The Islands of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer

mushrooms, making sure to keep them separate from everything else. A squirrel scampered up a tree with an
atterswam
in its mouth. Jack threw a stick at it, trying to make it drop the poisonous fungus, but the squirrel climbed beyond his reach and continued eating.
Perhaps squirrels like visions,
he thought, hoping the creature wouldn’t fall dead from its perch.
    The sun slid behind the hills. Darkness flowed into the woodland and a mist fumed from the boggy ground, making the trees appear as though they were floating in a white sea.And suddenly, the birds stopped calling. The boisterous chatter that accompanied sunset vanished as though an unseen enemy had appeared under the trees. Dusk became darker, cold deeper, earth danker.
    Jack stood perfectly still.
    Was it a wolf? Or, God forbid, a bear? Oddly enough, he smelled seaweed, though the breeze had died.
Has one of those paths between the worlds opened?
Jack thought, both excited and afraid. If so, what had stepped through?
    A cold presence spread through the mist. It enveloped him with such malevolent force that he gasped and almost dropped the collecting bags. Such chill he had not felt since confronting Frith Half-Troll. It was like a door into the heart of winter. His body grew numb and his mind went blank.
    In the distance Brother Aiden rang the prayer bell. It was a frail sound, hardly louder than the call of a chick, but so pure that it pierced through the gathering gloom. The spell was broken. Jack clutched the bags to his chest and fled down a long, pale avenue of bluebells, now gray with twilight. Mist swirled about his legs. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. His feet sank into pockets of mud, almost sending him sprawling, but he kept going until he broke out into a field.
    He ran until the hazel wood was only a shadow against the oak forest. The sky outside was still blue, with wisps of clouds catching the sunlight from beyond the hills. The field, although ruined by the storm, had a normal, friendly look about it. Jack bent over to catch his breath.
    Brother Aiden struck the bell a second time, and a scream erupted from the woodland. It went on longer than any creature could possibly scream and finally died away into a low, shuddering moan. But by that time Jack was at the other end of the field. By his side ran a fallow doe so panicked that she paid no attention to the human within arm’s reach of her.
    They both collapsed at the same time. The doe turned dark, appealing eyes toward him, and he put his hand on her warm flank. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It will not come into the light.” He fervently hoped this was true. She stared at him, her sides heaving with terror. Brother Aiden’s bell sounded again, and both boy and deer turned toward the woodland.
    But nothing further happened. After a while the doe rose to her feet and walked away. Jack rose too, perplexed about what he should do. Normally, he would return to the Bard’s house. The old man was waiting for his herbs, and Thorgil might be there too.
    Jack looked back at the forest. The shield maiden had been headed toward the fields when he last saw her. She would have put distance between herself and him, and that meant she would have gone to the sea. Thorgil always went there when she was upset. When she recovered, she would probably return to the Bard.
    The thought of the Roman house and the old man waiting inside was very attractive. That scream, though, had been aroused by Brother Aiden’s bell. Last night the creature had been on the beach. Tonight it was in the woodland, muchcloser to Brother Aiden’s hut. Its intent was most certainly evil. The cry from the woodland had been steeped in hatred. It wasn’t the hunger call of a predator, but the voice of something exiled from all earthly joy.
    Sighing, Jack turned toward the village. He ran through the darkening meadows, past outlying sheds and houses, until he saw the little monk kneeling