Dredging

Alex Bradley is a boy with a vivid imagination who lives near an ancient forest that swallowed his friend Tallis some time ago and is now beginning to affect him too. However, all contact with the forest becomes increasingly dangerous and takes a heavy toll on the boy's psyche, until one day Alex disappears. When a child's body is later found at the edge of the forest, everyone, including his devastated parents, recognises it as Alex.

But perhaps things are different. Perhaps the forest absorbed Alex, drawing him into its green heart, and now draws inspiration from his dreams and terrors to create mythagos – the strange beings that populate the forest, just as it has done many times before. Yet Alex's mythagos are different – damaged and derailed, just as he was in the final period of his life – and they begin to threaten not only their creator, but the forest itself…

In the story of Richard Bradley, who searches for his lost son with a group of scientists, Robert Holdstock proves that his forest of mythagos has by no means yielded all its secrets. And the "hollowing", the unpredictable pathways winding through Ryhop, may shorten Richard's journey, but they could also trap him forever in the depths of the mysterious woodland.