• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘That’s handy,’ said Saul, keeping a straight face.

Martha thought back to the creature in the clearing. ‘This morning… I suppose we were making a bit of a racket. It must have attracted that monster we saw.’

Saul frowned. ‘I suppose.’

‘What then?’ asked Martha, picking up on the uncertainty in his voice.

Saul looked up, as if suspicious that the forest could hear their words. ‘You asked me earlier why I don’t travel beyond the woods,’ said Saul, standing and wiping his bloodstained hands on his trousers. ‘The thing is, I am the only one in the village who even shows any interest in going further. The others… They seem satisfied to just stay put. I don’t suppose they share my desire to explore.’

‘Life in the village has never been enough for you,’ observed Martha.

Saul nodded. ‘I’m content enough. I have a daughter and a wife and I love them both dearly. But I’m happiest if I’m moving, if I’m doing something.’ He looked around him again, as if the forest were suddenly alive – and something to be feared. ‘I told you I respected my brother’s wishes, and that’s true. But… Once or twice… I have tried to go beyond the edge of the forest. I want to see what happens when my maps run out…’

Martha smiled. ‘Here be monsters,’ she said, remembering the ancient maps from Earth history that indicated all manner of dragons and beasts at their uncharted extremities.

‘That’s it,’ said Saul, nodding. ‘That’s exactly what holds me back.’

‘Monsters?’

‘Like the thing we saw. And worse… I can guarantee if you keeping heading north from here, that’s what you’ll see.’

‘Monsters, guarding the edges of your world,’ said Martha, thinking aloud. She pointed towards the mountains and to the area just south of the village where grassland began to merge into stonier terrain. ‘And in that direction?’

‘The same,’ commented Saul. ‘I’ve tried walking in every direction – and each time I’ve returned, my tail between my legs. A coward.’ He bowed his head, ashamed.

‘If I were you, Saul, I’d run a mile from these things as well.’

‘I don’t know that the creatures are dangerous,’ continued Saul.

‘The one we saw didn’t look exactly friendly,’ said Martha. ‘How do traders get through?’

Saul shrugged. If the unexplored and distant mountains didn’t really exist, Martha supposed, then perhaps the visitors were also entirely unreal.

‘Everyone else just accepts these things,’ said Saul. ‘No one ever ventures into the forest, we are barred from the island in the lake… It never occurs to anyone to ask why this is.’

‘Apart from your daughter.’

Saul nodded, sheepishly.

‘What about your brother?’ queried Martha. ‘He seems bright enough.’

‘If such things trouble him he has never told me,’ said Saul simply. ‘I had thought, when Thorn went missing… Perhaps it would make Petr less cautious.’ Saul sighed. ‘It’s just made him even worse. Soon I wonder if I’ll even be allowed in the forest.’

‘You think Petr will stop you coming up here?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Saul. ‘Perhaps it will be too dangerous by then anyway. When I first saw that creature watching you and the Doctor in the clearing… I was deeply troubled. I had never seen one of the monsters in that part of the forest before.’

‘They’re getting closer to the village?’

Saul looked around, sensitive to the very air as it gusted and moved around him. He seemed on edge now, bent close to the ground, coiled as if to strike.

‘Saul?’ queried Martha, concerned.

‘I think we’re being watched,’ he said in a low whisper.

The Doctor settled down at the Dazai’s table. ‘I popped into your local earlier,’ he said, gratefully accepting the tea she offered. ‘I was expecting a sudden hush, an anxious barman offering me a jug of ale… Suspicion and dread.’

‘And instead you found…?’

‘Tiredness,’ said the Doctor. ‘Resignation. Indifference.’

‘It is not yet evening,’ said the Dazai.