Forest of Wonders

by Linda Sue Park

  “Waah-haah, waah,” he cried.

  “Oh, foo hoo,” said one guard sarcastically.

  “Leave off,” said the other. “He’s just a kiddler.”

  Raffa never could have imagined that looking younger than his years would be an advantage! But now the guards let him weep away while with his other hand he fished Echo out from under his tunic.

  “Don’t say a word!” Raffa said loudly between sobs. “Waah, waah! Stay close, and don’t talk to anyone, do you understand? Waah-haah!”

  His words were directed at Echo, but as he had hoped, both Trixin and the guards thought he was talking to her.

  “Quake’s sake, who do you think I’ll be talking to?” Trixin demanded.

  “He’s not making any sense,” the first guard said.

  “Waaaaaah!” Raffa cried, still louder.

  “Enough of that!” the guard said. He grabbed Raffa by the collar and turned him around to face front again . . . but not before Raffa had seen Echo flutter away unnoticed.

  He made a show of snuffling loudly, wiping away tears with his sleeve to cover up the small gleam of hope in his eyes.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “WAGON should’ve been here by now,” one of the guards said. “Can’t expect us to wait all morning.”

  Raffa frowned. What wagon? The question was answered moments later when a wagon rolled up, driven by two dour guards in brown uniforms. The solidly built wooden cell at the back had a small barred window in its door. One of the drivers, a woman, jumped down and unbolted the door.

  “Got one in there already,” she said to the other guards, who then shoved Trixin and Raffa inside. Raffa’s rucksack followed a moment later, tossed unceremoniously into a corner. The door slammed, and Raffa heard the cruel sound of the bolt being shot home.

  The spark of hope he had felt on releasing Echo was coldly, thoroughly doused. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that they might be taken to the Garrison by wagon! Would the little bat be able to follow it through the crowded, unfamiliar city?

  Once again, Raffa was plunged into wretchedness. Was there no end to his mistakes and misfortunes? Every moment of delay was a moment that Garith might be experimenting dangerously with the vine, and now he had lost Echo, too.

  The wagon started with a lurch. Both Raffa and Trixin stumbled and fell to the floor. Raffa’s shoulder took the brunt of the fall.

  “Oof!” he said. Rubbing his shoulder, he sat up facing Trixin. “You never said we’d be coming up right under the guards’ barracks!” His voice was loud and angry on purpose; if he shouted, maybe he wouldn’t start crying again.

  “I’ve done it lots of times on my own,” Trixin retorted. “If you hadn’t made so much noise, they’d never have heard us. It’s all your fault!”

  Then she looked past him, and her eyebrows arched in surprise. Raffa followed her gaze and was startled to see another girl sitting against the wall.

  “A third guest for the Commoners’ hospitality,” Trixin said.

  It was a girl who looked to be about the same age as Raffa. She had deep brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair in neat plaits close to her scalp. And she was studying him closely.

  “What are you about?” he demanded. He hadn’t meant to be rude, but fear made his voice belligerent and his words curt.

  “You look familiar,” she said in a gentle voice that made Raffa ashamed of how he’d spoken to her. “I think I’ve seen you before.”

  Raffa stared back at her, puzzled. “Where?”

  “In the Forest.”

  “When? I never saw you there.”

  The girl paused to tilt her head at him. “In the Forest, I don’t always feel like talking to people.”

  Raffa knew exactly what she meant. When he went with his mother on gathering trips, hours might go by during which they never exchanged a word. The sounds of the Forest provided plentiful conversation for them both.

  This girl had been close enough there to be able to recognize him here—without him ever seeing her. It was an unsettling thought; at the same time, he couldn’t help a twinge of admiration. She was clearly familiar with the Forest and had good woodland skills.

  He nodded. “I’m Raffa Santana. I live in the pother settlement.”

  “Kuma Oriole. From the farmsteads.”

  “Oriole, like the bird?” Raffa asked.

  For reply, the girl whistled an uncanny imitation of an oriole’s call. Raffa gave her a tiny smile of appreciation and admiration. Kuma smiled back at him.

