Chapter Three - The Wood Between The Worlds

Aunt Andrea and her study vanished instantly. Then, for a moment, everything became muddled. The next thing Digma knew was that there was a soft green light falling on her from above, and darkness below. She didn't seem to be standing on anything. There was nothing around her. She didn't seem to be standing on anything. There was nothing touching her.

"I believe I'm under water," said Digma. But she got no water in her mouth when she said this.

This frightened her for a second, but almost at once she could feel that she was rushing upwards. Then her head suddenly popped out into the air and she found herself scrambling ashore, out on to grassy ground at the edge of a pool.

As she rose to her feet she noticed that she was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. Her clothes were perfectly dry. She was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together so she could get no glimpse of the sky through the foliage. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm.

It was the quietest wood she had ever been in. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. She could almost feel the trees growing. The pool she had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as her eyes could reach. She could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. When she tried to describe it afterwards Digma always said, "It was a rich place: as rich as plum pudding."

The strangest thing was that, almost before she had looked about her, Digma had half forgotten how she had come there. At any rate, she was certainly not thinking about Paul, or Aunt Andrea, or even her father. She was not in the least frightened, or excited, or curious. If anyone had asked her, "Where did you come from?" she would probably have said, "But I've always been here."

That was what it felt like - as if she had always been in that place and never been bored although nothing had ever happened. As she said long afterwards, "It's not the sort of place where things happen. The trees go on growing, that's all."

After Digma had looked at the wood for a long time, she noticed that there was a boy lying on his back at the foot of an oak tree a few yards away. His eyes were nearly shut but not quite, as if he were just between sleeping and waking. She studied him and said nothing. And at last he opened his eyes and said nothing but gazed at her for a while. Then he spoke, in a dreamy, contented sort of voice.

"I think I've seen you before," he said.

"I rather think so too," said Digma. "Have you been here long?"

"Oh, always," said the boy. "At least - I don't know, a very long time."

"So have I," said Digma.

"No you haven't, said he. "I've just seen you come up out of that pool."

"Yes, I suppose I did," said Digma with a puzzled air, "I'd forgotten."

Then for quite a long time neither said any more.

"Look here," said the boy presently, "I wonder did we ever really meet before? I had a sort of idea - a sort of picture in my head - of a a girl and a boy, like us - living somewhere quite different - and doing all sorts of things. Perhaps it was only a dream."

"I've had that same dream, I think," said Digma. "About a girl and a boy, living next door - and something about crawling among rafters. I remember the boy had a dirty face."

"Aren't you getting it mixed? In my dream it was the girl who had the dirty face."

"I can't remember the girl's face," said Digma: and then added, "Hullo! What's that?"

"Why! it's a guinea-pig," said the boy. And it was - a fat brown and white guinea-pig, nosing about in the grass.

But round the middle of the guinea-pig there ran a narrow blue tape, and, tied on to it by the tape, was a bright yellow ring.

"Look! look," cried Digma, "The yellow ring! And look! You've got one just like it on your finger. And so have I."

The boy now sat up, really interested at last. They stared very hard at one another, trying to remember. And then, at exactly the same moment, he shouted out, "Miss Ketterley" and she yelled, "Aunt Andrea", and they knew who they were and began to remember the whole story. After a few minutes' hard talking they had got it straight. Digma explained how beastly Aunt Andrea had been.

Digma went up to the guinea pig, picked it up and cradling it, stroked its soft fur.

"What do we do now?" said Paul. "Take the guinea pig and go home?"

"There's no hurry," said Digma with a huge yawn.

"I think there is," said Paul. "This place is too quiet. It's so - so drowsy. You're almost asleep. If we once give in to it we shall just lie down and dream for ever and ever."

"It's very nice here," said Digma.

"Yes, it is," said Paul. "But we've got to get back. We might as well leave the guinea-pig," he said. "It's perfectly happy here, and your aunt will only do something horrid to it if we take it home."

