Into the Wild

  “Stupid,” she said out loud. How could she go up against the Wild? She was one girl. She had nothing to help her make it through the Wild . . .

  Or did she? Dropping the necklaces, she picked up Mom’s special key—the key that opened all locks, including the linen closet.

  Chapter Nine

  The Linen Closet

  If this was a war, here was her arsenal.

  What should she take? What did heroes use against witches, wolves, ogres, magicians . . . ? She’d better take everything.

  Julie inhaled deeply, then plunged into the closet and began shoveling items into her backpack: wands, hats, scarves, small boxes. Into a side pocket, she dumped a handful of magic rings. She added a jeweled knife, a tablecloth, several feathers, and a purse with pebbles. Shelf by shelf, she emptied the closet and stuffed the backpack until it was bursting.

  When she finished with the shelves, she knelt down and sorted through the boots on the floor—too small, too large, too incomplete . . . She extracted a pair of brown boots and examined them. They looked like they would fit, and (except for a frayed lace) they were mostly whole. Julie flipped off her left sandal and put on a boot. Holding on to the linen closet door, she stood up on her other foot. Carefully, she placed the boot down. With a whoosh of air, she found her nose pressed against the wall.

  Ouch.

  Guess it works, she thought. Balancing, she took off the boot. With the magic Seven League Boots, she felt much better. They could help her cross the forest in seconds. She’d tie them to the handlebars of her bike, she decided, and she’d put them on as soon as she entered the Wild. With luck, she’d be in and out of the woods before the Wild could trap her in any of its stories.

  In and out of the woods.

  This, she thought, is a terrible idea. What was she doing? She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t walk into the Wild and intentionally use fairy-tale items. She’d only be making things worse. It was stupid to take this stuff. Using it could set off fairy-tale events. Using it could trap her in a story. Using it could make the Wild grow larger faster. It went against everything Mom had ever taught her. Mom would have a fit if she knew Julie was even thinking about doing it.

  On the other hand, did she really want to waltz into the Wild empty-handed?

  Standing on tiptoes, she felt along the upper shelves. Her fingers brushed cool metal. She pulled the item down.

  It was a trumpet. Gillian, she thought. I have to warn Gillian! By now, the Wild could be at Crawford Street. Julie dumped out some scarves and hats and crammed the trumpet into her pack. She zipped it shut, then locked the closet door. After a moment’s thought, she slipped the works-on-any-door key into her jeans pocket. She hurried to the phone.

  Busy signal.

  That meant someone was still home.

  Stop there first, Julie decided, and then into the Wild. With luck, Gillian would talk her out of going at all.

  Distantly, Julie heard sirens. She knocked on Gillian’s door. “Gillian!” She rang the bell. “Gillian! Mrs. Thomas!” She pounded with her fist.

  She heard shouting inside, then footsteps. Gillian yanked open the door. “Julie!” Behind her, Gillian’s five-year-old sister, Rachel, screamed, “Not without my Barbies!” Her mother boomed back: “You are getting in that car, young lady, whether I have to carry you there or not! Now, let go of that table!”

  “Did you hear?” Gillian said to Julie. “Police are evacuating the street. News says they’ve called out the National Guard. No one knows what’s going on, but it’s big.” Rachel shrieked like an irate dolphin, and both Gillian and Julie winced. “Sirens freaked her out,” Gillian said. “It’s like a national disaster or something. In Northboro! Can you believe it? I mean, nothing ever happens here. There’s this, like, monster growth—”

  Julie interrupted, “It’s the Wild.”

  Gillian’s mouth pursed into a small o.

  “It’s got my mom,” Julie said.

  Gillian’s mouth opened and shut, wordless.

  Trying to sound braver than she felt, Julie said, “I’m going in.” She was not going to let Gillian talk her out of it. No matter what she said. She was going to be strong and . . .

  “Oh, wow,” Gillian said. “Can I go?”

  Julie gawked at her. “No.”

  “C’mon,” she said. “You can’t leave me out of this. Nothing this interesting ever happens to me. I want to save the day too.”

  Was Gillian really saying this? Didn’t she understand how serious this was? Didn’t she get how dangerous the Wild was? “No!”

