Meena was already half out of sight, bending to duck under an overhanging branch, when I saw the red cap.Just the one, with no face under it, no body. It looked like a toadstool—no, more like a fat red thumb bobbing up from behind a scrubby berry bush and disappearing so fast I wasn’t even sure I’d seen it. I stopped in my tracks—still just on the edge of the wood, and I called to Meena, but she didn’t hear me.

I couldn’t tell if the second red cap was the same as the first or different: It popped out of a rotten log—bloodred, sticky blood just starting to dry—and gone again. I yelled then, as loud as I possibly could, “Meena! Get back here! Meena!”

To me it seemed as though the oak trees were swallowing up my voice, but a moment later Meena reappeared around a bend in the narrow path. “What? Did you call me, Jenny?”

She hadn’t seen the red caps at all. I didn’t want to scare her, so I lowered my voice a little. I said, “Come back here. Please. Now.”

Meena stared at me. “Oh, don’t tell me the Black Dog has made another appearance? Jenny, you can do what you like, but I am walking straight through this wood and out the other side. That’s all there is to that, I mean it.”

My throat was dry and tight, and I was shaking, going burning hot and then absolutely icy by turns. I told her, “Meena, if you take another step, I will drag you back out of this place by the hair. And I mean that, and you know I do.”

She did know. I spotted another red cap over her shoulder, flirting through branches, quick as a squirrel’s tail, no chance to get a fix on it. I was frantic for Meena to move, but she only stood looking at me for what felt like hours. Then she started back along the path toward me, walking slowly, not saying a word.

“Move!” I said, but she wouldn’t come any faster. I was afraid she’d stop altogether if I pushed her any more, so I just stood waiting until she reached me and stalked on past. When her hair brushed my face, she jerked her head away.

Just before we came out of the Hundred-Acre Wood, I turned and saw a face. It looked like melted candlewax, the color of bacon fat, except for the blobby red nose. The eyes were round as a doll’s eyes, and they watched us from a hole in a hollow tree with a no-color hatred that made me stumble against Meena. There was a smell, too, I remember, all around us, like a refrigerator that really needs cleaning out.

Meena saw the face, too. We didn’t say anything to each other. We just got out of there. When we looked back at the forest, we didn’t see a single red cap anywhere, but the branches of the oaks were lashing as wildly as though a storm were on the way. Beyond the fence, where we stood, the air wasn’t moving at all.

Meena and I did start running then, and we didn’t slow down until we were completely out of sight of the Hundred-Acre Wood, and we didn’t talk for a while after that. The sun was setting fast, but I could have gotten us home in the dark. Finally I said, “I’m sorry I talked to you that way.”

“Well, you had to, didn’t you?” Meena said. She stopped walking and turned to face me. “You knew we shouldn’t go into the wood,” she said. “A thing came to warn you—a Black Dog, or whatever it was. You tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen.”

“It’s hard to believe stuff like that, first off.” I couldn’t tell if she was still mad at me or not—and with Meena you know—but I had an uneasy feeling, looking at her.

“But what you aren’t telling me is how you knew. And you haven’t been telling me for a long time now.” She was mad, all right, but mad in a different way than I’d ever seen her, level and cold. She said, “Talk to me, Jenny.”

I can’t remember what I answered, and it doesn’t matter—I’d probably be ashamed to recall whatever I tried to get away with. Meena just stood there looking like that, saying, “It’s been going on for months—even Julian’s noticed the way you’ve been behaving. How stupid do you think I am, Jenny?”

So, at last, I told her about Tamsin.

I would have told her—I was planning to, whenever the right moment came up—but the fact is I hadn’t, and she was my best friend, and she had every right to do what she did, once I was through, which was to chew me up one side and down the other in that same flat, un-Meena voice. I took it without a word, not looking at her, until she ran out of gas, and then I just said in the silence, hoping I wasn’t going to cry, “Meena, I’m sorry.”

Meena said, “You could have trusted me. I don’t mean just to keep your secret—I mean to believe you. Of all people, do you think I don’t know about ghosts? About night creatures? About spirits, fairies, things that can change their shape?” Her eyes were getting brighter and brighter, and I was afraid she was going to start crying, which would have been even worse than me. “You know I would have believed you, Jenny.”

I couldn’t say anything. We stood still, the two of us, both twanging like fiddle strings about to go, and me wishing I were dead. Only time in my life so far I’ve ever wished such a thing, but I’ll know it if it happens again. Then Meena began to smile, just a little bit, brushing the back of her hand very quickly across her eyes. “But you went after me,” she said. “You followed me into the wood, even though you were warned not to. You brought me back.”

“Well, I’m not all dork,” I mumbled. “Not all the way through.” So then we both cried, and we hugged each other, and we went on home together, not saying much. With the lights of Stourhead Farm in sight, Meena suddenly turned to me and asked me, “Jenny, what do you think they wanted with us, those things—what did you say she called them?”

“Oakmen,” I said. “I think those were Oakmen, but I don’t know what the hell they are, or what they’d have done. I don’t know anything about this place, Meena. I thought I did, but I don’t. You remember that if I ever start saying I know.”

The first time I brought Meena to Tamsin’s secret room, Tamsin wasn’t there. I was starting to get as jumpy as the billy-blind about all her roaming around—because it was my fault, I’d started her doing that—but Meena was fascinated by the hidden lock, and by that little closet with the one dark window, and I was too busy explaining everything to her to worry much then. But later we sneaked a glance into Tony’s studio and didn’t see Tamsin there either, and that’s when it started to get to me. I kept thinking about Judge Jeffreys—the Other One, whatever that really meant—and all the bewildering things the Pooka had said about me being the only one who could help. I told Meena all that stuff, too.

But Tamsin did show up, just before Meena had to go home. We were sitting in that double swing Evan had made, waiting for Mr. Chari to arrive—and like that, there she was, perched between us on the back of the swing, smiling at me in that way that always turned my insides to chocolate syrup. I said, “Meena, she’s here.”

Meena whirled around, her face actually flushing with excitement. “Where, Jenny? Show me!”

I pointed grandly and made my introduction. “Mistress Tamsin Willoughby, this is my dear friend Meena Chari. Miss Meena, I have the honor to introduce Tamsin Elspeth Catherine Maria Dubois Willoughby, of Stourhead Farm.” And I bowed and waited for them to discover each other.

But it didn’t work out like that. Tamsin was shaking her head sadly, and Meena was looking wide-eyed in all directions, still asking, “Where, Jenny? Where is she?” I’ll never forget the sound of her voice right then. Like a little girl growing more and more afraid that the parade or the show or the party has already started without her.

She hadn’t seen the Black Dog. She didn’t see Tamsin. I didn’t know what to do. I asked, “Can you smell her?”

Meena nodded. In the same small voice, she said, “I know she’s here. I just…” She let it trail off. Tamsin leaned forward and put her hand on Meena’s cheek. Meena stiffened where she sat, and her eyes got very wide. She looked at me, and I nodded, and Meena said, “Oh,” but not so I could hear it. I had to turn my head away for a moment. I didn’t think I ought to see her like that.