Into the Wild

by Sarah Beth Durst

  It hurt.

  Julie wasn’t even sure she knew the woman who had been described to her. She thought of her mom in the kitchen the other morning, laughing, applying makeup, baby-talking with her ridiculous “oobe snooby uppy wuppy.” How did this mom mesh with the warrior?

  Julie looked out across the landscape—hints of highways and houses buried under green—and tried to imagine how the Wild Wood had looked to Mom five hundred years ago. Mom had led a rebellion in order to leave her past behind. Julie tried to wrap her mind around this new image of her mother. Mom had masterminded the escape from the Wild.

  And now she was back in it, and it was growing. Had it taken over all of Massachusetts? Did it control all of New England? How fast was it growing, and how much of its speed was due to Julie feeding it with her rescue stories? I’ll find you, Mom, she promised herself. I’ll set it right. “I think that’s Route 9,” Julie called to Boots. White City Cinemas had transformed into an ivory castle, and Stop ’n’ Shop was a peasant town. McDonald’s now had a thatched roof.

  The ogre laid his hat on the ground. Julie and Boots lowered themselves over the lip of the felt. “He’ll be asleep now,” the ogre said. “You’d better hurry.”

  “Can’t you help us get it?” Julie asked.

  “Oh, no, you already have a companion,” he said. “Besides, I have to be going. Villages to terrorize. Peasants to eat. Ahh, I’ve missed this—at least the parts until I’m murdered.” Waving, the ogre stomped off, squashing a Hallmark hut and Ye Olde Blockbuster Shoppe.

  Julie faced Spag’s warehouse store. Through the cobweb-coated, bat-lined door, all she saw was a whole lot of darkness. “You first,” she said to Boots.

  “No, no, please, be my guest,” Boots said.

  Julie poked a finger at a cobweb. It broke and clung to her finger. Ew.

  You can do it, Julie, she told herself. She was so close now. One more of the Wild’s stupid games and she would be with Mom. If Mom could wield a sword in battle, Julie could get one measly ring from a magician. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d be the one facing down the Wild. Covering her face with her hands, she walked quickly into the cobwebs and through the revolving door. Cobwebs stuck to her hands, her arms, her legs, her hair. On the other side, she wiped them off as quickly as she could. Yuck, yuck, and very yuck.

  Rubbing her arms, she looked around her. It wasn’t completely black inside the store-cave. Sconces with torches lit the walls instead of the normal fluorescent bulbs. Flickering shadows stretched across the hardware section. Under a layer of moss and lichen, paint cans still sat on shelves and drill bits in open drawers.

  “Spooky,” Boots commented.

  Julie agreed. The shadows looked like they could hold dozens of monsters. “Let’s go,” she whispered to Boots. She crept forward into the aisles.

  Silently, they passed the jewelry cases. Her image flickered in dusty mirrors. She watched out of the corner of her eye as her image followed them into the cookware aisle.

  Boots sniffed the air. “Up ahead,” he whispered.

  She crept as quietly as she could, following the cat through electronics. The VCRs looked like black blotches. Anything could be hiding behind the TVs. Coming out of electronics, she heard a soft rumble.

  She imagined monsters: drooling, bloodthirsty monsters.

  Julie and Boots crept through patio furniture. Fast asleep, the magician was facedown on a patio table. His cheek was smushed against the glass next to the umbrella hole and his half-eaten lunch, and he was snoring—the soft rumble she’d heard was his snoring.

  “That’s him?” Julie said. That was the magician? He was a kid. He looked high school age. Pimples and everything. He wore a Harry Potter wizard hat and a blue bathrobe with stars and moons on it. The hat still had a price tag.

  “Shhh!” Boots said, but the magician didn’t wake.

  “Come on,” she whispered. Dropping to hands and knees, she crawled closer. She hid behind a barbecue grill. Boots joined her. “Grandma said he keeps it in his mouth,” Julie whispered. Leaning around the grill, she peeked out at the kid. His mouth was shut. His nostrils flared with each snore.

  How could she make him spit out the ring in his sleep? What would make someone spit in his sleep? Or how about sneeze? What would make him sneeze?

  “Cat hair,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” Boots said.

