On the grass, under the sunshine of the real world, the Writer watched the dark entrance to the Story Warren. Night spilling from its opening, a dark blot on the hillside. The entrance to another world. To all the other worlds: the Story Warren was where the words came from, and words could do anything.
The Writer gripped her pen tightly. The only tool a writer needed, inside the Story Warren. The pen lit the way through the tunnels. It illuminated the words.
To explore the Story Warren was all she’d ever wanted. To find the stories with her pen. She was meant for it. Somewhere behind her, out in the sun, were her friends and family, leading ordinary lives. But this, the Story Warren, this was hers.
She rushed forward, plunged into the dark. She held her pen aloft before her. The light from the real world outside vanished. But the pen lit up; the sides of a long, twisted tunnel swelled out of the dark.
The Writer ran on, eager, staring ahead in the light of the pen. Tunnels fanned out, striking this way and that, some climbing up, others plunging into the deeper dark. Each seemed different. Some were walled in wood, or brick like houses. Others sparkled like the night sky, or seemed entirely transparent, as if carved from water.
The Writer dashed to and fro down the tunnels, the light from her pen skidding all about.
Long tendrils grew down from the ceiling. In a few places, blades like grass sprouted up from the floor. The Writer laughed with joy as she ran her hands along them, feeling their possibilities.
Words. Strings of words to make stories with. They grew in the Story Warren, and with the pen, the Writer could find the right ones to make the right story.
Face split by a grin, the Writer gathered up the words. She didn’t know what they were for yet, but they made her smile to see their form. She’d found words already! The Story Warren really was her calling. She began to wonder how deep into the warren she would go. She never wanted to leave.
The Writer headed deeper and deeper into the tunnels, walking now as she hunted for new patches of words. She must be heading for something good, she thought, to have found words so soon.
The tunnel walls became more and more plain the further she went, the branches less frequent. Eagerly, the Writer peered ahead with the light of her pen, searching out the way forward. She took a side shoot off the main tunnel, spying a fresh patch of words.
Her feet tripped on the rougher ground, forcing her to go more slowly. Boulders appeared out of the darkness, hunched in the tunnel like sulking stone creatures. The first few she could walk around, but soon they lay close together, forcing her to climb up and over. Their rough surfaces scraped her hands. Up close they smelt like gunpowder.
Panting at the top of a tough climb, the Writer stopped to look back the way she’d come. She couldn’t see the main tunnel any more. Perhaps going back would be a better idea. But ahead, a long tendril of words waved gently down the ceiling.
Smiling, she clambered from the boulder, climbing the next and reaching up to stroke the long line of words. Beyond it, she could see another, and in the distance, four more. She carefully picked the line from the ceiling and tucked it into the bag at her side.
Up another boulder, a squeeze through the crack between the next two. She knocked her head on the one that followed. Her eyes smarted as she climbed up to another set of words.
On it went, each word growth just in sight of the last, the light from her pen illuminating them in the darkness. But the boulders got larger, more jumbled. They forced the Writer to search for a way up, or around. The light from her pen caught in the crevices between them, throwing deep shadows across the rounded stones. But it also lit up the words growing from the ceiling.
Then came a place where the boulders were crammed so close together, she could hop from the top of one to the next. Moving faster, she started grinning again. There were words ahead of her, and her pen lit the way.
A hop, a slide, a jump and then another. The tunnel walls flashed by as the Writer picked up speed, snatching at words as she went. This was it, a true story forming under the light of her pen. Giddy, the Writer leaped from rock to rock as fast as she could go, only half keeping track of the path ahead in the wildly swinging light.
So many words! She found them so easily! They just kept on coming, glinting in the light of her pen. She would break into a huge patch soon, she could feel it. Then she’d -
The tunnel ended. It just stopped, the boulders piled up against a flat wall, veined with white. In shock, the Writer pressed her hand up against it. Cool, firm and immobile. She felt all around it, hoping there would be an edge, but the pen light showed it sealed all across the tunnel.
