Into the Wild (6 page)

How could Grandma, or anyone, stop it?

Julie ditched her bike at the library and plunged into the crowd. “Mom? Mom!” Instantly, she lost sight of the forest as the crowd swarmed around her. Armpit level with the adults, she wormed between jackets and coats. “’Scuze me. Excuse me!” People surged around her, and she was swept forward.

Hundreds of camera shutters clicked. Police yelled into megaphones:
“Stand away from the tape. Behind the yellow tape. Stand away from the tape.”
A film crew muscled past her. Grabbing the back of a flannel shirt, she followed in their wake.

Someone pushed into her, and she lost her grip. She fell into the yellow police tape. She lifted her eyes, and for the first time, the Wild was directly in front of her. Only three feet of pavement separated her and the trees.

Gnarled limbs stretched like frozen fingers. Trunks curved into mouthlike holes. Julie froze, a deer in headlights. It’ll eat me, she thought. If it catches me, it’ll eat me.

She saw remnants of the Shell station laced in leaves. Thick, ancient-looking oaks enveloped the structure. Only the UNLEADED price sign and bits of roof were visible now. It looked much, much worse in person than it had on TV. She stared at the sign and thought of the way the Wild had consumed her sneaker. What if her mom were in there, wrapped in trees? Don’t think that! Her mom wasn’t in there. She was safe. She was fine. Any second, Julie would see her in the crowd, and . . .

A loud whir grew behind her.

She turned and saw a military helicopter flying low over Main Street.
We have been told that a SWAT team has been ordered on the scene,
she remembered. Julie clapped her hands over her ears as the copter rumbled and whined. Her eyes (and those of everyone in the crowd) followed the dark gray helicopter as it flew over their heads and over the top of the encroaching forest.

“No,” Julie whispered—my sneaker, she thought. She had thrown her sneaker at the Wild, and the Wild had swallowed it. They were throwing a helicopter . . . Oh, no. No, no. “Wait! Don’t!”

As soon as the rear of the helicopter crossed over the invisible line between ordinary street and the Wild, it happened: the Wild, like some kind of gigantic octopus, flung thick vines into the air—the crowd gasped—Julie couldn’t breathe. The vines wrapped around the helicopter—the blades stopped. Suddenly, there was silence, and then the vines pulled the helicopter down into the forest. “No,” she said.

She heard a horrible crunching noise—metal being crushed.

And the crowd started to scream.

Julie shoved through the mob. “Mom! MOM!” She was thrown back into the police tape. “Mommy! Zel! Rapunzel!”

Half the people tried to flee, and the other half surged forward. Julie clung to the yellow tape as people knocked into her.
“Please keep calm . . .”
a voice on a megaphone said. “Oh, we’re going to die!” someone wailed. “We’re all going to die!” Another shouted, “Call in the army! Blow it to bits!”
“. . . an orderly evacuation,”
the megaphone said. Evacuation? No, she couldn’t leave. Not before she found Mom!

“Idiots!” she heard, shrill over the crowd. “Numskulls! I told you not to enter it! It will trap you if you enter it! Fools!”

She recognized the voice: Goldilocks. It felt like a lifeline in a storm. Goldie, Mom’s friend. “Goldie!” Julie called. She waved her arms in the air. “Goldie, over here!” Julie tried to push toward her, but the tide of the crowd swept against her as police corralled the onlookers back. Elbows and arms jabbed into her. “No! Let me through!” Julie squirmed through the press of people. She burst out in front. The woods, huge and dark, rose up in front of her. She jumped back from the leading edge of moss, and the crowd again swallowed her.

She didn’t see Goldie. Where was she? Julie spun in a circle and saw a flash of pink Lycra. “Cindy!” she cried.

“Oh, Julie!” Cindy pushed toward her and crushed her in a hug.

Julie shoved back from her. “Cindy, where is she?” Tears clogged her eyes. She wiped them back. She had to see. She had to find Mom! “Where is she! Where’s my mom?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Cindy said. “Let me take you to safety. We can get in my car and drive. All the way to California if we have to.”

