Fighting monsters and demons in association with BBC Cult.
William had smelled the stench that emanated from the heart of the enchanted tree once before in his life. When he was a young boy he and his grandfather Ludlow had gone into the woods on the grounds of the Swift Estate to catch William a large black beetle for a magic trick Ludlow was teaching him. They had drifted farther into the woods than either of them had realized, talking about magic and a new card pass William had perfected that very morning, before they were brought up short by a horrible, stomach-churning stink that permeated the air.
A few yards ahead in a small thicket there was a dead doe, flanked on either side by two nearly dead fawns. The mother had been shot by a hunter and had somehow managed to find her way back to this thicket and die beside her children. The fawns - still new and wobbly - had been starving for God knows how long. Ludlow had sent William racing back to their gamekeeper, a crotchety old fellow named George, while he waited with the foundlings.
George had made William tell him the whole story twice.
"Aye, I know that very thicket," he said as he reached for his gun. William was horrified. He had tried to keep George from going to the
