by Colin Meloy
“Pickles,” her mother explained. “Forgotten pickles.”
Her dad smiled sheepishly. “Remember those cukes we got at the farmer’s market at the end of September? Kinda forgot about them. Now they’re either the best pickles known to man, or totally poisonous.” He held aloft the weird green mass in his gloved hand. “Wanna try?”
The strange wolf stared silently into the glow of the fire.
“Blech,” said Prue. “When can we fumigate?”
“Immediately,” said her mother, grasping the crock and pouring the remnants into the disposal unit in the sink. Her father acted downcast.
“Good-bye, magic pickles,” he said mournfully.
“Lemme help,” said Prue, reaching under the sink for the spritzer of lemon water. She began spraying it about the room.
“How was your walk?” asked her dad as he peeled the rubber gloves from his hands.
“Good,” she said. “Fine. Weird.”
“Why weird?” This was her mother, wiping the counter clean of some of the pickle crock’s brackish liquid.
“I ran into Ms. Thennis. Darla.”
“Really? That’s funny; she left just after you did. Said she had to head back to school.”
The bluff would not be on the way to the school; this was odd. “Yeah, I ran into her, and she bought me a steamed milk at the coffee shop,” said Prue. She didn’t mention that she’d passed out—that seemed like too much to reveal. And it would require mentioning the screams from the Scotch broom, which would be downright weird.
“She seems like a very cool teacher,” said her mother. “Is she new this semester?”
“Yeah,” replied Prue, staring fixedly at the lumpy pickle her dad had left on the counter. “From Eugene, I guess.”
“Well, that explains it,” said her mother.
“So what ever happened to Mrs. Estevez?” her father asked.
“Dunno. Retired. Health reasons. Someone said we all drove her crazy.”
Her dad made a face. “Ooh.”
Prue swiveled and began walking upstairs. “Anyway, I’ll be in my room. Let me know when dinner is.”
“Soon!” hollered her mom after her. “It’s lentil curry! Your favorite!”
Her father couldn’t help but interject, “And don’t think we haven’t forgotten about that note from school.” Pause. “Because we haven’t!”
Prue closed her bedroom door behind her and found herself blessedly alone. The patterned rug on the floor, littered with the contents of an overturned laundry hamper, was only barely made visible by the yellow light from the terrarium on her desk. Following the glow, she leaned over and tapped on the glass. Her box turtle, Edmund, moved inside, the half-chewed remains of a leaf balanced on his small head. She reached over and turned on the swivel lamp and assessed the few textbooks strewn about the desk’s surface. She halfheartedly grabbed the slim paperback at the top of the pile and flipped it open to its dog-eared page. She read for a moment, trying to worm her way into the world of Atticus and Scout Finch, but found, after a time, that she was merely reading the same paragraph over and over. Defeated, she set down the book and launched herself into the folds of her bed. Lying on her back, she stared at the strange shadows cast on the ceiling by the neighbor’s house lights through the bared branches of the trees in the yard. The wind had picked up, and the branches appeared to be long, spidery fingers lashing at one another. As she watched, a large blot darted over the display, blackening the shadows completely for a split second.
What was that? Prue mouthed. She hopped from her bed and ran to the window. She arrived just in time to see something dark disappear into the neighbor’s juniper hedges. She pressed her forehead to the window, studying the ground below; the glass was icy cold against her skin. Her mother called from downstairs.
“Prue!” came the voice.
She turned away from the window and stuck her head out of her door. “What?”
“I screwed up the naan bread,” her mom called, sounding defeated. “Can you run down to the take-out place and just pick some up?”
Still absorbed with the thought of the dark shape in the backyard, Prue marched down the stairs. In the kitchen, her mother was studying the back of a packet of instant yeast. “Did you call it in?” asked Prue as she dipped her feet back into her Wellington boots.
“Yeah,” said her mother. “Here’s ten bucks. Grab some chutney while you’re at it.”
“I don’t know why we didn’t just order it all from there,” murmured Prue, pocketing the cash.
“Hey,” scolded her father, reading a magazine in the living room. “Home-cooked meal. Your mother’s specialty.”
