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The Riddle-Gate
The deep wood's heart is fenced — not with wire, but with an arch of living branches grown across the only path, and a face in the bark, old and sleepy and mossy about the eyebrows.
“Gate riddle,” it rumbles, by way of good morning. “One guess for the group. Wrong guesses are returned to sender.” Bramble sits down and curls his tail primly over his paws, the picture of a fox who has ridden this ride before and is going to enjoy watching.
The gate clears its throat with a sound of creaking timber:
“The more of me you take away, the bigger I become. Dig me, fall in me, climb out of me — what am I?”