The Wizard's Map Read Free

wrought-iron legs had been twisted and shaped into fanciful designs. One leg looked like a slender coursing dog, another like an elongated dragon with its wings swept back against its sides, the third like an attenuated unicorn standing on its rear legs with its horn poking up into the seat. Jennifer ran her fingers over the designs. The metal was strangely cold to the touch and made her tremble.
    â€œWhat a ninny I am,” she said aloud. She liked the word. It came from her reading. No one in school used it. “Ninny!” she said again. Then she headed on down the path, which turned abruptly into a gravel road.
    On her left was a high stone wall covered with vines. A few hardy flowers clung to the crevices, and moss had invaded the chinks. The wall effectively hid Gran and Da’s cottage from view.
    On her right was a veritable forest, though how a forest could be in somebody’s backyard, Jennifer could not imagine. The woods looked ancient, with enormous dark, brooding trees and a thick, wiry underbrush. Someone had obviously trimmed back what limbs hung over the path and what brush crept forward toward the gravel, but Jennifer could imagine it was a battle waged every year.
    She heard something scrabbling in the undergrowth and stopped for a moment, frightened. Her heart pounded in her chest, in her ears. Then she reminded herself that there were few big animals in Scotland, and only one snake—the adder—which was rare, and rarely seen. Mom had made Jennifer and Peter read up on Scotland before the trip. And after all, this was a
walled
garden. Nothing large or threatening could possibly get in.
    A little white cat, hardly more than a kitten, shot out onto the gravel path from the woods, took one look at Jennifer, and raced back the way it had come.
    Jennifer laughed out loud at having been so frightened by something so small, and plunged in between the trees after the cat.
    The minute she was under the trees, what had been a sunny evening became dark. Only every now and then a shaft of filtered light rayed down from above, as if illuminating another kind of path scratched out on the forest floor.
    Jennifer knew she could not possibly get very lost. The trees were a part of Gran’s walled garden, not a trackless woods. So she didn’t take particular care to watch where she was going. She just blundered along, pushing aside any interlacings of vines that got in her way.
    After about ten minutes of hard slogging, and quite a few scratches from hidden thorns, she was rewarded by stumbling into a little glade that was in full sunshine. In the center of the glade was a lovely little one-room white house made of wicker and wood. The white cat was curled in a comer of the front step, fast asleep.
    â€œSo there you are,” said Jennifer.
    At her voice the cat woke in fright, leaped to its feet, and disappeared around the side of the house.
    Jennifer had walked all around the little cottage and was about to try the front door when she heard her name being called. She thought it was Gran’s voice, but it was so filtered through the surrounding trees, she couldn’t be sure.
    â€œI’m here!” she called back. “At the little garden house.”
    It suddenly started to rain again, not the quiet, cozy rain of Connecticut, but a terrible, bucketing downpour. She rattled the cottage’s door handle, thinking she could wait out the rain in there, but the door was locked.
    â€œBother!” she told herself, one of her mother’s favorite expressions, then she plunged back into the tangled woods. At least there she could take shelter from the rain.
    But when it began to thunder ominously, fear of lightning drove her deeper and deeper into the woods until, with a crash, she found herself tumbling out onto the gravel path right at Gran’s feet. The gravel path was dry.
    â€œNever,” Gran said, “go into that wood without protection.”
    â€œI don’t