Mac was sitting on the floor at his feet, chewing on the frayed end of a chopstick. “Poooo!” he said.
“Be right back,” said Prue, rolling her eyes.
As she’d witnessed from her bedroom, the wind outside had picked up considerably. The temperature felt like it had plummeted several degrees, and Prue was back to experimenting with different, more efficient ways of wrapping her scarf around her neck. None of the options seemed to block out the chill satisfactorily, so she found herself just knotting the massive knitted thing at her chin and shoving her hands deep into her coat pockets. The Indian take-out place was eight blocks away, but the distance felt unfathomable with the brittle wind and frozen drizzle beginning to descend from the sky. Prue guessed it to be only six thirty, and yet the dark was everywhere. She eyed the underbrush warily as she walked, searching for movement. Pausing for a moment at an intersection, she focused her listening at a line of oaks to gauge their thoughts. The sound she heard was not unlike the noise made by a colony of bees, if you were to catch them in a sympathetic mood and swimming in a large, thick puddle of mud. It came in lazy waves. For whatever reason, it inspired in her the necessary confidence to continue on her errand. But it occurred to her then: Had the Scotch broom screaming been a warning? But a warning of what? The fox?
A crack from above. Prue jerked her head upward. A tree bough, weighted with what little heavy snow remained, had broken from its trunk and fallen into the branches below. The tree gave an audible groan. An electricity radiated through Prue’s limbs from the surprise, though, and it took another half block of walking before she was able to shake it.
A pitch darkness preceded her. The streetlamps lining the last few blocks between her and the restaurant (she could see the warm, lit windows in the distance) appeared to not be working. Pausing momentarily, she took a deep breath and stepped into the veil of shadow. And that was when the trees started screaming.
HHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
PHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Prue’s heart leapt. Instinctively, she began running in the direction of the restaurant. Something had crashed through the low bushes of a vacant lot and was now running after her; she could hear panting and frantic footsteps. The thing barked at her angrily—though she did not allow herself to look back to identify her pursuer; she kept her eyes on the safety of the restaurant’s lit windows. The trees were still hollering at full throat, and their voices kettled in her mind like barely containable steam. The sound overpowered her thoughts, like it had at the bluff, and it was all Prue could do to maintain consciousness. The trees, if they were trying to safeguard her, were unaware of the power and presence of their voices.
She flagged; she fell.
The thing was on her in a flash.
It pinned her to the sidewalk; it was a black fox, its fur matted from the cold precipitation in the air. Its muzzle snapped at her face. It smelled of moldering leaves.
And patchouli.
“Got you,” hissed the black fox. The voice was feminine, familiar.
“Ms.…,” Prue wheezed, her breathing hampered by the weight of the animal on her chest. “Ms. Thennis?”
The thing smiled, if it could be said that a fox can smile. “Please,” it said, its voice calm and insidious, “call me Darla.”
The trees were still screaming.
&
nbsp; “Sorry to have to do this to you, kiddo,” said the fox. “I’ll try to make it painless.”
Prue squeezed her eyes shut. The moment seemed to last for an eternity. She waited for the teeth to sink in, the claws to bite.
Just then, there came a terrific gust of wind. The trees quieted, as if surprised. A yell from above: “GAAAAAAH!” The weight was instantaneously lifted from Prue’s chest, and her breath came roaring back. Glancing over, she saw that the black fox had been knocked across the sidewalk. Gasping, she scrambled to her feet while the fox desperately tried to right herself.
“What was that?” cried the fox angrily. The words had scarcely left her snout, though, before another thing had descended from the sky and knocked her rolling out into the empty street. Prue, her hands on her chest, watched as two giant herons alighted on the sidewalk before her.
“Prue!” shouted a boy’s voice. It was Curtis, astride one of the large gray birds. Prue could not speak.
“Watch it!” called another voice. Prue looked over to see that it was Brendan. He, too, was mounted on one of the herons. “She’s coming back!”
