From the direction of the river, Prue heard a distinctive metallic lowing, an ancient groan of a hundred thousand tons of metal and iron settling into place.
She looked up to see that the fog over the river had erupted into a dense plume of cloud; it towered above her, blotting out the dim blue of the early morning sky. Slowly, shapes began to emerge from the cloud: a distant green arch, a giant coiling cable. The cloud of fog began to dissipate, revealing more and more of this hidden structure until a massive bridge stood before Prue, spanning the distance from the bluffs to the far shore. Its vast span was interrupted by a pair of wide, flat towers, hundreds of feet high, each inset with a series of cathedral-like arches of varying sizes. On either side, tree-trunk- sized cables anchored the tops of the towers to the bridge’s span.
Prue looked around her quickly to see if anyone else was witnessing this spectacle, but saw that she was alone in this cool dawn of the morning. The fog continued to fall away from the bridge until it pooled just beneath the surface of the span, revealing the awesome edifice in its entirety. The river remained covered in mist. Satisfied, Prue ushered the rune stones back into their container and, snapping the lid shut, picked up her bike and began walking it across this ghostly bridge.
The fog continued to fall away from the bridge until it pooled just beneath the surface of the span, revealing the awesome edifice in its entirety.
The beginning of the span was marked by two lampposts, their glass glowing with a spectral light. Prue stepped gingerly onto the pavement of the bridge, testing its surface before venturing farther: It held her weight firm. Indeed, this “ghost” pavement felt no different from real pavement. Prue confidently set about making her crossing, the clacking of her bike and wagon the only sound disturbing the morning’s quiet.
Upon arriving at the middle span of the bridge, she saw a single brass bell hanging from a small hook. Curious, she walked over to it; its metal was deeply tarnished, a kind of gray-green, and it was simple in design. The clapper hung down from the center of the bell by a leather cord.
Prue instinctively reached up and put her hand around the cord. She imagined her parents standing there, some thirteen years before, their hearts burning with fear and curiosity and wishfulness. She imagined her father’s hand grasping this same cord, the look he must’ve given her mother before he gave the bell a few pealing rings. At that moment, she felt a surge of sympathy for her parents, for all that they’d risked for their two children. Would she have done the same in their shoes? Overcome by a sudden boldness, Prue flicked her wrist and sounded the bell; three firm tones rang from the brass of the bell. The sound pierced the soft, misty air and echoed against the wall of trees on the other side of the bridge.
I’m coming, witch, thought Prue. I’m coming for my brother.
Part Three
CHAPTER 20
Three Bells
Alexandra stood on the dais in the throne room, staring up at the snaking tendrils of plant roots that dangled over the chamber. They seemed to tremble and shimmy in the flickering torchlight. The clamor of the soldiers surrounded her: crates hammered shut, walls of halberds and rifles loaded onto wagons, tenting being struck.
The roots spoke.
“When, O Queen?” said the roots. “When will we feed?”
Smiling, the Governess reached her thin hand to the cave roof and ran her fingers through the fine fringe of the pale root hairs.
“When the time has come,” she replied. “When the equinox is here. You will have your succor. We move on the Ancients’ Grove tonight.”
“Yesssss,” hissed the roots. “Yesssss.” They quivered like so many hungry, lapping tongues.
Ring.
Alexandra dropped her hand to her side.
Ring.
A hot flush blemished her cheek; her eyes flew open wide. Her brow knotted.
Ring.
Silence.
“Three bells,” said the Dowager Governess, before her lips cracked into a wicked smile. “That stupid, stupid girl.”
Curtis was awestruck by how ably the bandits made their way down the long, spindly ladder. He stood at the bottom, anchoring the ladder with a foot, while each bandit in turn undid the padlock to his cage and nimbly capered down the ladder’s rungs. Within a short span of silent minutes, all four bandits had arrived at the cavern floor. Only Dmitri, the coyote, remained a prisoner. He was sitting in his cage with his back to the bandits. They’d been cajoling him in hushed voices the entire time.
