Into the Wild

Oh, no. Julie looked down at her flip-flops. She began to feel sick as a horrible suspicion solidified in her mind. No, it wasn’t possible. Her door was locked. “Boots,” Julie called. “Boots!”

  Green seeped down a drainage hole, raced around a manhole cover, and climbed a streetlamp. The TV camera chased the vines as they braided themselves around the pole.

  It was super-powered fertilizer. Yes, it had to be some escaped science experiment. Or a weird government thing, a biological weapon—but if it were a weapon, wouldn’t it kill things, not make them grow?

  Helicopters whirred overhead, and the reporter clutched at her coat as it fluttered around her. Gas stations did not just sprout trees.

  “We have been told that a SWAT team has been ordered on the scene, and police are currently evacuating the surrounding area.”

  Boots sauntered into the living room. “Unless you found me a girlfriend, I’m going back to sleep.” He froze mid-stride as the camera panned away from the self-service island across police cars, TV station vans, and a crowd of onlookers held back by police tape.

  Looming over the crowd was a thick, dark forest.

  “Oh, no,” Boots said.

  Julie barreled up the stairs. She grabbed the key from Mom’s jewelry box, and she unlocked her bedroom door. “Please, no. Please,” she said. She dropped beside her bed and yanked up the dust ruffle.

  Aside from a few green stains, nothing was there.

  This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. She’d had nightmares like this. She flopped her stomach to the floor and crawled under the bed. “Please be here. Please!”

  It wasn’t.

  Julie wormed back out from under the bed. “No,” she said. “No!” It couldn’t be gone. She looked around her room—nothing under her desk, nothing behind her bookshelf. She opened her closet and shoveled clothes off the closet floor into the center of the room. She pulled the drawers out of her dresser. She searched the drawers in her desk. She ripped the covers off her bed.

  Finally, there was no place left to look. She stood in the center of her wrecked room. Somehow, the Wild had escaped. Worse, it had escaped and grown. It wasn’t hidden anymore.

  Clapping her hands over her mouth, she ran for the bathroom. She fell in front of the toilet and retched. Government laboratories. TV documentaries. National Enquirer articles. Talk show specials. She’d be branded a freak forever. She’d never be able to have a normal life. The whole world would know she was Rapunzel’s daughter.

  Why? Why? WHY? She hadn’t asked for this. She hadn’t asked for a mother with secrets this big. She hadn’t asked for a mother who wasn’t supposed to exist.

  She had, in fact, wished her mother wasn’t her mother.

  Stomach empty, she sank down on the bath mat. What if . . . Oh, God, could her wish have somehow caused this? Was this her fault? “No, no, no,” she said. “I take it back! I didn’t mean it!”

  But she had meant it when she’d said it.

  “Please, I take it back!”

  How did you undo a wish? The words were out, dissolved in the air. You couldn’t suck them back in. She’d said it; it was done. And now the Wild was free . . .

  No. She couldn’t have caused this. She hadn’t wished in the well. Just wishing aloud couldn’t do anything. Hundreds, thousands, millions of people wished all the time, and their wishes didn’t all come true. Look at how often she had wished for her dad. If her wishes had power, it wouldn’t be just her and Mom.

  Whatever had happened with the Wild, Mom would know how to fix it. Julie had to call her and tell her the Wild was free. I can’t, she thought. How could she tell Mom that their worst nightmare had come true? How could she face her after what she’d said?

  Knees shaking, Julie got to her feet. She splashed water on her face and rinsed her mouth. Laboratories, she reminded herself. National Enquirer. She had to tell Mom.

  Julie went downstairs. “As far as can be determined,” she heard the TV say, “it appears the growth began in the vicinity of a local establishment, the Wishing Well Motel.” She missed the last step and landed hard on the heels of her feet. Grandma . . .

  She hurried to the phone and dialed the number for Rapunzel’s Hair Salon.

  No one answered.

  Chapter Six

  Behind the Yellow Tape

  As Julie coasted into the parking lot of Rapunzel’s Hair Salon, she heard cheesy ’80s music drift out the open door. It sounded so cheerfully normal that for an instant, she thought maybe she was wrong. Maybe the Wild wasn’t growing. Why would Mom be listening to the radio if the Wild was growing? She propped her bike against the bike rack and went inside. “Mom . . .” She halted beside the reception desk.