She choked down panic. “But where’s—”

Cindy squeezed Julie’s shoulders. “Julie, honey, sweet-heart . . .” Leaning in so Julie could hear her, Cindy shouted in Julie’s ear, “Your mother was a hero! She got the motel guests away before any of them realized what was happening!”

Julie didn’t understand. Her mother wasn’t a hero; her mother was a hairdresser. What did Cindy mean, “she got the motel guests away”? What did she mean, “was a hero”? What did she mean
“was”
? Julie gulped in air. Her heart was thudding in her ears, louder than the shouting. “What . . .” Her voice squeaked. She licked her lips and tried again: “What do you mean?”

Shoving a rubbernecker aside, Goldie strode toward them. “You! It’s your mother’s fault! She made it worse! It doubled in size after she went in and joined its stories.” Cindy hissed at her, but Goldie shook her ringlets viciously and continued, “She
had
to be the hero. Always the hero! Never thinking about
me
!”

After she went in? Mom went in? In the Wild? In that
thing
that ate a police helicopter? Her mom was in
that
? The thick vines were strangling the gas station sign, and the station’s roof was now completely obscured by dense, dark leaves.
“Get back from the yellow tape!”
the megaphones blared. Julie started to shake. She had to have heard wrong. Film crews pushed past her. The shouting was a buzz in her ears. “But . . . what . . .” She turned to Cindy.

“She went in after Gothel,” Cindy said, pity in her eyes.

Julie gaped at her. Grandma was in there too? Mom and Grandma were in the Wild? No. It was too much. It couldn’t be happening. It had to be some horrible nightmare. Wake up, Julie. Please, wake up. She felt tears on her cheeks. She wiped her nose with her sleeve.

“Oh, honey,” Cindy said. “Let me take you away from here.” She put her arm around Julie and tried to guide her away.

Julie didn’t move. Mom
and
Grandma . . . Feeling sick, she looked up at the tangled green. A hundred feet above the street, the leaves clawed the sky—was it wind, or were they moving on their own? Oh, please, she thought, let this not be happening. Why was this happening? She thought again of her wish. “Last night, I wished . . . I wished . . .”

Goldie drew herself taller. “You stupid girl! You idiotic—” Her hands curled into fists, and her arms shook.

“You wished in the well?” Cindy said.

“No!” Julie said. “But I wished out loud . . .” Again, she saw the look on Mom’s face. Julie’s throat clogged. She couldn’t repeat what she’d said.

“Oh, sweetie, that couldn’t have done it,” Cindy said. “Only a wish in the well could do this. While Gothel was at your house last night, someone had to have snuck in to the well and wished for the Wild to be at the motel, free and strong. It was not your fault. You couldn’t have caused this.”

Cindy was right—Julie hadn’t been near the well, and she didn’t have any magic powers. But that didn’t make her feel any better. Julie flinched as a camera flashed in her eyes. The flash failed to illuminate the shadows of the Wild. Dark and silent, the woods towered over the crowd. Someone had wished for the Wild to escape and grow. Someone had caused this to happen to Mom and Grandma. Who would do that? “But . . . but . . . who? Why?”

Cindy wrung her hands. “We don’t know!”

“I hope the Wild caught them,” Goldie said. “I hope it makes them dance to death in iron shoes. Again and again. Or burn in their own oven. Or plummet from a cliff . . .”

The pavement trembled under them, and Julie heard a crunch as a length of sidewalk split under the pressure of the green. New tendrils shot across the yellow police tape. “Someone has to do something,” Julie said.

“Run,” Goldie suggested.

“Someone has to stop it. Someone has to save them.” She scanned the crowd. People were scattering like chickens, running in frantic circles. “The police . . .”

“. . . have no idea what they’re dealing with,” Goldie said scornfully. “You could nuke it, and it would transform the nuke. The police can’t stop it.”

“Someone who knows the Wild, then. One of the heroes,” Julie said. “Or a magician. Or a fairy.” She latched onto Cindy. “You have a fairy godmother. Call her!” Cindy began to shake her head sadly. “Fairy godmother!” Julie shouted. “Please, fairy godmother! I need you! Fairy godmother!”

