Brave in the Woods

by Tracy Holczer

  Juni became very still. A tear rolled down Anya’s cheek, and Juni whispered, “Please, Anya. I need to know.”

  Anya set the antler bone back on the nightstand and walked around to the other side of the bed, where she settled in against Juni’s cotton pillows. Juni could smell the lavender on Anya’s hands from working in the garden.

  Juni waited as Anya took a deep breath.

  “Fairy tales are alive. That was what the Grimms believed. They thought of the stories as a part of nature, untamed as a wolf, wild as a grove of trees or a mountain stream. And as a story traveled, mouth to ear, mouth to ear, like a game of Telephone, it always came back changed, the tellers becoming part of the telling. In that way, our own family legend is itself like a fairy tale.

  “The trick is finding where you begin and the story ends.” Anya paused and turned toward Juni as though she were having second thoughts. “I haven’t wanted to talk about this. I worry that saying a thing out loud can draw the attention of the fates. As long as we don’t catch their eye, we are safe.”

  Juni knew exactly what Anya meant because Juni herself had always felt she’d cheated Death, and deep down believed he’d never give up looking for her.

  “The fates will do what they will do, I suppose. Perhaps the thing to remember is that we are in charge of how we respond.” She nodded one time, as though she’d made a decision. “Where should I start?”

  “At the beginning,” Juni said.

  Anya pointed to Juni’s book on her nightstand, The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and Juni handed it to her. Anya settled it on her lap.

  “There were many along the way who contributed to the Grimm Brothers’ collection, but some stories they stole.

  “A handful came from a Greek woman who lived deep in the Tharandt Forest near Dresden, but which ones they were have been lost to time. What is known for certain is that Jacob and Wilhelm had visited this woman themselves, and a bargain was struck.

  “They were supposed to retrieve something precious to her, something sacred that had been stolen. Some said it was an object. Some said it was a child. Whatever it was, Jacob and Wilhelm couldn’t or wouldn’t retrieve it, and the rest you know. She cursed them and all their family to suffer through versions of their beloved fairy tales.”

  “There must be a way to break the curse, though,” Juni said. “There’s always a way to break a curse.”

  Anya placed her hands flat against the cover of the book. “If there is, it didn’t come down with the family legend.”

  Juni thought about the many ways to break a curse that were written into the fairy tales themselves. Getting a magic spell from a witch. Sacrificing something cherished. Going on a quest for a magical object. This stopped Juni in her tracks.

  An idea began to take shape.

  “But there have been other miracles besides mine. It’s not just doom and gloom.”

  “Fairy tales are filled with horrors, but they are filled with miracles, too, and our family has had its share. Remember the story of Great-Uncle Clive, who was struck by ball lightning but survived and went on to live to one hundred and four? And your great-great-grandmother Holle was a diviner, finding not just water, but lost objects. There are so many others.”

  Anya took Juni’s hand. “On my good days, I feel as though these are stories you might find in anyone’s family tree. On my bad days, the curse feels true.”

  “What happened to the lucky antler bone? The one your mom wore?”

  “I lost it. Which is why I ran away from Teddy and Abigail. It was a quest of sorts, but that is a story for another day.”

  “Never turn down a quest,” Juni said. It’s what Connor had told her, what she’d been trying to remember from her memory dream.

  Anya kissed the back of Juni’s hand and let it go. She pointed to the chicken dinner. “Eat. You need your strength.” She set The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm on the bed where she’d been sitting, and then she left.

  Anya wasn’t like most of her friends’ grandmas, with their holiday sweaters and persistent baking. Anya was more likely to dance around a bonfire and speak to the birds than she was to pull a hankie out of her bra, like Luca and Gabby’s abuela did. Anya didn’t have many friends, preferring the company of her family or to be alone. She was known to dye her hair with the change of seasons—magenta for fall and indigo for summer. She made jewelry from precious stones, and went for walks through the woods in the full moonlight, her trusty stick her only companion. She was the reason Juni believed in the power of stories.

  Juni stared at Connor’s buck and let the memories wash over her. The way they used to argue over the last scoop of ice cream in the carton, or the right way to roll the toothpaste tube. How she took his sweatshirts without asking. She thought about sleeping in Connor’s room under the giant carved desk that once belonged to Grandpa Charlie, the terrible smell of socks drifting from his closet. She thought about hanging pine-tree air fresheners in his room and how he’d put his favorite books under her pillow and the many times he’d told her the story of how he’d saved her life once upon a time.

  She needed to hear it told again.

  Because even though Anya had surrounded her with stories since birth, Juni believed in miracles because of Connor.

  Never turn down a quest, Anya had always said.

  This was the answer. This had always been the answer.

  Juni had to go get Elsie. She had to fashion herself a quest to break the curse, and maybe, just maybe, she could create a miracle and Connor could come home. Because fairy tales were filled with horrors, but they were filled with miracles, too.

  Connor had always been the hero of their story.

  Now, ready or not, it was Juni’s turn.

  A HAYSTACK SECRET

  THE IDEA BLOOMED overnight like one of Anya’s windowsill orchids.

  Juni would take herself on a quest, because of course she would.

