by Jenn Reese
She picked it up, and the title sparkled in her palm.
She opened it, and the cards warmed to her touch.
* * *
Sam woke with a start, a sweaty playing card still clutched in one hand. The Queen of Walnuts. One of its corners was freshly bent. Sam’s heart began to pound as she pressed it back into place, tried to will away the crease. No luck. It was permanently ruined. How could she be so careless! What would Aunt Vicky do when she saw that Sam had already damaged the game?
“It’s only a queen,” said a voice. A male voice, but higher pitched than Sam’s father’s.
Sam’s heart did not rabbit; it stopped completely. “Who’s there?”
“I’m here,” the voice said. “Crawl out of that horrid little cave you’ve made yourself, and I can introduce myself more properly.”
“But I locked the door.” It was all Sam could think of to say. “I shut the door, and I locked it.”
“Yes, yes, those are the facts,” the voice said. “But I am rarely concerned with such things. So predictable! Where’s the fun? And besides, the window was wide open.”
Sam couldn’t breathe. No air would enter or exit her lungs. She was a stone statue of a girl. Someone would find her eventually and label her GIRL TOO TERRIFIED TO MOVE.
A face appeared in the opening of the castle fort.
The face of a fox.
The face of the fox.
He wore a hat, just like from the game, and a fancy coat, too. The fur on his face was a ruddy reddish brown until it reached the opening of his mouth, and it was silvery white below that.
“Fox got your tongue?” the fox asked.
The Girl of Stone did not blink.
The fox leaned against the wall of her fort, legs crossed, and picked at one of his claws. “I get this a lot, you know. The surprise. The shock. I’m a dashing fellow, and I fully understand your awe. Who wouldn’t be awed by the sight of me?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. Terrifying foxes were one thing; arrogant ones were quite another.
“You’re not real,” she said. “I’m dreaming.”
“You are not,” the fox replied easily. “If you were dreaming, I would be much taller. I’ve always wanted to be ten feet at the shoulder. Give those ridiculous bears a run for their money. ‘We’re so big and scary, us bears. Rarr this, and Rarr that.’” He mimicked a bear, claws out, and Sam couldn’t help herself. She laughed.
The fox beamed. “There’s our girl!”
It should have been scary, to see a fox smile. There were the fangs, of course, but all the teeth were sharp, not just those. And yet the fox’s smile was … charming.
“I’m Ashander,” the fox said. “And you are Samantha. We have similar names, by which I mean they are both composed of three syllables and an overabundance of vowels.”
“Ashander,” Sam said, testing it out. “I didn’t know foxes had names like that.”
“We don’t all have names like that,” Ashander said. “How confusing would that be? Someone would call one of us, and all of us would turn our heads. Imagine! And it would make taking roll in class a ridiculous endeavor.”
“Foxes go to school?” Sam pictured it, row after row of foxes all sitting at their desks.
Ashander tsked. “Of course not! Foxes don’t need school. We know everything already.”
For a brief moment, Sam had forgotten how far she was from her parents and her home. The talk of school reminded her. It was like getting splashed in the face with a bucket of sadness.
“Now that’s a frown for the ages,” Ashander said. “A veritably prodigious frown. What could cause such a thing?”
“I want to go back home to Los Angeles,” Sam blurted. “School’s starting soon, and all my friends will be wondering where I am, and—”
“Just a minute.” The fox tilted his head, thinking. Somehow it made him even more handsome.
Sam’s mood brightened. She didn’t know how to get back home, but maybe the fox did!
“Quests are often about finding one’s way home,” Ashander said finally. “Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz wants to return to Kansas. Odysseus spends ten years trying to get back to his home in The Odyssey. And of course everyone knows the story about Justicus the bat and her epic flight home after the Battle at Sky Mountain.”
“Um…,” Sam said, not wanting to admit that she’d never even heard of Justicus but also wanting very much for Ashander to tell her that story.