She knew about dead ends. Knew they happened. But the path had been so full of promise, for all the difficulty in walking it. The Writer stood still, hands at her sides, the pen lighting up the same little spot of wall and boulder.
‘Nothing to do but turn around and go back,’ she said, and turned on her heel.
Her arms ached as she climbed back over the boulders. She had bruises from her mad scramble on the way in, and the sweat began to cool on her. There seemed to be far more stones on the way out.
Finally, tired and frustrated, she stepped back into the main tunnel, where she’d been hours before. For a moment, she glanced back towards the distant Warren entrance, and the way out. The Writer shook her head firmly. A dead end was just a set back, not a reason to give up.
The light glistened on the walls as she walked deeper along the tunnel. It seemed larger than before, darker. Her shuffling feet echoed in the empty space.
She kept thinking about the path that had turned into a dead end, about how good it had been to dash after all those words. It had been a long time since she’s seen any word strings growing in this tunnel, or much of anything at all. It crawled on and on, but never seemed to get anywhere. The walls no longer changed, staying the same uniform dirt brown, curved and round as if some huge animal had carved it out of the ground.
The Writer began to wonder if she should turn back. There had been no other side passages: the tunnel simply ran on and on, twisting gently back and forth. Her feet hurt, and she’d gotten no where. Earlier there had bee many interesting passages to follow. Shouldn’t she go back to one of them?
But she hadn’t liked going back along the boulder tunnel. Even if she hadn’t been able to go any further forward, backward felt like failure.
So she pushed on, peering into the gloom ahead. Her feet ached. Her hands and elbows stung from sliding down the boulders. The pain distracted her as she tried to look for more word strings.
The darkness crept in, until she couldn’t see the ceiling. She walked along with her eyes on the earthy ground. Perhaps if she just pushed on, she’d come through this patch and it would be good again. She just had to follow the pen.
But the light from the pen had faded. Where at the beginning it had been bright while, now it glowed yellow, like the soft, sombre light fof fire embers.
She thought about what her friends were doing, outside of the Story Warren. She wondered if it was anything interesting, if it was better than what she was doing.
The tunnel began to climb steeply upward. Her legs burned as she stumbled up the slope. This was stupid. She hadn’t seen any words for hours, or any side paths. Her pen barely lit up anything, and her head felt foggy. She should have turned back, tried to find a different path. But now she’d walked so far down this tunnel, it would take hours to go back. What a waste of time. She could have spent the time exploring a path with lots of interesting words. Instead the empty tunnel stretched on in earthy silence.
Exasperated, she came to a halt in the steep space. What was the better thing to do? She looked back and forth in the gloom, ahead, behind. Almost impossible to tell which way was which, it all looked so much the same.
Maybe a rest would be a good idea. She’d walked a long way, and found so many words. Even if most of them hadn’t been in the last while.
A rest sounded wonderful. She felt so heavy and worn. It stopped her thoughts, so she couldn’t put things in a proper order. Better to stop, to rest. The enthusiasm she’d had at the beginning would come back to her later.
With a sigh, the Writer sat down against the tunnel wall, leaned back. It proved surprisingly comfortable, as if the wall shape matched her form, supporting her in all the right places. It felt good to be off her feet. She’d done well, she told herself, for her first time in the Story Warren.
She wriggled into the wall of the tunnel, feeling the surface warm up behind her. She relaxed, put the thoughts of the dead end and this endless tunnel from her mind. She would get back up soon, carry on with her hunt for words. But first, a rest.
She pulled a small, crumpled ball of wool from the bag at her shoulder, and a pair of needles. Sitting in the near dark of the tunnel, she put her pen down on the floor and began to knit. The needles clicked and clacked in the quiet place, a pleasant rhythm that calmed her. This felt nice. Easier than all that walking and searching.
She thought vaguely about getting up again, but clicked on with the needles. She dozed for a while, then brushed her hair back into a tidy tail. Then she went back to the knitting. She liked it here in the dark. It was comfortable and easy. She dozed again.