The fox had pushed herself up and was about to make a running leap at Prue. Stumbling backward, she threw her arms up to cover her face and felt the full weight of the fox come down on her shoulder, knocking her sideways. A row of ivory-white teeth snapped noisily, just inches from her ear. As she fell, however, she managed to get a foot under the fox’s haunches and kicked hard; the fox yelped and tumbled away to the concrete.
“Run, Prue!” This came from Curtis. Prue glanced up at him—he was clinging to his heron’s neck as the bird launched itself aloft and dove toward the prostrate fox. Both of the bandits’ mounts pounced on the back of the fox while it was briefly incapacitated; the fox howled in pain as their claws dug in. Her energies renewed, the fox spun and struck Brendan’s flying mount hard across the beak. Prue pushed herself up and bolted down the darkened street. She could hear behind her the sound of the fox breaking away from the skirmish and giving chase.
Brendan swore; a bird squawked. Prue felt the fox growing closer. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to survive another attack. She felt something sharp digging into the fabric of her peacoat and screamed. And then her feet began to lift from the ground.
She looked up and saw that she was in the talons of one of the herons.
The bird was straining under the weight, and its wings were moving in long, powerful beats. Prue could see Curtis’s face just over the wing of the bird. The fox leapt and swiped at Prue but only caught the hem of her pant leg. The heron let out a loud, mournful call—a kind of gravelly howl—and Prue found her feet touching back down on the pavement.
“Come on, Maude!” shouted Curtis from the heron’s back.
Prue kept up the bird’s frantic pace, the soles of her Wellingtons smacking the pavement like a runner on a treadmill gone wild. She could only hope that the heron would have enough thrust to get into the air again. She glanced behind her and saw that the fox was close in pursuit. Just as it was about to leap, the other bird, with Brendan astride, appeared from the darkness and struck the fox hard against its rump, and it tumbled sideways. Prue’s feet once again left the ground, and the street below began to diminish. A brief tussle ensued between Brendan’s mount and the fox, but on seeing Prue’s escape, the bird gave the fox one final swipe across the snout and took to the sky. The fox howled, but the sound was soon lost as the two massive birds climbed above the treetops and disappeared into the low-hanging clouds.
Prue finally managed to speak. Her hands clasped tightly to the heron’s claws at her shoulder. “Where are you taking me?” She found she had to holler it above the whipping wind.
Curtis’s yelled response was, “To Wildwood!”
CHAPTER 6
The World Waltzes to Wigman; Welcome to the Unthank Home
The man was sitting on the sofa. A squat fedora was balanced on his knees. In his hands, he held a green bottle of Lemony Zip soda, which he sipped at politely. An array of magazines was laid out on the coffee table in front of him; he scanned the titles: Industrialist Weekly, DUMP!, Modern Mining, and The 1% Journal. None of them piqued the man’s interest, except for Industrialist Weekly, which he had a subscription to; but the issue was from October of 2006, and he’d read it cover to cover already. On the front, in block letters, it read: “Cigarette Holders: Are They Really Necessary?” He sipped again at the soda and looked out the wall of windows opposite the couch. He was on the top floor of a very tall tower, one that overlooked a vast landscape of smokestacks, warehouses, and chemical tanks. A thick layer of haze made a kind of translucent veil over the view that rendered the world almost dreamlike. One could imagine this landscape stretching on forever into the distance, but it stopped abruptly at a great, blank wall of green just at the edge of the man’s vision. Seeing this, the man’s stomach gave a turn. It was a view that he saw daily, and yet it never failed to dismay him.
A ding! sounded, and the man looked up to see the elevator doors on the opposite side of the room open and disgorge a plump man in gray coveralls. He walked over to a circular desk in the center of the room (it stood as the only obstacle between the sofa and the two giant ornate bronze doors on the far wall) and signed his name to a piece of paper handed him by the secretary. He then walked over and sat in one of the chairs near the other man’s sofa.
“Unthank,” said the plump man in greeting.
“Higgs,” said the man, Unthank, on the sofa.
They both sat in silence. Higgs picked up the copy of Modern Mining and began flipping through the pages. He smelled like pavement. Unthank sipped at his Lemony Zip.
