Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

When they arrived at the hut, all the children and Carol had gathered there and were in a state of frenzied activity. “What is that noise?” demanded Oz; Martha was holding Carol’s arm protectively. She held back the branchy curtains and searched the view out of the window.

“I don’t know,” said Curtis. “Nothing I’ve ever seen before. Huge . . . huge things. Giants.” His heart was rattling in his chest as he spoke. “Made of ivy, as far as I can tell.”

“What do we do?” This was Elsie, her eyes wild. Suddenly, this tranquil forest world seemed not as safe as it once had.

Curtis looked down at his little sister, trying to tamp down his own fear. “I—” he faltered. “I don’t know.”

Another crashing noise sounded, this time closer. The walls of the little house shook and the tree swayed.

“Think of something,” demanded Rachel, staring down her brother, hard.

Septimus the rat came scurrying into the room. “Curtis!” he shouted. “What are you doing? We’ve got intruders on the perimeter!”

Curtis looked at his sisters, blinked a few times, and then turned to the rat. “Right,” he said, regaining his composure. “Where are they headed?”

“Toward the gully,” said Septimus. “I heard Nico’s call-out, went to go get a close-hand view.”

“Are the traps set?”

“The ones in the gully are down, remember? We were working on them the other day.”

“Damn,” swore Curtis, before remembering his little sister. “I mean, shoot. Maybe . . .”

He felt every eye in the hut resting on him. The pressure suddenly felt overlarge, weighty. “You guys. Follow me,” he said finally, pointing at Nico and Rachel. “Elsie and everyone else, stay put. Get to the crow’s nest if you have to. As far as I can tell, only the shorter trees are being swallowed up. I think you’re safe here.”

“From the ivy?” asked Martha.

“These things—they’re made of ivy. They’re covering the forest. Every step sends out more shoots.”

“What if they come at the hideout?” This was Elsie, her face lined with worry.

“We won’t let them,” answered Septimus.

Curtis gave them all a brief, determined look before he dashed out of the doorway and down the stairs toward the ground. Set into an empty knot in the tree a few steps down the stairs, a weathered chest had been placed; Curtis opened it and pulled out three scabbarded sabers and handed one each to his sister and Nico. The third, a pebble-pommeled sword, he saved for himself, strapping it to his waist.

“What’s this?” asked Rachel.

“What’s it look like?” responded Curtis.

Nico looped the belt around his black trousers and cinched it tight. Drawing the blade from its scabbard, he looked at the thing briefly before saying, “I think I can do this. C’est facile.”

Rachel, not as assured as her compatriot saboteur, fastened the sword around her waist and waited for her brother to lead on.

By the time they’d descended the ladder to the forest floor, the ivy was everywhere; it was flattening the low brush and teeming over the tree saplings, reducing what was once a vibrant, diverse-colored canvas into an ivy-strewn wasteland. What’s more, Curtis found as his booted feet touched the ground that the stuff was moving, like a pit of writhing asps. It licked up his ankle as he made contact, trying to strangle his calf, and he kicked it away disgustedly.

“Careful!” he called out to Nico and Rachel, who were making their way down the ladder. “This stuff is really alive.” His saber was withdrawn, and he held it poised as he stepped away from the tree. A vigorous tendril shot up his leg and his sword came flashing down, slicing the thing in half and sending it, withering, to the ground.

“What is this, Curtis?” called Rachel, high-stepping through the blanket of ivy. “Do you know what’s happening?” Suddenly, a patch of ivy quivered at her step, and several shoots went climbing up her leg. She screamed, stumbling, and the ivy clung tenaciously.

“Rach!” shouted Curtis. “Your sword!”

Pinwheeling her arms, she managed to gain enough control to whip the saber from her side and catch the ivy vines by the base; lifting the blade up, she heard a satisfying rip as the plant went scattering and her legs were freed. Nico, seeing this, drew his sword as well and held it threateningly toward the blanket of ivy.

But Curtis’s thoughts were elsewhere, drifting, as he made his way through the dense bracken. Like some shade of a memory, hailing him from a long distance. It seemed like so long ago, and yet was only last fall: He’d been there, a proud member of the Wildwood Irregulars. They were fighting back wave after wave of the coyote army. To scuttle her plans.

The Dowager Governess.

And now, it would seem that somehow that terrible ceremony she’d sought to complete there, on the Plinth, had been achieved. By whose hand, he couldn’t know. But it was clear, while the ivy lapped at his heels and he high-stepped headlong through the swallowed forest, that someone was certainly to blame for this enchantment.