“Mom,” she said as she was helping to carry the plates into the kitchen, “how is Aunt Helen’s poodle doing?”
It was still a puppy and Aunt Helen had been having trouble teaching it not to attack the UPS man, who was a huge, red-headed, bearded bear of a man—who was afraid of dogs.
“It bit a Jehovah’s Witness the other day.”
“God be praised,” her father said.
“Raymond!”
“Sorry.”
“Why do you ask, dear?”
“I haven’t seen it for a while. It’s going to be all grown up before you know it.”
“Maybe we should stop by this weekend and visit,” her mother said. She looked over at Annie’s father.
“Good idea,” he said, picking up the phone.
Annie turned away to put the glasses in the dishwasher in order to hide her smile.
* * *
Uncle Dennis’s house was much bigger than Annie’s house, even though they had no children. Aunt Helen had a poodle and a cockatoo, four bathrooms, and a lot of furniture.
Annie stood by the cockatoo’s cage, which was taller than she was, reaching between the bars to scratch the bird behind its upright, white crest. It had closed its eyes and drooped its head so she could reach the back of its neck easily, and it turned its beak back and forth slowly as if it were keeping time to a slow song. Her father and Uncle Dennis were arguing, as far as she could tell, about whether a certain baseball umpire’s mother was a hyena or a goose.
Aunt Helen came into the living room carrying her puppy. “Would you like to pet Mr. Snowball?” her aunt said.
Since Annie had said she wanted to see the dog, she had to do it, even though she really didn’t like the puppy very much. She ruffled its head, and when she pulled her hand back it tried to bite her.
“Bad Mr. Snowball,” Aunt Helen crooned happily. “Don’t you bite my pretty niece.”
Annie wondered how many people the dog would kill before Aunt Helen realized that he was not, in fact, a good puppy.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Aunt Helen said. “Annie, would you help your mother finish setting the table?”
“Sure,” Annie said. She gave the cockatoo one more rub and left her father and his brother arguing over what kind of goose the umpire’s mother was.
Dinner was always strange at Uncle Dennis and Aunt Helen’s house. The adults always seemed to have trouble thinking of things to talk about, and the food was just weird. Tonight they were having white blobs that might be tofu mixed with noodles, evil-looking mushrooms, strips of vegetables, and a sauce that smelled like oranges that had caught on fire.
Annie’s parents praised the food, but she could tell by the way they ate slowly that they didn’t like it much. She carefully ate the noodles out of the nasty pile and left the rest.
When the conversation ran out, she looked up and said, “Uncle Dennis, one of my friends told me that you’re going to build houses in the Haunted Woods. I thought you just sold computers.”
The adults stared at her for a long moment as though she’d suddenly grown a tail.
“Yes, that’s right,” her uncle said. “I mean, my partner and I bought the land several— How did you say you heard about this?”
“My friend and I were riding out by the Haunted Woods and she showed me the sign and said, ‘That’s your Uncle Dennis.’ I said, ‘No, it says Enchanted Woods Development Group,’ but she said it was you.”
“That’s the name of our company.”
“But why do you want to cut down the Haunted Woods?”
“To make money, of course,” her father said.
“Thanks, Ray,” Uncle Dennis said.
“Are you still pretending that your ‘Modern Subdivision’ is a gift to mankind? It’s just a development.”
“No, it’s not, vapor brain,” her uncle said. “It’s a self-contained twenty-first century reinterpretation of the classic American village. You just can’t stand—”
“Dennis,” Aunt Helen said.
Uncle Dennis leaned back in his chair and grinned sadly. “Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t you like the woods?” Annie said after a moment.
“Of course I do, sweetie, but...” He shrugged. “They’re not doing anybody any good the way they are. Wouldn’t it be better to have a nice village up on the hill, with big houses and pretty lawns and trees?”
“But we already have trees, lots of trees. Big ones.”
