Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

“Look what they did to Seamus,” shouted Prue. “They changed him. They fed him that stuff. Don’t think they won’t do the same to you.”

“Fools!” said Seamus. And again, softer: “Fools.”

The sailors said nothing; they were soon out of sight and away down the long staircase toward the Jolly Crescent, which was bucking in its moorings down at the jetty. Prue and Seamus remained standing in the center of the veranda, at the top of the Crag, ankle deep in a wide carpet of discarded bones.

CHAPTER 24

The Last of the Wildwood

Bandits

Elsie had never known what it was like to be speechless before; she’d read about it in novels and heard people refer to themselves as such (though it seemed to her there was something problematic in someone saying they were speechless) but had never known what the feeling was truly like until that moment, in the deepest woods, caught in a handwoven trap net, and seeing her long-lost brother for the first time in many, many months. She’d shouted his name, first, but then all speech was robbed from her and she sat there in the captivity of the net, staring at the lanky boy as he walked into the clearing, holding a lit torch. Always a little skinny, he seemed to have only grown more so; his face looked unbelievably older. There also seemed to be some sort of rodent sitting casually on his shoulder.

Her brother appeared to be similarly shocked, as he lifted the torch hesitantly and peered up into the netting, saying, “Els?”

And that was when Elsie became really, truly speechless. In that she could not manage a single noise in response to her brother’s call. Thankfully, her sister, just up and to her left, her hair dangling in Elsie’s face, was not so affected.

“Curtis!” she shouted, not adding much to the dialogue.

“Rachel?”

Suddenly, Elsie got her speech back. “Curtis!” she yelled.

“Elsie!” shouted Curtis, as if just now understanding what this conversation was about.

“You guys know each other?” asked Nico, breaking up the monotony of the exchange nicely.

“He’s our brother!” said Rachel loudly, with a good deal of uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

“Mreally?” This was Harry; his face, Elsie realized, was planted firmly in her rear end. She could tell because she more felt the word pronounced than heard it.

Just then, to the great surprise of everyone present (except perhaps Carol and Roger, who were swinging in their own net just ten feet away from the Unadoptables, and were accustomed to the strange ways of the Wood), the rodent on Curtis’s shoulder opened his little mouth and spoke. Words. In English.

“These are your sisters?” said the rat.

Before anyone had a chance to answer the question, Nico, apparently deciding that a talking rat was more shocking than the incredible coincidence he was witnessing—that these three siblings should be united after so many months of wondering and searching in the strangest possible circumstances—said, “Did that rat just say something?”

“Yes,” said the rat, sounding affronted. “I did. Do you have a problem with that?”

“None whatsoever,” said Nico. He then looked down at Ruthie, whose forehead was jammed beneath his chin. “The rat talks,” he said.

“I think he does,” said Ruthie, similarly bowled over.

Curtis, meanwhile, was sputtering. He was sputtering like a broken faucet. “You—” he started. “How—What did you—Where’s—” Finally all his momentum ended in the question: “Where’s Mom and Dad?”

“Russia!” shouted Elsie. “They’re looking for you, stupid!” Elsie found that during her speechlessness, she had overcome her shock and was now feeling a little angry. She heard her sister join in, heaving a string of vitriolic curse words at their brother like she was breathing fire.

“Wow,” said the rat. “Charming siblings.”

Curtis began to defend himself, shouting back his meager defenses to the two girls, who were now yelling at him in loud unison. “But I . . . ,” he sputtered between the girls’ invectives. “You know, I could . . . It’s just all really complicated!”

Finally, Nico raised his loud, grown-up voice above the yelling children and said, “STOP!”

They did.

The saboteur, whose right leg had been unfortunately caught in the webbing of the net when it was tripped and was now currently positioned slightly upside down with his knee linked around one of the ropes, like a practiced trapeze artist mid-performance, said, simply, “Can you get us down, please?”

“Can we get some reassurance that those two girls won’t attack us?” asked the rat.