  All the lights were on, and one of the dryers was blowing hot air on a vacant chair. Julie felt her heart drop into her stomach.

  The salon was empty.

  The salon was never empty.

  “Mom?” Her voice came out as a squeak.

  “Oh, honey,” she heard. The mirror! She’d forgotten the mirror! The mirror’s smoke-like face drifted across the glass over Julie’s reflection (frizzed hair, red sweater and jeans). “Haven’t you heard?” the mirror said. “The Wild Wood has returned.”

  She felt dizzy. It was like there wasn’t enough oxygen. Don’t panic, she told herself. The fairy-tale characters stopped it before, back when the Middle Ages ended. She was sure they’d defeat it again.

  Mom must have gone to watch it be defeated. She probably planned to fit it in between appointments—pop out, watch the Wild shrink; pop in, cut some bangs. That was why she hadn’t bothered turning the radio off.

  Julie tried to make herself believe it.

  “Please, child, take me off the wall before it comes,” the mirror said.

  Grandma would do something witchy to defeat it. She wouldn’t let the Wild recapture the fairy-tale characters or force ordinary people into its stories. Julie just had an overactive imagination.

  She remembered last night when Grandma called the motel and Mom asked what was wrong. That must have been when she found out . . . But that was before Julie had voiced that wish. She’d been right—the Wild’s escape wasn’t her fault. The timing made that impossible. So why didn’t that make her feel better?

  Wait—if they knew about the Wild last night, then why was it still here today?

  “Smash me on the floor if you have to,” the mirror said, “but don’t leave me here. I will not lose myself again. I cannot.”

  Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong, and the mirror knew it.

  Julie’s feet were moving under her, faster and faster. She ran out of the salon, down the steps, and to her bike. Getting on, she started pedaling.

  Grandma will stop it, she told herself. It’ll be okay. It had to be okay.

  She heard sirens. Outside Shattuck’s Pharmacy, she saw the ABC Channel 5 News van, and her heart jumped into her throat. She tried to calm herself: she’d seen this on the news, so of course there were news vans. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean the Wild was still growing. Please, don’t be growing.

  In the distance, she heard the thrum of a helicopter. She passed more news vans and then emergency vehicles: police cars, ambulances, fire engines. Red siren lights splashed across the buildings. It’s okay, she repeated, Grandma will fix it; it’s all okay.

  She came around the corner of the library, and she saw the crowd: a teeming swarm of reporters, scientists, and police. On TV, the crowd hadn’t looked so large. Or so upset. Why were there so many people? What did it mean that there were so many people? Where was Mom? Where was Grandma?

  Grandma should be vanquishing the Wild—it should be writhing and melting into a puddle of vines. Or whatever it did. Standing on her toes on the pedals, Julie looked for the Wild.

  Above the street and beyond the crowd, she saw dark summer green where there should have been bare autumn branches. It was a smear of dark green. A big smear. A very, very big smear. She realized
she was gripping the handlebars of her bike so hard that it hurt. This had been under her bed? It wasn’t possible. It was so . . . big.

  How could Grandma, or anyone, stop it?

  Julie ditched her bike at the library and plunged into the crowd. “Mom? Mom!” Instantly, she lost sight of the forest as the crowd swarmed around her. Armpit level with the adults, she wormed between jackets and coats. “’Scuze me. Excuse me!” People surged around her, and she was swept forward.

  Hundreds of camera shutters clicked. Police yelled into megaphones: “Stand away from the tape. Behind the yellow tape. Stand away from the tape.” A film crew muscled past her. Grabbing the back of a flannel shirt, she followed in their wake.

  Someone pushed into her, and she lost her grip. She fell into the yellow police tape. She lifted her eyes, and for the first time, the Wild was directly in front of her. Only three feet of pavement separated her and the trees.

  Gnarled limbs stretched like frozen fingers. Trunks curved into mouthlike holes. Julie froze, a deer in headlights. It’ll eat me, she thought. If it catches me, it’ll eat me.

  She saw remnants of the Shell station laced in leaves. Thick, ancient-looking oaks enveloped the structure. Only the UNLEADED price sign and bits of roof were visible now. It looked much, much worse in person than it had on TV. She stared at the sign and thought of the way the Wild had consumed her sneaker. What if her mom were in there, wrapped in trees? Don’t think that! Her mom wasn’t in there. She was safe. She was fine. Any second, Julie would see her in the crowd, and . . .

