Forest Spirit by David Laing Page A

pocket and quickly twisted the end until she got a beam. She shone the light around the cave; she saw at once that the cave was large, as big as a house.
    From a far wall a thousand eyes flashed. They blinked on and off and rippled up and down the wall like waves.
    Quenton’s ghost.
    She smiled. She knew what it really was – glow-worms. A kind of firefly, she remembered from her school lessons, sometimes called lightning bugs. The glands inside them caused the fiery glow. She must have disturbed them.
    Water drops splashed onto her face and arms. She looked up. They were coming from tiny holes in the roof where golden arrows of light from the outside speared into the gloom of the cave.
    Somewhere in the cave’s far reaches, the murmuring sounds of a stream reached her ears.
    With careful steps, she picked her way towards the sound of the flowing water. She came across a shallow chasm, long and narrow like a deep scar. Clusters of stalactites reached down from the roof. Stalagmites, like giants’ fingers, stretched upwards. At the bottom of the chasm a stream gurgled.
    It was then that she felt her spine tingle. She was being watched. She flashed her torch around the cave. It wasn’t the wombat, she was sure of that. His eyes couldn’t hide from the beam of her torch. No, it was something else, something you couldn’t see. With a rising uneasiness, she made her way back towards the cave’s entrance, shining the light from side to side as she went.
    A sharp cry escaped from her throat. There it was on the wall, a familiar drawing. She had missed seeing it when she had first come in, probably because she’d been so intent on finding the source of the water. She shone her light onto the carving, studying its every feature – the swirls, the tracks and the jagged circles. Like the ranger had told them, the tracks held a symbolic meaning for the original owners of the land. Animals had been important; they were a food source. She understood that. What did puzzle her were the small circular shapes that did not seem to belong.
    Then, suddenly and without warning, the figure began to change.
    Jars held her breath. She stood, wide-eyed and deathly still. The face of an old man appeared on the rock face – the ancient being, who had spoken to her.
    â€˜What is it?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’
    His words formed like magic in her head: ‘The rocks are weeping. Kodkuna yultan.’
    Transfixed, as though suspended in time, she stared. Then, as quickly as it had formed, the drawing faded. Once again, it became a series of swirls and dashes.
    Her eyes searched the floor beneath the carving. She gasped and took a step backward. There, at her feet, were the remains of a dead person – a pile of white bones.
    Her body began to tremble. She tried to move her legs but they refused to obey.
    The wombat’s soft fur brushed against her legs as it swayed slowly past her. It was heading towards the exit. It stopped and turned, as though asking her to follow. It was time to leave.
    â€˜Let’s go, Shadow,’ she urged, somehow finding the will and strength to tear herself away. As she stumbled towards the wombat and the outside light, her mind screamed at what she had seen. The ranger had been right. She had seen it for herself. She had just witnessed some sort of sorcery, the magic of the cave.
    Still shaking, she reached the exit and wriggled through the narrow opening. Standing erect, she brushed her face and hair with her hands. Something was there, clinging and sticking. She pulled her hand away, looking at the sticky mass that had clung to her fingers. The remains of the spider webs, the ghostly fingers that had clutched at Quenton Quigley’s throat.
    She swatted them off and looked around. The wombat had gone. She shivered. It was chilly. She glanced towards the sun, now lower in the sky. Soon it would disappear behind the mountains.
    Quickly, Jars set out