  And because there was no time to lose, she started planning right after breakfast.

  First, she read through every quest story she could remember from The Original Folk & Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm—Jorinde and Joringel, Hansel and Gretel, Little Brother, Little Sister—then she skimmed through the rest to make sure she hadn’t missed any. It took her most of the morning, but when she finished, she had a list of tasks.

  With an endless number to choose from, Juni settled on the three that repeated the most, otherwise she’d be questing for the rest of her life.

  Return a stolen object to its rightful owner.

  Find a witch and ask for a magic spell.

  Sacrifice something cherished.

  Although she had no idea what might pass for a witch in California in the twenty-first century, or how she might get a magic spell from such a person, the other two were easier to consider. She’d go retrieve the stolen Elsie, and since the sacrifice didn’t usually come until the end of the fairy tale, she had time to figure that part out.

  Next, she went to her computer and clicked open the internet, searching the word witches. All sorts of interesting information came up. She read the wiki and a couple of articles in Time and the New York Times. Turns out people still practiced witchcraft in many different and interesting ways. Green and herbalist witches, or forest witches, used the power of plants and trees to spin their magic. Just like Gabby and Luca’s mom did with the herbal remedies she grew in her garden.

  So, remembering their vacation to San Francisco last year, when Mom had typed best doughnuts near me into her phone, Juni typed witches near me into her computer, and bingo. There were witch groups and divining witches—like Great-Great-Grandmother Holle—and psychics who called themselves witches. Although they weren’t exactly everywhere, Juni found a witch in Meadow Valley near Quincy, at Madame Ophelia’s Crystal Emporium. It was a place to start, anyway.
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br />   The last thing she did was print out a map from the internet. There were a few different ways to get from her home in Chester to Elsie in Mammoth Lakes, and one of them was Highway 89. It wound its way through national forest land; Lassen, Plumas, Tahoe, Eldorado, Stanislaus and finally, the Inyo National Forest. If they stayed on 89, they’d never have to leave the woods.

  Because all proper quests happened in the woods.

  Juni opened her nightstand drawer and lifted out the heart-shaped chocolate box Mason had given her last year on Valentine’s Day. Inside she kept her most treasured possessions, each of which smelled like chocolate. A story she’d torn from Anya’s Read-er’s Digest called “The Lake,” a perfectly round wishing stone from Last Chance Creek, a haiku of Mason’s that Juni had snuck out of the school garbage can, and Connor’s letters from basic training and Afghanistan.

  Specifically, she wanted to read one of the first he’d sent.

  Oct. 11

  Dear Juni,

  It won’t be long now before I’m finished with training. I was assigned a dog named Elsie. She’s a golden retriever named for 2nd Lt. Elsie S. Ott, a flight nurse on the first intercontinental air evacuation flight ever, during World War II. Normally, men were evacuated on ships, which took three months to get home to the United States. Flying was dangerous, but faster, and so, after this first successful voyage, where Elsie took care of five men, she was asked both how to evacuate more safely and what was needed to make these flights more comfortable. Most of the items she listed were for the wounded—oxygen, more bandages, extra coffee—but she also said wearing a skirt was highly impractical and that she would be wearing pants from then on, whether they liked it or not.

  Two months later, Elsie Ott received the U.S. Air Medal, the first given to a woman in the U.S. Army.

  Elsie’s story made me think of you, Juni. I love thinking about you out there in the world, how much better it is for having you in it. Will you show your art in a gallery one day? Design buildings? Build schools on another continent? Illustrate children’s books? I can’t wait to see.

  They named this dog for a hero, and she lives up to that responsibility every single day. I don’t know what I’d do without her. It’s like having four eyes instead of two, two sets of instincts instead of one. We share the same heart.

  She’s ours now, Juni. She’s family.

  Give Anya, Mom and Dad hugs, and punch Luca in the arm. Tell him I said to “eat worms.” He’ll know what that means.

  Love until my next letter,

  Connor

  Juni held the picture of Elsie that Connor had sent in the letter. Connor was on one knee, Elsie smiling at him like he was the best thing that ever happened to her.

  That Elsie was a golden retriever sent a shimmy across Juni’s shoulders. Golden animals were everywhere in the fairy tales, and often the object of a quest. Juni jumped up and did a little dance. She’d finally figured it out.

  For the first time since Connor had vanished, Juni knew exactly what to do. Instead of their camping trip to Domingo Springs, she would persuade Mason, Gabby and Luca to drive with her to Mammoth instead, where Elsie had been sent.

  But just as suddenly as those happy feelings came, they vanished. As she calculated the distance to Mammoth Lakes—exactly 286.7 miles—doubt crept in.

  You’re fragile, Juni. Try to remember that.

  Her mother’s words were a web in her brain, set to trap everything else.

  Juni knew how preposterous this might seem. Bel-ieving she was cursed. Believing a quest would bring her brother back to her. Was there enough evidence, gathered over the generations of her family, to prove any of this could possibly be true? Juni didn’t know.

  But one thing she did know: If there was even the tiniest sliver of a little bit of a possibility, didn’t Juni owe it to her brother to try?

