Into the Wild (13 page)

“Messy, actually,” Boots said. “Stories ending left and right. Friends forgetting and turning into enemies right before our eyes. Still have nightmares about it.”

Julie realized her mouth was hanging open. She shut it. Her mother was in a battle? She pictured Mom with scissors in one hand and a curl brush in the other riding a griffin. “You’re joking.”

“It was genius strategy,” the griffin said, “a plan that no one but the brilliant Rapunzel could have concocted. And it would have succeeded . . .”

“. . . if it weren’t for the whole doomed-to-failure part,” Boots said.

The griffin glared at him. “It would have succeeded had not the odds been so overwhelming. How does one fight a force of nature? You’d do as well to reject gravity.”

Julie felt excitement rising. Could this be true? Could this Great Battle be Mom’s secret past? “What happened?”

“We lost,” Boots said shortly. “It won.”

“Through deceit, the Wild recaptured the valiant rebels,” the griffin said.

“Tricked into story endings; forced to reenact beginnings; memories gone,” Boots said. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“But someone did stop the Wild,” Julie said. “It was defeated.”

“Yes, but it was many, many years later,” the griffin said. “Many, many years of repeating the same actions, saying the same words . . .”

“How was it stopped?” she pressed.

The griffin looked uncomfortable. “My grandfather says that none but Rapunzel and her prince know. But all know the glory of her battle!” (“Once they remembered it,” Boots interjected.) “Minstrels sing of it! Poets write of it!” The griffin fanned his wings and crowed. Julie clapped her hands over her ears. She lowered them when the griffin settled down again. “She went to battle to break the endless cycles of stories by preventing the endings. She and her army chopped beanstalks before Jacks could climb them, stole glass shoes before princes could find them . . . For a while, there was glorious chaos!”

“And then it ended,” Boots interrupted.

The griffin bowed his head. “And then it ended,” he intoned.

“Can we get on with this, please?” Boots said. “Are you going to give us a ride or not?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the griffin said. He ruffled his feathers. “You know the rules? Of course, you do. You are Rapunzel’s daughter.” He lowered his head to the bridge. “Climb on my back and we’ll be off.”

Julie couldn’t picture it: her mother in a battle. Their Rapunzel and her mother felt like two separate people. Their Rapunzel was a stranger. She had to know more. “But my mom—”

Boots interrupted: “The sooner we cross the ocean, the sooner we find Zel. She can tell you all about it then.”

He was right. She could ask Mom all her questions. Suddenly, Julie felt even more impatient to find her. Holding on to feathers, Julie climbed onto the griffin.

The griffin raised his head, and Julie and the cat slid down the neck feathers until Julie’s thighs hit the griffin’s shoulders. “Wish he came with seat belts,” Julie said. She held on to two five-foot feathers as the griffin pumped his wings. Half hopping, half running, the griffin headed for the end of the bridge. His wings pumped harder. His paws pushed off beneath him. He leapt off the edge of the bridge.

They fell toward the roiling waters, and Julie’s stomach lurched; then his wings caught wind, and they were lifted up.

She felt as if she could fly forever. Beautiful blue water sparkled below her. Cool wind streamed in her face. She laughed out loud. “This is amazing!” she shouted into the wind. “Boots, isn’t this amazing?”

Shivering, Boots huddled in front of her.

Julie stretched her arms out to either side. She was soaring. Voice rumbling underneath her, the griffin said, “We are almost halfway across. Soon, I must rest.”

Julie peeked over the griffin’s neck. Water swelled and crested in windborne waves. Rest? “But there’s no land!”

“If you have a walnut, you must drop it now and it will grow into a tree on which I can rest. Otherwise, I must throw you into the sea or I will not make it to the other side.”

“What!” Julie shrieked. “But I don’t have a walnut! I don’t have any magic things. I lost them all!”

Boots yelped. “I hate water!”

“You can’t drop us!” Julie said. “Please! We’ll drown!”

