Into the Wild

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “We already have someone sewing,” the captain said.

  Wow, that was lucky. “You do?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Come meet her. She’s in the tree.” Boots leapt out of her arms as Julie followed the captain around the cottage. In the space of time it took them to walk no more than thirty steps, the sun set and the moon rose. All the trees were dark masses of shadows.

  Julie shivered and walked closer to the captain. She’d thought the woods were terrifying in daylight. She hadn’t imagined them in the dark. In the dark, the twisted trunks looked even more like faces. Knots stretched into silent screams. Switching on his flashlight, the captain focused the beam on a tree with a shape in it.

  Even though she was expecting it, Julie took a step backward: there was a girl in the tree. She was making a strange clicking sound.

  The captain strode toward her and Julie followed. Light spilled up the tree, illuminating feet, knees, and then hands moving in concert with the clicking—knitting, Julie guessed. As the light hit the knitter’s face, the girl lifted her head and flipped her hair to the side. Mouth open, Julie stared at her. Oh, wow.

  The girl in the tree was Kristen March.

  Kristen’s mouth curled, and Julie’s shoulders tensed. Kristen recognized her. Like the soldiers, she was in a tale, but unlike New Little Red, she hadn’t reached an ending yet. She still had her memories. Lucky me, Julie thought. Kristen was going to say something awful. She knew it.

  But Kristen said nothing. Her hands kept moving, the needles kept clicking, and she didn’t speak. Why didn’t she say something snide? Julie had never known Kristen to resist an insult. But Kristen just kept pulling in blue and red daisies and knitting them together. Of course, Julie thought, the spell! She couldn’t talk or laugh while she knit flower shirts for the swan-men. The Wild was forcing her silent, just like it had forced the griffin to buck Julie and Boots. Julie started to laugh. How perfect! Kristen couldn’t talk!

  The captain looked at Julie curiously. “Do you know her?”

  “Yes, I know her.” Smiling, she added, “Unfortunately.”

  Kristen’s eyes bulged.

  “You should be glad she can’t talk,” Julie said. The pressure of holding in so many snide comments was probably intense. “There are kids at school who would give anything to see her like this.”

  Kristen’s mouth formed an o in an almost-hiccup. Her hands moved faster, needles clacking louder.

  “She thinks she’s so high and mighty,” Julie said. “Not so clever with the insults now, are you? Not so great stuck in a tree by yourself without all your friends around you. Oh, look, I think you missed a row.”

  Concerned, the captain leaned in. “She has to knit them perfectly, or we’ll be swans forever.”

  Julie waggled her finger at Kristen. “Not so fun being not quite perfect, is it? Bet it’ll take you a long time to knit these.”

  “Six years,” the captain said.

  Julie stopped. Six years? She stared at the soldier. Did he mean it? Even Kristen didn’t deserve . . . but no, she did deserve it. Julie thought of how many days she had gone home in tears, hating herself because of Kristen. Who knew how many other lives she’d ruined? But six years . . . Julie turned back to Kristen. Kristen knit furiously.

  The captain clapped his hand on Julie’s shoulder. “Let’s go inside.”

  He led Julie across the clearing. Julie kept glancing back over her shoulder until Kristen was swallowed in darkness.

  Julie tossed on the cot. It wasn’t really night; she couldn’t sleep. Besides, each time she closed her eyes, she could feel the seawater closing over her. She’d been lucky.

  Lucky. Oh, yes, she’d been lucky: she’d met the animal helpers before she met the witch; Boots had come to guide her to the griffin; the swans had appeared before she drowned . . . Sure, “lucky.” She was no different from Kristen, sewing silently in the tree. She was following the Wild’s script—just like Kristen and Grandma and New Little Red—and the Wild could twist the plot any way it pleased.

  Curling into a ball, she squeezed her pillow. The Wild would never let her succeed. It wouldn’t want her to rescue her mother, the one person who knew how to defeat it. It wouldn’t want to be put back under Julie’s bed.

  Except that she wasn’t dealing with a malicious mind plotting against her. The Wild had rules, events, conventions. Her eyes flew open, wide awake, as the idea came to her. Instead of trying to escape the stories, she should be trying to live them.

