A Game of Fox & Squirrels

by Jenn Reese

  Sam looked from the forest to Lucas and back again. This boy was going to ruin all her plans. What could she say? What could she do? There was no way the emissaries—whoever they were—were going to talk to her with Lucas hanging around, and she couldn’t afford to lose any more time. She glanced at her watch and its little moon, almost full.

  “You coming?” Lucas asked from the edge of the woods. He was already at the first tree.

  Sam scrambled to catch up to him, shuffling through ideas in her head. She needed some way to get rid of Lucas that did not involve tying him to a tree with his own yarn. Mostly because the yarn didn’t look that strong.

  It was hard to see where the yard ended and the real forest began. Sam expected her arms to tingle when she crossed the threshold, as if she’d gone through some magical barrier. And in a way, they did. The treetops blocked out the morning sun, and the air grew ever so slightly cooler. A swift breeze carried the scent of moist earth and pine in its wake.

  “The forest here is old, but not too old,” Lucas said. “If it was really old, there wouldn’t be much in the way of shrubs or brambles or saplings—the big trees would take all the sunlight and resources for themselves.” He walked confidently through the trees and bushes and started pointing. “Dogwood, vine maple, Douglas hawthorn, manzanita. Ooh, there’s some poison oak! You should avoid that if you can.”

  Poison oak! Lucas knew a lot of very useful things. Maybe Sam wouldn’t tie him to a tree just yet. She looked at the plant and tried to commit its unassuming leaves to memory.

  “I learned about poison oak the hard way,” Lucas said. “My dad got it all over his arms and legs, and I had to take care of him for a week! Have you heard the rhyme? Leaves of three, let them be. I made him repeat it a hundred times.”

  Sam got an idea. “What’s that one?” she asked, pointing to dense bush with thorny leaves.

  “Oregon grape,” Lucas said. “But don’t get too excited. The grapes taste terrible. Trust me. I learned that the hard way, too.”

  Sam’s plan did not require her to eat anything. No, it required bravery of an entirely different sort. Heroes do this kind of thing all the time, she reminded herself. And before she could change her mind, she reached out and poked one of the thorny leaves with her fingertip. Hard.

  “Ow!” she yelped. A big, bright drop of blood sat on her finger, glistening and red like a berry.

  “That’s a deep one.” Lucas winced sympathetically. “Sorry, I should have warned you.”

  “It’s okay,” Sam said. “Do you think you could get me a Band-Aid? Blood makes me a little dizzy.”

  “Sure,” Lucas said brightly. “The house is right there—”

  “Not from Aunt Vicky’s house!” Sam interjected. “I … I don’t want her to worry. Maybe you could get one from your house?” She felt terrible for tricking him, but it had to be done.

  Lucas rubbed his chin. “I guess that makes sense. My dad said Vicky has been stressed out about you coming here. She’d probably freak if she saw you were hurt. But we live on the other side of the forest, so it might take me a few minutes to run over and back.”

  Why was Aunt Vicky stressed about Caitlin and Sam’s visit? They knew how to stay out of the way. Sam didn’t know why, but it bothered her.

  “Thanks,” Sam said. “That would be really nice of you. I’m just feeling kind of woozy.”

  She glanced at the red bubble on her fingertip, and her chest tightened.

  Drops of blood on the table, on the carpet. Her mother’s voice, panicked.

  “Be right back, then!” Lucas said with a mock salute. He headed into the trees, his satchel bumping on his hip as he ran.

  “I’ll wait here,” she called after Lucas, only she intended to do no such thing.

  FROM THE RULES FOR FOX & SQUIRRELS

  INSTRUCTIONS

  Shuffle the Harvest deck and deal 10 cards to each player. Add the Fox cards to the remaining deck and shuffle again. Now the Fox is hidden!

  Play your turn and gather your nuts, but know this:

  The Fox is always watching.

  The Fox is always waiting.

  You never know when the Fox will appear.

  Stay vigilant, brave squirrel!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SAM SUCKED THE blood from her finger. Maybe not the most sanitary way to handle a cut, but better than wiping it on her clothes by accident. Or accidentally wiping it on poison oak.