  She grinned at Boots. “You can make him sneeze.”

  “Um, let me think about that: magician, me. Uh, no. Absolutely not.”

  “Come on,” she whispered. “You said you wanted to go home.”

  He backed away. “It’s not that bad here. You heard the ogre—he missed parts of this place. Who knows? Maybe I gave up too early before. Maybe if I stick around, I will meet the love of my life. If I’m magician lunch meat, I’ll never know.”

  She couldn’t believe he was talking like this. “What about Mom?”

  “She’s a hero,” Boots said. “I’m just the hero’s companion.”

  Julie shook her head. “You almost drowned, you flew on swans, you faced an ogre, you followed me in here, and now you want to back out?”

  “This is where I draw the line,” he said. “Besides, maybe he’s not allergic to cat hair.”

  “Okay, fine,” she said. She wasn’t going to waste time arguing with him. “What else makes people sneeze?”

  “Dust,” he suggested. “Pepper?”

  The magician had been eating a submarine sandwich from the food aisle. His hand rested in a soggy mass of shredded lettuce and ham remnants. She bet it had pepper.

  She couldn’t waltz over to him and stick pepper in his nose without his noticing. He’d hear her. If Boots would do it . . . or an even smaller creature . . . Yes! “Wait here,” Julie whispered. “I have an idea.”

  She pulled the ogre’s wand out of her back pocket. Taking a deep breath, she tapped her head with its tip. “From a girl to a mouse.”

  Whoosh. She shot toward the floor, and the barbecue grill ballooned in front of her. Heavy and awkward, the wand fell out of her hands as her fingers curled into paws. Her back slouched as her bones shifted. Her skin itched as she sprouted fur. Her nose twitched, her whiskers moved, and she was suddenly assailed by more smells than she’d ever imagined existed. She swallowed back a cough, tried to cover her mouth with her front paws, and fell flat on her chin.

  Paws scrabbling, she righted herself. Gingerly, she laid her tail straight out behind her. She looked down at herself. Wow, wait until she told Gillian about this. Gillian would love it. She’d say it was super-cool—and she’d be right, Julie thought. “Boots, look at me!” She lifted her head and twitched her whiskers.

  Oh, my, he was huge. And feline.

  Boots towered over her, lashing his tail. “I want Beef Feast for the self-restraint I am showing here.” His teeth glittered.

  Julie bolted for the patio furniture. Her hind haunches waddled faster than her front, and she somersaulted over the linoleum. Adjusting herself, she zigzagged toward the magician’s table. Okay, here’s the plan, she thought as she ran: I climb up the table leg . . .

  At the foot of the table leg, she looked up—and up and up. Okay, here’s the plan: I don’t climb up the table leg . . . She waddled to the magician’s robe. Oversized, it draped onto the floor in a puddle of terry cloth.

  A mouse could climb this, she thought.

  Before she lost her nerve, Julie dug her front paws into the cloth and scrabbled behind her with her hind claws. She started to climb. Memories flashed back at her: how she hated gym class, how she hated jungle gyms.

  Suddenly, the mountain leveled off. She had reached the magician’s thigh. She looked down—a long, long way down—and bit back a squeak. Paws clenched on the robe, her legs shook. The linoleum swam beneath her. She clung to the terry cloth. Her mouse heart pattered like a snare drum. What a terrible idea this was. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t a mouse acrobat.

  She had been much higher in the o
gre’s hat and on the griffin’s back, she told herself. After a long minute, she was able to move again. She gritted her mouse teeth and continued her climb: up the front lapel of the bathrobe and along the sleeve. She focused on one inch at a time. Concentrating, she forgot to be afraid.

  Before she knew it, she was at the table. She scurried across the magician’s arm and onto the table, landing with a sharp click of claws on glass.

  Oh, wow, she did it. She couldn’t believe she did it. She looked down. The frosted glass table warped her view of the floor below. She saw Boots watching her, and she waved with her tail. He flicked his tail in the air as if snapping a whip.

  She hurried around the magician’s head. His pimples were the size of anthills. His nostrils widened like sails as he breathed. The wind of his breath ruffled her fur. She sniffed at his sandwich.