"I bet she would," answered Digma. "Look at the way she's treated us. She wanted me to bring it back but I shan't." She put the guinea-pig down and it wandered away. "By the way, how do we get home?"

"Go back into the pool, I expect."

They came and stood together at the edge looking down into the smooth water. It was full of the reflection of the green, leafy branches; they made it look very deep.

"We haven't any bathing things," said Paul.

"We shan't need them, silly," said Digma. "We're going in with our clothes on. Don't you remember we didn't get wet?"

"Can you swim?"

"A bit. Can you?"

"Well - not much."

"I don't think we shall need to swim," said Digma "We want to go down, don't we?"

Neither of them much liked the idea of jumping into that pool, but neither said so to the other.

They took hands and said "One - Two - Three - Go" and jumped. There was a great splash and of course they closed their eyes. But when they opened them again they found they were still standing, hand in hand, in the green wood, and hardly up to their ankles in water. The pool was apparently only a couple of inches deep. They splashed back on to the dry ground.

"What on earth's gone wrong?" asked Paul. He felt he should be alarmed but was hard to feel really frightened in that wood. The place was too peaceful.

"Oh! I know," said Digma, "Of course it won't work. We're still wearing our yellow rings. They're for the outward journey, you know. The green ones take you home. We must change rings. Have you got pockets? Good. Put your yellow ring in your left. I've got two greens. Here's one for you."

They put on their green rings and came back to the pool. But before they tried another jump Digma exclaimed, "O-ooh!"

"What's the matter?" asked Paul.

"I've just had a really wonderful idea," said Digma. "What about all the other pools?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, if we can get back to our own world by jumping into this pool, mightn't we get somewhere else by jumping into one of the others? Suppose there was a world at the bottom of every pool?"

"But I thought we were already in your Aunt Andrea's "other world or "other place" or whatever she called it. Didn't you say -"

"Oh bother Aunt Andrea," Digma interrupted. "I don't believe she knows anything about it. She never had the pluck to come here herself. She only talked of one "other world." But suppose there were dozens?"

"You mean, this wood might be only one of them?"

"No, I don't believe this wood is a world at all. I think it's just a sort of in-between place."

Paul looked puzzled.

"Don't you see?" asked Digma. "No, do listen. Think of our tunnel under the slates at home. It isn't a room in any of the houses. In a way, it isn't really part of any of the houses. But once you're in the tunnel you can go along it and come into any of the houses in the row. Mightn't this wood be the same? - a place that isn't in any of the worlds, but once you've found that place you can get into them all."

"Well, even if you can -" began Paul, but Digma went on as if she hadn't heard him.

"And of course that explains everything," she said. "That's why it is so quiet and sleepy here. Nothing ever happens here. Like at home. It's in the houses that people talk, and do things, and have meals. Nothing goes on in the in-between places, behind the walls and above the ceilings and under the floor, or in our own tunnel. But when you come out of our tunnel you may find yourself in any house. I think we can get out of this place into jolly well anywhere! We don't need to jump back into the same pool we came up by. Or not just yet."

"The Wood between the Worlds," said Paul dreamily. "It sounds rather nice."

"Come on," said Digma. "Which pool shall we try?"

"Look here," said Paul, "I'm not going to try any new pool till we've made sure that we can get back by the old one. We're not even sure if it'll work yet."

"Yes," said Digma. "And get caught by Aunt Andrea and have our rings taken away before we've had any fun. No thanks."

"Couldn't we just go part of the way down into our own pool?" asked Paul. "Just to see if it works. Then if it does, we'll change rings and come up again before we're really back in Miss Ketterley's study."

"Can we go part of the way down?"

"Well, it took time coming up. I suppose it'll take a little time going back."

Digma made rather a fuss about agreeing to this, but she had to in the end because Paul absolutely refused to do any exploring in new worlds until he had made sure about getting back to the old one. He was quite as brave as she about some dangers (wasps, for instance) but he was not so interested in finding out things nobody had ever heard of before. Digma was the sort of person who wants to know everything, and when she grew up she became the famous Professor Kirke who comes into other books.

