Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“Where did you say we should be headed?” asked the sparrow.

“Just southwest of the Mansion,” said Prue. “That’s what I was told.”

The sparrow clucked his beak. “One sec,” he said, giving a quick look down the four ways of the intersection. Once he saw the way was clear, he unfurled his small gray wings and shot upward, corkscrewing between the looming tree branches until he was out of sight.

Prue waited calmly, the sour smell of the garbage bin staining the air around her. The howl of a police siren sounded far away, and she froze as a small group of SWORD officers rounded the corner and marched down Rue Thurmond. Prue snuck a look from behind the bin as they walked away and noticed that each was carrying birdcages. Between the metal bars of the cages, Prue caught sight of bird feathers, all downy and gray.

Minutes passed. Finally, a flutter of wings sounded from above. She looked up to see Enver, out of breath, land on top of the Dumpster.

“Sorry,” said Enver. “I had to wait till they’d gone by.” He shook one of his wings and leaned into Prue. “I saw the top of the Mansion. It’s pretty far still, but we’re moving in the right direction. Judging from the stars”—and here Enver pointed his beak to the heavens; it was a rare clear night and the blackness was pinpricked by constellations—“we stay straight to keep southwest.”

“Great,” whispered Prue. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Have you ever been to this place?” asked the sparrow. “Do you know what it looks like?”

“No, but I think we’ll know it when we come to it,” said Prue before adding, “I expect if you’ve seen one post office, you’ve seen them all.” And with that, Enver nodded and took wing, flying ahead to find another perch from which to guide Prue to her next hiding place.

CHAPTER 14

Among Thieves

I insist I see an attorney!” shouted the coyote, his voice cracking midsentence. “This is an OUTRAGE!” He rattled the cage bars with his paws. Curtis watched him curiously from above; the coyote’s cage was much farther down the root-ball than Curtis’s.

“Oh, keep it down,” shouted one of the bandits. His cage was above and to the left of Curtis, and he was sitting against the bars, picking at his fingernails. “They’re not listening to you. Habeas corpus doesn’t really apply here.”

“Habeas corpus?” snarled the coyote. “Where’d you learn those fancy words, you half-wit?” He had turned to face the bandit, and at that moment Curtis had a chance to see his face; he was one of the coyotes he had first seen with Prue—one of the privates who had been fighting below their hiding place. Curtis seemed to remember that his name was Dmitri.

“Oh, we know a lot more than you jackals would believe,” responded the bandit, tapping a finger against his temple. “Some of us might seem thick, but don’t be fooled. We’re smart as whips. Which is why you’ll never put us under. No matter how many battles you win, no matter how much our numbers fall, there’ll always be bandits to keep up the fight.”

“Oh, please spare us your little rallying cries,” responded Dmitri. “You’re wasting ’em on me. I was drafted. I could care less if you bandits overran the place; I’d rather be in my home warren anyway, minding my own business. What bothers me is that I’m stuck up here like a common criminal—I thought I’d just get a few demerits and be on my way. Instead, I’m in the bandit ward, having to listen to you lot.”

“I’m not a bandit,” Curtis chimed in. “I’m a soldier.” He paused and looked down at his uniform, at the torn fabric where his brooch used to be. “Or I was.”

The coyote huffed and turned away.

“You,” said another bandit, this one farther away. His cage dangled from one of the larger root branches, at a similar height to Curtis’s. “So you’re the Outsider, huh? You fought alongside the Dowager, didn’t you?”

Curtis frowned and nodded. “I did, yeah,” he said, abashed. “But I wish I hadn’t now. I didn’t know what she was doing.”

“What’d you expect?” said the bandit from above, his venom now directed downward. “She was the rightful Queen of Wildwood? Just cleaning up shop a little bit? Making sure everyone remembered who was the boss? And you just waltz in from your Outside world and decide to help out?”

“Well, I didn’t have much of a choice,” said Curtis, hackles rising. “I mean, she captured me and the next thing I know she’s feeding me and clothing me and telling me I’m her second in command!”

“Sucker,” came a voice. It issued from a cage directly above Curtis. Another bandit was staring down at Curtis, sitting cross-legged with his cheeks propped in his hands.

“Seriously,” continued Curtis, “I had no idea what she was up to; I would’ve never agreed to go along with her if I’d known.”

“Yeah?” The bandit farther out on the root branch scoffed. “What was your first hint? Her conscription of an entire species of animal? Or maybe the fact that she was steadily wiping out every natural-born resident of Wildwood one after another? What was it, boy genius?”

Something wet dripped down on Curtis’s forehead, and he winced to look up and see that the bandit in the cage directly above him had just dropped a big ball of spit on him. The bandit’s face was visible between his bent legs, and Curtis could see he was preparing for a second lob. Groaning, Curtis ducked and moved to another side of the cage.

“You Outsiders,” said another bandit, one who had remained silent during all the invective. “You’re always looking for a way to conquer and despoil things that ain’t by rights yours, huh? I heard about what you do. Don’t think we don’t know that you’d be all over this Wood—that you’d have beat the Governess to her own game if she hadn’t been at it first. I heard you about ruined your own country, nearly ran it into the ground poisoning your rivers and paving over your wild lands and such.” His cage was a bit lower and off to the right; Curtis watched as the bandit came close to the cage bars and glowered up at him. He wore a dirty checkered scarf around his neck and a loose linen tunic. A ratty bowler was perched on his head. “Bet you thought this place’d be all yours, didn’t ye. Well, I expect it’ll just chew you up and spit you out—if you don’t end up just rotting here first.”

Curtis shivered and sat down on the floor of his cage, squeezing his knees to his chest. He could feel the glare of all the prisoners boring into his very bones. He wished now, more than ever, that he could be back home with his mother and father and his two niggling sisters. The ropes creaked and shuddered and the cages twisted slightly back and forth in the great cavern. Dmitri, the coyote, offered his sympathy: “Get used to it. They don’t really let up.”

Before long, Prue and Enver had arrived at the post office, a small redbrick building nestled into a dense scrub of hemlock trees. A tumbledown wooden fence, gray and mossy, made an enclosure behind the building, and Prue could see a few dilapidated red vans sitting idle in the yard as she climbed the steps to the door. A flat brass panel was fastened to the brick above the door, and the words SOUTH WOOD POST OFFICE were engraved into the metal.

A light from one of the windows illuminated a cluttered room, stacked floor to ceiling with brown packages and envelopes, and Prue could make out the figure of Richard, his body half-obscured by the piles of parcels and paper.