“Pishposh,” Ashander said. “You know the story, you just don’t remember knowing it. But the point remains: you want to return to your parents and your home. All great heroes do. That said … your particular request sounds almost impossible.”
Sam crumpled.
“Oh, don’t give up so easily,” the fox said. “I said almost impossible, which is another way of saying possible … just very hard.” He brought his furry face close to Sam’s. She could have counted the whiskers on his cheeks. “Have you ever heard of … the Golden Acorn?”
A chill raced up Sam’s back. She shook her head.
“It is a legendary artifact of incredible power,” Ashander said, almost purring. Sam hadn’t known foxes could even do that. “With the Golden Acorn in your paw, any wish you make will come true.”
“Any wish?” Sam sat up a little taller. She could be back in Los Angeles, before that night. Before everything went wrong. In fact, she’d made that very wish earlier that night, when she’d blown out the candles on her cake.
“Yes, any wish. I wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true!”
“Where do I find it?” Sam asked. She’d go now. Right this minute. There wasn’t a second to lose.
But Ashander leaned away, crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, Sam. You don’t find the jewel of the forest—you earn it. More specifically, you pass the tests. Every good hero must prove their worth, isn’t that right?”
Sam glanced at her tiny collection of books. The characters inside those stories always fought for the things they wanted. They never gave up. They were brave, even when they were scared.
Sam wanted to be brave, too. Maybe if she’d been a little braver, a little better, back in Los Angeles, she could have kept her family together.
“I’ll do it,” she said, determined to at least try. “I’ll do anything you say.”
Ashander smiled. “Excellent. I knew I could count on you. And since the Golden Acorn is at its most powerful under the light of a full moon, you’d better hurry!” He started for the window.
“But it’s practically a full moon now!” Sam called out.
“Which means we haven’t a moment to waste.” Ashander hopped onto the windowsill with ridiculous ease. “The first test is trust. Come to the forest tomorrow and find my emissaries. They will give you the details.” His eyes narrowed and he grew serious. “And remember: tell no one about our meeting, or about anything I’ve said.”
“I won’t. I promise,” Sam said, putting a hand over her heart. That part would be easy. She was already an expert at secrets.
“There’s a good girl,” Ashander said, suddenly smiling. “Don’t dawdle. Time is running out!”
And then he was gone. Out into the darkening night in a blur of red and purple, and the quickest flash of white teeth.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN SAM AWOKE the next morning, she was curled up on the pillow-strewn floor of her makeshift castle like a tiny forest animal. An animal that somehow had access to bedsheets and had managed to get one of its feet tangled in them.
The smallest of knocks echoed on the door. Sam bolted upright.
“Breakfast,” Aunt Vicky said.
Sam expected to hear the doorknob rattle. Her mother always did that, the knock barely a precursor to the door swinging wide open. It didn’t matter if Sam was studying or sleeping or even changing her clothes. A closed door was not a thing her mother could abide for even a few seconds.
And if Sam dared to lock it anyway … Samantha never listens, her mot
her would say at dinner. I just don’t know what I need to do to get through to her.
I’ll find a way, her father would answer.
Today there was no rattle, no scolding. Aunt Vicky moved up the hall, knocked on Caitlin’s door, and kept going. Same as she had done at dinner the night before.
Sam remembered to breathe.
She scooped her hair into a ponytail and dug a fresh T-shirt and pair of shorts out of her suitcase. There was definitely no point in unpacking it now that she was going home. As soon as the next full moon, if she could pass all of Ashander’s tests in time.
But how much time was that?
The watch! Sam pulled a small pouch from her backpack and unzipped it carefully. Inside were her three best necklaces, a charm bracelet, and a watch with leather straps that her mother said was very expensive. He’s sorry. He wanted you to have this. Most importantly, the face of the watch had a cutout that an itty-bitty moon was slowly traversing. Her watch showed the phases of the moon!