  * * *

  Since Juni only had a couple of days to talk her friends into helping, she called an emergency goat-pen meeting, trying her best to ignore the web of doubt. She asked Gabby and Mason to come first so she could explain her plan, and then asked Luca to come a half hour later. That way all three of them could talk him into it.

  Maybe she could forgive Luca for delivering the worst news of her life if he did this for her.

  When Gabby and Mason arrived, they sat on the scraggly bales of hay they’d pushed into a circle. It was where they’d always had their most important discussions. Like planning Gabby’s eighth-grade presidential campaign for next year, or that time they’d decided to run away with the county-fair carnival crew so they’d never have to eat kale again.

  Juni had packed everything—the letter from Service Dogs, with Love, the photo Connor had sent of himself with Elsie and the letter Connor had written about her—into a manila envelope. She took each item out, one by one, and gave them to her friends.

  “Okay. What I’m about to tell you is a Haystack Secret. It doesn’t leave the goat pen.”

  “Of course not,” Gabby said. She immediately started braiding a section of her long ponytail, knee bouncing.

  Juni took a deep breath. “First off, I just found out Mom and Dad let Elsie go to another family.”

  “What happened?” Mason said.

  “It’s all in these letters.” Juni pulled them out of the envelope and handed them to her friends.

  Gloria the goat sat on Juni’s feet, being the sweet goat she was, and tucked her front legs beneath her. Juni scratched the coarse white fluff between her ears.

  “She’s in Mammoth?” Gabby finally said.

  “Before you say anything, just think about it.” Juni paused, gathering her courage from the goats, the hay bales, the woods. “We could drive to Mammoth to get Elsie instead of going on the camping trip.”

  After Gabby and Mason blinked so many times Juni began to wonder if they’d malfunctioned, Mason finally jumped up and one-two-punched the air. “Yes! A rescue operation!”

  “But your parents must not want her or they wouldn’t have let this happen,” Gabby said. “How are you going to change their minds?”

  “I’m not going to tell them.” Juni felt guilty even as she said it. “It’s not like they would send her back. They aren’t monsters. They’re just sad.”

  “What if this other family won’t let her go?” Gabby said.

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Juni said.

  “Of course I’m on your side. This just seems . . . next level.”

  Juni wanted to tell them how Connor’s and Elsie’s fates might be intertwined, how her feeling of purpose in going on this quest had become overwhelming. Mason and Gabby both knew about the Grimm family legend, the same way they knew the story of Izzy the German shepherd. But maybe it was one thing to tell odd stories and another to believe them.

  So, instead of saying anything about quests or antler bones or fate, Juni rubbed a piece of hay between her fingers and brought it to her nose, the sweet smell of summer setting her thoughts in a proper line. “Connor would have done this for me. For any of us. Elsie is family, and I need your help.”

  Juni spied Luca walking toward them from the lake trail. He was tall, over six feet, thin and muscular, his veins showing on his biceps and the backs of his hands. He was studying to be an emergency medical technician and knew how to perform CPR and the Heimlich maneuver, as well as fashion a tourniquet, and an assortment of other lifesaving techniques. Juni knew they’d be safe with Luca.

  He reached the goat pen and let himself in. Luca’s eyes were brown like Gabby’s, the color of cedar bark. “Okay, guys, what’s all this about?”

  Juni looked at Gabby and Mason.

  “I say yes,” Mason said.

  Gabby tossed her hands up in surrender. “Fine!”

  A breeze worked its way from one tree to the next, as though one of Juni’s dream giants had just walked past, t
railing a hand through the leaves. She faced Luca. “What if we went camping somewhere else?”

  EATING WORMS

  “NO WAY,” LUCA said.

  “But you haven’t even thought about it! It’s not that far. We aren’t leaving the state or anything. And we could take Connor’s Caprice!” Juni said. “It runs like a dream. Even you said so.”

  “It’s not about reliable transportation, Juni. Your parents would kill me. Mason’s parents would kill me. My own parents would kill me. I’d be dead three times over.”

  “Which is why we aren’t going to tell them.”

  Luca had nudged in beside his sister on the hay bale. He sat forward, arms resting on his thighs, twisting a single bent piece of hay between his fingers around and around. “Look, this sucks,” he said. “I can’t believe your parents did this. But there is no way I’m going to go against what they want. They’ll never trust me again. Did you even think about that? This isn’t like you, Juni.”

  How could Juni have ever thought Luca would agree? Connor had been the one to throw himself off waterfalls and plan a thru-hike on the Pacific Crest Trail and join the army. He was the hero of the story. Luca was the sidekick.

  “I’ll go on my own. You can’t stop me.”

  Gabby’s heel bounced in the hay, making a shush, shush, shushing sound, and had twisted her hair into so many braids, Juni wondered how she’d get them all out. Mason leaned back on his long arms and stared off into space.

  They’d given up.

  What came next could only be described as pure desperation. For one clear moment, Juni didn’t worry about what Gabby might think, how the story might sound, or if saying it out loud might force her to face the impossibility of it all.

  “I think Connor is trying to tell me something.”

  Luca tied a blue bandanna over his short hair and stared her right in the eye. Gabby and Mason sat very still.