Next time she woke, she felt like there was something she was supposed to do. The tunnel was very dark and quiet, but it was warm and comfortable to. She felt like perhaps she should be some place.
The Writer gripped her pen tightly. The only tool a writer needed, inside the Story Warren. The pen lit the way through the tunnels. It illuminated the words.
To explore the Story Warren was all she’d ever wanted. To find the stories with her pen. She was meant for it. Somewhere behind her, out in the sun, were her friends and family, leading ordinary lives. But this, the Story Warren, this was hers.
She rushed forward, plunged into the dark. She held her pen aloft before her. The light from the real world outside vanished. But the pen lit up; the sides of a long, twisted tunnel swelled out of the dark.
The Writer ran on, eager, staring ahead in the light of the pen. Tunnels fanned out, striking this way and that, some climbing up, others plunging into the deeper dark. Each seemed different. Some were walled in wood, or brick like houses. Others sparkled like the night sky, or seemed entirely transparent, as if carved from water.
The Writer dashed to and fro down the tunnels, the light from her pen skidding all about.
Long tendrils grew down from the ceiling. In a few places, blades like grass sprouted up from the floor. The Writer laughed with joy as she ran her hands along them, feeling their possibilities.
Words. Strings of words to make stories with. They grew in the Story Warren, and with the pen, the Writer could find the right ones to make the right story.
Face split by a grin, the Writer gathered up the words. She didn’t know what they were for yet, but they made her smile to see their form. She’d found words already! The Story Warren really was her calling. She began to wonder how deep into the warren she would go. She never wanted to leave.
The Writer headed deeper and deeper into the tunnels, walking now as she hunted for new patches of words. She must be heading for something good, she thought, to have found words so soon.
The tunnel walls became more and more plain the further she went, the branches less frequent. Eagerly, the Writer peered ahead with the light of her pen, searching out the way forward. She took a side shoot off the main tunnel, spying a fresh patch of words.
Her feet tripped on the rougher ground, forcing her to go more slowly. Boulders appeared out of the darkness, hunched in the tunnel like sulking stone creatures. The first few she could walk around, but soon they lay close together, forcing her to climb up and over. Their rough surfaces scraped her hands. Up close they smelt like gunpowder.
Panting at the top of a tough climb, the Writer stopped to look back the way she’d come. She couldn’t see the main tunnel any more. Perhaps going back would be a better idea. But ahead, a long tendril of words waved gently down the ceiling.
Smiling, she clambered from the boulder, climbing the next and reaching up to stroke the long line of words. Beyond it, she could see another, and in the distance, four more. She carefully picked the line from the ceiling and tucked it into the bag at her side.
Up another boulder, a squeeze through the crack between the next two. She knocked her head on the one that followed. Her eyes smarted as she climbed up to another set of words.
On it went, each word growth just in sight of the last, the light from her pen illuminating them in the darkness. But the boulders got larger, more jumbled. They forced the Writer to search for a way up, or around. The light from her pen caught in the crevices between them, throwing deep shadows across the rounded stones. But it also lit up the words growing from the ceiling.
Then came a place where the boulders were crammed so close together, she could hop from the top of one to the next. Moving faster, she started grinning again. There were words ahead of her, and her pen lit the way.
A hop, a slide, a jump and then another. The tunnel walls flashed by as the Writer picked up speed, snatching at words as she went. This was it, a true story forming under the light of her pen. Giddy, the Writer leaped from rock to rock as fast as she could go, only half keeping track of the path ahead in the wildly swinging light.
So many words! She found them so easily! They just kept on coming, glinting in the light of her pen. She would break into a huge patch soon, she could feel it. Then she’d -
The tunnel ended. It just stopped, the boulders piled up against a flat wall, veined with white. In shock, the Writer pressed her hand up against it. Cool, firm and immobile. She felt all around it, hoping there would be an edge, but the pen light showed it sealed all across the tunnel.
She knew about dead ends. Knew they happened. But the path had been so full of promise, for all the difficulty in walking it. The Writer stood still, hands at her sides, the pen lighting up the same little spot of wall and boulder.
