Twelve replied. "Whatever for?"

Erin indicated the scarecrow's highly flammable construction.

"Oh."

She buttoned her jacket and flexed her rubber-gloved hands.

"It'll take more than fire to destroy me."

Lazarus drifted to the edge of the island, nudging the muddy bank.

With Raven in her pouch, Erin dropped into the watery shallows. She wobbled initially, her plimsoles sinking into the porous seabed.

Twelve was beside her. Together they mounted the bank, striding through the thick nest of trees and bowing grey-green leaves that blocked their path.

The terrain was tough going, even for Twelve. She kept one hand positioned behind Erin at all times in case the girl were to slip and fall.

They used the trees to lever themselves up the treacherous bank whilst clinging and resting against rocks and boulders. High above, woodpeckers drilled their percussive rudiments as Erin pressed a gentle finger into her dungarees to stroke Raven's head. He chirped reassuringly, making Erin smile.

Eventually, the hill evened out.

The trees thinned.

The island opened into a plateau of waist high plants, thickets and brambles. Trees loomed on either side of a trench woven by heavy footfalls. Erin wondered what sort of feet had made the tracks and whether they were still living on this desolate haunch of rock.

Ahead, the flicker of fire and plume of smoke, that had once been thick and strong, was dwindling. Walking towards it, they emerged in a clearing. At the centre, burnt logs rested against one another like a wigwam surrounded by a circle of blackened stones.

"It's still hot," she said, breaking a stick off a nearby tree and jabbing the ash. Erin raked it sideways revealing the hot, orange embers beneath. "Who did this?"

But a mighty crash, like falling crockery, erupted from a wooden cottage hidden amongst the trees and ferns and scrub.

Twelve and Erin stood stock-still, staring at the mysterious hideout.

There was no light coming from within. The whole placed appeared to be shutdown, like a summer house in the throes of winter. They approached cautiously.

Twelve folded a web of brambles to one side so Erin could reach the door. The entrance was locked with a heavy, rusted padlock that hung from a series of chains. Damp, coppery links disappeared through tiny slits above and below wooden blinds that shrouded the windows to either side.

"Looks like they don't want anyone getting in," said Twelve.

"Or anyone getting out," said Raven, his head rising out of Erin's pocket.

"It's a climber's lodge," said Erin. "I wonder how high up this was before the rain came. We are, after all, on the top of a mountain."

The scarecrow nodded, but her attention was on the padlock.

"We should open the door," she decided. "Shouldn't we?"

"I don't like it here," chimed Raven. "Smells terrible."

Twelve looked at the little blackbird curiously.

"Everything is decaying and rotten. It's stinks of death."

"This place is strange," Erin agreed. "I feel like I have a hundred pairs of eyes on me. In the bushes, in the trees, in the skies above. Do you feel it?"

"No," Twelve said, closing her fingers around the padlock and ripping it from the door. The window blinds buckled and fell to the ground as the chains uncoiled and clattered at her feet. She reached forward and turned the small, wooden handle.

The door creaked nervously.

Erin pulled the pistol from her belt.

Twelve clicked her huge jaws together cautiously as she eyed the gun. "Put that thing away," she told her. "You're going to get us all killed."

Erin ignored her.

Inside, the climber's lodge was filled with comfy-looking chairs and sofas pointed at a large, welcoming fireplace. Sideboards held curious vases, jars and stone sculptures. Climbing gear hung from the walls next to detailed maps and framed photos of smiling faces sat atop great mountains, beards and eyebrows crusted with ice.

In the corner of the lodge, furthest from the door, was a rocking chair made of gleaming hand-polished blackwood. It faced a picture window that looked out over the edge of the mountain and the Endless Blue beyond.

The rocking chair was yawning back and forth, a dark figure hunched in the seat.