  Trixin clicked her tongue impatiently. “Just my luck to get stuck with two country lumpkins,” she said. “Trixin Marr, second assistant, pickles and jams. Why are you here?”

  “I was . . . trying to help a friend,” Kuma said. “I pushed a man into the river.”

  Trixin hooted, then looked at Kuma with new respect. “That sounds like a story!” she said.

  “I’m sure it’s a good one,” Raffa said, “but not for now.”

  “Why not?” Trixin scowled. “It’ll take at least half an hour to get to the Garrison, maybe longer. A good story will pass the time.”

  “We have other things to talk about.”

  “Oh, we do, do we? Who made you a senior, babyface?”

  Any other time, Raffa would have seethed over that epithet, and he did in fact feel a little rankled. But the need to reach Garith and to find Echo were far more important, and he decided to ignore Trixin’s remark.

  “We have to figure out how to escape,” he said.

  “Escape!” Trixin threw up her hands. “It’s even worse than I thought. Don’t they teach you how to count out there in lumpkin-land?” She began ticking off on her fingers. “Two guards here in the wagon. One in the Garrison’s gatehouse. Two up top at the door to the cages, two down below—”

  Cages? Raffa shivered at the word, then resolutely shook off the shivers. “Wait,” he said. “How do you know so much about the place?”

  “My business, not yours,” she snapped.

  Were all city dwellers so prickly? “Look,” Raffa said, “I’m trying to help someone, too. And it’s urgent. So if there’s even a tiny chance for me to get out of here, I have to try.”

  Even if he did manage to escape from the wagon, Raffa knew that he’d most likely end up back at the Garrison; there was no way he could outrun all of Gilden’s guards. But he needed to evade them only long enough to get to Garith. He’d warn Garith about the vine and tell him to search for Echo. It was far from a perfect solution, but it was the best he could come up with.

  Kuma nodded. “I’ll go with you,” she said, “and help however I can. But Trixin is right. I don’t know anything about Gilden.”

  Trixin glanced between Kuma and Raffa. Finally she tossed her head. “Quake’s sake! Then I’ll have to help as well. If I don’t, the two of you are sure to get caught before you even leave the wagon!”

  She looked up at the ceiling for a long moment before continuing. “My da was in the cages. For three months last year. He was man-of-all-work for a senior—a misery of a master, paid next to nothing. Cook let Da go through the scrap bucket, the one that was kept for the dogs. He brought the best scraps home to us.”

  Her eyes glittered with anger. “The cook didn’t mind. She said the senior’s dogs were all too fat and lazy, anyway. But one day the senior saw him. Cook got in trouble, too, but he likes her food, so she kept her job. But my da was arrested.”

  She choked out a mirthless laugh. “Can you imagine—arrested for stealing from a dog? Of course, he could get no decent work after that, and now he’s a night slopper.”

  Night sloppers. Although there were none in the pother settlement, Raffa had heard of them. They walked the streets of Gilden after dark, collecting the buckets of human waste left outside the homes of the wealthy. The waste was poured into large vats that were wheeled to the outskirts of the city. Then the sloppers mixed the waste with straw and leaves so it could be dried for compost.

  There was
no lowlier job in the land.

  Now Trixin lifted her chin. “That’s why I know the Garrison. I came to see him here, twice. Then he told me not to come anymore, he was that ashamed.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault!” Kuma exclaimed.

  Trixin gave her a grateful look. Then her eyes went steely and she spoke crisply. “Right, so I figure our best chance is as soon as they open the wagon door. Once we’re taken through to the cages, we won’t have a prayer.”

  Raffa scooted to the corner where his rucksack lay. “I can’t believe they didn’t take this away from me,” he said. One of the guards had searched the sack for weapons, finding nothing but what Raffa had heard him call “some seeds and twigs.”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” Trixin said. “The Garrison’s warden would have their heads. Prisoners’ belongings go to him for safekeeping”—her voice took on a sarcastic edge—“never to be seen again.”

  Raffa arranged his apothecary jars and bundles on the floor of the cell. He did a quick accounting of each substance’s uses, which served as both a reminder to himself and a brief lesson for the girls.

