Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“No way,” said the fox angrily. “There is no way I will march alongside a bunch of Wildwood bandits. It’s a miracle we’re able to stay alive, what with their pilfering our shipments to and from South Wood.”

“But Mr. Fox, you forget that for every shipment that is waylaid, others are allowed passage. They’ve always allowed enough through for us to live very comfortably,” said Iphigenia. She turned to Prue. “Do you think that you’d be able to find this camp, this hideout, again?”

Prue thought for a moment. “I don’t think I could get to the hideout itself,” she said, “but I could get close, I think. It’s just south of that big bridge—the one that crosses the ravine.”

“The Gap Bridge,” Iphigenia corrected. “Yes.”

“And west,” continued Prue, her memory busily retracing her flight from the hideout. “Yes, that’s it: west of the Long Road. And I know they post sentries everywhere around the camp. If I were able to make enough of a racket, no doubt they’d nab me, right? And I know they’d recognize me from before—I could explain what’s going on!”

Iphigenia nodded. “I can only imagine they’d be as concerned as we are. This threat endangers all of us.”

“Let me go,” Prue said, feeling a wave of determination rise in the cavity of her chest. “While you wait for the militia to regroup, let me ride into Wildwood. I’ve got my bike—I can take the Long Road—and maybe I can make it to the bandits and convince them to join by the time the North Wood army is on the march.”

Iphigenia was thoughtful. “It’s a dangerous gambit, my dear,” said the Elder Mystic. “You certainly are risking running afoul of the bandits. Perhaps they would think it was a trick, to lead them from their hideout. There’s no telling how they’ll respond.”

“Do we have a choice?” asked Prue. “I mean, if we have them with us—there must be hundreds of them!—we at least stand a chance against the Governess.” She looked desperately back and forth between Iphigenia and Sterling. The fox crossed his arms and huffed. Iphigenia, after a moment, nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “Go. Ride to the bandits. Tell them of our plight. Of their plight. In the meantime, we’ll muster our arms and set out. And we will meet you at the Gap Bridge—before the sun has ascended to the midday mark.” She looked up and gauged the height of the sun, its glow dampened by the strands of clouds above the horizon. “Go now. Ride quickly. We have very little time.”

Prue dashed down the stepladder and leapt astride her bike, kicking it into motion.

Curtis could feel his tiredness deep in the heels of his feet. The little sleep he’d had the night before—a few fitful naps by the side of a campfire—was scarcely adequate to prepare his temperament for a long morning march, at the end of which, undoubtedly, would be his own personal end. The gravity of the situation was slowly unfurling, creeping over him like a chill. He found himself longing for the comfort of his own bed, his overcrowded bookshelf, the abrasive chime of his alarm clock, the endless footfalls of his two sisters crowding the hallway outside his door. He ran the rope of the sling through his fingers as he walked, feeling the pilly grit of the hempen cord and the smooth leather of the sling’s little cradle. The six finger-wide smears of paint that a fellow bandit had striped across his face still felt fresh and cool against his skin.

The two long columns of marchers had fanned out as soon as they’d left the enclosure of the hideout ravine, and Curtis could see the dark forms of his fellow bandits making their way skill-fully through the underbrush. While they traveled as fleetly as ever, a certain energy seemed to be drained from them. The reality of their doomed enterprise hovered over them like a dense fog, unbreakable. Curtis attempted to distract his own feelings of helplessness by searching the ground for good, usable missile projectiles for his sling. He stuffed them in his pockets as he found them, and he could feel the weight of the pocketful of rocks and pebbles with each step.

“Keep up, Curtis!” hissed a bandit ahead of him, noticing his slowed pace as he stooped to pick up a nice-looking stone. It was Cormac. Curtis heeded him, shoving the stone in his pocket and jogging ahead. They were getting farther and farther from the camp; the wood smoke was no longer even a hint on the air. Septimus had left his regular seat on Curtis’s right shoulder and could be seen occasionally, leaping from tree bough to tree bough above their heads. After a time, the troop spilled out onto the Long Road. Brendan, having donned his viney crown, stood at the head of the crowd of bandits, waving them forward.

