Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“Listen to your mother,” said her father sternly.

Prue stopped briefly and looked from one parent to the other. Their faces were full of concern. “No, I won’t,” she said. She squeezed between them and began walking back down the stairs. They were frozen at the top. She heard their furtive whispers. “Do something!” came one. “I’m trying!” came another.

She’d barely set foot in the kitchen when she heard her parents stomping down the stairs after her. Her father’s voice boomed from the entryway. “Prue, as your dad, I’m telling you to stop. You are not, I repeat, not going back into those woods.”

She felt his strong fingers grasp her upper arm, and she was jerked backward.

A stunned silence followed as Prue and her father stared at each other; he’d never acted so forcefully with her before. The color had drained from his cheeks. Screwing up her courage, she shook her arm free and faced down her parents.

“Don’t,” she said, glowering. “Don’t you dare tell me what I can or can’t do. Not now. Not after what you’ve done.”

Her father’s face was drawn. He began to stammer an apology, but Prue angrily waved his words away.

“Listen, I love you both,” Prue continued. “So, so much. I should be hating your guts right now, but I’m not. I don’t.” The anger she was feeling gave way to a kind of bewildered pity for the two adults as they stood, speechless, in the entryway. They suddenly looked to Prue like two confused and terrified children. “But you really screwed this up, didn’t you? I mean, what were you thinking?”

Finally, her father spoke up. “Let me go,” he said. “It’s my fault. I’m the one responsible here. Just tell me where to go. I’ll get him back.”

Prue rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Wish you could,” she said. “I would totally make you go. But you can’t. Long story, but I think I’m able to go in there when other people can’t. Something about a Periphery magic. Whatever. Besides”—she looked back and forth between her parents—“I figure I have Mac to thank for my even being alive. If it weren’t for him, I’d’ve never been born, huh?

“I’m going to go get my brother back,” continued Prue, her voice now loud and commanding. “And that’s that.”

She turned and walked briskly through the kitchen and out into the backyard, where her derelict bicycle stood, resting limply on its kickstand. Reaching under the porch, she found her father’s red metal toolbox and began combing through it. She could hear her mother crying, faintly, from inside the house. Her fingers finally came upon the crescent wrench, and she set about removing the misshapen front wheel of her bike.

She jostled the tire loose from the fork, and reached for one of her old bike wheels; she’d had the rims replaced last spring in anticipation of a busy summer of bike riding, though her old ones were still decent enough to warrant saving. She was thankful for this bit of foresight as she pulled it out, dusted it off, and began threading her bike’s front fork dropout over the threads of the wheel hub. Within minutes, the bike was back in riding shape.

Her father appeared at the back door, his body casting a shadow from the porch light across the lawn. Prue squinted up at him, a dark silhouette against the doorway.

“Don’t do this, Prue,” said her father. His voice was weak, tired. “We can be happy, the three of us.”

“Bye, Dad,” she replied. “Wish me luck.” She climbed aboard her bike and pedaled out into the street.

CHAPTER 19

Escape!

Now, you’re sure about this, yeah?” asked Septimus, eyeing the twisted rope warily. It was already half-chewed; only part of the rope remained.

“Yes!” hissed Curtis impatiently. “Just do it. And quick! We don’t know how much time we have before the warden comes back.”

“I’ve got a hold, rat, don’t worry,” said Seamus. He spoke with some difficulty, as he was belly-down on his cage floor, his arms uncomfortably extended out between the bars, his hands gripped around the upper bars of Curtis’s cage. It had taken some time getting into this position, but after a few minutes of hardy swinging, the cage had come within Seamus’s grasp, and now his fingers were locked tight around the knotty wood of the bars.

Septimus cast a glance over at Seamus before shrugging an okay, and in a flash he was at the rope, busily gnawing at the remaining material. Curtis stood, his legs spread, bracing himself against the bars of the cage. He intently watched the rat at work.

/> “How close?” he asked after a moment.

Septimus stopped and, leaning away, eyed what was left of the rope. “Not much,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t see why it hasn’t—”

He was interrupted when the rope broke with a low, almost polite snap and the cage was loosed from its mooring, leaving the rat dangling from the nub that remained attached to the root tendril. Curtis gasped as he felt the cage swing into a free fall. The floor seemed to wheel upward, the stones and the bones calling for his blood—when, with a jerk, his downward motion was stopped short and an agonized moan issued from Seamus’s cage. Curtis looked up; Seamus’s fists were still snarled around the bars of the cage, his knuckles white from the pressure.

“OOOOOF!” grunted Seamus loudly. “This ain’t as easy as it looks!” He worked his fingers over the wood of the bars, searching for a better grip.

“Hold tight, Seamus,” instructed Curtis. “Now, if you can just start making your way to the rope.”

Seamus began moving his grip, one hand over the other, toward the joint where the rope met the cage. The cage gave little quakes with Seamus’s every movement, and it was all Curtis could do to keep himself from eyeing the bone-strewn cavern floor. Finally, Seamus arrived at the eyebolt where the rope was fastened and, with a quick heave, let go of the cage bars and grabbed the rope, giving a groan again when the weight of the cage tightened the slack.

The groan twisted into a laugh, however, as Seamus rasped, “Ha! Think I’d let ye fall, kid?”

Curtis, his heart rate beating a frantic tap dance in his ears, tried on a nonchalant laugh and found it did not fit him at the moment. His voice broke at the first chortle.