Henry, Aisling, Zachary, Irene, Flora and Percy left the crumbling boundary of the chapel and followed the path the brambles had taken.

The only way around the tide of bristling, twitching, barbed tendrils was through a grotto of smaller caves. There were myriad tunnels and gaps between huge boulders that had come to rest there, aeons ago. Water trickled down the cavern stalactites and the rock face in a glistening, slimy sheen, and the barbed thicket reached through each damp part like prying fingers.

‘This is wild land. I’ve never been further so I don’t know what’s beyond,’ Henry muttered to the others as he cast his lantern about.

‘Even after all the time you’ve spent here?’ asked Irene.

‘Yes, even after all the time I’ve spent here. It doesn’t do you good to poke around in what doesn’t concern you,’ Henry rebuked, and Irene looked quite hurt.

Henry shook his head. ‘So happens I don’t know everything, even after all this time,’ he said in a more neutral tone, and led on through a tunnel.

They travelled further into the wilder reaches of the caves, where many whispers, chuckles and unexplained noises echoed like a deep forest night. Here, though, the thorns had taken less of a hold and appeared sickly, weak, and flimsy.

‘It’s drier here, we’ve left the damp behind,’ observed Percy.

They emerged from the maze-like network of tunnels and crevices to a wider chamber in the rock. The band of light was visible, a long way in the distance. Here, the dry tendrils that crackled underfoot rose to a solid wall. It was tall, warped and bristling with spikes and didn’t even offer a glimpse inside, no matter how far they walked around. For all the height it had grown to, the wall was dry and brittle. The leaves were black and flaked off like ash when Henry ran his gauntlet along it.

‘What is this? It isn’t natural surely. Is this the work of the fey folk?’ Flora wondered aloud.

‘Fey aren’t the only ones down here. There are tales I’ve heard of other beings that gather in these caves. Things that draw strength from the magic,’ Henry replied.

‘Like what?’ asked Flora.

‘Could be anything. I’ve been down here a while, but I don’t have all the answers,’ Henry said in a weary voice. ‘We need to find out for ourselves.’

‘Can you burn it with magic like before?’ asked Percy.

‘I feel that would be unwise, being this close to the source. Besides, I don’t have much powdered ore left. I’m running dry and am not too happy about having to use it today.’ It sounded as though Henry grit his teeth as he spoke. ‘See if you can work a way through, even better would be without breaking any strands. You never know what might happen.’

Aisling hooked a pickaxe around one cluster of vines and pulled them back. They made a brittle, cracking noise as they parted way. With help from the others and their tools, in time they made a parting wide enough to duck through.

‘What if it snaps shut on us when we’re halfway through?’ Zachary quavered. Aisling was about to take the first step through the parting. She stopped, with her foot in the air, and then put it back where it was before.

Henry gave a fierce grumble and his rough, fearsome helmet shot a scowl Zachary’s way. He went first and although the thorns picked and tore at the sacking layer under his metal plates, the vines remained still.

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An unexpected sight met their eyes as they passed through the gap.

‘A garden!’ Exclaimed Flora. ‘Look, it has pathways and trees; these must be flowerbeds and lawns. But oh, they’re all dried up and dead.’ Flora cast her lantern about and illuminated dead, white, grass and beds of flowers that were grey, lifeless, and desiccated. ‘There’s no water, and no light. No wonder it’s all dried up.’

‘When it was in bloom it must have been beautiful,’ remarked Zachary.

‘Who planted all this, and how did they manage to grow it down here?’ wondered Percy.

They followed gravel pathways tastefully lined with cut stone and privet hedges, and then turned a corner to the centre of the garden. Here, the plant life was not dead, but was wilting and wracked with disease. Rats scuttled among the plant matter that remained alive, away from the lanterns’ light. The yellowed, sagging leaves were chewed through by rats, slugs and maggots that hung off them in fat gobbets and the air was heavy with a droning cacophony of flies.

At the centre of the garden appeared to be a stone altar with a tree growing from it. Around the tree’s branches were tiny specks of light that floated in the air, as fine as sand. The glow they made was weak, so much so, that with it one could barely see that the tree had silvery bark and scant few leaves.

‘What are those lights?’ asked Aisling. She walked closer to the tree and swung a kick at some lingering rats on the way. She reached up to waft her hand through the little specks of light. They floated away from her fingertips, as light as smoke, and just as impossible to grasp.

Aisling gave a sudden gasp and stumbled back away from the tree. ‘There’s a body! There’s a body in the roots!’ she exclaimed.

The others came forward and saw that there was indeed a young girl inside the altar. Her deathly pallid body was pinned down in a bed of earth by the tree’s roots. A layer of vicious looking, blood red nettles with a downy layer of stinging fur was wound around the tree’s roots and cloaked the body inside like a veil. The girl inside gasped, twitched and grimaced in discomfort.

A stray rat fell from where it gnawed on a tree branch. The unfortunate creature dropped down on to the nettles where it squealed and writhed in a wide-eyed frenzy for a few moments before it stiffened up and lay still.

‘She’s trapped in there. This thing must be draining the life out of her!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Let me see if I can get her out.’

Henry tore at the nettles with his stave, and tried to prise a root away with it. Within the tree roots, the girl’s eyes fluttered open. Each eye was black like the berries of nightshade. Her mouth opened and she let out a piercing shriek that shook all those around to their core and made them weak at the knees.

‘Get out, pest! Always hurting my garden, always hurting me.’ A voice, feeble and trembling, came from the girl in the tree roots. The breath it took to speak the words sounded frail and tormented.

‘We’re trying to help you, we’re going to get you out,’ Henry explained. He held each side of his helmet, as his ears rang.

‘You can’t uproot me. You should have stayed out. This garden is my home; this garden is me,’ the girl made great effort to speak each phrase. Her eyes fluttered shut again, and she make pained gasps.

‘The garden is you?’ Flora asked in bafflement.

‘It’s alright, it’s fine. We’ll leave,’ Zachary interjected and tugged on Flora and Irene’s sleeves to pull them away from the tree and the body tangled in its roots.

‘My soil needs nourishment. So sick. So dry, so thirsty,’ the girl intoned in a feverish whisper.

‘Water! You want water!’ Flora exclaimed. ‘The thorns aren’t after us, or the chapel. They want the water flooding the other side. Yes, we can get you water!’

‘Little pests everywhere, come to feed off me. Get out!’ the girl whispered in a delirious murmur. Her eyes partially opened again, this time seeming as though she might cry. ‘On the other side is the one who wants winter. Unnatural frost bites my vines and freezes them. She took my water and froze it so now I have to reach further. Too far; past the building of that damned company. Enemies on the outside and pests within. It hurts…’

Away on the edge of the garden there was a brittle cracking as the wall of thorns parted. Through it, an unpleasant, cold wind blew that nipped at everyone’s faces. The girl fell back to silence and fitful sleep.

‘What can we do about all these rats and slugs and– ‘ Zachary swatted grotesque, bloated flies away from his face. ‘-Everything else? Should we stay and try to drive some off?’

‘We’ll be here forever,’ Aisling grumbled in a flat response.

‘We can’t do much about this mess. The best we can do is to see what froze her source of water,’ Henry said, his steps crackling over a bed of dry reeds. He made off for the parting in the thorns and the others hastened along after.