{ELEMENTISTS OF WILLOW FOREST BOOK IV} The Day of Death

The Tower

21:  The Tower

 

 

You’ve seen the eight Houses of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Nature, Death, Technology and All, haven’t you?  That Rock and Pebble built?  They’re pretty cool, aren’t they?

Let me tell you something.  However good they may be, The War Tower is about ten times better.

When you draw Willow Forest as a map on an A4 piece of paper, you section of the bottom right-hand corner, claiming it belongs to the Crown, right?

Well, breaking news!

It doesn’t.

It very much belongs to us.  If you must know, it’s where It happened, which is why I don’t like people going there.  It’s a huge clearing, actually, but it counts as part of the forest because there’s still a layer of trees encircling it.  I dunno.  Maybe a group of settlers once cleared it and built a village there, then abandoned it when they realised it was the forest of Hephzibah.

Hephzibah would know.  Hephzibah would know everything.  Except she’s so sly and secretive she’ll only answer one question every now and then, so you have to make sure it’s a good one she answers otherwise it’s a complete waste of possible information.

She’s like me, I suppose.

Anyway, in that clearing, there’s this great big, Rapunzel-style stone tower that Rock and Pebble built when I first returned to the forest.  It’s circular, with great big wooden doors at the bottom (courtesy of moi), and nine floors.

Bottom floor’s just the entrance.  Next it’s Rachael’s.  Then Rock’s.  Then Pebble’s.  Then Ethan’s, Felix’s, Josie’s, Luke’s and mine.

I insisted on getting the top one.  Pebble, Ethan and Josie all wanted it, but I sort of pointed out rather prudently that it was my forest they were all seeking sanctuary in, so they could at least show a tad of gratitude by letting me have the room I wanted.

The top floor seemed right, somehow.  The ceiling wasn’t flat, like everybody else’s, but came to a point in the centre so the tower could have a triangular roof.  I’d had the top floor of my house to myself.  I’d spent as much time as possible as high up a tree as I could.  Plus, I liked the idea of being in isolation in my own world up amongst the tree tops with my only gateway to reality being inhabited by Luke.

Luke fixed up a plumbing system.  Ethan provided the electrics.  The three combined rigged up a heating system.  I grew crops, which Felix cooked, teased ivy up the outside walls, and turned a few sticks into designer furniture.  Rachael and Josie focused on ‘home improvements’ nicked from the nearest town by Living Dead or flown straight over.  Rock and Pebble added details to the tower, like a few carvings of wolves, monkeys and TARDISs, a map of the forest in the stairwell  and some Lord-of-The-Rings style inscriptions in slightly random places, so you’d have something weird to stare at when on the loo.  As there was an Elementist of each Element there (plus an extra Earth) the weather pretty much did what I wanted it to.