  “We’ll get to have adventures. Real adventures,” Gillian said. Poking Julie’s arm, she waggled her eyebrows. “Princess adventures.”

  “It’s got my mom,” Julie said, glaring at her. This wasn’t a game. Last time the Wild was this strong, it had kept her mother and her mother’s friends prisoner for centuries, forcing them to reenact their fairy tales over and over, century after century. Whatever happened there had been so traumatic that none of them ever spoke about how they’d escaped—not even, apparently, to each other.

  Gillian shot a look over her shoulder and then leaned in conspiratorially. “So what’s the plan? How are we going to get in?”

  Julie felt like tearing her hair out. “I could die. Eaten by ogres. Broiled by witches. Thrown into barrels with sharp nails. Fairy tales aren’t jokes. Happily ever after is only at the very end—and only for the heroes and princesses.”

  For an instant, Julie thought she’d gotten through to her. Gillian swallowed hard. But then she rallied and said, “Gee, you couldn’t be a little more optimistic?”

  Julie turned her bike around. “I’m going,” she said.

  “Wait, I’ll get my bike.” Gillian ran to her garage, and Julie started riding down the brick walk. Her backpack bounced on her back. Broiled by witches, Julie thought. Barrels with nails. She wished she hadn’t thought of that. Whatever Gillian believed of the Wild, Julie knew the truth: it wasn’t nice.

  Gillian’s mother appeared in the doorway. “Girls! Oh, patience! Don’t do this to me!” Rachel swung from her arm, shouting up at her. Her mother yelled, “Julie, you come back here or I’m calling your mother!” Gillian wheeled her bike out of the garage. Her mother caught sight of her. “Gillian, get back here! This instant! Gillian!” Gillian, following Julie, bounced across the lawn.

  Rachel pulled on her mother’s pants. “If she doesn’t have to go, I don’t have to!”

  Her mother herded her toward their car. “In, in! We’ll catch her!” She sat in the driver’s seat. “Keys!” She ran back into the house.

  Sirens wailed as a police car turned down Crawford Street. “An emergency evacuation is in effect. Repeat: an emergency evacuation is in effect.” Julie and Gillian leaned into their handlebars and pedaled faster. The boots smacked against Julie’s bike frame.

  Swerving left onto West Street, they sailed down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, the street turned and the Wild was suddenly in front of them. Both Julie and Gillian squeezed their brakes. The bikes tipped forward, and they caught their balance with their feet. “Wow,” Gillian said. “I didn’t think it would be so big.”

  Julie had known it was big. She hadn’t expected it to be guarded.

  The forest marched up the street toward them. Lions, tigers, bears, and wild boar prowled the perimeter. “Julie, they’re walking on their hind feet,” Gillian said, her voice shrill. “Those aren’t normal animals.”

  “Thank you, Sherlock,” Julie said. She felt like an idiot. She should have realized the fairy-tale characters would post guards to stop people from entering and feeding the Wild—it was the logical next step after Cindy and Goldie failed to convince people with words.

  “They’re . . .” Weird, disgusting, incredibly scary, Julie thought. “. . . amazing,” Gillian said. Amazing? Was she not looking at the same army of animals Julie was looking at?

  Lowering his tusks, a boar spit in their direction. A grizzly reared
onto his hind legs and pounded his chest. Six trolls marched in front of them. Julie swallowed. Her throat felt like sand. How were they going to get past them? Some hero she was if she couldn’t even enter the woods.

  “I think I see a unicorn,” Gillian said. She sounded starstruck.

  “Watch the horn. He has a temper.” Julie shed her backpack and rummaged through it. Something in here had to help. First to come out was the trumpet. Gillian picked it up. “Oh, wow, what’s this?”

  Did she have to sound like it was Christmas? She wasn’t helping. Julie pulled out a wand and shook it at the guards. Flowers spewed from its tip. She tossed it away. Pulling out a box, she opened it. It held donuts. She closed it and opened it again. This time, it held éclairs.

  Gillian lifted the trumpet to her lips and puffed out her cheeks. A lion, walking upright and wearing a crown, snarled at her. Gillian squeaked a note. The trolls clapped their hands over their ears. One of the bears huffed.