  Now that she was alone, the forest seemed eager to show her its true self. As she walked deeper into its embrace, branches rustled. Shadows reached up from the ground, looping dark tendrils around roots and pulling flowers into darkness. The sun tried to fight its way through the treetops but was thwarted by the dense canopy of green. Aunt Vicky’s house disappeared behind her, lost to the tangle.

  Forests were dangerous places for heroes. It was easy to get turned around. To get lost. To stumble into a dragon’s lair. To slide down a hole and end up face-to-face with the Cheshire cat. Sam touched the rough bark of a tree. It felt solid. Sturdy. Entirely unlikely to start talking. Maybe this forest was only trees—normal, everyday trees without any magic at all.

  In fact, maybe Sam had imagined meeting Ashander in the first place. Maybe there was no such thing as the Golden Acorn, and maybe school in Los Angeles would start without her. Maybe BriAnn would make new friends, and she’d draw all over their envelopes when she wrote them letters instead of writing to Sam.

  Ugh. Sam hugged her arms to her chest and scanned the forest. Ashander had to be real. His emissaries had to be out here. She would find them, and she would find the Golden Acorn, and soon she’d be falling asleep in front of some boring old movie while her parents ate popcorn on the sofa behind her. Caitlin could play softball once her arm healed, and BriAnn would absolutely not have to make any new friends.

  Sam had not lost everything. Not yet. Not when she still had a chance to save her family and her old life by being a little bit brave.

  “Hello?” she said. The trees seemed to eat up her voice. She tried again, determined to be louder. “Is anyone there? Ashander sent me!”

  There! A flash of blue!

  “I see you by the tree!” she said, and then realized how ridiculous that sounded in a forest made of trees.

  Something flew at Sam’s face, and she did not duck in time. A small pebble hit her squarely between the eyes. It didn’t hurt, but it was still plenty surprising.

  “Hey!” she yelled, rubbing her forehead.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” A gray squirrel jumped up on a root—a gray squirrel wearing a bright-yellow tunic and tiny squirrel pants. “My aim is usually not that good. I must have really wanted to hit you.”

  “You got lucky,” a second squirrel said. She was larger and brown, and wearing a shiny knight’s helmet with the visor up. A sharpened twig hung like a sword from her belt. “I’m Birch, and that’s Cedar. And if I had hit you with the stone, it would have been on purpose.” She bowed briskly. Cedar, the squirrel in yellow, hastily followed her lead.

  “And I’m Maple,” said a third squirrel, coming out from behind a tree trunk. She wore a blue dress and a long blue scarf that rustled around her neck. Maple was clearly a Very Fancy Squirrel. And Very Serious. And seemed Very Much in Charge. “If you are, indeed, looking for Ashander’s emissaries, then you have found them.” She curtsied.

  Sam did not know whether to curtsy or bow in return, and more important, she didn’t know how. In the end, she went with a half-hearted salute and said, “I’m Sam. Samantha. Just Sam.” Well, that was awkward. “Ashander said you would give me my first test.”

  “And so we shall,” Maple said. “Come closer.”

  Sam crossed the distance until she practically towered over the squirrels.

  “Not like that. Kneel before us, please,” Maple said, shaking her head. “Honestly, are you sure Ashander sent you?”

  “I’m sure,” Sam said, setting her jaw. She clumsily knelt before the squirrels, he
r knees sinking into the cool earth. Rocks and roots pressed into her shins, but she was determined not to squirm.

  Maple stood in the middle, her spine straight, her tail a floofy cloud behind her head. Birch stood to her right, brandishing her stick sword, and Cedar stood to her left, juggling pebbles.

  The emissaries weren’t exactly formidable—even Birch was barely a foot tall on her hind legs—but it was clear they wanted to be. Sam tried to look appropriately awed. She wished BriAnn were here with her sketchbook. BriAnn was always drawing trees and animals and bowls of fruit. She’d have squealed the minute she saw talking squirrels wearing clothes.

  “Before we give you your clue, there are things you should know,” Maple said. “Once you start a quest for Ashander the Fox, you must finish it. Giving up in the middle is not an option.”

  “I won’t give up,” Sam said immediately. “I need the Golden Acorn to get home.”