“Yes, I know, but we can build two hundred houses there, very nice houses with a great view.”
“Nice, big, expensive houses,” her father said.
“Shut up, Raymond,” Annie’s mother said. “You two have been arguing about this for years. Let it go. It’s his land, he has the right to do what he wants with it.”
“It’s not his land,” her father said. “First of all, it should never have been put up for sale. It should have been turned into a park or tacked onto Shawnee National Forest. And second, he doesn’t own it. The bank owns it.”
“Blah blah,” her uncle said. “The city didn’t want to spend the money to turn it into a park. Shawnee National Forest is way south of here, and it’s too small to be its own forest—it’s only a hill.”
Annie cut off her father, who was about to say something back. “But we like the hill the way it is.”
“Who does?” her uncle said.
“We do. The kids. We play there all the time.”
“I thought all you kids were afraid of the place. Isn’t that why they call it the Haunted Woods?”
“Dennis,” her father said, “you and I played there every summer’s day until we were sixteen.”
“I remember that you dragged me there every summer’s day.”
“What, were you scared?”
Uncle Dennis paused a moment, looking at Annie. “Sure, I was scared. I was just a kid.”
“I’m not scared,” Annie said. “I love the Haunted Woods.”
“Enjoy it while you can, Annie,” her father said. “As soon as the construction loan goes through, my little brother’s going to mow it down and turn it into a suburb.”
* * *
Annie’s friend June came over the next day, Sunday, so they could study together. Annie had spent the morning in her room, trying to remember everything the adults had said and writing it down.
Uncle Dennis had a partner. A bank owned the land. They were waiting for a construction loan. Her father thought it was a bad idea to cut down the Haunted Woods. It was too small to be a National Forest. Uncle Dennis was scared of the woods.
She had no idea what all of that added up to, but somehow she had to find a way to use what she had learned to stop her uncle. If she didn’t, all of the fairies, everywhere, would die. And the dragons, too.
It was very hard to concentrate on Africa. June and Annie lay on their stomachs on Annie’s bed, looking at a map of Egypt, but Annie couldn’t stop thinking about the Haunted Woods.
“How would you find out who owned some land?” Annie asked June.
“In Cairo?”
“No, here in Leftover.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s some land I’m interested in,” Annie said. “I want to know who owns it.”
June frowned at her. “Annie, are you crazy?”
Annie bugged out her eyes and made a face. June laughed.
“No, I’m not nuts,” Annie said. “This is serious.”
“So is Mrs. Longsnout. She’s going to flunk you if you don’t learn this.”
“I have something more important than Egypt to think about.”
“Are your parents getting a divorce?”
“No!” Annie said. “What are you talking about?”
“It seems like they argue a lot. And your dad’s weird.”
“You’re right, he is weird. But that has nothing to do with this.”
“With what?” June said.
Annie had been propping her head up on her hands, but now she
let it drop onto the bed and hid under her loose, blonde hair. How could she do this alone? She had no idea what the questions were, never mind the answers. She felt tears running down her cheeks.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” June said. “I can help.”
It was time to do something. Annie made a decision. She lifted her head, sat up, and wiped the tears off her face.
“Will you go somewhere with me?” she said.
“Annie, we have to study.”
“This is more important. It’s really important. Will you go?”
“Where?”
“To the Haunted Woods,” Annie said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Chapter 4: Boys, Large and Small
They dropped their bikes at the foot of the hill.
“This is really secret,” Annie said. “No one else knows this but me. So you have to swear your most sacred swear that you won’t tell anyone what I’m going to show you.”
“What are you talking about?” June said.
“You have to swear.”
“Okay, okay, I swear on my mother’s hair that I won’t tell anybody. Geez!”
“You promise?”
“I just promised, Annie. Can we hurry up? We still have a lot of studying to do.”
“Okay. Follow me.”
The woods were cool and shady. Annie led June up the trail, past the point where she’d first seen the fairy and dragon. She was about to yell out when she heard the peacock call.