  A loud whir grew behind her.

  She turned and saw a military helicopter flying low over Main Street. We have been told that a SWAT team has been ordered on the scene, she remembered. Julie clapped her hands over her ears as the copter rumbled and whined. Her eyes (and those of everyone in the crowd) followed the dark gray helicopter as it flew over their heads and over the top of the encroaching forest.

  “No,” Julie whispered—my sneaker, she thought. She had thrown her sneaker at the Wild, and the Wild had swallowed it. They were throwing a helicopter . . . Oh, no. No, no. “Wait! Don’t!”

  As soon as the rear of the helicopter crossed over the invisible line between ordinary street and the Wild, it happened: the Wild, like some kind of gigantic octopus, flung thick vines into the air—the crowd gasped—Julie couldn’t breathe. The vines wrapped around the helicopter—the blades stopped. Suddenly, there was silence, and then the vines pulled the helicopter down into the forest. “No,” she said.

  She heard a horrible crunching noise—metal being crushed.

  And the crowd started to scream.

  Julie shoved through the mob. “Mom! MOM!” She was thrown back into the police tape. “Mommy! Zel! Rapunzel!”

  Half the people tried to flee, and the other half surged forward. Julie clung to the yellow tape as people knocked into her. “Please keep calm . . .” a voice on a megaphone said. “Oh, we’re going to die!” someone wailed. “We’re all going to die!” Another shouted, “Call in the army! Blow it to bits!” “. . . an orderly evacuation,” the megaphone said. Evacuation? No, she couldn’t leave. Not before she found Mom!

  “Idiots!” she heard, shrill over the crowd. “Numskulls! I told you not to enter it! It will trap you if you enter it! Fools!”

  She recognized the voice: Goldilocks. It felt like a lifeline in a storm. Goldie, Mom’s friend. “Goldie!” Julie called. She waved her arms in the air. “Goldie, over here!” Julie tried to push toward her, but the tide of the crowd swept against her as police corralled the onlookers back. Elbows and arms jabbed into her. “No! Let me through!” Julie squirmed through the press of people. She burst out in front. The woods, huge and dark, rose up in front of her. She jumped back from the leading edge of moss, and the crowd again swallowed her.

  She didn’t see Goldie. Where was she? Julie spun in a circle and saw a flash of pink Lycra. “Cindy!” she cried.

  “Oh, Julie!” Cindy pushed toward her and crushed her in a hug.

  Julie shoved back from her. “Cindy, where is she?” Tears clogged her eyes. She wiped them back. She had to see. She had to find Mom! “Where is she! Where’s my mom?”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Cindy said. “Let me take you to safety. We can get in my car and drive. All the way to California if we have to.”

  She choked down panic. “But where’s—”

  Cindy squeezed Julie’s shoulders. “Julie, honey, sweet-heart . . .” Leaning in so Julie could hear her, Cindy shouted in Julie’s ear, “Your mother was a hero! She got the motel guests away before any of them realized what was happening!”

  Julie didn’t understand. Her mother wasn’t a hero; her mother was a hairdresser. What did Cindy mean, “she got the motel guests away”? What did she mean, “was a hero”? What did she mean “was”? Julie gulped in air. Her heart was thudding in her ears, louder than the shouting. “What . . .” Her voice squeaked. She licked her lips and tried again: “What do you mean?”

  Shoving a rubbernecker aside, Goldie strode toward them. “You! It’s your mother’s fault! She made it worse! It doubled in size after she went in and joined its stories.” Cindy hissed at her, but Goldie shook her ringlets viciously and continued, “She had to be the hero. Always the hero! Never thinking about me!”

  After she went in? Mom went in? In the Wild? In that thing that ate a police helicopter? Her mom was in that? The thick vines were strangling the gas station sign, and the station’s roof was now completely obscured by dense, dark leaves. “Get back from the yellow tape!” the megaphones blared. Julie started to shake. She had to have heard wrong. Film crews pushed past her. The shouting was a buzz in her ears. “But . . . what . . .” She turned to Cindy.

  “She went in after Gothel,” Cindy said, pity in her eyes.