“C’mon, man!” whispered Seamus loudly. “Think of your family.”
Dmitri stood on his hind paws up against the bars of his cage. “But . . . ,” he objected. “So you guys go free. Me, I’ll be court-martialed if I’m ever caught! That’s a hanging offense for sure.”
Cormac stepped forward: “Then don’t get caught. You’re a fool to stay here. They’ll probably hang you anyway, as a party to our escape. You ain’t necessarily raising a warning, are you?”
Dmitri thought about this for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Okay: Throw up the keys.”
The ring of keys was tossed, the padlock undone, and in a moment, Dmitri was gingerly making his way down the ladder to the floor. “All right,” he said once he’d arrived. “What do we do now?”
“You lead us out,” said Eamon, stroking the tussocky scruff of his black beard. “Septimus will scout ahead. You know this warren well enough?”
“Pretty well,” said Dmitri, his snout angled high as he snuffed the air. “I think I can find my way.”
Angus grabbed the remaining lit torch from the wall—it sent a shower of sparks skyward as he pulled it from its sconce—and called up to the rat, “Let’s fix a meeting point.”
“The armory. There’s a side passage that is usually empty. If we follow that we can skirt the central chamber and leave by the back entrance to the warren,” whispered Septimus from his nook in the ancient root-ball.
“But not before we free the King,” Cormac reminded the group. “We’re not leaving without Brendan.”
The four bandits, even the former dissenter Seamus, all nodded in resolute agreement.
“Very well,” said Septimus. “The interrogation chamber’s not far from the central hall. Do you know the way, Dmitri?”
Dmitri nodded, and Septimus continued, “I’ll scout it out. If there’s any trouble, I’ll head you off before you arrive.” The rat disappeared into the tendrils of the tree root, and this unlikely band of escapees—a coyote, an Outsider, and four bandits—left the prison chamber without looking back.
The air in the tunnel leading from the chamber was close and wet; the bandits’ footfalls made no noise. Only Dmitri’s and Curtis’s footsteps disturbed the quiet stillness. Curtis did his best to mimic the soft, quick movements of the four bandits but found it to be very difficult: The bandits’ dexterous motion seemed inbred, a natural instinct. After a time, they arrived at an intersection.
“Dmitri?” called Cormac quietly. “Which way?”
Dmitri squeezed his way to the front of the pack and pointed his muzzle down each of the four potential pathways. “We go right,” he said, finally. “To the armory. Straight ahead would take us to the central hall.” He heaved a swift inhale. “I smell dead campfire. They’ve put out the hearth. Curious.”
“Why?” asked Curtis.
Dmitri looked back. “I’ve never known the fire to be out. It’s always raging. I had the unfortunate task of keeping it stoked for a fortnight. No fun.”
“Never mind,” whispered Cormac. “Let’s keep moving.”
They took the right turn, Angus leading the way, with his sputtering torch casting a yellow globe of light along the corridor walls. Plant roots and knobby boulders vied for space along the ceiling; the loose, brown dirt of the floor was pockmarked with paw prints.
Curtis, falling behind momentarily, tripped over a leather strap from his boot that had come loose. He caught himself before h
itting the ground but issued a loud “OOF!”
“Shhhh!” hissed Seamus. “Keep those footsteps light. We don’t want the whole coyote army coming down on us.”
“Sorry!” whispered Curtis. “I’ll try.” A look on Seamus’s face, however, belied a kind of puzzlement. It was strange that they had yet to hear any sound from their captors; the warren tunnels were surprisingly silent.
Finally, they arrived at another intersection and, at Dmitri’s behest, they took a smaller corridor that led off to the left. This snaked around for a time before ending in a cramped chamber.
“Hold up,” instructed Angus quietly. He hefted the torch, and the light illuminated a short wooden door in the wall of the chamber left slightly ajar. “I hear something.”
The band of escapees held their collective breaths. A scurrying noise could be heard breaking the silence, the sound of small feet on the dirt floor.
A rat’s whiskery snout appeared around the corner of the door. It was Septimus. Using a single forepaw, he shoved the door open with a loud creak.