“Are there peacocks up here?” June said with interest. “I’ve never seen one outside a zoo.”
The peacock stopped abruptly and they heard what sounded a lot like a lion. June looked around, suddenly worried, and took a step backwards. The lion roared again, louder and closer this time, and they heard it panting.
“What’s going on?” June said. She was flat-out scared now.
“Fidget,” Annie said, “cut it out. This is my friend June. She’s going to help us.”
The panting noises stopped and nothing happened for a long time.
“What is it?” June said. “Who’s there?”
“Wait,” Annie said.
“Annie,” Jazzberry said from just behind her ear, “what are you doing?”
Fidget tumbled out of a tree and zoomed down to land at June’s feet, grinning his ferocious smile. June whirled away from him and came face to tiny face with the fairy.
“Who are you?” Jazzberry said.
As June crumpled to the ground in a faint, Fidget scampered out of the way to avoid being flattened.
* * *
“Annie, you promised us,” Jazzberry said.
“I can’t do it by myself,” Annie said. “I don’t even understand half of what Uncle Dennis is talking about. If we don’t get help, we’ll fail.”
“Now our turkey’s cooked,” Fidget said sadly, rubbing his nose with the tip of his tail.
The fairy hovered over June’s face. “Can we trust this person not to tell everyone about us?”
“She’s my best friend, and she’s really smart. You can trust her.”
June opened her eyes and sat up. “I had the strangest—” Her voice broke off when she saw Fidget balancing on his tail, rubbing his stomach with all four paws.
Annie and her friends explained everything to June. It took a long time. When she asked why they couldn’t just move to some other woods, June seemed even less satisfied than Annie with Jazzberry’s explanation. But in the end she accepted what they told her and promised to keep the secret.
“Come on, Annie,” she said at last.
“Where are we going?”
“To my house. We have to talk to my brother.” Annie, Jazzberry, and Fidget all started shouting at her. “I’m not going to tell him,” June said when she got them to quiet down. “He can help us without knowing why.”
* * *
“Hey, October,” June’s brother Max said when they knocked on his bedroom door. “Hey, Annie.”
He was lying on his bed, surrounded by open books, yellow pads, and spiral-bound notebooks. Max was a lot older than June—he went to college in St. Louis.
“Why does he always call you October?” Annie whispered.
“Because of my name,” June replied with some irritation, not bothering to whisper. “I was conceived in June, so my parents called me June. Max thinks it would’ve been funny if I’d been conceived in October, like he was.”
“What are you squirts up to?” Max said.
“We want to find something out for a school project,” June said, “but we can’t figure out how to start.”
“Great!” Max said. “Research is my specialty.”
Max was too tall for his bed: his ankles and feet hung over the end. He had long, tousled brown hair the same color as June’s, and a thin face with tiny oval eyeglasses perched on his nose.
“Max is a journalism major,” June told Annie. “That’s like newspapers and TV. It’s his job to find things out.”
“I’m pretty good at it, too,” Max said. “What do you need?”
“You know the Haunted Woods?” Annie said.
“Sure. I used to smoke— uh, I used to hang out there with my buddies in high school.”
“You smoke?” June said.
“Nope, not any more. I quit. It’s really bad for you.”
“Anyway,” Annie said forcefully, “somebody’s going to cut down the Haunted Woods and build houses there.”
“You’re kidding me!”
“For real,” June said. “We want to find out all about it, like who it is and when they’re starting, and where did they get the money, and everything. This is the name on the sign.” She dug a slip of paper out of her jeans pocket and handed it to her brother.
“Enchanted Woods Development Group,” Max said. “You know what? I have to do a series of articles for finals. This might be a good topic.”
“You mean you’ll do it?” Annie said.