  By the time the wagon creaked to a stop, they had managed to patch together a plan. The odds that the three of them could outwit the Garrison’s guards were terrible. Aside from being strong and well-trained, the guards would have both armor and weapons: javelancers, bluggens, and chuckers, according to Trixin.

  Raffa and his cohorts had nothing but surprise—and botanicals.

  The door opened, and the guard peered into the dim interior.

  “Wha’s this, then?” she said.

  Trixin lay on the floor. Her eyes were closed. She was curled on her side with her head toward the door and her hands behind her back. Raffa and Kuma sat on opposite sides of the wagon, leaning against the walls. Both looked frightened, and Raffa knew that on his part it wasn’t an act.

  “She hit her head,” he said.

  “Can’t she walk, then?” the guard demanded.

  “Ask her yourself,” Raffa said.

  “Watch your tongue,” the guard snapped. “Wake up, girl!”

  She shook Trixin’s shoulder roughly. Her head lolled back, but otherwise she didn’t move.

  The guard turned and spoke over her shoulder. “Have to carry this one in,” she said. “Go get someone to help.”

  The other guard’s footsteps faded into the distance. It was better than they’d hoped: Now there was only the one guard left.

  The guard barked, “You two stay right where you are.” She climbed in through the door and took hold of Trixin under her arms, preparing to drag her.

  With the guard leaning directly over her, Trixin sat up so fast that her forehead caught the woman squarely on the chin. She cursed in pain as Trixin rolled to one side.

  Kuma was on the move, too. She held a cloth packet containing a small amount of rust-colored powder. She threw the powder into the guard’s face. The guard roared, clapped her hands to her eyes, and dropped to her knees.

  It was cappisum powder, made from dried red peppers. Raffa had explained to the girls that it was used for poultice combinations to relieve headaches and other pains. But in its pure powdered state, it caused terrible searing and burning of the eyes.

  The guard was blocking the doorway, but Trixin took care of that by shoving her shoulder. Still screaming in agony, the guard fell onto her side. Then the three prisoners scrambled over her and out the door.

  They leapt from the wagon, Raffa following Trixin, with Kuma right behind him. The guard in the wagon was shouting curses at the top of her lungs, and a colleague at the gate came running. This one was wielding a javelancer.

  Forcing himself not to look at the weapon, Raffa ran straight toward the guard. Then he stopped in his tracks and looked up to see a sneer on the man’s face.

  “Makin’ this too easy,” the guard snarled.

  It took every bit of Raffa’s nerve not to run as the guard advanced. Wait, he shouted to himself silently. Wait . . . wait . . . NOW!

  Raffa’s arm swung out. From a jar in his hand, he pitched a silvery liquid to the ground in front of the guard’s feet. The guard took one more step, tripped, and fell with a deafening clatter of armor. His feet had gotten stuck in the silver puddle, a combination that included sap from an irongum tree, the stickiest substance known to apothecaries. When he hit the ground, one of his knees and an elbow also stuck fast.

  “What in the name of the Quake?” he roared.

  There was no way he would be able to pull himself free. He’d have to take off whatever garments and armor were stuck to the sap, which should delay him considerably.

  As the guard continued to shout in anger and indignation, Raffa accidentally touched the rim of the jar. To his chagrin, the jar stuck firmly to his hand.

  Kuma and Trixin were running toward the gate. Raffa galloped madly after them. He could see the street now. It seemed much brighter and more colorful than the Garrison’s grim courtyard.

  And it looked close. So close . . .

  “Hurry!” Trixin urged over her shoulder.

  She was first to the gate. Raffa saw her grab the bars and pull—

  “NO!” she cried out.

  The gate was locked.

  Raffa ground his teeth. How could they not have thought of this? Trixin was still jerking at the gate, which rattled but didn’t budge.

  “What do we do now?” Raffa asked.

  “Do I have to think of everything?” Trixin shouted back.

  Raffa thought this a little unfair, considering that both the cappisum powder and the irongum sap had been his ideas. “The key,” he said.

