The Willows were whining and were getting louder, the nearer the children came as they went through them, the ‘Whining Willows,’ (as Mary now named them), were obviously very unhappy at having the children there. Or maybe, Mary thought, they were just hungry!
As they passed by, Roger gave out a sudden cry of alarm, with a strangulated “erkkk, erkkk!” he gargled and gasped, his arms and legs flailing wildly in the air.
He had been grabbed tightly around the neck and the waist and the Whining Willow Tree was hauling him upwards into its hidden maw; Roger was to be eaten as plant-food.
Mary quickly spun around and rushed to his rescue. She found he’d already been pulled several feet up into the green, leafy mass of the writhing Willow Tree. A particularly hungry ‘Whining Willow’ had suddenly lashed out, with several of its long, whip-like branches, and had caught him as an unexpected but most welcome and tasty morsel.
Very soon, Roger would be swallowed and gobbled up and gone!
“Oh, Grizzly Gremlins! A Carnivorous Tree! We don’t want those, do we?” Mary cried.
Roger couldn’t properly answer her, though. He was too busy swinging high above her and being slowly strangled to death.
Mary ran to where Roger was dangling and trying to loosen the tree’s woody grip from around his neck. She could see he was growing somewhat purple in the face.
“D-d-do something, erkk,” Roger managed to choke, “its ch-ch-choking, erkkk, meeeee!”
“Hold on, Roj, I’ll get you,” she cried, jumping up and trying to stop him going up higher.
She started pulling at his legs, but that just made things worse, she soon realized, as Roger yelped in protest. She somehow had to loosen those thin, rope-like branches that were coiling in an ever-tightening stranglehold around his neck. Every second counted, as Roger began to shake and splutter, no longer able to talk.
Then, before she could do anything else, the Whining Willow Tree itself suddenly began to violently tremble and shake. Leaves and fronds scattered on the ground all around her.
Mary then saw there was something up in the tree that she couldn’t quite make out.
The atmosphere around the Whining Willow had suddenly become shadowy and ominous. Even the spaces in between the trees had darkened even more.
The whole copse of Willows, in fact, seemed to have sunk into a somber, twilight gloom, where the very idea of something like day or sunlight seemed completely strange and alien.
The Willow tree’s whining now grew louder and shriller. Mary knew there was definitely something up in that tree; and the tree didn’t like it one bit, or at least, didn’t like whatever the mysterious something was doing up there.
Then without warning, the tree shivered and trembled, and then stopped its shaking and suddenly let Roger go. It just uncoiled, pulling its branches away; and as it did so, all the dim shadows lightened, and the natural greenness of the Wood returned to normal. Whatever it was that had been up in that tree, it had very effectively come to Roger’s rescue.
Roger tumbled from the fronds down onto the ground, still choking and falling heavily into Mary’s arms. He clung to her for a short while, spluttering, red-faced and breathless.
Eventually, he got his breath back and rubbing his sore neck, he looked urgently upwards and all around him, in order to see who, he could thank for saving his life; as did Mary too, but they couldn’t see anybody there at all.
“B-b-by Galileo’s Galloping Grasshoppers!” Roger exclaimed. “What on Elrond’s Erf was all that about? I think that Willow tree th-th-thingy really wanted to eat me, you know!”
There was simply no sign of anybody or anything else there at all. The grove of Whining Willows was as docile and as well behaved as you’d expect any ‘ordinary’ willow trees to be; even their incessant whining had reduced to but a barely audible background wuthering.
“It’s almost like we’ve got a guardian Angel or something,” Mary mused quietly to herself. Then she turned her attention back to Roger. “Are you all right, Roj; no broken bones or anything I hope?”
“I’m f-f-fine thanks,” he groaned with a pained look. “Huh, and some Knight I turned out to be!” he said wryly. “Must have looked a right twerp dangling there like that!”
Roger quickly retrieved his fallen satchel and brushed himself down, then put on the bravest face he could. He was sure there had been someone up there with him who had done something to the Willow. But he hadn’t been able to get a good look at anything, not while swinging around and being hanged.
He turned toward Mary and said, “Really strange that was, Mary; not the sort of behaviour I’d expect from a normal tree at all, and I think there was someone up there as well who somehow persuaded it to let me go, you know?”
Mary nodded her agreement. Then they turned North and set off once more. After a short while she told him, “There’s obviously things in this wood that we just don’t know anything about, Roj, so we should probably be prepared for anything.”
“Right,” Roger agreed ruefully. “Let’s get on and get to this Smoking Tree then, eh?”
They were now well on their way to the much sought for Smoking Tree. And Roger was feeling in a better heroic mood now, having survived a death-tangle with a Man-eating Tree!
He followed in Mary’s wake. And in fact, both were feeling hypnotically drawn onwards, but by something more than just simple, idle curiosity. They both secretly felt like they had some important purpose for being there, in the ‘Bad Wood’ that was, but without the faintest idea as to what that purpose could possibly be.
Mary though was also feeling puzzled. “Hmmm, there’s definitely more to this Bad Wood an’ the things in it than meets the bloomin’ eye,” she quietly mused, as she loped onwards.
But she too, was soon in her stride and her element once again, peering all about her with a keen eye for any as yet undiscovered wonders of Mother Nature that might be on display in this wonderful, brand-new world of spectacular, botanical splendours.
One thing that soon took her fancy was the strange, luminescent and large mistletoe-like plants, with their round clusters of milky, moon-like orbs. She saw these sprouting more and more frequently up amongst the branches of the bigger trees. These were all nestled in green, waxy leaves surrounding a cluster of several large, creamy berries, that glowed pale and cool, like tiny, full moons.
“Just a mo’, Roj, I gotta get some of these Moon-berries, they’re wonderful,” she called.
She picked a few sprigs she could barely reach, hanging from the branch of a nearby tree. The tree seemed to shudder slightly as she did so. Seemingly, it did not like giving up any of its ‘Moon-berries.’ Mary duly noticed this and so only took a small handful of the berries and then quietly and politely apologized to the tree for not asking its permission first.
“This place is very strange, but it’s really wonderful too,” she sighed. “Juss think of all the new plants an’ herbs I could name an’ discover, Roj! I bet there’re all sorts of new medicines and tasty foods too; all sorts of fantastic stuff I could find here.”
“Harrumph!” Roger grunted at her. “I think you need to actually ‘discover’ them first, Mary, and then you can name them after that. You’re not just making up names for some new mental illnesses like those Psychonomy Doctors do all the time, now are you?”
Mary’s face immediately dropped at the mention of such mental illnesses. Roger quickly realized his thoughtless mistake and immediately apologised, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mary, please d-d-don’t listen to me; what do I know, you’re the B-b-botanist, after all.”
“Oh, that’s alright, Roj,” Mary answered quietly, “It just made me think of me mum when you said that, that’s all. I do wish she was with me now, you know, more than anything, I do. She loved flowers and plants, even more than me, I think.”