Tales from the Wychwood- The Adventures of Parlock and Pennyboy
Pennyboy and the House That Wanted a FamilyPennyboy always thought houses were just... houses. Simple buildings. Houses had walls. So on the day he discovered a house that moved, Pennyboy decided the Wychwood had gone too far. The Door in the Middle of the PathHe and Parlock were following a deer trail when Pennyboy walked face-first into something wooden. “Ow—!” He rubbed his nose. “Who puts a door in the middle of—” He froze. It was a door. Free-standing. Just a simple door with a brass knob. Pennyboy whispered, “Master…” Parlock had walked on but now he turned, looked, then closed his eyes. “That’s not reassuring.” “This is not a door,” Parlock said. Pennyboy stared... |
The Boy Who Begged for Penniese disliked the villages. The were full of people. Shifty, faithless humans who said one thing and meant another. Parlock avoided them whenever possible but there always came a time when he must put aside his preferences and do what needed doing. This time, he needed answers from the library in the village of Ravenmoore. It wasn't a huge library but it was adequate for his needs and to be honest, he had not the time nor the inclination to travel all the way to the city of Denbeck to use the university... |
The Thing That Looked Like Parlockennyboy had never seen Parlock truly frightened. Annoyed, yes. But never frightened. So when his master awoke before dawn with a start, clutching his staff, listening to the forest as if it whispered directly into... |
How Parlock Paid His Rentennyboy once believed that sorcerers did not pay rent. Sorcerers paid with riddles, or favors, or curses. They paid with knowledge of old roads and older names. They paid with mysteries that no farmer nor king could understand. He learned differently the first spring he and Parlock lived in the Wychwood. It began with a knock. Not on a door—for they lived in a clearing with a tent instead of a house—but a knock all the same. Three soft, deliberate taps on the trunk of a dead elm at the... |
Pennyboy and the Runaway Lanternennyboy awoke to the sound of Parlock swearing at a frog. This was not unusual. What was unusual was the dimness of the morning. Their campfire had burned to embers, the mule was sleeping with its tongue hanging out, and Parlock stood hunched over a tree stump, shaking one fist at something Pennyboy couldn’t see. “What happened?” Pennyboy asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “That,” Parlock growled, “was my lantern.” Pennyboy blinked. “Who are you talking to?” “This... |
The Witch Who Wouldn’t Stay Deadennyboy never liked graves to begin with, and he liked open ones even less. Yet there he stood, peering over the edge of a rectangular pit in the middle of the Wychwood, while Parlock poked the dark soil with his walking staff. “Well?” Pennyboy asked, wrapping his cloak tighter. Parlock frowned. “She’s definitely gone.” That was not the answer Pennyboy hoped for. The grave lay beneath a twisted elder tree whose roots wound into the mound like clutching fingers. Judging by the worn stones... |
The Sorcerer and the Shadowed Roadhe people of Ravenmoore said that only fools and the desperate wandered into the Wychwood after sundown. Fools… or sorcerers. Pennyboy trudged along behind his master, Parlock the Keeper, holding the mule’s lead and trying not to notice the way the trees leaned together overhead like old conspirators. The path was little more than a deer track, and even the mule seemed to think they were lost. Pennyboy, who had been the sorcerer's apprentice for five years, had never seen this part of the... |
