Into the Wild (23 page)

Julie took a deep breath. “Um, well, you see, apparently, someone made a new wish in Grandma’s well while she was having dinner with us, and she went to stop it and then Mom went to save her. But I didn’t know anything about it until I saw the Wild on TV . . .”

“What is TV?”

Despite everything, she burst out laughing. It was, she knew, tinged with hysteria. If she didn’t laugh, she’d cry—and if she started crying, she wasn’t sure she’d stop. Confused, her father half smiled. With an effort, she got herself under control, and she told her father her story.

When she finished, he studied her for a long while. She shifted from foot to foot. Was he going to say Cindy and Goldie shouldn’t have let her into the Wild? Was he going to blame her for taking the lunch bag from Boots?

Instead, he said, “You were very brave.”

Julie beamed. “You think so?”

“You’re just like your mother,” he said.

Julie thought she’d never heard a nicer compliment. She felt her eyes fill with tears. He laid his hand on her shoulder. She could smell him. She had never imagined his scent. He smelled a little like pine and a little like dust. He had been here a long time.

Julie spent the afternoon with him, telling him her stories and describing her life, trying to bridge the long years he’d missed. He was a good listener, laughing at her jokes and sympathizing at all the appropriate moments. In the evening, they ate dinner together, delicious dishes Julie didn’t recognize that appeared on a table at the far end of the throne room. After dinner, Julie and her father explored the palace together, hand in hand.

In one room, there was an ornate carousel. Surprise made Julie laugh out loud. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t anything so—the word that sprang to mind was
happy
. Unicorns and griffins rose up and down as the merry-go-round went round and round. She stepped inside the room. Overhead, the ceiling was painted blue with white fluffy clouds. The floor felt like real grass. Shyly, her father said, “Do you want to try it?”

Julie shook her head. “Let’s see what else is here first.”

Together, they opened other golden doors. One room held a ballroom with chandeliers and pillars of gold. Another held a banquet hall with suits of armor lining the walls. Another held a stable of horses. “I’ll teach you to ride,” her father said. It was her turn to smile shyly.

The next room held dozens of different instruments: pianos, harps, violins. Another held every game imaginable: Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, Pictionary, and a beautiful chess set of carved marble. “Ooh, let’s play,” Julie said. She set the pawns in a row.

“There are still more doors,” her father said.

“All right,” she said. As they explored, she began drawing up lists in her head of all the things she wanted to do with her father now that she had found him.

The kitchen was stocked with cakes and breads and ice creams. The nursery held the most incredible dollhouse Julie had ever seen. The gymnasium had basketball courts, a baseball diamond, and a swimming pool. The gardens had an ice rink. There was even an entertainment room with a TV. Julie turned it on and demonstrated it to her dad. She didn’t recognize the channels, but it didn’t matter. Another room had an arcade. Another, a pool table. Another was a bowling alley. Another, a fabulous library with a shelf devoted entirely to her favorites. Everything Julie could have ever dreamed of was in this castle.

Except her mother. And her grandmother. And Gillian. And Boots.

Julie released her father’s hand as if it had stung her. She had forgotten. Oh, God, she’d forgotten they were still in the Wild. She’d forgotten this wasn’t real. She’d been caught up in just as much of a dream as after she’d eaten the apple, but she didn’t have the excuse of no memory. How had she let that happen? How could she have forgotten?

Her father looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

She felt sick. This might have been the best afternoon of her life, but it wasn’t hers. It was the Wild’s. Suddenly, the stone walls felt darker, closer, and she thought of dungeon walls. This was just a pretty cage. All of this . . . “What story are we in?” she asked.

He seemed confused, but did she know that it wasn’t an act? She blinked fast. Her eyes felt hot. Dad. Daddy. Did she know that the Wild wasn’t controlling his every action? Did he know? “What do you mean?” he asked.

“You, me, the castle—what is it? Is there a spindle somewhere? A forbidden door? What?” Her voice cracked. Blinking faster, she took off walking down the hall. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry.

Her father followed. “Julie, I don’t understand. Aren’t you happy here?”

Yes, she was, and that’s what made it all the worse. She wanted very badly to be wrong. She wanted to believe that this was real, that her father had spent these hours with her by choice, that he wasn’t a puppet in the Wild’s story . . .
Please, let me be wrong. Please . . .

It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. Julie wished that it had taken a lifetime. She walked up to it, the last door on the hallway—a wooden door with flaking purple paint, odd amid the golden doors. It had a modern doorknob and a peephole under a plastic sign. ROOM THIRTEEN, she read.

A motel room door.

“You may have all the wonders this castle has to offer,” her father said in a wooden voice, “but you must not open this door.”

Of course. She should have known. No matter how the Wild disguised this place with televisions and books and games, it had to make this castle from its old stories. It couldn’t help itself.
The Wild has to play by its own rules,
her mom had said.
Remember that.
The Wild had to present her with this choice: either she could be the one who heeds the warning and stays or she could be the one who goes through the forbidden door and faces her fate. It was the only thing that made sense, the final game the Wild could play: she had to choose.

Her cheeks felt wet. She was crying, she realized. When had she started crying?

On the other side of this door was the Wishing Well Motel. On the other side of this door was the well, waiting for her to make the wish that would put everything back to normal.

Back to not fitting in. Back to Kristen laughing at her. Back to Mr. Wallace’s history quizzes and Cindy’s car rides and Mom’s dinner parties . . .

Back to a world where everyone knew she was Rapunzel’s daughter.

Their secret was out. Who knew what would happen? She could come home to find the media camped on her lawn. The tabloids would eat it up. The U.S. government could even be interested—the Wild had taken down a military helicopter, not to mention whatever else they’d thrown at it since. Scientists might probe and poke and study. She could be walking into a nightmare.