Cormac threw his finger to his lips reproachfully, reminding the rat of the need to stay silent, but Septimus was undeterred.
“It’s empty, lads,” he said. “The warren’s abandoned.”
“What?” asked Cormac, instinctively whispering.
“Gone. Vanished. Whoosh,” said Septimus, splaying the bony fingers of his paws before him. “Don’t need to be quiet. No one’s gonna hear you.”
“But . . . ,” came Dmitri’s voice from the back of the group. “They were just going to—to leave me there? In that cage?”
“What about us, you mutt? We were gonna be left too,” said Seamus.
“Well, I know but . . . I mean, you guys were the enemy,” explained Dmitri.
“Looks like the Dowager cares as little for her soldiers,” said Angus. The overall posture of the bandits had relaxed considerably. Seamus leaned against the earthen wall, picking dirt from a fingernail.
Dmitri was gutted. “I guess so,” he said slowly. “And I was only in there for ‘general insolence,’ whatever that means.”
“Capital crime, apparently,” said Angus.
Septimus interjected, “But you’re still looking for that Bandit King of yours, yes?”
Cormac’s face lit up. “Did they leave him? Where is he?”
“Follow me,” said Septimus, and he disappeared around the corner of the doorway.
Angus swept the sparking torch upright, and the four bandits, Curtis, and Dmitri followed the rat down the darkened passage.
As soon as the last bell peal had echoed into oblivion, Prue was on her bike and pedaling madly across the remaining span of the bridge—she was already beginning to regret her own impudence at ringing the bell. A wind had picked up, and she could feel the cold air from the river surface crest the lip of the bridge and sway the uppermost cabling of the suspension, causing it to whine noisily. The pavement seemed to shift underneath Prue’s bike tires, and, mindful that the bridge was in fact spectral, she set her eyes on the ground at the far side, intent on her crossing.
The rear tire of the Radio Flyer wagon had scarcely touched the earth on the other side when the mist reared once again into a massive thunderhead of fog and the bridge was consumed by the clouds. Prue slammed on the brakes and turned to watch the green steel towers dissipate in the mist, and then the smoke cleared to reveal the empty river valley yawning below her, uncrossable.
Prue turned back to the hill, gazed up at the looming barrier of trees before her, and shivered. The sun, now rising, glowed moodily behind a heavy curtain of clouds, its light a blue-gray sheen against the topmost firs and cedars of the forest. A chorus of birdsong was being taken up, and the air grew clamorously melodic. Looking down the hill, she saw that a dirt path had been worn in against the slope, leading away to the North and parallel to the river. Holding the handlebars of her bike, she cautiously scampered the few feet down to the path and began following it.
After a time, the ground became considerably less steep and no longer cut such a severe angle into the hillside; it ambled through the and short trees that made up this sort of forest boundary-land. Prue found she was able to comfortably ride her bike along the path, the red wagon raising a considerable ruckus as it clanged along behind her.
When she felt like she’d gone far enough, she stopped and gauged her position: Looking south, St. Johns was a distant speckle of rooftops, and the Railroad Bridge was all but lost to the shifting layers of mist on the river.
“Back we go,” Prue sighed.
She studied the hillside, looking for an opening in the bracken; an obliging break between two stands of twiggy dogwood allowed her deeper into the brush. She navigated her bike and wagon for a time through this low-growing vegetation, grimacing at every sticker bush that caught the leg of her jeans, until the underbrush began to thin away and was replaced by a stately grove of fir trees. The gaps between the trees became windows to wide glades of ground cover: wood sorrel, salal vines, and wildflowers. As she traveled farther, and the gray light grew more pervasive, she noticed that one of the forest meadows she’d passed had been lined with garden rows, a tangled muss of twining pumpkin vines and bean stalks. A quiet gravel lane opened up before her and she began to follow it; it wound through a series of similar glades, the wildness of the ground cover tamed by these tidy garden plots. Prue began to see small, ramshackle houses nestled in the far trees, tendrils of smoke drifting from their stone chimneys. Curious at this new development, she set the kickstand of her bike and walked closer to one of the garden plots to investigate. No sooner had she left the path when she heard a voice explode behind her.
