They say, at night, damned voices call out from the centre of Pevril Woodland. But it's daylight and Jake, running along dappled paths, laughs while his friend, Sam, counts up to one hundred.

As Jake runs, his feet sink into decades of mulch and small dead things and, all around him there's a deafening silence but he's unaware of that and his mute, half-human watchers.

On reaching the count of one hundred, Sam sets off, following the same paths until he reaches an oak tree where ten centuries have gounged a large hollow deep into its gnarled trunk.

Peering inside, looking into musty depths, he sees his friend tumbling, tumbling downwards, chorused by ten thousand screaming voices.