Prue waited for the girl to say something and when she didn’t, she smiled and said, “Hi.”
“Hi!” said the girl, apparently overjoyed to have gained Prue’s attention. “I’m Iris. What’s your name?” Prue introduced herself.
“You’re from over the boundary, huh?” asked Iris.
“Yep,” said Prue.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m hoping the Mystics will help me find my brother,” said Prue before adding playfully, “What are you doing here?”
Iris blushed. “I’m learning. I don’t know if I’m any good, though. It’s hard to sit still. I’m only a second-yearer, though. They say I’ll get the hang of it by sixth year. My parents said I have the gift.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, though.”
“The gift?” asked Prue.
“Yeah,” said the girl. “To be a Mystic. I didn’t think anything of it; I just like to sit in the garden and talk to the plants.”
“Do they talk back?” asked Prue.
Iris crumpled her nose and laughed. “No, they don’t talk,” she said. “They don’t have mouths!”
“Well,” said Prue, a little embarrassed, “then why do you talk to them?”
“‘Cause they’re here. They’re all around us. It’d be rude to just ignore them,” said the girl. “Watch.”
The girl shifted onto her knees and, placing her hands calmly at her sides, closed her eyes. A tuft of grass before her began to waver, as if a breeze had suddenly picked up and was thrumming through its blades. Prue noted, however, that the air around them remained still. As she watched, the individual blades of grass started to quiver and then, to Prue’s amazement, began wrapping themselves around their neighbors. Before long, the grass on the tuft had created a little forest of perfectly braided strands. “That’s incredible,” she whispered.
The acolyte’s brow was wrinkled with concentration as the grass continued to weave together—but the uniformity of the braids slowly grew more chaotic and messy until the woven patterns became indistinguishable and the tuft of grass had knotted itself into a tangle of quivering green wires.
“Phooey!” shouted Iris, her eyes opening. “I always mess that up.”
Her attention withdrawn, the leaves untangled themselves and returned to their previous incarnation: a simple tuft of meadow grass.
A makeshift soccer ball made of twine came bouncing between them. Two acolytes, a boy and a raccoon, apologized as they ran to get it. Iris, belying her age and attention span, immediately forgot Prue and leapt up to chase it, to get to it before her playmates did. She’d run only a few yards, though, before she stopped and turned to look at Prue. She jogged back to where Prue sat and placed a hand on her arm.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “you’re going to find your brother.” And she ran off to join the other robed children.
Prue stared at the young girl as she ran away, thunderstruck by the display of power she’d just seen. You do that, she thought, through meditation? The Mystic had said that she, Prue, was of Woods Magic, or at least partly. Why shouldn’t she then be able to make the grass do her bidding? She briefly stared back down at the tuft of grass and willed it to move. Nothing happened. She gritted her teeth and thought as loudly as she could: Move! I command you! Still nothing. Prue huffed in disappointment. She looked back up at the milling children, the sitting Mystics, and the looming tree. What power! she thought. If anyone could help her, these people could. And what had Iris said before she left? That Prue would find her brother? She was struck by the honesty of the young girl, how plainspoken she’d been—how certain her voice was. She found that she was smiling, a small ray of hope eclipsing the desperation of her predicament, if only for a moment. She watched the acolytes at play, watched a few older robed figures appear from the woods and whistle to them. Hearing the whistle, they all immediately dropped what they’d been doing and gathered in single file. A second whistle came and they began walking toward the whistler, their feet in a loose lockstep. Before long, they’d disappeared beyond the wall of trees.
Prue sighed and trained her eyes back on the Council Tree and the static circle of Mystics encircling it. The light began to fade. Prue hiked her knees to her chest and burrowed her chin into the inside of her elbow. And waited.
The grass at her feet rustled slightly.
“You’re really gonna do this, aren’t you,” said Septimus in disbelief. “I mean, you’re really gonna do this? You’re going to go to war. With these people.”