  “Quit playing around,” Julie said, exasperated.

  “One more try,” Gillian said. Julie blinked at her. She sounded determined. Maybe she did understand how serious this was. Maybe her enthusiasm was her way of being brave—Julie hadn’t thought of that before. Adjusting her lips on the mouthpiece, Gillian tried again. This time, she blew a long, clear note.

  Snarls died. She played a scale, stumbling over the middle notes. One of the wild boars sat down, transfixed. Smiling, the trolls leaned against each other. Gillian grinned. “They like me!” she said happily.

  “Keep going,” Julie whispered. Did she dare hope?

  Gillian plunged into the school fight song.

  The animals began to dance. “I’ll—keep—them—dancing,” Gillian said between notes. “You—go—for—it!” Swinging her backpack over her shoulder, Julie got on her bike. She hesitated for a second. Should she leave Gillian here? Would she be safe? What if the Wild advanced?

  Wait, did this mean Julie would have to go in alone? Suddenly, she didn’t want to do that. She couldn’t do this by herself! Gillian had to come with her!

  Finishing the song, Gillian held out her pinky. “Luck,” she said. Automatically, Julie shook her pinky with her own. Gillian inhaled again and launched into “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends.” The lions and the bears linked arms and skipped in circles with the trolls. Lowering her head like a charging bull, Julie pedaled between the dancing animals and rode off the pavement into the green.

  Part Two

  The Tower

  Chapter Ten

  Into the Woods

  Pine needles crunched under the bike wheels as Julie pedaled over the path. She looked back over her shoulder at the world outside the Wild: streets and sunlight, dancing bears and Gillian. She could hear a Strauss march and police sirens mixed up with troll grunts and the stamping of hooves. Gillian had done it! She’d saved the day. She’d gotten Julie safe inside the Wild.

  Underneath her, her Schwinn ten-speed neighed.

  “Hey!” Julie clutched the handlebars as the front wheel lifted in the air. Wheel twisting, the bike shook its handles as if shaking a mane. “Stop it! Who’s doing . . .” The bike lurched, and Julie tumbled off the seat and landed smack on the pine needle floor.

  Flashing its front reflector back at her, the bike hopped over roots, and she forgot about the pain of the fall. Oh, wow. Her bike was alive. She had a living bike.

  Oh, no. Her bike was alive. Pedals spinning on their own, the bike (with her magic boots still tied to it) sped off into the forest. “Wait! Come back!” She scrambled to her feet and ran after it. It dodged between the trees, and she stumbled as her sandal caught on a root. Catching herself on a tree trunk, she called after it, “Bike, come back!” It disappeared between the trees.

  Ferns folded like closing curtains to hide the bike’s tracks. The crunch of the tires on the ground was instantly gone. Julie listened for her bike and heard nothing, only the sound of her own breathing. Why didn’t she hear any birds or wind or anything? It felt as if the trees were holding their breath.

  Shivering, she looked up at the armlike branches. The trees seemed to be leaning in toward her. Knots in the bark looked almost like faces. Shadows leered at her. She thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye and turned quickly, but nothing moved.

  “Safe inside the Wild,” she mocked herself. Anything and everything—witches, wolves, goblins, trolls—could be hiding in the misshapen shadows. This was the Wild Wood. This was the place where Mom had lived and Dad had died.

  Deep breath, she told herself. Don’t panic. She had a plan: she’d follow the streets (or what was left of them) through downtown to the Wishing Well Motel—the last place that Cindy and Goldie had seen Mom. With luck, Mom would still be there. Of course, if Julie hadn’t lost the boots, she could have been there and back already. Now she’d have to do it on foot. But the plan still held, right?

  Tromping over bushes and ferns, she headed back toward the path. She’d left it to chase the bike. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought. She hadn’t been in the Wild for a full minute before she’d lost the boots, the bike, and the path.

  It hit her like a slap: she’d lost the path.

  She’d run straight. It should be right here. She should have found it by now. Julie scanned the forest: dark, crooked trees . . . all the same.

  No, no, no! She couldn’t be lost. How could she be lost? She hadn’t run far. The street had to be near. She’d just picked the wrong direction. It must be over there . . . Backtracking, she tried another direction.