  Yes, that was the way to win: follow the tales to the happily ever after of her mother’s rescue. Play the role of the hero in a rescue tale—and avoid the role of evil stepsister who spits toads and has her eyes pecked out by talking birds. She might not be able to avoid being in the tales altogether, but she could try to be in the right ones.

  Could she do it? She turned the idea over in her head. From what she’d seen and learned, she didn’t think that the Wild could control her between story bits, just during them. Between events, she had freedom. She could use those moments to find the tales that would lead her to the ending she wanted: her mother’s rescue. It could work. Boots had talked once about all the story bits being jumbled because the Wild was growing. He’d used that to avoid his story. Couldn’t she use that to choose her story?

  Julie tossed off the thin blanket. At the foot of the bed, Boots burrowed into her discarded blanket with a contented purr. She took a flashlight and went outside.

  Outside, the darkness seemed to close in on her. Nervously, she peered at the shadows. Now that she was out here, she wasn’t sure what had prompted her to come outside. What was she trying to prove? Was she trying to prove something?

  The darkness retreated to nibble at the edges of her light. Cautiously, she walked across the clearing. Halfway, she heard the clacking sound. She followed it. She raised the flashlight and the light fell on Kristen, knitting in the tree.

  Kristen lifted her head and looked at her, and then Julie understood what had made her come outside. “I’m going to end this,” Julie said. “You won’t have to do this for six years.”

  Kristen raised her eyebrows. Julie recognized that expression: disbelief. “Look, I know more about this than you do. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  Kristen’s nostrils flared: disgust.

  “You might know how to deal with the school world better than I do. But all your perfection out there doesn’t help you in here. You know what’s going to happen to you next if you continue with this set of events? You’ll knit in silence for five and a half years, and then some king will come along and marry you. You’ll have kids. Your mother-in-law will kill them and tell the king you ate them. And then you’ll be tied to a stake to burn. Bet you didn’t know that.”

  Julie warmed to her subject: “You don’t know enough to avoid the wrong roles. And Grandma and the others know too much.” It was beginning to make sense. Gothel and “our kind” had roles here, so they were trapped quickly. Kristen and the others didn’t know enough to avoid the roles, so they were also trapped quickly. Julie was the only one who could recognize the story bits and who didn’t already belong to a specific story. “I’m the only one who straddles both worlds,” Julie said.

  Kristen tossed her hair, and Julie suddenly remembered who she was talking to. She scowled at Kristen. “Well, it doesn’t matter if you appreciate it or not. I’m not doing it for you.” Julie stomped away. She went back inside and woke the soldiers. “My brother and I need to get to the ogre’s castle.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cat-and-Mouse Games

  Julie knelt on the swan’s back and held on to his neck. Powerful wings pumped beneath her. She glanced back at Boots. He was huddled between the wings of the swan lieutenant. She waved back at him, and he bared his teeth. “Unnatural!” he shouted. “A cat riding a bird!”

  Grinning, she turned forward. On the horizon, the sun was rising, sparkling and dancing on the water. It was a beautiful morni
ng in every way. She was going to Mom! She was going home!

  The swans skimmed low over the surface of the sea. Spray spattered in Julie’s face. She laughed out loud as the swan burst through a puff of sea mist. She saw Worcester’s Higgins Armory Museum in the distance.

  Its steel windows stretched like taffy into thin, delicate silver walls. It towered fifty stories in the air with turrets that reached into the clouds. Its sparkle filled Julie’s eyes. Silver reflected on the blue sea.

  The swans glided onto the parking-lot-turned-shore. One of the swans gestured grandly with his wing and said, “Here is the Castle of the Silver Towers.”

  Yes, that seemed a better name for it now. Awed, she stared up at the shining turrets. “We used to come here for field trips,” she said. “It didn’t look like this.” It used to be shorter, for one thing, and she was sure it hadn’t had a moat or a drawbridge. Or an ogre.

  Suddenly, the castle didn’t seem so wonderful. She remembered her mom once casually mentioning how different the Giant-Ogre family was outside the Wild. Gothel had used her magic to shrink them. Outside the Wild, one of them could eat six steaks for dinner. Inside the Wild, that same ogre could eat a whole herd of cattle.