‘Nothing to do but turn around and go back,’ she said, and turned on her heel.
Her arms ached as she climbed back over the boulders. She had bruises from her mad scramble on the way in, and the sweat began to cool on her. There seemed to be far more stones on the way out.
Finally, tired and frustrated, she stepped back into the main tunnel, where she’d been hours before. For a moment, she glanced back towards the distant Warren entrance, and the way out. The Writer shook her head firmly. A dead end was just a set back, not a reason to give up.
The light glistened on the walls as she walked deeper along the tunnel. It seemed larger than before, darker. Her shuffling feet echoed in the empty space.
She kept thinking about the path that had turned into a dead end, about how good it had been to dash after all those words. It had been a long time since she’s seen any word strings growing in this tunnel, or much of anything at all. It crawled on and on, but never seemed to get anywhere. The walls no longer changed, staying the same uniform dirt brown, curved and round as if some huge animal had carved it out of the ground.
The Writer began to wonder if she should turn back. There had been no other side passages: the tunnel simply ran on and on, twisting gently back and forth. Her feet hurt, and she’d gotten no where. Earlier there had bee many interesting passages to follow. Shouldn’t she go back to one of them?
But she hadn’t liked going back along the boulder tunnel. Even if she hadn’t been able to go any further forward, backward felt like failure.
So she pushed on, peering into the gloom ahead. Her feet ached. Her hands and elbows stung from sliding down the boulders. The pain distracted her as she tried to look for more word strings.
The darkness crept in, until she couldn’t see the ceiling. She walked along with her eyes on the earthy ground. Perhaps if she just pushed on, she’d come through this patch and it would be good again. She just had to follow the pen.
But the light from the pen had faded. Where at the beginning it had been bright while, now it glowed yellow, like the soft, sombre light fof fire embers.
She thought about what her friends were doing, outside of the Story Warren. She wondered if it was anything interesting, if it was better than what she was doing.
The tunnel began to climb steeply upward. Her legs burned as she stumbled up the slope. This was stupid. She hadn’t seen any words for hours, or any side paths. Her pen barely lit up anything, and her head felt foggy. She should have turned back, tried to find a different path. But now she’d walked so far down this tunnel, it would take hours to go back. What a waste of time. She could have spent the time exploring a path with lots of interesting words. Instead the empty tunnel stretched on in earthy silence.
Exasperated, she came to a halt in the steep space. What was the better thing to do? She looked back and forth in the gloom, ahead, behind. Almost impossible to tell which way was which, it all looked so much the same.
Maybe a rest would be a good idea. She’d walked a long way, and found so many words. Even if most of them hadn’t been in the last while.
A rest sounded wonderful. She felt so heavy and worn. It stopped her thoughts, so she couldn’t put things in a proper order. Better to stop, to rest. The enthusiasm she’d had at the beginning would come back to her later.
With a sigh, the Writer sat down against the tunnel wall, leaned back. It proved surprisingly comfortable, as if the wall shape matched her form, supporting her in all the right places. It felt good to be off her feet. She’d done well, she told herself, for her first time in the Story Warren.
She wriggled into the wall of the tunnel, feeling the surface warm up behind her. She relaxed, put the thoughts of the dead end and this endless tunnel from her mind. She would get back up soon, carry on with her hunt for words. But first, a rest.
She pulled a small, crumpled ball of wool from the bag at her shoulder, and a pair of needles. Sitting in the near dark of the tunnel, she put her pen down on the floor and began to knit. The needles clicked and clacked in the quiet place, a pleasant rhythm that calmed her. This felt nice. Easier than all that walking and searching.
She thought vaguely about getting up again, but clicked on with the needles. She dozed for a while, then brushed her hair back into a tidy tail. Then she went back to the knitting. She liked it here in the dark. It was comfortable and easy. She dozed again.
Next time she woke, she felt like there was something she was supposed to do. The tunnel was very dark and quiet, but it was warm and comfortable to. She felt like perhaps she should be some place.
