Cursing loudly, she dropped the bike and kicked at a clump of thistles, sending up a spray of dirt.
Curtis was sitting cross-legged, marveling at the bridge behind them. “I can’t believe we made it,” he wheezed. “We outran that train.”
Prue was not listening. She was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at the twisted remnants of her front bike wheel, her brow deeply furrowed. She’d worked all summer on tuning up the bike. The front rim, now disfigured beyond repair, had been practically brand-new. Her mission was clearly not getting off to a very good start.
“We did pretty well back there,” Curtis was saying. “I mean, we worked together really well. You were riding the bike and I was . . . on the wagon.” He laughed as he massaged his temples with his fingers. “We were like partners, huh?”
Prue’s messenger bag had been thrown to the ground during the crash, and she stooped and picked it up, fitting the strap over her shoulder. “Bye, Curtis,” she said. Leaving behind the bike and the wagon, she began walking through the Wastes toward the steep hill of trees.
The tawny field of dried and burned grass led into the tight grid of the mysterious buildings. Some appeared to be warehouses, paneled in corrugated metal, while others had the aspect of massive boxy silos and had doors at wild heights that seemed to open to nowhere and yards of metal ducting snaking out of them, leading to their neighboring buildings. A few of the buildings had windows that glowed and flickered red, as if great fires were raging within them. All along, this “city” rang with an insistent metallic clanging and the gaseous belching of smokestacks, giving it the strangest appearance of being completely abandoned yet perfectly active. Far off, the grunts and shouts of stevedores, their bodies lost to the low-lying mist, rang from the metal walls. As Prue walked, she cast her eyes about her; no one she knew had ever ventured here before. So soon in her journey, she already felt like the first explorer of some alien world. The fog continued to dissipate. Recessed in the grid of the gravel-paved avenues was a gray stone mansion, its mossy roof topped by a clock tower. A bell tolled the hour; Prue counted six bells.
After a time, the boxy structures of the Wastes gave way to a slope of deep green brush; Prue stepped across the northbound branch of the train tracks and found herself immersed in a lush, knee-deep thicket of ferns. The ground continued to slope upward toward the first trees that marked the boundary between the outside world and the Impassable Wilderness. Prue took a deep breath, adjusted the bag at her shoulder, and began walking into the woods.
“Wait!” shouted Curtis. He had pulled himself up and was stumbling after her. He stopped at the barrier of trees. “You’re going in there? But that’s . . . that’s the Impassable Wilderness.”
Ignoring him, Prue marched on. The ground was soft beneath her feet, and leaves of salal and fern whipped at her calves as she walked. “Uh-huh,” she said. “I know.”
Curtis was at a loss for words. He crossed his arms and shouted as Prue ventured farther up the slope and into the forest: “It’s impassable, Prue!”
Prue paused and looked around. “I seem to be passing through it okay,” she said, and kept walking.
Curtis scampered forward so as to remain within earshot of Prue. “Well, yeah, right now, maybe, but who knows what it’s like once you’re farther in there. And these trees . . .” Here he paused and scanned one of the taller trees on the hillside, top to bottom. “Well, I have to tell you I’m not getting a very friendly vibe from them.”
His warnings had no effect on Prue, who kept marching up the wooded slope, steadying herself on the trunks of the trees as she hiked.
“And coyotes, Prue!” continued Curtis, scrambling up the incline but stopping at the first tree of the boundary. “They’ll tear you apart! There has to be another way to go!”
“There isn’t, Curtis,” said Prue. “My brother’s in here somewhere, and I have to find him.”
Curtis was shocked. “You think he’s in here?” Prue was far enough into the woods now that Curtis could barely make out the red of her scarf through the bramble of trees. Before she disappeared completely from view, Curtis took a deep breath and stepped into the woods. “Okay, Prue! I’ll help you find your brother!” he shouted.
Prue stopped and leaned against a fir tree, taking in her verdant surroundings. As far as the eye could see, it was green. As many shades of green as Prue could imagine were draped across the landscape: the electric emerald of the ferns and the sallow olive of the drooping lichen and the stately gray-green of the fir branches. The sun was rising higher in the sky, and it streamed through the gaps of the dense wood. She looked back at Curtis, panting up the hill behind her, and kept walking.
Prue stopped and leaned against a fir tree, taking in her verdant surroundings.
“Wow,” said Curtis, between gasps for breath, “the kids at school are not going to believe this. I mean, no one’s ever been in the Impassable Wilderness before. Least I’ve never heard. This is wild! Look at these trees, they’re so . . . so . . . tall!”
“Try to keep it down, Curtis,” said Prue finally. “We don’t want to alert the whole Wilderness that we’re here. Who knows what’s out there?”
Curtis stopped and gaped. “You said ‘we,’ Prue!” he shouted, and then caught himself, repeating in a hoarse whisper, “You said ‘we’!”
Prue rolled her eyes and turned around, jabbing a finger at Curtis. “Like I have a choice. But if you’re going to come along, you’ve got to stick by me. My brother was lost on my watch, and I’m not about to lose a stupid schoolmate too. Is that clear?”
“Clear as . . . ,” Curtis began. He grimaced, remembering Prue’s instruction, and whispered the rest: “. . . as crystal!” He raised his hand to his brow, apparently imitating some kind of specialized salute. He looked like he was tending an eye injury.
They walked in silence for a while; a deep gully in the trees opened up to their left, and they scrambled down the bank to the bottom, skidding on the mossy loam of the forest floor. The small trickle of a creek had cut a wash down the valley of the ravine and no trees grew, only short plumes of fern and shrubs. The walking was easier here, though they occasionally were forced to struggle underneath some of the low fallen trees that crisscrossed the ravine. The sunlight dappled the ground in hazy patterns, and the air felt pure and untouched to Prue’s cheeks. As she walked, she wondered at the majesty of the place, her fears subsiding with every step in this incredible wilderness. Birds sang in the looming trees above the ravine, and the underbrush was periodically disturbed by the sudden skitter of a squirrel or a chipmunk. Prue couldn’t believe that no one had ever ventured this far into the Impassable Wilderness; she found it a welcoming and serene place, full of life and beauty.
After a time, Prue was pulled from her meditations by the voice of Curtis, whispering, “So what’s the plan?”
She paused. “What?”
He whispered louder, “I said, what’s the plan?”
“You don’t have to whisper.”
Curtis looked nonplussed. “Oh,” he said, in his regular voice, “I thought you said we had to keep our voices down.”
“I said to keep it down, but you don’t have to whisper.” She looked around her and said, “I’m not quite sure what we’d be hiding from anyway.”