  Boots leapt down from the swan lieutenant’s back.

  The swan screeched. “My feathers!”

  “Sorry,” Boots said. Not looking the least bit sorry, he smiled with a feather in between his fangs.

  “Boots!” What was he thinking? They were their ride! She dismounted and then turned to apologize, but the swans were already back in V formation. “Hey, where are you going?”

  The swans didn’t answer. Instead, she heard the captain’s voice across the water, drilling them to fly faster. Soon, they were specks in the distance; then they were gone. So much for their escape route. “Good job, Boots,” she said. Swallowing hard, she turned back to the castle. “I don’t suppose it’s a friendly ogre?”

  “You go ahead,” he said, lifting his leg to lick his boot. “I’ll guard the entrance.”

  “Nice try,” she said. She picked him up. She was not doing this alone.

  Squirming out of her arms, he climbed onto her shoulder. “I want an extra can of Fancy Feast for this.”

  Julie crossed the drawbridge to the door. Ornate gold, the door sparkled like sequins. It was ten times as tall as Julie. She squinted up at the door handle, which was the equivalent of three stories above her. “Do you think I should knock?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t,” Boots said, leaping off her shoulder.

  Julie pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. “Why not?” she asked.

  “An ogre might answer,” he said.

  Cute. She rolled her eyes at him. “What would Mom do?” Two days ago, she would have thought she knew the answer: her mother wouldn’t be on a quest. But today . . . who knew? Maybe Mom would lay siege to the castle and take the ogre single-handed. Yeah, right.

  Gathering her courage, Julie knocked on the door. She thought her knock sounded like the tap of a small wood-pecker. She knocked harder. “Ow.” She winced and shook her hand, knuckles stinging. She rubbed her fingers and then knocked again.

  Thud.

  Julie took a step backward. Thud, thud, thud. Door hinges shivered. Gold bits broke from the facade and rained down on them. Julie retreated down the drawbridge and wished she hadn’t knocked. She should have found her own way to Mom instead of following this stupid story. She heard a clank, and the massive door swung open. A Volkswagen-sized boot slammed down in the doorway, followed by a second boot. Julie tilted her head back: ankle, calf, knee, up and up until she finally saw the ogre’s face, five stories above her. He scowled down at her. “Fee, fie, foe, fum! I smell the blood of an Englishmun!”

  Julie swallowed hard. Coming here, she thought, was a stupid, stupid idea. “Actually, I’m American. And a girl.”

  “Eh?” The ogre peered down at her, and then he squatted, enormous knees jutting forward, for a better look. “Ooh, so you are! Like a tiny doll.”

  Look at the size of his hands. He could crush her like an ant. “Yep, that’s me. A doll, not an Englishmun. I mean, Englishman. And this is my brother, Puss-in-Boots.”

  “Leave me out of this,” Boots said out of the corner of his mouth.

  The ogre spread his hands apologetically. “Unfortunately, this changes nothing. You are still human.” He straightened to his full height and thundered: “Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!” The drawbridge throbbed with the volume of his voice. Julie clapped her hands to her ears. “Why have you entered my domain?”

  Good question—what had she been thinking? How did storybook heroes ever escape him? A memory of a story tickled her mind: something about a cat and a carnivorous ogre. Try it, her mind whispered. It couldn’t possibly make things worse. “Because I heard of your awesome powers,” she squeaked.

  He smiled, exposing hubcap-sized yellow teeth. “You’ve heard of me?”

  “Oh, yes.” Please, let this be the right story. She didn’t want to be crushed. She didn’t want to be eaten. “I heard that you could change shapes.”

  “Yes, I am all-powerful!” roared the ogre.

  Leaning close to her ankle, Boots said, “Julie, what are you doing?”

  Julie shook the cat off her foot. “Play along,” she whispered to him. “I heard that you can turn into a dragon,” she said to the ogre, “but I didn’t believe it. Who could turn into something as great as a dragon?”

  Boots covered his head with his paws. “Oh, no. Don’t bait him.”