  “A noble cause!” Birch said, waving her sword. “I approve.”

  Cedar rolled his eyes but did not stop juggling.

  “That’s wonderful to hear,” Maple said with a relieved sigh. “I’m sure everything will work out fine, then.” Softer she repeated, “Yes, I’m sure everything will be just fine.”

  A shadow passed over Maple’s face, and Sam recognized the pinched look in the squirrel’s eyes. When a breeze swished through the woods, Maple shivered. Except it was late summer and not actually cold at all.

  All of a sudden, Sam wanted to hug Maple. To pull her in, cradle the Very Proper squirrel against her chest and keep her safe. But she didn’t know Maple well yet, and she certainly didn’t know how to suggest such a familiar thing.

  Maple smoothed the lines of her pretty blue dress and recovered her composure. “Very well, then. Birch, Cedar—Cedar, stop that juggling at once.”

  Cedar let two of the stones he’d been juggling drop to the ground and caught the last one on his nose. He twirled, bounced it off his feet like a soccer ball, and then sent it to rest with the others. Sam almost clapped. Birch sighed.

  Maple returned her focus to Sam. “Are you ready for the riddle, Sam? We will only say it once.”

  The first test was a riddle! Like Gollum and Bilbo battled with in The Hobbit! Like the monstrous Greek sphinx used to ask its victims! Only, hopefully Sam wouldn’t be eaten if she got the answer wrong.

  “I’m ready,” she told Maple solemnly, and held her breath. The entire forest seemed to join her. The birds stopped chirping, the branches stopped rustling. Even the wind paused to listen.

  Maple raised her paw, and all three squirrels spoke in eerie unison. Their hushed voices echoed through the forest far louder than they should have, as if some ancient magic was amplifying them.

  The Hunter asks for you to prey

  on shadows twitching tails of gray.

  In the bramble,

  squeak and scramble,

  snap the trap and make it swift!

  Earn his trust with this small gift.

  Sam shivered, partly from excitement and partly from the sense that something wildly dangerous had just begun. She immediately repeated the whole riddle to herself three times in order to memorize it. Only once she was satisfied that she knew the whole thing did she allow herself to consider what it might mean.

  “The Hunter must be Ashander,” Sam muttered to herself. “And the physical descriptions—twitching tails, squeak, scramble—they all make me think of an animal.”

  She glanced at the squirrels, hoping to see a sign of approval. Birch hopped from one foot to the other. Cedar clapped both his front paws over his mouth. Maple merely studied Sam and waited.

  “Probably some sort of critter or rodent that can be found in brambles,” Sam said. She decided to press her luck. “And they’re often captured with traps … Is it a mouse?”

  “No cheating!” Cedar scolded through his paws, his voice muffled. “It’s against the rules.”

  “We can’t help you,” Birch amended. “Because it’s not honorable.”

  “Because Ashander has forbidden it,” Maple said solemnly. “That’s the most important reason of all.”

  “I’m thinking out loud, not trying to cheat!” Sam said quickly.

  “Most people think with their heads, not with their mouths,” Maple chided. “And besides, the riddle tells you what you need to do. We’re merely emissaries.”

  “So I need to somehow find a mouse and deliver it to Ashander,” Sam said. That didn’t sound too bad for a first test—

  Wait.

  Foxes ate mice.

  The riddle used the words hunter and prey, which definitely implied that eating would be taking place. Was Sam really supposed to catch a real, living mouse and give it to Ashander as a snack? Could she actually do that?

  “But if I bring it to him, will he eat it? In front of me?” Sam asked. The more she imagined it, the more upsetting it was.

  “Tests are supposed to be difficult,” Cedar said. He’d picked up his pebbles and was juggling again. “If they were easy, they wouldn’t be tests.”

  Birch raised her sword. “You can do it, Sam! I believe in you!”

  Sam smiled gratefully at the squirrel. But she wasn’t so certain.

  “You’re on the path now,” Maple said. “You accepted the quest and promised Ashander. You must follow through.” She took Sam’s hand in two paws. “Rules can change all the time, but not that one. Never that one.”

  Maple’s nose twitched. She sniffed the air.

