Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

“Alexei.”

“Oh. Not entirely sure.”

“But the tree has to have, like, thought this through, right?”

“I suppose it has.” A pause. “Prue?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

And so she tried, listening with amazement as Esben fell instantaneously into deep, clamorous sleep. But the thoughts continued to collide in her head: What would Alexei think of his own resurrection? It was something that had been bothering her, in the recesses of her mind, since she’d been given the message from the Council Tree: that the automaton child prince needed to be revived. Hadn’t the prince himself been responsible for his own death after his mother had re-created him? What sort of offense were they committing by making him live that same inconsideration—his resurrection—all over again? And yet the directive had come from the spiritual heart of the Wood itself, the Council Tree: Peace can only be gained by bringing back the boy prince. Wouldn’t he forgive them this imposition, for the greater good? What was the greater good? What sort of situation would be dispelled by simply bringing a single soul back from the ether?

The morning sun was brightening her bedroom window long before any sort of solution presented itself; Prue admitted defeat and pulled herself from her blankets, underslept and overwrought.

She set about packing her bag full of supplies for the trip, the pain in her ankle now nearly vanished and her arm only aching when she pulled it too taut. Esben played with Mac in the living room, letting the two-year-old climb over his furry back and tumble into his lap; he spun twin Frisbees on his golden hooks, a trick perfected during his tenure in the circus, and Mac cooed with appreciative laughter. When Prue appeared at the bottom of the stairs with her packed bag slung over her shoulder, her parents were sitting in their respective chairs in the living room, her father reading a book and her mother attempting to coax a shape out of some new tangle of knitting.

Esben set Mac down and looked at Prue. “Ready?” he said.

Prue nodded.

Anne didn’t look up from her knitting; Lincoln stood and walked to his daughter. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s hit it.”

Anne remained in her chair, tussling with yarn.

“Bye, Mom,” said Prue.

Anne didn’t look up. Prue looked to her dad for guidance, but Lincoln only shrugged. Together they proceeded to wrap a threadbare quilt around Esben’s massive frame and enshroud his head with the giant knitted cap that Anne had made him. The bear, thus disguised, sidled out the

door, and the three of them made their way to the family Subaru, parked out in front of the house.

They drove in silence, Esben huddled down in the back: An amorphous pile of blankets and yarn, he could easily be mistaken for one family’s Goodwill donation haul. The car speakers burbled a public radio pledge drive.

“Are we going to get another message-by-egret?” asked Prue’s dad.

His daughter smiled. “Only good news, promise.”

“And this assassin—that’s all taken care of?”

Prue briefly shuddered at the mention of Darla Thennis, the shape-shifting fox. She recalled the ungracious THUNKs that sounded her demise. “Yeah, she’s gone. Though there might be more. We don’t know. So that’s why we’re staying underground till we get to South Wood.”

“And you’re going to be greeted like a hero, right? That’s what you’ve said.”

“Yeah, if our hunch is right.”

“Unless things have changed,” pointed out Esben.

“There’s that,” said Prue, though she’d not wanted to consider the potentially darker side of their plan. She ran her finger along the car’s window, feeling the sun beat against it. They’d pulled up alongside a sedan at a stoplight, and the toddler in the backseat craned his neck. A light in his eyes suggested he’d seen Esben, and he began frantically hitting the window, trying to point out the anomaly to his parents. The light changed and they’d taken a right turn before the bear had been made by the adults in the car, leaving the toddler, Prue assumed, to an afternoon filled with ignored proclamations.

They arrived at the junk heap after a time, and Esben ditched his disguise: The place was empty of any other soul that might be thrown by the appearance of a talking bear. He breathed a deep sigh of relief and stretched his thick arms skyward. “No offense,” he said to Lincoln, “but that blanket smelled like cat drool and moldy carpeting.”

“None taken,” said Lincoln.

The bear did, however, keep the knit cap on his head. He’d said, when he was given it, that he always had a hard time finding suitably fitting headwear. He nestled it close over his small ears as he walked down toward the shack in the middle of the trash heap, its door hanging on its loose hinges; clearly, whoever was responsible for the upkeep of this tunnel access had been negligent in their maintenance. The shack covered a concrete conduit leading into the belowground. Esben stopped at the entrance and turned to the McKeels, who were still standing by the car.

Prue and her father shared a long hug. A flurry of plastic bags floated around them like revenant angels. “Careful out there,” said Lincoln McKeel.

“I will, promise,” said his daughter. She walked down the hill of trash to join the bear at the doorway to the underground.