  Yes! He’d used pepper. She dipped her tail into the olive oil smeared on the bread and then rolled her tail in pepper; then she scurried over to the magician. Leaning onto her front paws, she stuck her peppery tail up his nostril. She wiggled it.

  The magician sneezed, and the hurricane blew her across the table. She tumbled, paws over tail. The ring clanged as it hit the table and rolled. He snorted. Scrambling her paws under her, Julie ran for the ring. As it tipped toward the edge, she caught it.

  The magician rubbed his nose, and his eyelashes fluttered.

  Ring in her mouth, Julie ran for the umbrella hole in the patio table. She dove through and slid on her stomach down the table leg. Crashing onto the ground, she oomphed, and the ring fell out of her mouth and clattered on the tile. The magician shifted above her. “Wha . . . wha . . .” he said. She bit the ring and ran across the floor toward the barbecue grill. Butting her head against the wand, she squeaked, “From a mouse to a girl!”

  She popped back into her original size.

  The magician lifted his head. “Hey, who . . .” Spitting out the ring, she shoved it on her finger. Boots tucked the ogre’s wand into his boot and leapt into Julie’s arms.

  “Take me to my mother,” she shouted at the ring. “Take me to Rapunzel!” The magician charged up the aisle—and the store vanished.

  Part Three

  The Well

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Problem with Short Hair

  For the thousandth time, Zel peered out the window. The view hadn’t changed much since she’d been imprisoned here. Occasionally, a beanstalk rose and fell. Once in a while, a glass hill appeared. Earlier, she had seen a giant-ogre stride across the landscape. Leaning out over the sill, she scanned the horizon for any hint of the one thing she wanted to see: if the Wild had trapped Julie.

  Julie wasn’t the third son or the youngest of seven daughters. She didn’t have butter-yellow hair or skin as plastic smooth as Barbie’s. What would the Wild make her be? What if she was forced to play a stepsister? Or a stepmother? Or a serving maid who displaced a princess?

  Breathe, Zel told herself. Most likely, one of the others had saved her. Julie could be in Florida with the fairy godmother right now. Or she could be in Cindy’s car, fleeing across the Midwest. She could be at a McDonald’s in Indiana.

  Or she could be trapped in a gingerbread house.

  Or inside a wolf’s stomach.

  Or at the bottom of a well.

  Zel resumed her pacing. She hated this. She had hated it centuries ago, and she hated it now. All she could do in this idiotic tower was think and worry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hurl herself at the Wild and tear it apart branch by branch.

  Been there; tried that. Was she doomed to repeat it all? Would she ever see her daughter again? She thought of her husband, and suddenly it hurt to swallow. It could happen, she realized. She could lose them both. She wouldn’t get to see Julie grow up. She’d never see her graduate. She’d never attend her daughter’s wedding. She would never see the time come when Julie was ready to be friends, not just mother and daughter. Some idiot had made a wish and, in seconds, taken it all away from her.

  No, not an idiot: someone who knew exactly when Gothel would be away from the well, someone who knew the three bears would be guarding it, someone who knew their habits and weaknesses. All the evidence pointed to one of their own kind. But how could anyone who knew this world as it truly was want to return to it? No matter how many years passed, no matter how bad their lives were outside the Wild, how could anyone forget that “fairy-tale perfect” was a lie? Maybe an ordinary person, someone who didn’t know firsthand, could glorify the Wild Wood, but Zel could not imagine how bad life would have to be to knowingly choose this endless oblivion—and to knowingly condemn everyone to this hell. Yes, hell. Zel closed her eyes and took a deep, ragged breath, trying to stay calm. It couldn’t be one of their own who did this. She knew that much.

  Beyond that, she knew little else. After she’d tried and failed to call Ursa, Gothel had left for the motel. She had told Zel to stay home with Julie. Most likely, there wasn’t a problem, she’d said. But when she didn’t report back, Zel followed her—and arrived too late. The Wild had already begun to grow. Zel knocked on every door and evacuated all the guests she could find; then she went into the motel office, where she found the three bears asleep over the drugged porridge. Gothel was nowhere to be seen. Zel went out the back door into the overnight-ancient forest, intending to go straight to the well and undo the damage. But the Wild, of course, had other plans, and Gothel dragged her off to a tower. Just like old times.