  “The boy is returning. We must go.” She released Sam’s hand but not before patting it one last time. “Do what you must do. It’s the only way to get to the Golden Acorn. It’s the only way to make things right.”

  Sam sniffed the air but smelled only soil and pine, with a mix of flowers. When she turned back to the squirrels, they had already disappeared. Only Cedar’s tiny pile of juggling rocks remained, and a message Birch had carved into the earth with her twig sword.

  It said: HURRY.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “SAM? WHERE ARE “you?” Lucas called.

  Sam stood and brushed the forest from her knees. The stones left little divots in her skin, like they didn’t want to be so easily forgotten. “Over here,” she called, and he appeared almost immediately, his cheeks red from running.

  “Sam! You’re okay!”

  “Of course I’m okay,” she said. Was he really worried about her? “It was only a small cut.”

  “Yeah, but there are other dangers in the woods,” Lucas said. “Ravines. Pits. Rusty nails. Old boots.”

  “Some of those aren’t dangers,” she said, laughing. “Some of those are just things.”

  “Say that after you’ve tripped over a boot. Oh!” He held out his hand. “Here’s a Band-Aid for your finger.”

  Sam took it, suddenly embarrassed that she’d asked him to go to so much effort. He’d done it without complaining, even though they’d just met. She put the Band-Aid over the pinprick on her finger and tucked the wrapper into her pocket.

  “Thanks,” she said, and meant it. “That helps.”

  “I brought you something else, too,” Lucas said. He rummaged through his satchel and pulled out a battered brass disk. “It’s a compass! I got a new one for my birthday in March—it does a lot more things—so I don’t need this one anymore.” He pressed a button on the top and the lid flipped open. Inside she saw N, E, S, and W labeled around a circle, with a jittery arrow pointing left. “Do you know how to use one?” he asked.

  “No, but I can figure it out,” she said, certain she could. There’d simply been no need for compasses in Los Angeles, where all the streets were marked with signs and there was no possible way to get lost in the trees. Mostly because there were so few trees.

  “Okay, cool,” Lucas said. “My dad says I’m not allowed to explain things if someone says they don’t want to hear, but I do know a lot about compasses, in case you change your mind. My dad and I go camping all the time, and I’m always in charge of
the map.” He reached into his bag again and retrieved his knitting. Maybe he always needed to be doing something with his hands. Like BriAnn and her sketching. Sam thought guiltily about the unanswered letter that was tucked into her backpack. She would write back as soon as she had a chance … and as soon as she figured out what to say. But for now, she needed to focus.

  The compass sat in Sam’s palm, cool and heavy, like some sort of talisman. She twisted it left and right but the arrow stayed steady, as if it were anchored by an invisible string.

  “It always points north,” Lucas said, craning his neck to see. “So to walk north, you turn in place until the N lines up with the arrow.”

  “You’re still talking about the compass,” Sam said, but she spun until the arrow and N were touching anyway, and peered into the forest. North looked just like all the other directions. Without the compass, she never would have known it was there.

  Lucas knew a lot of things that Sam didn’t. Maybe she could get him to help with her quest if she didn’t give him any of the details. She’d have to be careful not to betray Ashander’s confidence.

  “Do you see a lot of mice when you go camping?” she asked lightly.

  “Mice? Sure,” he said. “And deer and owls, and even one time a coyote. The coyote was my favorite.”

  “A coyote! I’ve never seen a coyote at all,” Sam said. “And I’ve never gone camping, either. My mom hates bugs. Does your mom go with you and your dad?”

  “Nope,” Lucas said. “I’ve never even met my mom.”

  Sam glanced at Lucas. She shouldn’t have asked. She should have known better. It was none of her business.

  “Don’t make that face,” Lucas said.

  “What face?”

  He furrowed his brow and squeezed his mouth into a tinier version of itself.

  “I do not look like that!” she said, trying to smooth out her forehead and unclench her mouth.

  “You do a little,” Lucas answered with a grin. “It’s okay. I’ve never met my mom, but my dad told me a lot about her. She lives in New York City and works for a fancy magazine and does not have any pets, not even a fish or a rabbit or a snake.”