She wrapped the watch around her wrist and fastened it, nice and tight. Was this what the Knights of the Round Table felt like when they put on armor? Or what Joan of Arc had felt the first time she’d lifted her sword? Almost like she was ready for anything.
Sam took one more breath and left the safe confines of the room, taking great care to shut the door behind her, waiting for the satisfying snikt of the latch. The house was quiet, and her footsteps creaked over the old floorboards. Smiling Hannah had already left for work. The computer equipment on the kitchen table had expanded overnight so that there was barely any space to eat. Aunt Vicky sat in a chair by the empty fireplace, quietly crunching a bowl of cereal. It was so quiet, in fact, that Sam could hear birds chirping—birds!—outside the open kitchen window.
Caitlin hadn’t come out of her room yet. In Sam’s eagerness to leave, she hadn’t waited to hear the click of Caitlin’s door opening first. Rookie mistake, and one she never would have made at home in LA. But if she was quiet enough, she might be able to turn around and—
“Morning,” Aunt Vicky said through a mouthful of what looked—and sounded—like oat flakes. “Grab some cereal, if you want. Armen and Lucas will be here soon. You don’t drink coffee, right? That’s not a thing kids do?”
Some kids drank coffee, but not Sam. When she’d stolen sips of her mother’s, it had been bitter and disgusting.
“Chocolate milk?” she asked hopefully.
Aunt Vicky frowned. “No, sorry. Just regular milk. But I can put it on the list. Hannah’s going shopping after work today. We can get all your favorites.” She winced a little. “Well, maybe not all of them. But some of them. Chocolate milk, definitely.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. She stepped into the small kitchen area and tugged at a cupboard, searching for bowls and cereal and everything she needed for this conversation to be over.
“Just one cabinet to the left, yeah, that one,” Aunt Vicky said. “I know the bowls don’t match the rest of the decor—insomuch as there is a decor—but they have chickens on them. I’m a sucker for chickens.”
Sam hid her smile. She’d been a guest in the house for less than one day, and yet this was a fact she would already bet her life on.
“Do you … want to meet the chickens?” Aunt Vicky asked. Her half-finished bowl of cereal sat in her lap.
Under normal circumstances, Sam’s answer would have been an enthusiastic yes. Was there any other possible answer to the question of meeting chickens? But she had things to do today, and those things involved a fox and a forest and mysterious emissaries. There was no time for chickens.
“I was thinking I’d take a walk in the woods this morning,” Sam said, trying to channel Caitlin’s ease with adults. “But … maybe another time?”
“Of course,” Aunt Vicky said. She seemed disappointed, and Sam felt a pang of guilt. “I’ve already fed them this morning, but you can visit them whenever you’d like. Lucas insists on checking for eggs, and I’m sure he’d love the help.”
Lucas. Sam had forgotten about him. She did not want to meet a new person, particularly a boy, and extra particularly a boy named Lucas. Not that she had anything against the name in general; she was simply certain that it was attached to a person she would not like.
Her mother used to say, “Caitlin doesn’t have trouble making friends. Can’t you try to be more like her?” As if a person could just wish themselves to be something new. As if every person were some kind of magician born knowing the most powerful spell in the world.
Aunt Vicky deposited her bowl into the sink and sat down behind one of her computer monitors at the kitchen table. The light reflected off her nose and cheekbones and chin, and her eyes were instantly intense. Sam wondered if she looked like that when she was reading a book. Like the only truly real things were on the page—or on Aunt Vicky’s screen—and everything else was an illusion. Sometimes it was a lot easier to live in a book than it was to live in the real world. Maybe Aunt Vicky felt like that with her computer, too.
Sam poured herself some cereal—passing tests was bound to be demanding work that required a good amount of fuel—and perched on the edge of one of the living room chairs while she ate. She had just shoveled a heaping spoon of raisin-y oats into her mouth when the front door burst open and a small man rushed in like a winter wind. He was the opposite of Aunt Vicky: short and thin with a wide smile, light brown skin, and long, dark hair falling past his shoulders. He didn’t look old enough to be someone’s father—or dressed nicely enough to be one, either—but a boy followed him inside. A boy who was not smiling at all.