“Sure, squirt. I’ll get started on it tomorrow. I think I’ll go to the Records and Planning offices first. That should get me the names of the developers. It shouldn’t take much work to find out where the financing’s coming from. This’ll be great, like an exposé. Maybe I can even get it published. I’d hate to see them chop down the woods.”
“Thanks, Max,” June said.
“No problem, October,” he said. He smiled as he picked up his notepad and started writing.
* * *
June said it would take days for Max to do his research. Annie was too excited to want to go back to studying, but June insisted, so they went back to Annie’s house. They traced the maps in the geography book together, but none of it sank in to Annie’s buzzing head. Then it was dinnertime, and June went home.
Miraculously, Mrs. Longsnout didn’t call on her in class on Monday, and the rest of the day went by in a blur. Annie and June rode their bikes out to the Haunted Woods after school.
“Otto’s following us,” June said as they left the asphalt and headed up on the gravel road.
“I know. You can’t miss him, he’s weaving all over the place.” Otto wasn’t a very good bike rider.
“What if he follows us into the woods?”
“He won’t,” Annie said. She told June how Otto had been scared away by Fidget’s peacock imitation. By the time they reached the sign, he was no longer visible behind them.
They told Jazzberry and Fidget how Max was going to help them by finding out everything about the houses. Fidget admitted that perhaps bringing June into the woods had been a good idea.
Annie spent the next few days, while they waited for Max to do his research, in a haze. She found it even more difficult than usual to concentrate on school. She was beginning to think she might flunk and have to do third grade again; that idea made her squirm in embarrassment and horror, but her fear just made it even harder to study.
The only thing clear to her during those days was the time she spent in the woods with her new friends. They would chas
e butterflies in a small meadow where two large trees had fallen to make a clearing. Jazzberry darted among the daisies, flying rings around the monarchs and swallowtails and teasing them by flying upside down beneath them.
They lay down on the damp grass and called out cloud shapes: camel and anteater, car and mushroom, pig and castle. Fidget saw the strangest things in the clouds: planetary nebula, magnesium crystal, cyclotron, hilzetter.
“What’s a hilzetter?” Annie said. She hadn’t understood any of the other things either, but that was a funny name.
“It’s a kind of snake that can fly.”
“Snakes can’t fly,” June said.
“Not around here, they can’t.”
They played hide and seek, even though Annie and June always lost. One day when Annie was climbing an oak tree—while June yelled at her to come down before she broke her neck and Fidget flew around the trunk like a traffic helicopter—she discovered that Jazzberry could scamper like a squirrel, hanging head down and clinging to the ridges in the bark with her tiny hands, and climbing faster than Annie could have fallen.
Jazzberry and Fidget asked them about their families, about school and their friends. Both Annie and June told them everything they could think of about their lives, but they were disappointed that neither Jazzberry or Fidget would tell them what it was like growing up as a fairy or a dragon. They apologized sincerely, but they wouldn’t talk about themselves.
Fidget took his pet mouse, which was called Weasel, out of his ear and Annie played with him, letting the furry white fuzzball climb around on her head or sit on her shoulders while it cleaned its face with its paws. June refused to go near the mouse.
Every evening at dinnertime they sadly said goodbye and trudged down the hill back to their normal, boring lives.
* * *
On Thursday she and June went to the woods after school, as they had every day that week, and again Otto followed them to the edge of the gravel road. They walked uphill under the quiet, gloomy trees. The sky was cloudy, promising rain, but not one leaf on the tall trees above them shivered in the still air.
Even Fidget seemed subdued that day. He lay on his stomach on the leafy ground with his eyes half closed, absently scratching the back of his head with the tip of his tail.
“When will Max be done?” Jazzberry said.
“Maybe tonight,” June said. “I asked him at breakfast and he said he was almost there.”
“But what’s next?” Annie said. “I know we need to know who’s working with Uncle Dennis and everything, but I still don’t see how we’re going to stop them.”
“You have to do things one step at a time,” June said. “We’ll figure that out tomorrow.”