Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“Coyotes, maybe?” offered Curtis.

“I think coyotes only come out at night,” said Prue.

“Oh, right, I read that somewhere,” Curtis said. “Do you think we’ll be done before night comes?”

“I hope so.”

“Where do you think your brother is?”

The question, simple as it was, made Prue blanch. It was dawning on her that the job of finding Mac might be harder than it had initially seemed. On second thought, had she even considered what she was going to do once she’d made it into the Impassable Wilderness? It was one thing to brave the journey but—what now? Improvising, she said, “I don’t really know. The birds disappeared around—”

Curtis interrupted her. “Birds? What birds?”

“The birds that kidnapped my brother. Crows, actually. A whole flock of ’em. A murder. Did you know that? That a flock of crows is called a murder?”

Curtis’s face had dropped. “What do you mean, birds kidnapped your brother?” he stammered. “Like, birds?”

Prue flared her eyes and said, “Try to keep up here, Curtis. I have no idea what is going on, but I’m not insane and I have to believe what I saw. So if you’re going to come along, you’re going to have to believe this stuff too.”

“Wow,” said Curtis, shaking his head. “Okay, I’m there. I’m with you. Well, how are we going to find out where these birds went?”

“I saw them dive into the woods in the hills above the Railroad Bridge, and I didn’t see them fly back out, so I have to assume they’d be around here somewhere.” She studied the world around her: The forest seemed limitless and unchanging, the ravine ascending along the hill as far as the eye could see. The word hopeless suddenly sprang to mind. She pushed it away. “I guess we’ll just have to keep searching and hope for the best.”

“Does he understand English?” asked Curtis.

“What?”

“Your brother. If we called for him, would he answer?”

Prue thought for a moment and said, “Nah. He speaks his own weird language. He babbles pretty loudly, but I’m not sure he’d respond if we started yelling his name.”

“Tough,” said Curtis, scratching his head. He looked up at Prue sheepishly. “Not to change the subject or anything,” he said, “but you didn’t happen to bring any food along, did you? I’m kinda hungry.”

Prue smiled. “Yeah, I’ve got some stuff.” She sat down on a broken tree limb and swung her messenger bag over her shoulder. “You like gorp?”

Curtis’s face brightened. “Oh yeah! I’d kill some of that right now.”

They sat on the log together and scooped handfuls of the trail mix into their mouths, looking out over the brambly ravine. They talked about school, about their sad, boozy English teacher, Mr. Murphy, who had teared up whil

e reading Captain Cat’s opening monologue in Under Milk Wood.

“I was out that day,” said Curtis. “But I heard about it.”

“People were so cruel about it, behind his back,” said Prue. “I didn’t get it. I mean, it’s a really pretty bit, huh?”

“Hmm,” said Curtis. “I didn’t get that far.”

“Curtis, it’s like in the first ten pages,” snorted Prue, tossing another handful of peanuts into her mouth.

They started talking about their favorite books. Curtis briefly profiled his favorite X-Men mutant, and Prue playfully teased him before admitting a certain envy for Jean Grey’s telekinesis.

“So why’d you stop?” asked Curtis after a pause.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, remember, in fifth grade, we used to pass pictures to each other? Of superheroes? You did really good biceps. I totally ripped off your bicep technique.” Curtis was shyly looking down into the bag of gorp, fishing through the raisins and peanuts for the M&Ms.

Prue felt castigated. “I don’t know, Curtis,” she said finally. “I guess I just lost interest in that stuff. I still like drawing, I like drawing a lot. Just different stuff. Getting older, I guess.”