  Julie gaped at her. Grandma was in there too? Mom and Grandma were in the Wild? No. It was too much. It couldn’t be happening. It had to be some horrible nightmare. Wake up, Julie. Please, wake up. She felt tears on her cheeks. She wiped her nose with her sleeve.

  “Oh, honey,” Cindy said. “Let me take you away from here.” She put her arm around Julie and tried to guide her away.

  Julie didn’t move. Mom and Grandma . . . Feeling sick, she looked up at the tangled green. A hundred feet above the street, the leaves clawed the sky—was it wind, or were they moving on their own? Oh, please, she thought, let this not be happening. Why was this happening? She thought again of her wish. “Last night, I wished . . . I wished . . .”

  Goldie drew herself taller. “You stupid girl! You idiotic—” Her hands curled into fists, and her arms shook.

  “You wished in the well?” Cindy said.

  “No!” Julie said. “But I wished out loud . . .” Again, she saw the look on Mom’s face. Julie’s throat clogged. She couldn’t repeat what she’d said.

  “Oh, sweetie, that couldn’t have done it,” Cindy said. “Only a wish in the well could do this. While Gothel was at your house last night, someone had to have snuck in to the well and wished for the Wild to be at the motel, free and strong. It was not your fault. You couldn’t have caused this.”

  Cindy was right—Julie hadn’t been near the well, and she didn’t have any magic powers. But that didn’t make her feel any better. Julie flinched as a camera flashed in her eyes. The flash failed to illuminate the shadows of the Wild. Dark and silent, the woods towered over the crowd. Someone had wished for the Wild to escape and grow. Someone had caused this to happen to Mom and Grandma. Who would do that? “But . . . but . . . who? Why?”

  Cindy wrung her hands. “We don’t know!”

  “I hope the Wild caught them,” Goldie said. “I hope it makes them dance to death in iron shoes. Again and again. Or burn in their own oven. Or plummet from a cliff . . .”

  The pavement trembled under them, and Julie heard a crunch as a length of sidewalk split under the pressure of the green. New tendrils shot across the yellow police tape. “Someone has to do something,” J
ulie said.

  “Run,” Goldie suggested.

  “Someone has to stop it. Someone has to save them.” She scanned the crowd. People were scattering like chickens, running in frantic circles. “The police . . .”

  “. . . have no idea what they’re dealing with,” Goldie said scornfully. “You could nuke it, and it would transform the nuke. The police can’t stop it.”

  “Someone who knows the Wild, then. One of the heroes,” Julie said. “Or a magician. Or a fairy.” She latched onto Cindy. “You have a fairy godmother. Call her!” Cindy began to shake her head sadly. “Fairy godmother!” Julie shouted. “Please, fairy godmother! I need you! Fairy godmother!”

  Pop.

  Smoke puffed in front of them, and Julie sneezed. She opened her eyes to see a plump woman in a bathing suit and butterfly wings standing in front of her. All the TV cameras swung toward them. The fairy lowered her sunglasses on her nose. “Oh, my goodness,” she said, “it has been an age. Don’t you know I’m retired? I don’t do balls anymore.”

  “Please,” Julie said. Her throat stuck. Her face felt hot. She couldn’t talk. Her mother . . . Mom was in the Wild.

  “Can you take her to safety?” Cindy asked the fairy.

  The fairy saw the forest, and she blanched. “Oh, oh! How terrible! This was such a nice country!” Her wings fluttered agitatedly, and she rose up onto her toes. “How did this happen?”

  “Stupid well,” Goldie said. “We should have buried it in cement. We should’ve hidden it behind barbed wire and laser sensors—”

  “The child,” Cindy reminded the fairy.

  Instantly, the fairy godmother smiled, falsely bright, at Julie. “Don’t worry, my dear. We can be in Florida in an eyeblink. Or maybe Europe. Yes, you’ll be safe from the Wild there, for a time. Oh, who could have done such a thing? Who would want the Wild to come back?”

  “No, no,” Julie wailed. “You have to stop it! You have to save my mother! Wave your wand and fix it!” She waved her hands at the towering trees.

  “Me? Oh, no, dear. I can’t stop the Wild from the outside. No one can. Just like no one could destroy the wishing well. Or even change your mother’s hair color. It can’t be done.”