Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“Here goes nothing,” she whispered to Enver, who stood balanced on a nearby tree branch, nervously standing vigil over the deserted, darkened road.

Prue rapped her knuckles quietly against the wood of the

door. When no response came, she knocked again.

“We’re closed!” came Richard’s voice from within. “Come back during business hours, please!”

Prue cupped her hands against the door and, bringing her lips to her fingers, rasped, “Richard! It’s me, Prue!”

“What?” came Richard’s response; his voice, loud and impatient, seemed to rattle the hinges of the doorjamb.

Enver warbled anxiously from above.

“It’s Prue. Y’know, Port-Land Prue!”

After a moment she heard slow footsteps and the hollow clunk of a deadbolt being undone. The door cracked slightly and Richard, his eyes bleary and gray hair all a-muss, appeared through the opening.

“Prue!” he hollered, clearly oblivious to Prue’s hushed approach. “What in heck are you doing here?”

Enver warbled again, louder, in warning, and Prue threw her finger to her lips. “Shhhh!” she hissed. “You have to keep your voice down!”

Richard, eyes wide, glanced out at the sparrow on the tree and back at Prue. He matched Prue’s volume, saying, “And you’ve got a bird with you—y’know, the coppers were here, not but two hours ago, looking for you. I don’t rightly know what’s going on!”

“I need your help,” said Prue, hesitating before saying, “it’s way too long and complicated to explain here on the porch—can I come in?”

Richard stood in thought for a moment. “Well, all right,” he said. “But mind no one sees you. This ain’t regular.”

“Exactly!” agreed Prue. She turned and whistled to Enver, who flew down from his perch. Ushering them quickly inside, Richard shot a quick glance down both end of the street before carefully closing the door and throwing the deadbolt.

A windowed partition divided the interior room in half, separating the public part of the post office from the private, and Richard led Prue and Enver through a gate to the back room. Towers of packages created a maze of Lilliputian city streets, and Prue navigated the boulevards gingerly, as the cardboard and brown paper skyscrapers quaked at her every footstep. In the corner of the room, a small hearth enclosed a smoldering coal fire.

Richard cleared his throat in embarrassment as he set about clearing away some of the detritus. “I know there’s another chair around here somewhere,” he mumbled, sifting through the stacks. Finding no chair, he slid a few empty crates from underneath a desk and set them down in the clearing before the fireplace. “Have a seat,” he offered.

Prue thanked him and sat down, relieved to be off her feet. Enver settled on a pile of boxes near the desk, fluttering his wings nervously when the pile swayed under his weight.

“So what’s the deal? Why all the hullabaloo?” asked Richard, sitting on an overturned basket before the fire.

Prue took a deep breath and began to recount all the events since she and Richard had parted ways. “They’re rounding up all the birds in South Wood,” she explained, finally arriving at the end of her adventures. “Who knows where they’re taking them? So I’m stuck there wondering what to do, and Enver and I figured we’d come to you and maybe ask a favor.”

Richard took in the whole story with wide-eyed amazement. It took a moment before he realized a question had been asked him. “A—a favor?” he asked, rubbing a temple with his knobby fingers. “What’d that be?”

“Well,” continued Prue, “the owl, just before the police showed up, said if all else fails I should go to North Wood. To see the Mystics. Enver here seems to think I can catch a ride with an eagle, if I could just get myself across the border to the Avian Principality. And since the whole South Wood is searching for me and any bird that happens to be in the vicinity, I’d need to do that undetected.” She bit her lip. “Like, I need someone to sneak me out.”

Richard caught on. “So you want me to smuggle you. Across the border.”

“Yep,” said Prue.

“I can only imagine: in the van. In the government’s own mail van.”

“Uh-huh,” said Prue.

Rubbing his hand across the stubble of his chin, Richard stood up and walked to the fireplace. He absently stirred the coals in the hearth with a poker.

“Well,” said Richard carefully, “I can say that I have no love for the Governor-Regent and his buddies, that’s for a long sight. And these SWORD goons, just waltzing all over town, arresting folks for no reason—it ain’t right. This country ain’t what it used to be, least not since Grigor died. I’ve outlived a lot of Governors-Regent in this place, and I can say that Lars is just about the worst we ever come up against. But me taking you across the border in a post office vehicle, well, if we got caught, that’d cost me my job, and my job is all I got right now, since my Bette took ill—that’s my wife, understand. She’s counting on me for this paycheck. Worse yet, that’d probably land me in jail for a time, and that just can’t happen.”

Prue was crestfallen. Enver whistled dispiritedly and looked out the window.

“So I guess we’re just gonna have to not get caught,” said Richard.