Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

Seamus, in the cage above, hollered down at Curtis, “Don’t look at it too closely, man! Just eat the stuff.”

Curtis looked up and winced before carrying the bowl to his lips and taking a sizable slug of the stuff. It was more disgusting than anything he had tasted in his life—and he’d had the displeasure of tasting his mother’s collard greens. It wasn’t so much the taste that offended, however, but the appreciable lack of taste—it allowed the textures of the floating cartilage and who-knows-what to really come forward on the palate. Curtis gagged loudly. The bandits, who had apparently been waiting to hear his reaction, erupted into laughter.

“Get used to it, kid!” one shouted.

“Nothing like home cooking, huh, Outsider?” yelled another.

“Bleagh!” said Curtis, setting the bowl down on the cage floor. “What is this stuff?”

“Squirrel brain, pigeon’s feet, skunk tendons—all served up in a healthy broth of spoiled milk,” shouted Angus.

Dmitri, the coyote, couldn’t help but intercede. “It ain’t so bad—I’ve had worse in the mess hall, believe me!”

Curtis frowned at his leftovers. “Might just hold off,” he said to no one in particular. “Not really hungry right now.” He sat back against the bars and gazed out to the cavern floor below, listening to the ravenous slurpings from his neighboring cages. God forbid, he thought, I should stay in here long enough to get used to that stuff.

To Curtis’s great surprise, a voice suddenly sounded from somewhere inside his cage. “You gonna finish that, then?”

Curtis leapt up, scanning the cage for the owner of the voice. In the far side of the enclosure, standing on his hind legs, was a tall and wiry gray rat. He was licking his chops and rubbing his spindly fingers together in anticipation. “Well, are you?”

“Who are you?” demanded Curtis. “And what are you doing in my cage?”

Seamus, above, cried down between mouthfuls, “That’s Septimus. Septimus the rat. Septimus, meet Curtis, our new friend.”

Cormac added onto the introduction, “He’s a loiterer. Not even a prisoner. Hangs out here of his own volition.”

Septimus made a dramatic bow. “How do you do?” he said.

“Very well, thanks,” said Curtis. “And no, I don’t think I’m going to finish it.”

The rat took a step forward and extended a hand. “Would you mind if I did?”

Curtis thought for a moment—troubled at the idea of voluntarily sharing food with a rat, of all creatures—but finally capitulated. “Go ahead.”

Septimus cracked a smile and smoothed back the matted fur on his head. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, before diving headlong into the bowl of gruel, lapping it up with a ferocious intensity

Having finished, Septimus let out a diminutive belch before reclining lazily against the bars of Curtis’s cage. He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “Aaaah,” he said. “Nothing like relaxing after a good meal.” After a moment, he cracked an eyelid and looked over at Curtis. “So what are you in here for?”

Curtis sat back down. He had to admit, it was nice having some company in the cage. “I’m a turncoat, I guess,” he said. “A deserter, of sorts. I saw what the Governess is going to do and I couldn’t let it happen. So she threw me in here.”

“Ooh,” said Septimus. “That’s pretty bad.” He paused before saying, “What’s she going to do?”

“She’s going to sacrifice my friend’s baby brother to the ivy so she can control it and take over the whole country.”

A collective murmur arose from the surrounding cages. “What?” one of the bandits whispered.

“Oh,” said Septimus, “that is bad. Ivy, huh? Evil stuff.” Another pause. “Is it English ivy? Or the other stuff? I can’t remember; I think one is more invasive than the other—”

He was interrupted by Cormac, who’d been listening in. “Septimus, if the ivy needs to consume a human child to become all-powerful, it’s safe to assume it’s the invasive stuff.”

Septimus nodded gravely. “Tenacious plant, that ivy.”

“And let’s not forget the tenacious WITCH whose plan it is to feed it human blood and make it do her bidding!” shouted Seamus, casting his food bowl aside with a metallic clunk. “That evil woman is going to get what’s coming to her, believe you me!”

Dmitri the coyote sounded from below. “And what are you gonna do about it now, all locked up in your oversized birdcage?”

Seamus leapt up and shook the bars of his cage, shouting, “Don’t think you’ll be saved too, dog! Don’t think your litter at home are going to be spared when that ivy goes crawling over the forest. She’s using you, that Dowager! She’ll cast you all aside as soon as she’s got what she wants.”

Dmitri grumbled something in response and turned his back on Seamus, scraping a paw idly over the dregs of his bowl.