Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“Let’s just say, sweet Curtis, that I did not come here of my own free will,” the Governess responded, “and initially I was deeply unhappy—but I soon realized that my exile here in Wildwood was predestined, that there were greater machinations at work. I began to see my persecutors as my liberators.”

Somewhere, distantly, a bough broke, and the ensuing crash of its landfall echoed through the wood. A bird sang its full-throated warble in a nearby bush.

“I saw in Wildwood, this forsaken country, a model for a new world. An opportunity to return to those long-forgotten values that are programmed deep within us, the draw of the wild. I thought if I were able to corral and focus this powerful law of nature, I could bring to the Wood a sort of order out of disorder and govern the land as it was always intended to be governed.”

“I’m not totally sure I’m following you,” Curtis said.

The Governess laughed. “In due time,” she said. “In due time, all will be made clear.” She turned and looked at Curtis again, her steely eyes bright and piercing. “I need people like you, Curtis, on my side. Can I count on you?”

Curtis gulped. “I guess so.”

Alexandra’s smile turned wistful. Her eyes lingered over Curtis’s face. “Such a boy,” she said quietly, as if she were speaking to herself. “Is it a coincidence, the resemblance?”

“Pardon?” asked Curtis, his confusion redoubling.

The Governess blinked rapidly and furrowed her brow. “But we’re wasting time here! To the front!” She dug her heels into the horse’s flank and it burst into movement, leaping down into the ravine and charging up the far side. Curtis gripped his hands together at Alexandra’s waist and gritted his teeth as the horse made quick time through the trees.

They had traveled for the better part of an hour when they arrived at a small clearing at the top of a hill. There, a group of coyote soldiers had gathered and a small village of tents had been assembled in a circular formation. One of the soldiers, seeing Alexandra and Curtis’s approach, ran up to the horse and grabbed its reins, allowing the Governess to vault to the ground. Unaided, Curtis threw one leg over the rump of the horse and awkwardly slid off, nearly falling as he did so.

“Battalion is in place, ma’am,” reported a soldier, saluting them both. “Awaiting further instruction.”

“Any sign of the bandits?” asked the Dowager Governess, knotting a belt around her waist that had been given her by another soldier. A long, thin sword hung in its scabbard through the weave of the belt. The soldier also presented to her a timeworn rifle, which she hefted to her shoulder, peering down the barrel and checking the sights.

“Yes, ma’am,” replie

d the soldier. “They are grouping on the far ridgeline.”

Dropping the rifle to her side, the Governess smiled. “Let’s show these ruffians the true law of Wildwood.”

Curtis, meanwhile, was standing by the horse, still jarred from the horseback ride. He snapped from his trance to notice one of the coyote soldiers still standing at attention in front of him, saluting. “As you were,” said Curtis, a line repeated from countless war movies he had seen. Satisfied, the soldier moved away and left Curtis, suddenly exhilarated, a smile creeping across his face. “As you were,” he repeated in a whisper to the air.

“Curtis!” shouted the Governess, standing amid a crowd of soldiers. “Stay by me!”

Holding his sword pommel, Curtis jogged over to where Alexandra stood.

The room was plain and simple and, being the lone room at the top floor of the Mansion’s North Tower, was in the shape of a half circle. A few framed etchings decorated the drab papered walls. In one, a square-rigged sailing ship, its keel exposed, was navigating around a giant rock in a wild gale. Another etching showed a pastoral scene of a wooded clearing, in the center of which rose a massive gnarled tree that dwarfed its surroundings. A line of figures encircled the base of the tree, their heads barely cresting the tree’s exposed roots. Prue studied these pictures for a while, admiring the line work, before a wave of tiredness overcame her and she walked to the bed and threw herself down. The box spring gave a complaining squeak. She grabbed the bed’s only pillow and hugged it to her face, breathing in its musty scent. She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until this moment. Before she had any further chance to reflect, she felt herself drifting into a deep sleep.

She was awoken by what initially sounded like a colossal, lingering gust of wind, like the sudden onset of a summer thunderstorm. She soon realized that the sound was instead the collective rustling of a hundred birds’ wings. “The crows!” she cried, in half sleep. She leapt from the bed and ran to the window, in time to see the largest and most varied flock of birds she’d ever seen, swirling in a liquid, eddying pattern against the sky. A dizzying panoply of birds, nuthatches and jays, swifts and eagles, all volleyed for air space in the sudden swarm. Amid their squawks and titters, Prue could hear the words “Make way!” and “He approaches!” and she craned her neck to see what the fuss was about. Below the tower, she could see that the entranceway to the Mansion was alight with movement, the full retinue of the Mansion’s staff running in and out of the double doors in panicked chaos. Looking up, she saw a procession approaching along the drive that curved through the estate’s luxuriant lawn. This procession, however, was entirely in flight, a multitude of small brown finches surrounding a central figure: the largest and grandest great horned owl Prue had ever seen.

As the procession flew nearer to the entrance of the Mansion, the double doors were thrown open, and Prue recognized the figures of the Governor-Regent and his aide, Roger, as they stepped forward to meet it. The owl, nearly the size of the corpulent Governor, arrived at the entrance, and the hovering finches dispersed into the trees and the cornices and eaves of the Mansion’s exterior. The Governor-Regent bowed deeply. The owl, all mottled brown, white, and gray, alighted on the pavement and nodded his head, his two wide yellow eyes glowing amid his plumage. Roger bowed his head slightly and made a welcoming gesture, motioning the great owl through the doors. Together, the group walked forward and disappeared into the Mansion.

“Wow,” breathed Prue finally. “He’s beautiful.”

“Owl Rex,” said a girl’s voice behind her. “He really is, ain’t he?”

Prue jumped. Turning around, she saw that a maid had entered while she had been at the window and was busy laying towels and a bathrobe at the foot of the bed. She looked about nineteen and was dressed in a very old-fashioned-looking apron and dress.

“Oh!” said Prue. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“No worries,” the girl said. “I’ll be out of your way in a tick.”

Prue looked out the window, watching the ebb of activity at the entranceway below. “That was some entrance,” she said finally. “The birds, I mean.”

“Oh yeah,” responded the maid. “I never seen that before, the owl coming to the Mansion. Usually it’s some lower bird or other who comes for the Principality’s business. Don’t know that Owl Rex has ever set foot in South Wood. Or would you say ‘set claw’?” She laughed and shrugged. “Hey, I don’t mean to pry, but . . . you’re that Outsider girl, huh? The one that everyone’s talking about.”

“Yeah,” Prue responded, “I guess that’d be me.”

“I’m Penny,” said the girl. “I live down in the Workers’ District. I can see the tops of your buildings from my bedroom back home.