Curtis, sitting on a rock in front of the campfire, nodded. He was busy scraping a flinty whetstone against the chinked blade of a saber. With each drag of the stone along the blade, the gouges that marred the edge grew shallower and shallower. He’d been given the job by Seamus, and he found it was oddly satisfying. The dusk had lowered over the camp, and the air was tinged blue.
“You’re crazy,” declared Septimus, shaking his head. “You’re nuts. Don’t you have a family at home? Back on the Outside? Like, parents and things?”
Curtis nodded again. “I do, yeah.”
Septimus held out his paws. “Then why, man, why? Why don’t you go home to ’em? Forget about the whole thing? Go back to your life!”
Curtis paused and looked over at the rat. He was perched on an upended chunk of firewood in front of the crackling campfire. “That’s what you’re going to do, I take it,” said Curtis. He held the saber at arm’s length and eyed the blade. Satisfied, he tossed it on the pile of weapons beside him and called to Septimus, “Another one, please.”
The rat hopped down from the log and scrambled over to another pile of weapons: swords, bayonets, and arrowheads. He grabbed a long dagger by the hilt and dragged it over to Curtis. Curtis picked it up and began the process anew: scraping the whetstone carefully over the blade.
Septimus climbed back up onto the log and pondered Curtis’s question. “I don’t know, rightly,” he said. “Haven’t given it that much thought.”
“Don’t you have family?” asked Curtis.
“Nah, not me,” said Septimus, puffing up his chest. “Not I. Single man, me. Untethered.”
“So there’s nothing stopping you, then,” said Curtis. “No reason you can’t join the fight.” He scraped the flesh of his thumb against the blade, feeling the sharpness. “Right?”
Septimus laughed. “Listen to you,” he said. “Mister Big Britches all of a sudden.”
Curtis colored slightly. “All I know, Septimus, is that I came in here to do something. And I don’t feel like I should leave until I at least try to finish what I started, you know? I was this close, Septimus, this close. I had Mac in my arms. I could’ve . . . I could’ve . . .”
Septimus interrupted, “What, just run him out of the warren? Just like that? With all them crows and the Governess standing right in front of you?”
Curtis sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I just want to make good on a promise. That’s all.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the approach of Seamus. He’d ditched his irretrievably torn prison attire for a handsome green velvet hussar’s uniform, which hung a little loosely on his thin frame. “Curtis,” he said, “let’s go.”
“What’s up?” asked Curtis.
“Brendan. He wants to see you.”
“What about?”
Seamus rolled his eyes. “Flower pressing,” he said sarcastically. “What difference does it make? Important business. Come on.”
“Okay,” said Curtis, standing up. “Septimus, see if you can’t, I don’t know, finish things up here.”
Septimus, nonplussed, looked at the whetstone. It was easily half the size of his whole body. “Okay, but I—”
“Thanks, man,” said Curtis. “Guess I’ll . . . see you in a bit.”
Curtis followed the bandit over to a lodgelike hut at the far end of the clearing. The light of a candle illuminated the interior of the building, casting a glowing orb of light across the overhanging branches of the fir-bough–shin
gled roof. Brendan sat on a small, upturned barrel at a rude desk. He looked up when he saw Curtis enter.
“How are you, Curtis?” asked the Bandit King.
“Good, thanks,” said Curtis. “What’s up?”
Brendan gestured for Seamus to stand by the door to the hut. He looked directly at Curtis, his steely blue eyes catching the flicker of the candle. “The boys were giving me the lowdown on what happened, back there in the Dowager’s prison. Seems you really showed your mettle.”
Curtis smiled sheepishly. “I don’t know,” he said. “Guess someone had to do it. It just happened that my cage was the right one—to make it to the ladder, that is.”
Brendan stood up from his seat and walked a tight circle around the half-barrel chair. Opening a small trunk in the corner of the hut, he pulled an ornamental dagger from its insides. He turned it over in his hand thoughtfully. A gilded snake wound its way across the hilt from the guard to the pommel.
“The lads have come to me with a petition,” he said. “And I have to say, I tend to agree with ’em. You’ve been nominated to take the bandit oath.”