“Good morning, Vickster! Good morning, Vickster’s niece, whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting!” the man said. “I’m Armen, but you can call me Armen. Because that’s my name.” He laughed despite the fact that nothing he’d said was funny. “This is my son, Lucas, but you can call him ‘Hey, you!’ Unless he tells you not to. And then you should call him whatever he likes, since that’s one of the many ways we try to respect each other’s choices in our family. And in the world, too, now that I think about it.” He turned to Aunt Vicky. “Ready to get to work? I brought fresh tea!”
“I have tea here,” Aunt Vicky grumbled.
“Yes, but not tea of any worth,” Armen said. “I know this. You know this. Now the children know this, too.”
He tossed his messenger bag onto a kitchen chair and plopped down next to Aunt Vicky. Within seconds, his eyes reflected the glow of the computer screen, and they both started pointing and murmuring to each other.
Sam knew she should get going, but she found herself standing next to the strange boy named Lucas. He had knitting needles in his hands, and a bunch of multihued yarn, and was doing odd things with them.
Perhaps knitting.
“Say hello, Lucas,” Armen called from the table without looking up.
“Hello,” Lucas said, also without looking up.
They were definitely related.
Sam studied the boy. Unlike his father, his hair was short, buzzed close on the sides with a mop of a forelock in front, like a horse.
“You’re staring,” Lucas said, but unless he had invisible eyes on the top of his head, he could not possibly know that because he was still moving his knitting needles back and forth and looping yarn—now it was yellow—around his finger for some clearly nefarious purpose.
“What are you making?” Sam asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Lucas answered.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean, don’t you have to know before you start? Isn’t there a recipe or something?”
Finally, he looked up at her, his eyes brown and deep set under shaggy eyebrows. “I just like to knit,” he said. “I like the way the yarn feels, and the way the colors change, and I like doing stuff with my hands. I don’t like following patterns.” He looked back down and looped another length of yarn. “That’s what they’re called, you know. Patterns. Not recipes.”
&n
bsp; Sam’s cheeks burned. She should have known what they were called or said nothing. Now she’d made him angry. Three minutes after they’d met.
“Maybe I’ll knit a fried egg next,” Lucas said. “Then it can be a pattern and a recipe!” He grinned and his eyebrows shot up, releasing his eyes from their shadowy prison.
Not angry after all. Sam grinned back.
“Take your nonsense outside,” Armen said. “Grown-ups are trying to grown-up in here!”
Sam stiffened and headed for the door immediately, before Armen got more upset. Lucas tucked his knitting into his messenger bag—a smaller version of his father’s and bright red. “He’s kidding,” Lucas called after her. “He doesn’t try to be funny when he’s actually mad.”
Her hand was already on the doorknob leading out. Her heart rabbited. Who pretended to be mad as a joke?
“Don’t you want to finish your food?” Lucas asked, pointing at her half-eaten breakfast on the edge of the table.
Sam shook her head once and pushed outside.
In Los Angeles, the hot, dry air would have wrapped itself around her immediately, like a welcoming hug. Instead, a small puff of cool wind brushed past her, mussed her hair, and kept moving. It was a breeze that had places to go, things to do.
That was fine with Sam, because so did she.
The house and the chicken coop were surrounded by a wild swirl of forest, as if they were nestled in the eye of a very green hurricane. Sam scanned the dense cluster of trunks, looking for a flash of red.
She heard someone coming up behind her.
“Want to look for eggs?” Lucas brushed past Sam’s shoulder, heading toward the chicken coop. He seemed perfectly comfortable, taking a path he’d clearly taken dozens of times before.
“You go ahead,” Sam said, taking a step in the other direction. “I want to check out the forest first.”
“Oh, I’ll come with you,” Lucas said happily. “The eggs aren’t going anywhere.” He started for the trees.