On and on I raced through the wood, each step a nightmare. I felt hands stretching out to clutch
me…heard shrill whisperings…Sweating, trembling, I broke out of the wood and raced over a vast plain
that stretched, treeless, to the distant horizon. The plain was trackless, pathless, and covered with brown
and withered grass. It was like, it came to me, the blasted heath of Macbeth's three witches. No
matter…it was better than the haunted wood. I paused and looked back at the trees. I felt from them the
gaze of myriads of the evil eyes.
I turned my back, and began to walk over the withered plain. I looked up at the sky. The sky was misty
green. High up in it two cloudy orbs began to glow…black suns…no, they were not suns…they were
eyes…The eyes of the doll-maker! They stared down at me from the misty green sky…Over the horizon
of that strange world two gigantic hands began to lift…began to creep toward me…to catch me and hurl