Man of wood

We’ve been inside the farmhouse. It was just before sunset that the wooden man waved to us again, just once. It was enough to spur Kathy into action. She crept up the stairs. I followed close behind. It’s a tight squeeze, fitting a dragon into a human home, but we’re not as big as legend would have you believe. I could tell Kathy was scared by the way she gripped the stair rail. I was scared too. Still am, if truth be told.

He was waiting in the bedroom. Somehow he’d managed to turn round. I held back and let Kathy do the talking.

‘Who are you?’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Are you all right?’

The wooden man’s mouth creaked open. A big black weevil crawled out. Kathy screamed and shrank back against my scales. The man lifted his hand, seized the weevil and flicked it through the window. All his movements were painfully slow, and accompanied by a terrible splintering sound.

‘Leave,’ he said. His voice was low and shivery. His breath smelled of sawdust.

‘But you called us,’ said Kathy. ‘Isn’t there something we can do to help?’

‘No ... thing,’ said the wooden man. ‘Time ... turns ... go ...’

The man took a step towards us. When he did so, part of the floor came with him. He was rooted to it, I realised, by hundreds of little tendrils. Many of these burst, spraying amber resin up his legs.

‘Dra ... gon,’ he said, staring at me with smooth ebony eyes. ‘Tun ... nel ... of ... all ... ends.’

Then his head snapped back. Briars burst from his mouth, his ears, his eyes. Thick brambles climbed his legs and enveloped his waist. He jerked, then writhing creepers choked him into stillness. Finally he just hung there, suspended in a nest thorn and berry, hardly recognisable as a man at all.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Kathy. ‘Before the same thing happens to us.’

On the way down the stairs, she said to me, ‘Do you know what he meant? About time turning?’ I shook my head. ‘And what on Earth is the tunnel of all ends?’

My hesitation gave me away. As we crossed the wooden farmyard – which was rapidly becoming overwhelmed by creepers – she kept asking me about it. I said I’d tell her as soon as we were safe in the air. So we’re on our way to an open field, where I can get a clear take-off without worrying about some rogue plant life taking us down. Once we’re airborne, I’ll tell her what I know.