She could be walking into a world with no father.

Julie looked over her shoulder at her dad, and she felt her heart lurch into her throat. Dad. Her dad, alive and here. Candlelight behind him, he seemed to glow.
But I am offering a gift: the world as it should be,
the Wild had said.
In here, life is fair. Everyone has a place. Everyone belongs. I am offering you what you’ve always wanted.

On the other side of this door was the real world, with all its embarrassments, disappointments, and losses. In here was happily ever after. Here was the father she’d always dreamed of having. Yes, he was the Wild’s puppet, but he was here. She had a chance to make up for all those lost years. If she stayed with him, she would always belong. She would always have a role, the prince’s daughter. The future wouldn’t be a scary unknown. The Wild had made her a story of her own, cobbled together from the stories and people it knew she wanted, including a very special incentive: the one character who had not escaped its control. It was offering her a gift, and it was betting that she would take it. It was betting that she would choose to stay here and be forever safe. “Safe inside the Wild,” she murmured.

And yet . . . five hundred years ago, Mom had chosen the real world over the Wild, and Dad had sacrificed himself to give it to her. Was this how Mom had felt when she looked down the well at her prince and had to make her wish? Julie felt as if she’d swallowed a tornado, and it was churning inside her, tearing her up.

In the Wild, Julie had gotten to be a hero. She’d flown on a griffin, outwitted an ogre, and danced at a ball. All in all, it was pretty wonderful.

Had Mom made the right choice? Was it worth it? Julie pictured her mother at home. She remembered how much they laughed together, like the time they’d thrown a surprise party for Gretel at the salon. She and Julie had made a cake, and the lit candles had come to life and cha-cha-ed out the door. They’d made it halfway down Main Street before Mom caught up to them with a fire extinguisher. Somehow, Julie didn’t think moments like that happened in the Wild. Or little times, like movie nights, where Mom and Julie would rent movies, pop microwave popcorn, and make up their own ridiculous dialogue for the dramatic scenes. Or pizza nights, when they ate on the living room rug instead of the table and watched TV.

I envy them,
the dwarf had said.
To have always been able to know who you are, to be able to change who you are, to make your own story . . .

In that moment, Julie understood. It felt as if all the spinning pieces inside her had clicked into place, and she could see clearly now. Even if she was right about what would happen when the world knew about the Wild, it was worth it—it was worth the price. She went to her father and squeezed his hand. Her throat felt clogged, and she swallowed hard. “I understand why you weren’t there while I was growing up,” she told him. It was one of the hardest things she had ever had to say. She felt herself begin to cry again. So many years of blaming him . . . So many years of blaming her mother . . . Mom had to choose because she
had
to choose.

This castle, for everything it had, was not life. It wasn’t real.

“Can you come with me?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

He shook his head. She had guessed right: the Wild owned him. He wasn’t free. His presence here was part of another story, Julie’s story.

She wished she had a camera. She’d replace those illustrations in her locker with photographs. He didn’t look like any of them. She tried to memorize the crinkle of his eyebrows and the curves of his nose. She released his hand.

She expected him to ask or command her to stay, but he didn’t. He touched her cheek, wet with tears, and said only one word: “Julie.” It wasn’t a question or a command. It was everything—it was everything all wrapped up in one word: her name. Julie Marchen, Rapunzel’s daughter.

Turning away from her father, she twisted the doorknob.

It didn’t open. She shook it. It was locked. “Dad?” she said, looking over her shoulder. Candles fizzled in their sconces, and the hall darkened. He was gone. “Dad!” She shook the doorknob again. Out of the darkness, she heard wind. It’s coming. The Wild’s coming.

She reached into her pocket for her wand, and she felt the key: Mom’s special linen closet key. She pulled it out and shoved it into the lock. It melted in her hand to fit. She turned it and opened the door to the Wishing Well Motel.

Chapter Twenty-six

The Wishing Well Motel

Lifting up a veil of vines, Julie stooped under the leaves. She was at the front of the Wishing Well Motel beside the dry and cracked swimming pool. The Wild had not transformed anything here. It had merely grown over it, like the jungle over a lost Mayan temple, as if the growth had been hurried. The motel lay under a thick silence. The crunch of Julie’s feet echoed.

It was eerie without the sound of TVs in the motel rooms or the Coke machine near the lobby. Grandma always had guests. Julie spotted half of the motel sign through the leaves. She went up to it and cleared the branches so that THE WISHING WELL MOTEL and the dull neon VACANCIES underneath it were visible. Grandma would have liked that. She lingered for an instant more, then realized she was delaying. After all she had gone through, now that she was here, she was afraid.

Of what? All she had to do now was find the well and make a wish. How hard could that be? She climbed through the tangle of plants that had once been the lawn. The well was behind the motel, and the fastest way there was through the lobby. She cleared vines from the door and opened it.

The lobby was dark. Covered in vines and leaves, the windows gave off only a dim, sickly green light. It reminded Julie of the magician’s lair. Maybe she should go around. No, she could do this. Just cross through and out the opposite door. Julie stepped inside. She could do this, she repeated.

There were shapes hunched over the lobby’s main desk. She crept across the room. Closer, she could see the shapes had fur. She knew them! They were the three bears, their heads down on the counter beside bowls of porridge. All three bears snored in unison. Drugged porridge, Julie guessed, or magicked. That explained how someone had been able to get past them to make a wish. Julie shivered. No wonder Goldie hadn’t found them. The only bears who weren’t dancing for Gillian were here, asleep since before the Wild was freed. I’ll get us out of here, she promised silently. It’s almost over.