“It’s not my choice,” the griffin said irritably. “It’s the rules. I asked you if you knew them. If you cross the ocean on the griffin’s back, this is how this story bit goes. I am sorry, especially considering your mother, but any second now, I will shake you off my back. If it’s any consolation, it’s the Wild that will do it, not me.”

He couldn’t be serious. “Some consolation . . .” Julie began.

The griffin dove toward the water. Julie shrieked and clutched his feathers as he tilted sideways. His feathers grazed the waves, and then he flipped upside down. Julie and the cat dangled.

Upside down, the griffin shook his back. Feathers slipped through Julie’s fingers. Boots yowled as he lost his grip. “Boots! No!” Julie yelled. He splashed into the sea. Sputtering, he bobbed between the waves. Boots!

Without stopping to think, Julie released the griffin’s feathers. Screaming, she flailed at the air. She splashed into the water.

Salt water filled her mouth as she slipped beneath the waves. Pinwheeling, she burst to the surface and spat. Cold seeped directly into her skin. Oh, God, I’m going to drown! Please, please, don’t let me drown. She heard a meow. “Boots!” She splashed over to the cat. “Hang on to me!” she said.

Boots latched onto her sweater. She sank into the waves and kicked herself back up. “Watch the claws!” she said. “Which way is shore?”

“I don’t know! I can’t see land!” the cat howled.

Think. Don’t panic. Just don’t panic. Trying to imagine the sea as Northcourt Pool, she started breaststroking. Waves broke against her. Her side cramped almost instantly. Her arms began to ache. She’d never make it. It was too far. It was endless. It was impossible.

Now she remembered she’d once seen her mom scared. Julie was younger, in elementary school, and she and Gillian were trying to ice-skate on the pond behind Gillian’s house. Except the water wasn’t fully frozen. Her mom came outside just as the ice first cracked.

A swell shoved into her, and Julie went under. She came up sputtering. “I don’t want to drown!” Boots cried. “I’m too young to drown! I’ve never had kittens! I’ve never even had a girlfriend!”

Swells crashed into them, dunking them. Boots dug his claws into her back and yowled at the waves.

Chapter Sixteen

Swan Soldiers

She felt a yank on her hair, and her face was jerked above the waves. Julie gasped for air. It burned. Oh, it burned! Something clamped onto her elbows and then onto her legs. Horizontal, she was raised out of the ocean.

Suspended an inch over the water, she started moving forward with a
whoosh
sound. Her stomach skimmed the surface of the sea. Waves slapped her face. She rose higher.
Whoosh, whoosh,
she heard. What was happening?

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of white. Held by the hair, she couldn’t move her head. “Boots! Boots, where are you?” she called.

She heard the cat’s voice: “Don’t eat me! Please, don’t eat me! I swear I’ll never chase another sparrow. Not even a chickadee!”

She heard a louder
whoosh
. Feathers filled her view—she was in a flock of giant swans. Each bird was at least six feet long from beak to tail feathers. The closest swan turned its boa neck toward her. “Don’t worry, miss. Everything’s under control. We said we’d look out for you, and here we are,” the swan said. “Lieutenant, loosen up on that hair there.”

Lieutenant . . . She knew them! She’d seen them turned into swans: they were the National Guardsmen she’d met back on Main Street.

The lieutenant holding her hair loosened his grip, and she turned her head to see a man-sized swan holding her elbow in his beak. “Where are you taking us?” she called.

The lead swan flapped ahead without answering. “Keep up that V formation, boys! Let me see those wings flap! What are you, a bunch of sissies? Up, down. Up, down!”

Ocean passed underneath her as the swans flew on.

“Gently, gently. On three: one, two . . .” The swans lowered her toward a patch of moss. Two inches from the ground, the swans released her and she belly-flopped onto the ground.

She lifted her face. “Ow,” she said.

In a flutter of wings, the swans landed around her. She pushed herself to her knees. Beside her, Boots lay shuddering on the ground. She crawled to him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Birds,” he said. “Giant birds.”

