Into the Wild (12 page)

Gothel’s face contorted, as if she were fighting with herself. “I am sorry,” she said. “You must go. It’s not safe for you to be near me. Go while you can. Go before the Wild finds a role that suits you.”

She couldn’t leave her. She couldn’t go on alone. “Grandma, please!”

“Stay clear of stories. Especially endings.” Grandma hugged her quickly, and Julie tried to cling to her. Grandma pushed her to arm’s length.

Julie felt like crying. “Grandma . . .”

“Run.
Please
.” There was something in her voice. Something strange. Something scary. Julie turned from her grandmother and ran.

Chapter Fourteen

Wild Bikes

Sheer crystal, the glass mountain flashed in the sun. Rainbows danced over the grass and trees. Etched in the slope in front of her, Julie read the former sign: WARD HILL SKI AND RECREATION CENTER. With a sinking heart, she blinked up at the sparkling crystal ski slope. The Wild had grown. She was a full mile beyond where she’d left Gillian.

Unless Mrs. Thomas and Rachel had reached her in time, Julie was certain Gillian was in the Wild. Somewhere. Julie shouldn’t have let her get so close. Never mind that Gillian had wanted to come—Julie had known better. And now the Wild most likely had Gillian and was making her live out a story. Please let it be a safe story. Please let her be okay.

She’ll be okay, Julie thought, just as soon as I find Mom and Mom stops the Wild—which would happen as soon as she found the endless sea and the ogre and the magician . . . “We’re doomed,” Julie said.

As if cued by her words, leaves crackled. Branches snapped. Something fast, furry, and orange darted past her. Julie flattened against a tree as a pack of riderless bicycles raced in pursuit. Near the center of the pack, her own ten-speed bounced over the rocks and roots. Her boots, still tied to the handlebars, flapped against the frame.

Her bike! Her boots! She needed those! “Wait! Bike!”

Up ahead, their prey squealed.

Her bike was hunting. How dare it! “Hey!” Julie yelled. “Bike, get back here!” She chased after it, following the path of flattened bushes and ferns.

In a clearing, the bikes circled. She saw a huddled shape through the blur of bike wheels. Front wheels feinted toward the creature, and the animal shrieked. They were going to hurt it. Maybe kill it. She couldn’t let her own bike do that! Without stopping to think, she bent down, picked up a stick, and threw it at the tires. “Stop it!” she shouted. “Leave it alone!” She threw more sticks and rocks, anything that her hand grabbed.

The bikes broke out of their circle. Oh, no. Her heart thumped faster. Now the bikes would chase her. They’d run her down. Julie backed against a tree.

But the bikes simply dispersed into the forest. Julie released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. That was close.

Cautiously, she came out of the trees. In the center of the clearing, the lump of cloth whimpered. “Are you okay?” Julie asked, bending down.

The cloth was familiar: it was Boots’s cloak. Could it be . . . She pulled back the cloth. An orange tiger-striped cat huddled in a ball. It was Boots! Wait—what if he was lost in a story? What if talking to him would trap her in another fairy-tale event?

He raised his head. “Julie?”

He knew her! She leaned forward to hug him and then stopped again. Just because he knew her didn’t mean he wasn’t in a story. It only meant that he hadn’t reached an ending yet. Grandma had said that only story endings caused memory loss. Boots could still be part of a story that could trap her. “Are you okay?”

Sitting upright, he began to lick himself. “I lost a bit of tail fur to a talking hedge that I ran through. Everything here seems to have cat on its dinner menu. I think I created several new stories—all of them full of chase scenes. Sheer luck that none of the scenes were endings. If things in here weren’t so jumbled, I would have been doomed.” He shuddered and said, “I’d forgotten how horrible this place is. Can we please go home now?”

He wanted to go home! “Home” was still with her! Julie scooped him into her arms and hugged him. “I’m sorry I said you were a rat,” she said into his fur. “You are a rotten brother sometimes, but you aren’t a rat.”

He squirmed. “Hey,” he said, “enough with the mushy stuff. Good to see you too. Thanks for saving my life and all that. Can we leave now? Please? Before my luck runs out? I admit I was wrong, okay? I haven’t found the love of my life; I’ve only found trouble.”

She put him down, feeling better than she had since she’d come into the woods. She had her brother back. “Mom will get us out of here,” Julie said. She felt more sure than ever.

“She’s here?” Boots peered into the trees. “She did it again?”

“Again?” Julie asked.

He trotted toward the shrubbery. “When we first escaped, she was the one who came to us, woke our memories, and gathered us together. She was amazing. Like a general.” Standing up in his boots, he poked his nose between the ferns. “Rapunzel?”

Like a general? She stared at him.

“Rapunzel!”

“She’s not here. An ogre has to take me to a magician who has a ring that can take me to her,” Julie said. “What do you mean, she was the one who gathered you?”

The cat blinked at her. “Is that the direct route?”

“After I cross the endless ocean,” she admitted. “I don’t suppose you know how to cross an endless ocean?”

“Course I know how to cross it,” Boots said. “I’m old buddies with the griffin.” He trotted decisively through the trees.

She followed after him. “Griffin?” she asked.

“How else would you get across the ocean?”

“Boat?” she suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Chapter Fifteen

The Griffin

On the Route 290 bridge over Lake Quinsigamond, the griffin sunned himself. He stretched, exposing his lion stomach, across three lanes. Shortly beyond him, the bridge ended in midair. Blueness stretched on and on into the horizon.

