'I have tried to explain to the raccoon, the Brownie said, 'that if you came you would be a friend. I am not too sure, however, that he understood. He is not too bright an animal and he is, as you can well imagine, still suffering a trauma.
'I will try not to alarm him, Blake assured the Brownie. 'I will make no sudden moves. Will there be room for the both of us?
'Oh, most assuredly, the Brownie said. 'My home is a hollow tree. There is a great deal of room in it.
Good Lord, thought Blake, could this be really happening — standing out there in the wood, talking to a thing that should be snared inside a children's book, being invited to den up in a hollow tree and share it with a coon.
And from where had come the memory of the coon hunt? Had he ever, actually, been on such a hunt? It seemed impossible. For he knew what he was — a chemically-processed human, and processed for one purpose and for one purpose only, and it seemed unlikely, in view of that, he'd ever hunted coon.
'If you will follow me, the Brownie said, 'I will lead you to the tree.
Blake followed the Brownie and it seemed to him that he had stepped into a mad painter's fairyland. Jewel-like leaves of every shade of gold and red hung on all the undergrowth, the saplings, the shrubby bushes, the very woodland plants — matching in finer detail and more delicate and brighter colours the riot of autumn pigments in the overhanging trees. And once again the memory of another place, or perhaps many other places, such as this, came back again to him. Memories with no detail as to time or place, but breath-catching in the remembered beauty of another wood on an-other day, caught in that instant of time when the autumn hues were at their brightest and their best, before the first hint of deterioration had touched them, at that exact moment before they would begin to fade.
They followed a faint trail, so faint that few eyes could have picked it out.
'It is pretty in here, said the Brownie. 'I like autumn best of all. I understand that on the old home planet there was no such thing as autumn.
'You still know about your planet?
'Of course, the Brownie said. 'The old stories are passed on. It is still our heritage. In time, I would imagine, we will forget about it, for Earth then will be our planet. But, as yet, we must maintain a solid grip on the both of them.
They came to a mammoth tree, a mighty oak eight feet or more across its trunk, gnarled and misshapen, twisted, with the heavy scales of lichen colonies turning its bark into brown and silver. Around its base grew heavy ranks of ferns. The Brownie pulled the ferns apart.
'In here, he told Blake. 'I apologize, but you must get down on your hands and knees and crawl. It is not a place that was designed for humans.
Blake got down and crawled. The ferns rubbed across his face and brushed his neck and then he was in a soft, cool darkness that smelled of ancient wood. From some place up above a little light filtered down to break up the darkness.
He twisted carefully around and sat down cautiously.
'In a little time, the Brownie said, standing at his elbow, 'your eyes will become accustomed to the gloom and you can see again.
'I can see a little now, said Blake. 'There is some light.
'From knot-holes higher up the trunk, the Brownie told him. 'The tree is dying of old age. It is nothing but a shell. Once, long ago, it was scarred by a forest fire and that gave the rot a chance to work. But unless it is shaken by too great a wind, it will last for many years. And, in the meantime, it serves as a home for us, and, higher up, there is a home for a family of squirrels. And the nests of many birds, although by now most of the birds have left. Through the years this tree has been home to many things. Living in it, there is a feeling of belonging.
His eyes had become somewhat adjusted to the darkness and now Blake could see the inside of the tree. The inner surface was fairly smooth; all loose rot apparently had been removed. The hollow core rose like a shaft above his head and, far up this tunnel Blake could see small areas of brightness where knotholes let in the light.
'You will be undisturbed, the Brownie said. 'There are two others of us. I might suppose in the human terminology they would be described as wives. But they are rather shy of humans. And there are some children too.
'I'm sorry, Blake said 'I would not think…
'No need of sorrow, said the Brownie. 'The wives will turn their time to much good use in the gathering of roots and nuts and the children never stay here anyhow. They have so many woodland friends that they spend all their time with them.
Blake looked about the tree. There was nothing in it.
'No furniture, the Brownie told him, quietly. 'No material possessions. We have never needed them; we do not need them now. We have some food — caches of nuts and corn and grain and roots — stored against the winter, but that is all we have. You will, I hope, think none the less of us for this improvidence.
Blake shook his head, half in answer, half in bewilderment.
Something stirred quietly in a darkened angle of the tree-house and Blake turned his head. A masked, furry face peered out at him, eyes shining in the darkness.
'Our other friend, the Brownie said. 'He does not seem to be afraid of you.
'I shall do nothing to harm him, said Blake, a little stiffly.
'You are hungry? asked the Brownie. 'We have…
'No, thanks, said Blake. 'I ate this morning, with a compatriot of yours.
The Brownie nodded, sagely. 'He told me you were coming. That's why I waited for you. He could not offer you a place to sleep; he has nothing but a burrow, quite too small for humans.
The Brownie turned to go.
'I don't quite know, said Blake, 'how I am to thank you.
'You have already thanked us, the Brownie said. 'You have accepted us and accepted aid from us. And that is most important, I assure you, for ordinarily it is we who seek help from humans. To pay back a fraction of that help is very precious.
Blake looked around to the raccoon. It was still watching him with its fire-bright eyes. When he looked back, the Brownie was gone.
Blake reached out and pulled his knapsack to him, rummaged in its contents. A thin and compact blanket, unlike anything he had ever seen, with a strange metallic lustre; a knife in a sheath; a folding axe; a small kit of cooking utensils; a lighter and a can of fluid; a folded map; a flashlight;
A map!
He picked it up and unfolded it, used the flashlight to light it, leaning close to make out the place names.
Willow Grove, a hundred miles or so away, the engineer had said. And there it was, the place that he was going. Finally, he thought, a destination in this world and situation where there had seemed to be no destinations. A place upon a map and a person, with an unremembered name, who had information that might be of interest to him.
He laid the blanket to one side and put the rest of the items back into the knapsack.
The raccoon, he saw, had crept a little closer, its curiosity apparently aroused by the things he had taken from the knapsack.
Blake moved over close to the wall, unfolded the blanket and pulled it over his body, tucked it in and lay down. The blanket seemed to cling to him, as if his body were a magnet, and for all its thinness there was warmth in it. The floor was soft and there were no lumps in it. Blake picked up a handful of the substance that composed it, and let it run slowly through his fingers. Tiny fragments of rotted wood, he saw, fragments that for years had fallen down from the tunnel of the hollowed trunk.
He closed his eyes and sleep crept in on him. His consciousness seemed to sink into a pit and there was something in the pit — two other selves that caught and held him and surrounded him so that he became one with them. Like a coming home, like a meeting with old friends not seen for much too long. There were no words and no words were needed. There was a welcome and an understanding and a seeming oneness and he was no longer Andrew Blake, and was not even human, but a being for which there was no name, and something that measured greater than either Andrew Blake or human.