“But are you okay?”

He raised his head and looked at her. Fur wet, his face looked like a mop. “I’m wet,” he said. “I’m cold. I’m hungry.”

She hugged him. “Yeah, me too,” she said. He didn’t squirm out of her arms. Instead, he curled against her as she looked around them. They were on a shore, a narrow beach of rocks lined by the encroaching forest. The swans were waddling in between the trees toward a picturesque cottage. “Excuse me, uh, sir?” she called. “Where are we?”

“Safe,” said the closest swan, the captain. “You’ll stay here for the night.” On the word
night
, the sky suddenly tinted orange. Julie and Boots looked up. Across the water, the afternoon sun had dipped instantly into sunset.

Okay, that was disturbing. Her urge to leave the Wild suddenly doubled. “Sir? We were heading for an ogre’s castle. It’s supposed to be on the other side of the ocean.”

“Step lively, men,” the captain barked. The swans waddled toward the cottage. As they approached it, they seemed to stretch and darken. Their wings shrank and thinned. Their legs extended. One by one, their feathers faded into army green fatigues, and their beaks flattened into human faces.

“They’re human only in the evenings until the spell is broken,” Boots whispered. Julie nodded, remembering the story: someone had to sew eleven shirts of flowers to turn them human again. She and Boots watched the soldiers march into the cottage. “Hope you like sewing,” Boots said.

“You don’t think . . .” She couldn’t be caught in another story so quickly! She looked at the captain. “Um, sir, I don’t have time to break your spell. I have to get to—”

“We already have someone sewing,” the captain said.

Wow, that was lucky. “You do?”

“Of course,” he said. “Come meet her. She’s in the tree.” Boots leapt out of her arms as Julie followed the captain around the cottage. In the space of time it took them to walk no more than thirty steps, the sun set and the moon rose. All the trees were dark masses of shadows.

Julie shivered and walked closer to the captain. She’d thought the woods were terrifying in daylight. She hadn’t imagined them in the dark. In the dark, the twisted trunks looked even more like faces. Knots stretched into silent screams. Switching on his flashlight, the captain focused the beam on a tree with a shape in it.

Even though she was expecting it, Julie took a step backward: there was a girl in the tree. She was making a strange clicking sound.

The captain strode toward her and Julie followed. Light spilled up the tree, illuminating feet, knees, and then hands moving in concert with the clicking—knitting, Julie guessed. As the light hit the knitter’s face, the girl lifted her head and flipped her hair to the side. Mouth open, Julie stared at her. Oh, wow.

The girl in the tree was Kristen March.

Kristen’s mouth curled, and Julie’s shoulders tensed. Kristen recognized her. Like the soldiers, she was in a tale, but unlike New Little Red, she hadn’t reached an ending yet. She still had her memories. Lucky me, Julie thought. Kristen was going to say something awful. She knew it.

But Kristen said nothing. Her hands kept moving, the needles kept clicking, and she didn’t speak. Why didn’t she say something snide? Julie had never known Kristen to resist an insult. But Kristen just kept pulling in blue and red daisies and knitting them together. Of course, Julie thought, the spell! She couldn’t talk or laugh while she knit flower shirts for the swan-men. The Wild was forcing her silent, just like it had forced the griffin to buck Julie and Boots. Julie started to laugh. How perfect! Kristen couldn’t talk!

The captain looked at Julie curiously. “Do you know her?”

“Yes, I know her.” Smiling, she added, “Unfortunately.”

Kristen’s eyes bulged.

“You should be glad she can’t talk,” Julie said. The pressure of holding in so many snide comments was probably intense. “There are kids at school who would give anything to see her like this.”

Kristen’s mouth formed an
o
in an almost-hiccup. Her hands moved faster, needles clacking louder.

“She thinks she’s so high and mighty,” Julie said. “Not so clever with the insults now, are you? Not so great stuck in a tree by yourself without all your friends around you. Oh, look, I think you missed a row.”