Ding! Two more men walked into the room. They were both very, very tall. Unthank supposed they might be described as “willowy.” One wore a white lab coat, while the other was encased in a baggy yellow hazmat suit. They, too, signed the sheet of paper given them by the secretary and found seats near Higgs and Unthank.
The four men all nodded to one another. They greeted each other in a litany of surnames: “Higgs.” “Tumson.” “Unthank.” “Tumson.” “Dubek.” “Higgs.” “Unthank.” “Dubek.” Dubek wore the hazmat suit, Tumson the lab coat.
Joffrey Unthank sipped at his soda and stared again out the window at the dark green lump of vegetation in the distance. It continued to bother him. He twisted his wrist slightly and took a quick look at his watch; it was getting on nine forty-five a.m. He’d told Desdemona he’d be back by eleven. He glanced up at the giant golden doors on the other side of the room. The copper-cast relief of a massive shipping barge straddled the gap between the two doors, and Unthank briefly marveled over what the cost of the doors must have been. No sooner had he done this when the crack widened, the ship broke in two, and the doors flew open. A large, muscle-bound man in a tight-fitting three-piece suit walked proudly into the room.
“Gentlemen!” he boomed. He was flanked by two hulking men wearing identical maroon beanies.
The four men in the various chairs and sofas all stood up in unison. Joffrey’s fedora fell to the floor, and he stooped awkwardly to pick it up. Standing again, he realized he was still holding his Lemony Zip soda; he set it down on the coffee table. The man in the suit watched the action with a bemused smile on his face. “H’lo, Mr. Wigman,” said Joffrey.
“Please,” said Mr. Wigman, “come in.”
Opulent was the only word that could describe the huge room on the other side of the double doors. One wall was entirely made of windows; the other walls were covered in various advertisements for Wigman Shipping, as tall as the tallest men in the room, interspersed with framed magazine covers featuring Mr. Wigman himself, smiling widely in the vicinity of proclamations like: “Industrialist of the Year!” and “The World Waltzes to Wigman!” Short columns made of shiny metal provided a kind of obstacle course throughout the room; on top of each was some award that had been given to the great industrialist, as well as a few ancient-looking pieces of art that Joffrey im
agined had been acquired unscrupulously. In the center of the room sat a very long conference table, hewn from what could only have been a massive, ancient tree; the highly polished surface was lined with the tree’s gnarled grain. The four men waited for instruction; Mr. Wigman waved for them to sit as he stood at the head of the table. Joffrey set his hat in front of him and smoothed the front of his argyle sweater. When everyone was seated, Mr. Wigman turned his back and gazed out at the view beyond the windowed wall. The landscape was similar to the one seen from the foyer—a wide plain of multihued buildings spewing multihued clouds of gas, smoke, and fire—except the outer limits gave way to a wide river and, across it, the city of Portland.
“Darn it!” shouted Mr. Wigman.
The two attendants, the maroon-beanie-cap-wearing apes, jerked to attention. Wigman sounded angry.
“I said, DARN IT!” he repeated.
The four men at the table sat forward in their chairs.
Mr. Wigman took in a deep breath through his nose; his broad shoulders heaved inside the taut suit. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he whispered.
Everyone in the room gave a sigh of relief.
Mr. Wigman turned around dramatically. His hair was crisp and black and parted perfectly on the right side of his scalp; his jaw was cleanly shaven. His teeth were long and bright, and his chin jutted from his skull like a cliff-face promontory that would pose a challenge to the heartiest of mountaineers. “And it’s all ours, gentlemen.”
Mr. Dubek rapped his fist on the table. “Hear, hear,” he said.
The rest of the men voiced their approval as well.
“Stevedore!” yelled Mr. Wigman, and one of the beanied attendants snapped to attention. Mr. Wigman clapped his hands, and the stevedore drew from his pocket a blue squash ball and threw it at Mr. Wigman, who caught it easily with one hand. He began to squeeze it mightily.
“Let the meeting of the Five Titans commence!” announced Mr. Wigman. “Our quarterly review, shall we, gents?”