  No path.

  Gillian was out there playing the trumpet for wild animals so that Julie could come here, and Julie was lost after two minutes. She’d wasted Gillian’s bravery.

  Mom would be so disappointed.

  Balling her hands into fists, Julie swallowed hard again and again. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry, don’t cry. She just had to stay calm and not panic and it would all be okay. She couldn’t be far from the former West Street. It wasn’t as if the Wild could rearrange geography. (Could it?) She’d seen that gas station—the Wild didn’t transform everything. It wasn’t all-powerful. (Was it?)

  “I’m trying, Mom,” she said aloud. “Doesn’t that count?” How could it count? If she didn’t succeed, Mom would never know she’d tried.

  Then I’ll just have to succeed, she thought. She might have lost her bike and the Seven League Boots, but she still had all the magic supplies from the linen closet. She wasn’t helpless. She could do this. Straightening her shoulders, she picked a different direction and began to walk.

  As she went deeper into the forest, the woods thickened. Ancient-looking ferns and thorny bushes filled the gaps between the trees, creating a lacework of menacing shadows. She climbed over fallen logs and massive roots.

  How like a fairy tale, she thought, a girl lost in the woods. She tried not to think about the things that happened to little girls lost in woods. Maybe she was more like the simpleton heroes, wandering lost until they met the creatures that would make their fortunes—she wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.

  I hate this, she thought. I really hate this.

  She climbed over another root and spotted, up ahead, what looked like a string of Christmas lights between the ferns. Maybe it was a house. If it was a house, then a street had to be nearby! She picked up her pace.

  Drawing closer, she saw the lights weren’t decorations; they were flowers—beautiful, unnaturally bright flowers that glowed with their own brilliance. She heard humming—someone was there. Julie froze, listening. It was a woman’s voice, and the tune was a cross between “Twinkle, Twinkle” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Julie wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans and crept forward. In between the trees, she saw a girl in a red cape and hood picking flowers. Little Red? How could it be? Ms. Hood was in France.

  The girl turned her head as she picked a brilliant red daisy, and Julie’s eyes widened. Oh, wow. It wasn’t the Little Red she knew. It was som
eone else, someone older. Under the red cape, a forty-year-old woman wore a business suit. Staring, Julie forgot to hide.

  “Look at my beautiful flowers,” the false Little Red said, smiling brightly. “I’m picking them for Grandma.” Julie opened her mouth, but no words came out. The woman hopped over a root and pounced on a shimmering purple flower. “Grandma loves flowers,” she said.

  This was what Julie’s grandmother had told her about, the danger of the Wild. Somehow, this businesswoman had become a new Little Red. Julie managed to get her voice to work: “I’m, ah, looking for the path.”

  “I’ve strayed from the path,” New Little Red said. “I’m picking flowers.” She spun the bouquet in her hands. It was almost hypnotic, a sort of kaleidoscope. Julie tore her eyes from it. All her instincts told her to run away—far, far away. “Do you know where the path is?” Julie asked.

  “It’s over there,” New Little Red said, gesturing nonchalantly over her shoulder. “Mother said not to leave it.”

  Yes! Julie peered through the trees, but she didn’t see anything. Maybe it was on the other side of the trees. Julie began to wade through bushes.

  Behind her, the businesswoman giggled over a patch of yellow flowers that glowed like mini-suns. It was a horribly vacant sound. Julie hesitated. She couldn’t just leave her like this. Something was obviously wrong with her, and she could be walking right into the jaws of danger. Literally. “You didn’t happen to meet a wolf, did you?” Julie asked.

  “He was a very nice wolf,” New Little Red said.

  She had guessed right: this woman had set off a fairy-tale event, just like Grandma said would happen. She was caught in one of the Wild’s puppet plays. But that didn’t explain the weird blankness. Shouldn’t she at least know who she was, even if she couldn’t help what she did? “You shouldn’t be picking flowers. The wolf is on his way to your grandmother’s house.”

  “Do you think Grandma would like the blue ones?” New Little Red said.

  Julie tried again. “You’re not Little Red Riding Hood. You have to snap out of it. You’re in a fairy tale. A wolf is going to eat you.”