Julie tried to sound casual. “You know, Worcester used to be on the other side of this bridge.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded weak. “I also don’t recall a griffin last time I was here.”

“Stay clear of his beak,” Boots said as he trotted onto the bridge.

She wasn’t tempted to go anywhere near his beak. In fact, she didn’t want to step onto the bridge. She looked down at her feet. Moss blanketed the ground beneath her mud-crusted flip-flops. Here the earth was comfortably solid. In front of her, the exposed asphalt of the bridge was riddled with tiny cracks like an old oil painting. Worse, it was moving. Untethered at one end, steel supports dangling in the water, the former highway swayed in the wind. Gusts swept the bridge back and forth, like a lashing cat tail, in rhythm with the waves.

Boots was already a third of the way across the bridge. He stopped to wait for her. “Come on, scaredy-cat.”

“Look who’s talking,” Julie said. She stepped off the moss and started toward him. “You’re the one who was running from a bicycle.”

He ruffled his fur, indignant. “It hunted with a pack!”

“Ooh, look out! Here comes a tricycle!”

Scowling at her, Boots said, “Very funny.”

Snoring, the griffin clawed the asphalt. The pavement splintered, and Julie dropped to her knees as a crack ran diagonally across the bridge. The crack hit the median strip, but the median held. Julie’s heart thudded. That’s it, she thought, I’m going back. Boots sniffed at the crack. Crawling forward, Julie joined him. She could see a strip of blue through the asphalt.

“I hate water,” Boots said, jumping across the crack.

You can do it, Julie told herself. It’s only water. Standing, she stepped over the crack. Eyes down, she watched the pavement for more incipient cracks as she walked quickly toward the end.

Boots stopped. She raised her head.

She had seen a lot of illustrations in various fairy-tale books, but none had prepared her for just how big a full-grown griffin was. A griffin on an 8½-by-11-inch page was one thing; a griffin the size of a Greyhound bus was another. His eagle beak was more like a
T. rex
jaw, and his serpent tail resembled an Amazonian anaconda. Feathers blended into pelt blended into scales, all over a mass of predatory muscle. Julie swallowed. “Close enough, don’t you think?” she whispered to Boots.

He nodded fervently.

“Should we wake him up?”

A less enthusiastic nod.

Julie wet her lips. How should she do it? What if he woke up cranky? “Um, hello, Mr. Griffin?” Snorting, the griffin flopped his snake tail to the side. Julie and Boots exchanged glances, and Julie tried again: “Good morning. Uh, sorry to bother you.”

One yellow eye opened. “Oh, no,” the griffin said. “Tourists.”

The cat sauntered up to the griffin and leaned a paw against the bulk of his snake tail. “Got a favor to ask, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal. How would you feel about a little jaunt across the water, ol’ buddy, ol’ friend?” He punched the griffin on his haunch.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how utterly uninterested I am,” the griffin said. He twitched his leg, and Boots sprang backward.

“But . . .” the cat sputtered.

“It is considered rude to eat acquaintances, but in your case, I could make an exception.” Pointedly, the griffin opened his beak and snapped it shut. Julie jumped. “Take your turn-a-beggar-into-a-queen scheme elsewhere. Do not make me part of your story.” He lowered his head and closed his eyes.

Boots darted behind Julie. “Old buddies?” she whispered at him, eyeing the griffin’s beak. Slowly, they backed away from the griffin. “I expected his grandfather,” the cat whispered to her. “This griffin was born after we escaped the Wild. But don’t worry. We’ll find another way to cross the ocean.”

“There’s another way?” she asked.

“Not really, no.”

She stopped retreating. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“C’mon, I saw him eat a cow once. Wasn’t pretty.”

Julie looked across the water toward the horizon. The waves broke into white crests near the bridge and darkened into deep blue beyond. If Mom were here, what would she do? She would do the sensible thing, Julie answered herself: get off the bridge and away from the griffin.

Wouldn’t she? Julie thought about what Grandma had said about Mom leaving “reminders” in blood and what Boots had said about her being the one to gather everyone, and suddenly, Julie wasn’t so sure. Would Mom be scared of a griffin?

Julie tried to remember when she’d last seen her mom scared. Oddly, she couldn’t think of a single time. Was that possible? “Was Mom scared last time she was in the Wild?” Julie asked Boots.

“Rapunzel?” he asked, surprised.

The griffin opened one eye.

“Sure,” Boots said. “Maybe . . .” He considered it. “I don’t know. She was pretty mad.” He shot a look at the griffin. “Uh-uh, you aren’t planning to . . .” Straightening her shoulders, she walked toward the griffin. “Mr. Griffin . . .” she began.

“You’re
her
daughter?” the griffin said.

Julie hesitated. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? She’d thought she had it rough as the daughter of fairy-tale characters, but at least she was human. If a talking cat had had problems in the outside world, it couldn’t have been fun for a griffin. He might not want her to find her mother. He might want to stay in the Wild where he could sun on bridges instead of hiding from human sight. “Yes?” she said in a small voice. If he wanted to stop her, he could. The griffin ate cows; she’d be a nice appetizer.

The mass of lion-eagle-serpent uncoiled, and Julie shrank back. Standing, he towered, dinosaur-sized, over them. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I am a great admirer. I have studied her deeds in the Great Battle. We have never had a hero like her.”

“Mom’s not a hero,” Julie said automatically. “She’s Rapunzel.”

“She rode into battle on the back of my grandfather,” the griffin said proudly. “Ah, it must have been glorious.”