Fantasy

The two children stopped to look around. That silence did not augur well. A few seconds passed and there
was a loud crack. Someone, or something, had snapped a stick. The two friends turned pale. If it was an
animal, it must be huge. Their hearts pounded against their chests. Another stick was heard to break. This
time a lot closer. Whatever it was, it was coming closer, and it was approaching quickly. One of the children
turned on the torch and shone it ahead. They could make out a giant sized silhouette hidden among the
undergrowth, shying from the light, an enormous monkey-like species. The children started to move
backwards, step by step, not turning their backs, trembling with fear, when a terrifying roar raged through the
quiet of the night.
Since that day, every first night of summer waxing moon, year after year, the boys of the village ventured
into the woods together so that the creature, who they had nicknamed the Bichogordo, could give them a
fright. It became a ritual which made the boys feel grown up and able to confront their fears.
However, precisely the year that marked the thirtieth anniversary of the start of this tradition, something
unexpected and violent happened in the woods that tore the calm of the village to shreds and had all of its
inhabitants with their hearts in their mouths. An event that was to change the life of a ten-year-old boy for
ever, a lad who, according to his father, let his mind wander too much. A boy whose name was Matías.
Author: Pedro Riera
Pedro Riera (Barcelona 1965) has a degree in Information Sciences. He has worked in television, cinema and advertising, mainly in directing and production. In 1997, he settled in Bosnia, where he worked for two years as a director, producer and scriptwriter for television and radio campaigns for an international organisation; and as a freelance photographer for Associated Press and several NGOs. His experience in the Balkans has given rise to two novels: War Wounds (2004) and A Stop in the Field of Blackbirds (2005). "The legend of the Wood with no name" is his first dabble into children’s and young adult literature, for which he has already been awarded the CCEI Literature Award.