Curtis’s eyes widened. “Really?” He cast a glance over his shoulder at Seamus at the door of the hut. The bandit gave him a quick, proud nod.
“Yep, and it’s not something to be taken lightly. Very few men and women, if they ain’t first born into the camp, get the opportunity to do so. And, as far as I can reckon, you’d be the first Outsider to be elected to it.”
“What does it mean?”
Brendan walked toward Curtis and stood within inches of his face. Curtis’s nose barely came up to the middle buttons of the bandit’s shirt. “It means to be a Wildwood bandit,” said Brendan, “through and through, till your dying day.”
The conifer branches of the lodge’s roof shook a little in a quiet breeze. The sound of the bandits’ hubbub in the camp could be heard beyond the walls, a steady clamor.
“Okay,” said Curtis, after a moment. “I’d be honored.”
He was jarred by a sudden slap to his back. It was Seamus. “That’s my lad.”
Brendan walked to the front of the hut and yelled out into the milling crowd of bandits. “Angus! Cormac! He’s ready.”
The four bandits, Angus, Cormac, Seamus, and Brendan, led Curtis away from the hubbub of the campsite and over to where a few torches illuminated a narrow, switchbacking trail that cut its way up the side of the ravine. After a short time they came to a small glade. In the center of the clearing was a carefully stacked pile of slate stones, standing about three feet high, protected from the rain by a small wooden shelter. The bandits urged Curtis forward; they fanned out to make a semicircle around the altarlike stack. Walking closer, Curtis saw that a thick, dark film stained the gray face of the altar’s headstone.
“Stand by the stone, Curtis,” said Brendan.
Curtis glanced back down at the altar. Little stripes of the dried black liquid descended the length of the altar. A dark clot of the stuff had pooled in a little divot in the face of the top stone. Suddenly, Curtis heard the ominous swik of a dagger being drawn. He turned quickly to see Brendan, his face awash in the torchlight, approaching. He held the ornamental knife in his hand.
A momentary panic passed through Curtis’s chest. Was this some sort of trap? Had they really not forgiven him for his involvement in the other day’s battle? He was about to issue a frightened plea when he saw Brendan do something wholly unexpected: He brought the blade of the knife to his own palm and, gritting his teeth, drew it across the flesh. A bright streak of red appeared on his palm, and he walked to the side of the stone altar, letting the blood drip onto the rock. Turning to Curtis, he flipped the knife in his uncut hand so that the handle faced out, toward Curtis.
“Cut your palm, stain the altar stone with blood,” explained Brendan, bright drops of red dripping from his open palm.
Curtis took the knife from Brendan and gingerly held the blade to the smooth skin of his palm. “Just like this?” he asked.
Brendan nodded.
He held his eyelids shut and pressed the cold metal into his skin, feeling a pang of pain as the blade cut through. A little bubble of deep-red blood emerged from the wound, and he quickly held it over the stone, letting the few drops fall on the altar. He watched as both his and Brendan’s blood rolled down the shallow bowl of the stone to well together in the little divot, conjoining into a unified dark blot. Brendan smiled and nodded.
“Now the creed,” instructed Brendan.
Angus stepped forward and began to recite the oath, which Curtis repeated after every line.
I, Curtis Mehlberg, do solemnly swear to uphold the bandit code and creed.
To live by my own hand and to challenge all forms of authority before the code
To protect the freedom and interests of the poor
To liberate the wealthy from their wealth
To put no person’s labor before another’s
To work for the communal good of my fellow bandits
To hold no allegiances over my fellow bandits
To hold all plants, animals, and humans as equals
And to live and die by the bandit band.
A quiet overcame the glade, broken when Angus spoke. “There you go,” he said. “Step forward, Bandit Curtis.”
Brendan slapped Curtis on the back. “Congratulations, boyo,” he said, taking the knife back and sliding it into its sheath.
Curtis smiled and said, “Thanks.” He held his palm to his mouth, tasting the sharp saltiness of the blood on his tongue.
Curtis was surrounded by the rest of the bandits, each shaking his hand and patting his shoulder in congratulations. “You’ll make a fine thief,” said Seamus. “I knew it as soon as I’d laid eyes on you.”