  “You doubt my power? I will prove it to you!” With his thumb and forefinger, he drew a tiny stick from his pocket. He tapped himself with it. “From an ogre to a dragon!”

  Suddenly, he bulged. His stomach distended and his arms flattened. His torso elongated and turned green. Scales burst out over his skin. His face lengthened into jaws, and his eyes narrowed into yellow slits. His hands curled into claws.

  Julie swallowed twice. She felt like Jell-O. How had she thought it couldn’t get worse? This was obviously worse. If Mom was such a great hero, why couldn’t she save herself this time too? Why was it up to Julie? She didn’t belong here. She just wanted to go home. Boots quivered behind her.

  Spitting tendrils of fire, the dragon pranced around the castle foyer. His claws echoed on the tile. “Can you deny I am the most powerful creature you’ve ever seen?” he said. Sword-sharp teeth flashed.

  Staring at his jaws, she couldn’t find her voice. She wet her lips. “I’m . . . impressed.” Her knees shook. She closed her eyes and said in a rush, “But it’s not so hard to make yourself bigger. What would be really impressive is if you could make yourself smaller, like a dog or a cat or even a mouse.”

  “I can do that!” With the wand in his claw, he tapped himself again. “From a dragon to a mouse!” His green skin grayed, and his bones shrank. His body collapsed inward. In seconds, a mouse sat on top of the wand.

  “Aha!” Puss-in-Boots pounced on the mouse, knocking the wand out of his claws. Julie pounced on the wand. The mouse-ogre squealed.

  Yes! Julie clutched the wand to her chest. Her hands shook. Before she lost her nerve, she said, “Now, Mr. Ogre, if I turn you back, will you promise to behave and take us to the magician?”

  Boots licked his muzzle. “Don’t promise. I’m hungry.” The mouse shivered and squeaked, “I promise! Promise!”

  He had to keep his promise, right? The Wild wouldn’t let him lie. “Stand back,” she told the cat. Boots backed away from the mouse, and Julie touched the mouse’s nose with the wand. “From a mouse to an ogre.”

  The mouse grew into the ogre. “Good show,” the ogre said. “Nicely done.”

  Not trusting her voice, she nodded thanks. Her heart rate slowly returned to normal. She tucked the wand in her back pocket.

  “Would you like that ride now?” the ogre asked. He held down his hand.

  Julie hesitated for a second. What if he closed his hand on
her? Stay brave, she told herself. You’re almost to Mom. It’s almost over. Picking up the cat, Julie climbed onto his palm. The ogre lifted them to face level. “Um, sorry about earlier,” he said. “Part of the rules, you know.”

  “I know. You wouldn’t really have eaten me.”

  The ogre looked embarrassed. “Actually, I would have. But don’t worry, I’d have cooked you first.”

  Julie and Boots rode on the rim of the ogre’s hat as he trampled the trees beyond the castle. “You know, I fought by your mother’s side in the Great Battle,” the ogre said, after introductions had been made.

  Surprised, Julie almost lost her grip on the hat. “It’s true? She was in a battle?” she asked eagerly.

  “She led the battle,” the ogre corrected. “And she organized all the attempts before that. She was the leader of the rebellion since its inception. Your mother was a great swordswoman.”

  “Swords? Mom?” Mom, who always yelled at her to be careful with scissors and knives—Mom was a swordswoman? Wow. What else? She had to know it all.

  “She learned in her tower,” the ogre said, “trained visit by visit by her prince—or so the story goes. She was the inspiration of many a knight in shining armor.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Julie asked Boots. When he opened his mouth, she added, “Before yesterday.” She had lived with Boots all her life, and he had never said a word. He’d kept this all a mystery.

  “Do you like to dredge up all of your least favorite memories?” he asked. “Besides, she wanted to leave this behind, and it wasn’t my story to tell.”

  No, it was Mom’s story.

  Mom should have been the one to tell her. Julie felt . . . She didn’t know how she felt. Mom had kept secrets from her. She’d kept secrets from her own daughter.

  Five centuries ago, Mom had written in her own blood, ridden a griffin into battle, and led a rebellion. And Julie never knew.