  At first, the “tower” was nothing more than the motel office, its doors and windows sealed with vines. But the Wild grew fast, and soon she was taken to the top floor of the old town hall, then to the steeple of the Unitarian Church, then to the clock tower of the Worcester court-house. Finally, the Wild moved her here, to a place that seemed custom-made for her, the Shakespeare in the Park tower. Built to resemble a miniature feudal castle, it already had a turret, arrow slots, and a portcullis when the Wild came. All the Wild had to do was add another three levels and seal the doors into solid stone, and the park monument made a perfect Rapunzel’s tower. It would remain usable for centuries with minimal additional effort from the Wild. The Wild would barely have to change anything for Zel to reenact her story. How convenient. How expedient. How lucky.

  Zel heard a pop from outside. What was that? Was it the witch already? Please, not yet. She wasn’t ready yet. She crossed the room in three steps. “Is anyone there?” She looked out the window.

  “Mom?” she heard.

  No, it couldn’t be. Zel leaned out the window so far that her feet lifted off the floor. “Julie?”

  Julie came running around the corner of the tower with Boots behind her. He was in full Puss-in-Boots regalia, and he had a wand poking out of one boot. She was in ordinary jeans and a sweater, plus those ridiculous sandals. “Mom!” she shouted.

  “Julie!” She could have wept. Her daughter, here, in the flesh . . . in the Wild. “What are you doing here? You should be miles and miles from the woods! Why didn’t you run?”

  “I came to rescue you!” Julie said.

  Oh, no.

  On his hind legs, Boots waved up at her. “Hello, Rapunzel!”

  Julie called, “Let down your hair, Mom!”

  “Oh, Julie,” Zel said. “I cut my hair five centuries ago.”

  She watched her daughter’s smile fall. It felt like a fist in her heart. “But the witch said the ogre . . . and then the magician . . . I crossed the endless ocean! I did the impossible tasks! I won the ring!” Julie held up her hand, but her finger was bare. With its use, the ring had disintegrated. “It’s gone!”

  Zel closed her eyes. “Oh, pumpkin, you’ve been tricked. You’ve been used. The Wild used you for its stories.” Just like old times. Only in the old days, it hadn’t been her daughter that it had in its grip.

  All the pain, all the loss—the whole escape had been to save Julie. Zel had done it all so her child wouldn’t grow up a slave to the stories, so she could be her own person.
She had even asked Gothel to use her magic to delay Julie’s birth until she was sure they were free. We were free, she thought. It wasn’t fair.

  Julie should have run. What had she been thinking, playing hero? She was just a little girl. Zel’s little girl.

  Zel opened her eyes and looked out again, afraid she was gone. Hands clenched, Julie was staring at the forest. Zel felt déjà vu as she watched the transformation come over her daughter. Julie’s back straightened and her chin lifted. She looked up at her mother with a fierce expression on her face, an expression that Zel had never seen her wear. For an instant, Julie reminded her of herself. Was that how she’d looked when she’d fought against the Wild? “How do I stop it?” Julie said.

  “You don’t,” Zel said firmly. “You get out of here. Run as far away as you can.”

  Just as firmly, Julie said, “I’m not leaving you.”

  “It’s too dangerous.” Believe me, she thought. I know what I’m talking about. She’d seen the horrors: red-hot iron shoes, barrels full of nails. Once, she’d seen a woman thrown into a cauldron of vipers. “I want you to leave these woods.”

  “How? It’s not going to let me waltz out.”

  Julie was right. For a long moment, Zel stared out of the tower at the vast expanse of the Wild Wood. She’d been in the woods for hundreds of years before she was able to face the Wild. Julie was only twelve. But twelve or not, the Wild would make her a character, and there was only one character she could be if she wanted to escape. “You’ll have to hurry,” Zel said. “The Wild is in chaos now because it’s growing. But the same chaos that makes it possible to switch from story to story also makes it possible for the Wild to present you with trap after trap. The longer you take, the more chances the Wild will have to surround you with stories—eventually, it will trick you into a story ending, and you’ll forget who you are. That’s how we lost the Great Battle. You will have to move quickly, and you can’t stop. And above all else, you must avoid story endings.”