After a good deal of arguing they agreed to put on their green rings ("Green for safety," said Digma, "so you can't help remembering which is which") and hold hands and jump. But as soon as they seemed to be getting back to Aunt Andrea's study, or even to their own world, Paul was to shout "Change" and they would slip off their greens and put on their yellows. Digma wanted to be the one who shouted "Change" but Paul wouldn't agree.

They put on the green rings, took hands, and once more shouted "One -Two - Three - Go". This time it worked. At first there were bright lights moving about in a black sky; Digma always thought these were stars and even swore that she saw the great globe of Jupiter quite close -close enough to see its rings. But almost at once they could see the Tower and Big Ben and there were rows and rows of roofs and chimney pots about them. They knew they were looking at London. But you could see through the walls of all the houses. Then they could see Aunt Andrea, very vague and shadowy, but getting clearer and more solid-looking all the time, just as if she were coming into focus. But before she became quite real, Paul shouted "Change", and they changed rings.

Their world faded away like a dream, and the green light above shone stronger and stronger, till their heads came out of the pool and they scrambled ashore. And there was the wood all about them, as green and still as ever. The whole thing had taken less than a minute.

"There!" said Digma. "That's alright. Now for the adventure. Any pool will do. Come on. Let's try that one."

"Stop!" said Paul- "Aren't we going to mark this pool?"

They stared at each other and turned quite white as they realized the dreadful thing that Digma had just been going to do. For there were any number of pools in the wood, and the pools were all alike and the trees were all alike, so that if they had once left behind the pool that led to their own world without making some sort of landmark, the chances would have been a hundred to one against their ever finding it again.

Digma's hand shook as she opened her penknife and cut out a long strip of turf on the bank of the pool. The soil (which smelled nice) was of a rich reddish brown and showed up well against the green.

"It's a good thing one of us has some sense," said Paul.

"Well don't keep on gassing about it," snapped Digma. "Come along, I want to see what's in one of the other pools."

"I like that! You ungrateful girl. I've just saved us from never getting home again," retorted Paul.

"You don't have to swank about it. Just like a stuck-up boy!"

The quarrel lasted for several minutes but they made it up in the end. Digma even magnanimously allowed Paul to pick the pool. Then they stood with beating hearts and rather scared faces on the edge of the unknown pool with their yellow rings on and held hands and once more said "One - Two - Three - Go!"

Splash! Once again it hadn't worked. This pool, too, seemed to be only a large puddle. Instead of reaching a new world they only got their feet wet and water splashed their legs for the second time that morning.

"Blast and botheration!" exclaimed Digma. "What's gone wrong now? We've put our yellow rings on all right. She said yellow for the outward journey."

Now the truth was that Aunt Andrea, who knew nothing about the Wood between the Worlds, had quite a wrong idea about the rings. The yellow ones weren't "outward" rings and the green ones weren't "homeward" rings; at least, not in the way she thought.

The stuff of which both were made had all come from the wood. The stuff in the yellow rings had the power of drawing them into the wood; it was stuff that wanted to get back to its own place, the in-between place. But the stuff in the green rings was stuff that was trying to get out of its own place: so that a green ring would take them out of the wood into a world.

Aunt Andrea, was working with things she did not really understand; most sorceresses are. Of course Digma did not realize the truth quite clearly either, or not till later. But when they had talked it over, they decided to try their green rings on the new pool, just to see what happened.

"I'm game if you are," said Paul.

But he really said this because, in his heart of hearts, he now felt sure that neither kind of ring was going to work at all in the new pool, and so there was nothing worse to be afraid of than another splash. Digma had the same feeling. At any rate, when they had both put on their greens and come back to the edge of the water, and taken hands again, they were certainly a good deal more cheerful and less solemn than they had been the first time.

"One - Two - Three - Go!" shouted Digma. And they jumped.