“Go. No. Farther,” came the voice, low and steady.
Prue froze.
“Show your hands,” it instructed.
Prue raised her hands above her head.
“Now, turn to me. Slowly. I’m armed and unafraid to use force,” cautioned the voice. “So.”
Gulping, Prue slowly wheeled around to face her captor, away from the garden patch and back to the dirt lane. Before her stood a rabbit. A hare with a pitchfork. And what appeared to be a colander on his head.
“Disarm yourself,” said the rabbit.
Prue stared. He was a mottled brown hare and, reared on his hind legs as he was, came up no higher than her knee. The colander on his head splayed his long ears down the side of his face in what looked like an uncomfortable fashion. He apparently recognized Prue’s wonder, as he embarrassedly adjusted his helmet. A single ear poked out of the side handle of the colander. He brandished the small pitchfork angrily.
“I said, disarm yourself!” he shouted, baring two white, flat teeth.
“I’m unarmed!” said Prue, finally. She shook her hands. “See? No weapons.”
The hare, satisfied, sniffed at the air. “Who are you and what is your business in North Wood?”
“My name’s Prue. I’m from the Outside.” She paused before adding, “I’m here to see the Mystics.”
The hare raised an eyebrow. “An Outsider? I thought there was something funny about you, so. How’d you get in here?”
“I came from the river, from St. Johns. I walked in,” she explained. “Can I drop my hands now?”
“Okay,” acquiesced the hare. “But you’re coming with me.”
The hare led Prue farther down the earthen lane, following close behind with his pitchfork tines pointed at Prue’s back. A small break in the overhanging clouds cast little rays of light across the wooded meadows they passed; the garden plots that dotted the surroundings sucked in the brief sunlight before it was swallowed again. Here was a field of poppies, a mosaic of naked blue bulbs garlanding a hilly meadow. More small houses appeared, nestled into the trees. They were more rustic than any house Prue had seen in South Wood, appearing to be made with whatever materials were at hand, be it tree boughs, rock, or mud plaster. The roofs were thatched with bundles of yellow hay. Prue, after they’d walked a while, hazarded
a question.
“Is that a colander on your head?” she asked.
“What?” asked the hare incredulously. “No. It’s a helmet. So.”
“Can I ask who you are? Like, what’s your title?” asked Prue, not wishing to challenge the hare’s response.
“Constable to the People’s Collective of North Wood,” responded the hare proudly. “And it’s my job to keep the roads clean of riffraff like yourself.” He then added, clearly unconsciously, the single word, “So.”
The lane widened. They began to pass more and more travelers, animal and human alike. Many walked; others rode rickety bicycles or slow, slope-backed donkeys. A brightly covered caravan wagon, drawn by a pair of tasseled mules, lumbered along the road ahead. Prue watched it curiously as it passed them. The wagon itself was like a small house on wheels. Prue was shocked to see that it was being driven by a coyote. Her mind flashed to the scene, only a few days prior, of Curtis’s abduction at the hands of the coyote soldiers. However, as the caravan drew closer, the kind look on the coyote’s face immediately put her fears to rest. The coyote nodded at the constable as they passed. Apparently coyotes lived amicably among their fellows in this part of the Wood.
Finally, the hare led Prue down a smaller road off the lane, and they arrived at a small wooden house in the middle of a wide meadow. A sign above a ramshackle porch read N. WOOD CONSTABULARY. A fox in a pair of faded dungarees and a half-buttoned linen shirt sat in a chair on the porch, smoking a pipe.
“What ya got there, Samuel?” asked the fox.
The hare stamped the handle of his pitchfork on the ground and saluted. “An Outsider, sir,” he said. “Found her on the boundary. Says she wants to see the Mystics. So.”
The fox looked up. “An Outsider? How the heck did she get in?”
“Probably Woods Magic, sir. She must be a half-breed,” was the hare’s reply.