Smoke puffed in front of them, and Julie sneezed. She opened her eyes to see a plump woman in a bathing suit and butterfly wings standing in front of her. All the TV cameras swung toward them. The fairy lowered her sunglasses on her nose. “Oh, my goodness,” she said, “it has been an age. Don’t you know I’m retired? I don’t do balls anymore.”

“Please,” Julie said. Her throat stuck. Her face felt hot. She couldn’t talk. Her mother . . . Mom was in the Wild.

“Can you take her to safety?” Cindy asked the fairy.

The fairy saw the forest, and she blanched. “Oh, oh! How terrible! This was such a nice country!” Her wings fluttered agitatedly, and she rose up onto her toes. “How did this happen?”

“Stupid well,” Goldie said. “We should have buried it in cement. We should’ve hidden it behind barbed wire and laser sensors—”

“The child,” Cindy reminded the fairy.

Instantly, the fairy godmother smiled, falsely bright, at Julie. “Don’t worry, my dear. We can be in Florida in an eyeblink. Or maybe Europe. Yes, you’ll be safe from the Wild there, for a time. Oh, who could have done such a thing? Who would want the Wild to come back?”

“No, no,” Julie wailed. “You have to stop it! You have to save my mother! Wave your wand and fix it!” She waved her hands at the towering trees.

“Me? Oh, no, dear. I can’t stop the Wild from the outside. No one can. Just like no one could destroy the wishing well. Or even change your mother’s hair color. It can’t be done.”

Why didn’t they want to help her? This was her mother, their friend! What was wrong with them? “Then go
inside
!”

All three of them seemed shocked. “Oh, I couldn’t,” the fairy godmother said. “Are you crazy?” Goldie shrieked. “We have to keep people out!” “Oh, sweetie,” Cindy said, “you don’t understand. If we went in there, we’d be back in the stories.”

“You can’t resist it,” the fairy godmother said. “If you find a bear’s house, you must eat their porridge. If you go to a ball, you must lose a slipper. It would be worse for us: we have roles. The Wild knows which set of events would suit us best, and it would ensure we found them. It would catch us quickly.”

“But you escaped before!” Julie cried. “You stopped it before!”

“We
didn’t,” Goldie said, harsh. “Why do you think the Wild was in your house? Your mother was the only one who knew how to stop it—that’s why she was responsible for guarding it. She wasn’t supposed to let this happen. She swore this would never happen.” Goldie buried her face in her hands. “I can’t go back there! I can’t! You don’t know what it’s like in there—I have no home, no friends, no family. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m cold. When Snow’s lost in the woods, the dwarves welcome her in. They love her. Me, I’m chased by bears! And there’s no reprieve, always chased, always hated . . .”

Cindy put her arm around her, and Goldie knocked it away.

Mom was the only one who knew how to stop it? Julie’s stomach flopped and, despite her sweater and the bike ride, she felt cold. Mom? Julie looked to Cindy. Was this true? No one else knew how to stop it? But . . . why? Why would her mother be the only one who knew?

Cindy wrung her hands. “Your parents were alone, and your mother never liked to talk about it.” Julie stared at her. What was she saying? Her parents were alone when the Wild was defeated . . . her parents were part of its defeat? “We didn’t press her,” Cindy said. “She never got over losing your father, you know. She still misses him.”

“But . . .” Julie said. She didn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand. Her father was there when the Wild was defeated . . .

“Your father died in there,” Goldie said. “He died getting us out.”

Holding out her hand, the fairy godmother forced a smile. “Come on, pumpkin. Take my hand.”
Pumpkin.
Mom always called her “pumpkin.”

Julie turned and ran into the crowd.

Chapter Seven

Linda the Librarian

Julie ducked into the library and collapsed against the book return box. Leaning around the box, she peeked out through the glass door. She didn’t see anyone on the sidewalk. Several policemen hurried by on the street. A squad car drove off in the opposite direction. She’d lost them. She was alone.

She suddenly realized how true that was. I
am
alone, she thought. Mom’s in the Wild, and I’m alone. Julie felt sick. Putting her head between her knees, she tried to take deep breaths. Cindy and Goldie wouldn’t—or couldn’t—help. And Mom and Grandma were in the Wild. In the Wild!