A stir in the ring of vegetation bordering the glade announced the approach of a pair of bandit sentries. “Sir,” one said, his face etched with concern, “the scouts have returned. The coyote army has crossed the Gap Bridge and is marching on the Old Woods.”
Brendan frowned. “Sooner than I expected,” he said, knitting his brow. “They’ll be at the Ancients’ Grove by morning.” He looked back at Curtis and the bandits who stood by the stone altar. “Ready yourselves,” he said. “We march tonight.”
The clearing was immediately emptied of bandits as they ran back down the trail toward the camp. Only Curtis remained, standing frozen in thought by the stone altar. He held his palm to his mouth and sucked at the little cut. Pulling his hand away to inspect the wound, he heard himself say, “What did I just do?”
A bitter wind tonight, thought Alexandra as she trotted the horse across the dark boards of the bridge. The winds blowing down the ravine set the horse’s bit to rattling. The sea of soldiers extended out before her, unending, the noise of their myriad boot steps a rhythmic drumbeat against the silent forest. This bridge, she thought, will be gone when the ivy comes. This ancient bridge. How long has it spanned the Gap? Since before the Svik dynasty, before the Mystics fled South Wood. The last unbroken remnant of the Ancients’ great civilization, its wooden boards laced with magic. But as the Ancients fell, so will the usurpers of South Wood.
How they will fall, she thought, how they will beg for forgiveness. Little Lars, my beloved’s idiot brother. What gall to assume that he could succeed me. That he could succeed my darling Alexei. And send me into frozen exile. He will be the first to pay.
The tree branches moaned against the wind, a new shower of dead leaves drifting like snow on the neat columns of uniformed soldiers. The baby in her arm kicked at its swaddling and babbled.
This is how I will show them their impertinence, she thought.
This.
Prue woke with a start. She’d had a dream: A low bell tone sounded and she found herself standing on a great bridge. She tried to run across, but the wooden surface disappeared below her feet, and she fell to the rushing river water below. The sensation dragged her from her deep slumber. A bunched stand of grass had etched little
dimpled lines into her cheek, and her clothes felt damp from the cold dew that spangled the meadow. It was pitch-black. The moon’s glow shone from beneath a wide curtain of clouds, and shades of mist clung to the high treetops at the meadow’s edge. She sat up, wiping sleep from her eyes, and looked down toward the Council Tree. Several torches had been lit around the meadow, and they cast flickering shadows on the ground. By the tree, one of the Mystics had stood and was running a wooden striker around the bowled interior of a brass bell, creating a long, sustained peal that covered the entire meadow—the very sound from Prue’s dream. At the sound, the Mystics began to move from their seated positions.
As Prue watched breathlessly, she saw Iphigenia stir and open her eyes. The Elder Mystic began searching the surrounding meadow. When her look landed on Prue, she stood up and began walking toward her. Prue leapt up and ran to meet her.
“Young girl,” Iphigenia began saying before they’d even met, “dear girl, we have work to do.”
“What work?” asked Prue. “What are you talking about? What did the tree say?”
“A great wrong is unfolding,” said the Mystic, her voice devoid of its earlier easiness, “a threat to every living thing in the Wood.”
“What’s happening?” asked Prue. “Did it say anything about my brother?”
Iphigenia paused and stared into Prue’s eyes. “Oh, dear,” she said, “I’m afraid the news is very bad.” She gripped Prue’s hands in her own. “The Council Tree is the foundation of the Wood itself, its roots entwined into every inch of soil beneath us, from North to South. And so, it feels every perturbation in the fabric of the Wood, from the topple of an ancient oak to a moth’s wing beat. It has felt the ivy waken and has for some time. Something has been disrupting its slumber. It is now clear; the ivy thirsts for blood. A great army marches on the Ancients’ Grove, the ruined heart of a long-dead civilization, where the taproot of the ivy sleeps. At the head of this army rides the exiled Governess, and she carries with her an infant human child, a half-breed Outsider like you.”