“We’ll follow the Road,” he explained, once the army had amassed around him. With a long, knobby stick, he began drawing a rough map in the wet dirt of the road. “Till the Hardesty game trail—then we’ll go backwoods. Numbers ain’t gonna cut it in this battle—we’re well outgunned—but we can try to make up for it in stealth. An army of that size, I have to assume that they’ll be on the Long Road as long as possible; they’ll probably cut west off the Road between the north and middle fork of Rocking Chair Creek.” He drew a long, snaked line with the stick and placed an X at the end. “We’ll come at them from the northwest, just above the Plinth. That’s the best we can do.” He looked up at the gathered bandits. “Is that clear?”

A chorus of “ayes” was the reply.

Brendan’s jaw was locked in firm determination. “Let’s move,

” he said.

The army of bandits began their march down the Long Road. Curtis strayed to the rear, still glancing around at the ground below his feet for rocks. Something caught his eye: a flash of shiny metal in the underbrush near the side of the road. He peeled away from the columns of marchers and kneeled down. Pushing aside a small cluster of thistle stalks, Curtis was surprised to see his house keys. “My keys!” he said aloud. He pulled the keys from the undergrowth and shook them in his hand momentarily, reveling in their familiar jangle. Septimus, falling behind the bandit parade, scrambled to his side.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“My house keys,” responded Curtis. “They must’ve fallen out of my pocket when I was being carried by the coyotes.”

“Fascinating,” said Septimus wryly. “Now we shouldn’t get too far behind. We have our own suicides to attend to.”

Curtis smirked. “Right,” he said, pocketing the keys. “It’s just crazy to think that, like, straight that way, down through the woods, is the Railroad Bridge. And beyond that, my home. This was where I came in.” He shook his head as if dispelling an enchantment. “Crazy.”

The bandit army was farther down the Long Road now, the midsection of the column disappearing around a bend. Septimus began hopping along the gravel surface, looking over his shoulder at Curtis. “C’mon,” he said.

“Right,” said Curtis. “Coming.” He gave one last look to the wall of trees, the bunch of thistles that had held his keys, and jogged after the bandit host to catch up.

Never in Prue’s life had she been so focused on her riding, so tuned into every churn of the pedal assembly, the springy contractions of her quads as they powered the quick, rhythmic motions of her calves and ankles. She rode lightly on her bike seat, her weight off center on the back of the saddle in order to better absorb the incessant hammering of the bumpy road. That selfsame bumpy road, however, played havoc with the red Radio Flyer wagon trailing behind; it leapt and shivered manically as she rode, and made a terrific banging noise. Prue let the noise echo on; it felt defiant. Besides, if anything was going to catch the attention of the bandits, surely the clatter of a metal wagon would do the trick.

The encroaching trees loomed over the road, casting cool shadows across the smooth dirt. She’d long left the pastoral fields and tree groves of North Wood; a wooden gate had marked the border between the quiet farmland and the untamed country of Wildwood. A pair of constables, a human and a badger, had thrown the gate open for her—she hadn’t even stopped to thank them. And now she was in the depths of Wildwood, and the roadside brush and bramble seemed to reach out to her like a million leafy arms. The wind whipped at her face and whispered through the heavy cotton of her hoodie, sending shivers through her body with each breath of wind.

“Faster!” she urged her legs. “Faster!” she willed the bike, the wheels, the chain.

Her eyes remained locked on the farthest point of the Long Road, and she snaked her bike handily around its many twists and turns. She knew time was running out.

Suddenly, a squirrel darted out in the road in front of her and Prue screamed, jamming on the brakes. The squirrel had stopped directly in front of her and was eyeing this strange metal contraption that was flying toward him. The brakes yelped and her rear tire began to skid, sending the Radio Flyer wagon into a contorting fishtail. The squirrel, instantly recognizing that he was about to be run over, yipped and leapt out of the way, just as Prue’s bike skidded sideways and she was thrown from the seat. She hit the ground with a pained “oof,” her hands bearing the brunt of the fall. The bike clattered to the ground behind her. The squirrel shot into the trees without a backward glance.