Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

e had arrived at their home some few weeks prior walking with a slight limp, her arm in a makeshift sling and a very large, very English-speaking brown bear in tow. They’d done their best to accommodate the new guest, setting up their giant car camping tent in Prue’s room so that the bear, whose name was Esben, could best achieve his preferred cavelike habitat. They’d made extra trips to the grocery store, procuring economy-size bags of flour and vats of milk to keep up with his ursine appetite. When seen by curious neighbors while making such excursions, the back of their station wagon riding low under the weight of thirty pounds of ground beef, Anne had said that they were stocking up for the end-times. (She’d even gotten used to making a kind of secretive, winking gesture at her husband for the neighbors’ benefit, as if to say, He’s the crazy one. Lincoln, for his part, played it up and peppered his daily exchanges with folks around town with conspiracy theories that he’d literally made up just moments before, e.g., “The Department of Transportation is hoarding avocados for use in avocado-fueled rocket ships that will take only DOT employees to a terraformed resort/theme park on the dark side of the moon, where they will engineer the eradication of Earth’s something-billion people in favor of genetically modified offspring of moon-living DOT employees. I’m not making this up.”) The novelty of the adventure had soon worn off, leading the family to be politely curious about the bear’s departure date. The only concern: He was bound to take their daughter with him.

Lincoln McKeel, de-aproned, joined them at the table, nursing a smoothie and a single fried egg. He smiled at the table while he tucked into his meager meal.

“Any idea when, you know, you’ll be . . . ,” began Prue’s mom. She trailed off, unsure of her footing, not wishing to be a rude host.

“What my wife is trying to say, Esben,” took up Lincoln, his mouth full of yolk, “is we were just curious about, you know . . . Well, it does seem that we’re out of flour. And butter. And eggs.”

“And while we’re perfectly happy to go out and get some more,” interjected Anne, “it would be maybe helpful to know . . . to know . . .”

Prue couldn’t take it anymore. “We’ll be out of here tomorrow, promise,” she said.

“We?” her parents said simultaneously.

“WEEEEEE!” shouted Mac, who swung his fork around his small, lightly furred head like a pike. The half-eaten piece of pancake that had been speared on the tines went flying across the room. “WEEEEE ANNND BEARRRR!”

“I told you guys the plan,” said Prue, watching the arc of the projectile. “This was always part of the plan.”

Esben, his mouth full of pancakes, grunted in agreement.

Prue continued, “As soon as my ankle and my arm got better, we had to get back to the Wood. We’re needed. We can’t waste any more time. We have to find—”

“The other ‘maker,’ sure,” finished her mother. “Whoever that is. I just thought that, well, maybe Esben could go. Work it out himself. You’ve missed a lot of school, Pruey. I don’t want to see you have to repeat the seventh grade.”

Prue stared at her mother. A silence filled the space between them. “I don’t care,” she said finally. “I don’t care about seventh grade anymore. I belong in there, in the Wood. They need me.”

Esben stopped chewing momentarily to grunt his agreement again. “It’s true, Mrs. McKeel,” said the bear. “This is very important. She’s needed.”

“You’re a talking bear,” pointed out Anne McKeel angrily. “Don’t tell me about parenting.”

Esben, a hookful of pancake nearly to his jaws, froze.

“Honey,” said Prue’s dad, reaching across the table to rest his hand on his wife’s, “I think we have to listen to them here. This is bigger than us.”

Just then, as the quiet descended over the dining room table and each person, even little Mac with his tuft of hair crusty with errant pancake, breathed in the silence like it was a calming gas and the periodic hum of cars on the street in front of the house punctuated their unsaid sentences, Anne McKeel burst into tears. Esben the bear was the first to react, saying “Aww, there now, Mrs. McKeel,” like the kind, embarrassed houseguest he was, witnessing something very private and perhaps very human.

Was that all that was needed to be said? For a time, the sound of Prue’s mother crying was all there was in the room until she sniffled the tears away and the bear finished his pancakes and everyone cleaned up the table, bringing the dirty dishes to the sink. The spring day unfolded in front of them, and before long the morning’s drama had been forgotten. Anne McKeel swallowed her tears.

That night, as the rest of the house was sleeping, Prue remained awake, her head reclined against her pillow. The bear snored fitfully in the houselike tent by her bed. When she heard a prolonged pause in the sawing, she ventured, “Esben?”

“Hmm?” grumbled the bear.

“Can’t sleep.”

“Again?”

“I don’t know how you can. There’s so much to think about.”

“Try not to.”

Prue pursed her lips and tried to do what the bear advised. Somehow, trying was making the whole endeavor more unlikely.

“Esben?” she said, after a while.

“Hmmm?”

“What’s he going to think? It’s the one thing that keeps bothering me.”

A shuffling noise followed: an immense body rolling over in a too-small fleece sleeping bag. “What’s who going to think?”