  “Brilliant,” Trixin said, her voice sharp with sarcasm. “Do you suppose they’d give it to us if we asked nicely?”

  “At least I’m trying to think of something!” Raffa shouted back.

  He looked back at the irongummed guard, who had given up trying to get himself unstuck and was now screaming for help. How long before reinforcements arrived?

  Then Kuma hissed at him and held up a big iron key.

  “How—?” he gasped.

  Kuma pointed at the gatehouse just inside the entrance, where he could see an empty hook on the wall. While he and Trixin had been arguing, Kuma had simply walked over and taken it, so quietly that he hadn’t even noticed.

  “Hurry!” Trixin said. “They’re coming!”

  Raffa saw two more guards running from the door to the cages. Kuma inserted the key into the lock, but it refused to turn. In desperation, Trixin shouldered Kuma out of the way and jiggled the key, to no avail.

  Raffa and Kuma shrank back against the gate, with Trixin beside them. Seeing that the prisoners were trapped, the guards slowed their pace as they approached.

  “Nothin’ but three little kittens,” the tall guard sneered.

  “Kittens like rats, don’t they?” his stout colleague responded. “Plenty of rats where they’re going.”

  The tall guard reached for Kuma. Just then something wet and viscous fell onto his forehead and dripped into his eye.

  “Hoy—what’s this?” he exclaimed, and tried to wipe away the mess.

  The stout one began laughing. “Splootch!” he said. “Yer covered in bat splootch!”

  Bat splootch?

  His pulse jumping, Raffa searched wildly overhead. A moment later, the stout guard made a gagging noise. A large blob of guano had landed in his beard and mustache.

  “Where is it?” the tall guard shouted.

  “Aarghableah!” the stout guard choked out, wiping his mouth in disgust.

  Both turned their faces skyward. Trixin slipped behind Raffa and began fiddling with the key again.

  Then Raffa felt a soft whump as Echo missed his perch and landed with his claws in the tunic.

  “Ouch!” Echo squeaked.

  “There—on the boy!” yelled the stout guard. He pointed his bluggen club menacingly at Echo.

  Raffa reacted without thinking: He swung his hand through the air and b
rought the jar crashing down on the bluggen. The jar broke in half, and the rest of the irongum combination splashed about. The guard instinctively jerked his bluggen upward in defense—and the sticky end touched his beard.

  “Faults and fissures!” The guard’s face purpled with anger. He jerked hard to free the bluggen, then bellowed in pain as part of his beard ripped off.

  At that moment, there was a dull clank, followed by a shrill metallic squeal. Trixin had finally managed to turn the heavy key in the rusted lock and was now tugging on the gate. Every head—whether prisoner, guard, or bat—spun to look at her.

  Raffa and Kuma made to run, but it was too late. They were within reach of the guards, each of whom made a grab for one of them. Raffa cried out as his arm was jerked hard by the tall guard.

  Echo managed to disentangle his claws from the wool and launched himself directly into the tall guard’s face. The man yelled and dropped Raffa’s arm as he waved the bat away.

  Echo began circling around the guards’ heads, flapping his wings madly. “Raffa good!” he squealed. There was no mistaking the degree of his indignation.

  The guards were so astonished that Raffa almost wanted to laugh—and Trixin did laugh, despite looking just as surprised.

  The guards glanced at one another uncertainly. “Did you hear—” the stout one started to say.

  “You hear, you hear!” Echo echoed shrilly.

  The tall guard backed away. “It’s magic!” he said in alarm. “Forest magic, it has to be!”

  His partner looked at him uncertainly. In that moment of the guards’ hesitation, Kuma plucked at Raffa’s sleeve and tugged him toward the opening. As Echo continued flapping around the guards’ heads, with an occasional deafening high-pitched squeal thrown in for good measure, the three prisoners became escapees—and ran for their lives.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  RAFFA stumbled on the cobblestones and staggered into pedestrians. He kept trying to run, but there were too many obstacles on the crowded streets. At one point he risked a look over his shoulder to check for guards and, to his joy, saw Echo careening toward him. He slowed down and held out his arm. Echo slammed into his sleeve. “Ouch!”