Tales from the Wychwood- The Adventures of Parlock and Pennyboy

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How Parlock Paid His Rent

ennyboy once believed that sorcerers did not pay for anything.

Sorcerers paid with riddles, or favors, or curses. They paid with knowledge of old roads and older names. They paid with mysteries that no farmer nor king could understand.

He learned differently the first spring he and Parlock lived in the Wychwood.

It began with a knock.

Not on a door—for they lived in a clearing with a tent instead of a house—but a knock...

Pennyboy and the House That Wanted a Family

Pennyboy always thought houses were just... houses. Simple buildings. 

Houses had walls.
Doors.
Roofs that kept rain out.
Corners that didn’t echo.
Bedrooms that stayed exactly where you left them.

So on the day he discovered a house that moved, Pennyboy decided the Wychwood had gone too far.

The Door in the Middle of the Path

He and Parlock were following a deer trail when Pennyboy walked face-first into something wooden.

“Ow—!” He rubbed his nose. “Who puts a door in the middle of—”

He froze.

It was a door.

Free-standing.
Perfectly upright.
No hinges.
No frame.
No house around it.

Just a simple door with a brass knob.

Pennyboy whispered, “Master…”

Parlock had walked on but now he turned, looked, then closed his eyes.
“Oh no.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“This is not a door,” Parlock said.

Pennyboy stared...

Pennyboy and the Runaway Lantern

ennyboy awoke to the sound of Parlock swearing at a frog.

This was not unusual.

What was unusual was the dimness of the morning. Their campfire had burned to embers, the mule was sleeping with its tongue hanging out, and Parlock stood hunched over a tree stump, shaking one fist at something Pennyboy couldn’t see.

“What happened?” Pennyboy asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“That,” Parlock growled, “was my...

The Boy Who Begged for Pennies

e disliked the villages. The were full of people. Shifty, faithless humans who said one thing and meant another. Parlock avoided them whenever possible but there always came a time when he must put aside his preferences and do what needed doing.

This time, he needed answers from the library in the village of Ravenmoore. It wasn't a huge library but it was adequate for his needs and to be honest, he had not the time nor the inclination to...

The Fairies of Fallsbury Grove

he trouble began, as most troubles do, with a smell.

Parlock noticed it first while stirring his morning tea with the wrong end of a spoon. The Wychwood usually smelled of loam and mushrooms and the pleasant, peppery bite of foxglove. This morning it smelled, tired. Stalled, maybe. Like it just didn't have the energy to grow anything.

Pennyboy, who had been lining up beetles to race across a stump, noticed it too. He stopped and sniffed the...

The Sorcerer and the Shadowed Road


he people of Ravenmoore said that only fools and the desperate walked the Wychwood after sundown.

They forgot the third sort. Sorcerers.

Pennyboy followed close behind his master, Parlock the Keeper, with one hand on the mule’s lead, the other resting on the knife stuck in his belt.

...

The Thing That Looked Like Parlock

ennyboy had never seen Parlock truly frightened.

Annoyed, yes.
Hungry, always.
Exasperated—to the point of dramatic sighing—nearly every hour.

But never frightened.

So when his master awoke before dawn with a start...

The Witch Who Wouldn’t Stay Dead

ennyboy never liked graves to begin with, and he liked open ones even less. Yet there he stood, peering over the edge of a rectangular pit in the middle of the Wychwood, while Parlock poked the dark soil with his walking staff.

“Well?” Pennyboy asked, wrapping his cloak tighter.

Parlock frowned. “She’s definitely gone.”

That was not the answer Pennyboy hoped for.

The grave lay beneath a twisted elder tree whose roots...