Into the Wild (7 page)

Your father died in there. He died getting us out.
But how? Why such secrets? Why such terrible secrets? What had happened?

Shouldn’t someone know? Shouldn’t there be a story? Wasn’t that the way Mom had said it worked? Anything that happened in the Wild became a story in the real world, she’d said. So shouldn’t there be some book with the tale of their escape?

And wasn’t she in a library?

Julie jumped to her feet and ran to the children’s room. The librarian, Linda, smiled and waved at her as she came in. “Julie! How nice to see you,” she said.

Julie knew the exact shelf, the one beside the cage with the pet mice. She used to spend hours here, poring through every version of
Rapunzel
for hints of her father. In their cage, the three mice pressed their noses to the glass as Julie ran her fingers over the book spines.
Bluebeard, Six Swans, Cinderella, Frog Prince, Snow White . . .
It wouldn’t be in a traditional tale or she would have seen it before. It had to be part of an obscure tale, bundled in a collection. And it would be unique. Unlike other events in the Wild, the defeat of the Wild could only have happened once. There wouldn’t be hundreds of variations.

Julie pulled out anthologies of Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, Jack Zipes, and Asbjornsen and Moe. She dropped down to the floor and opened them one by one. How to win a kingdom, how to defeat a dragon, how to annoy a fairy, how to please elves, how to do impossible tasks, how to rescue a princess . . .

Julie sprang up and pulled out the Andrew Lang fairy-tale books one by one. She flipped to the end of each tale. “Marriage, marriage, death, marriage . . .” She tossed the books on the floor as she finished with them.

Smile wavering, Linda picked up the books as they hit the floor. “Can I help you find something?”

“Aren’t there any more?” Julie asked. She took
The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales
off the shelf. Rapunzel appeared in only one story, the traditional tower story. It ended with Rapunzel wandering the desert until she found her prince, then crying to cure his blindness. Julie flipped pages. Nothing after “happily ever after.” Nothing about how she had escaped the Wild, reconciled with Gothel, and delayed Julie’s birth until she deemed it safe. Not even a hint. Julie snapped the book closed. “I need a story about the fairy-tale characters escaping the fairy tale,” Julie said.

“Oh,” Linda said. “It’s out.”

“Out?”
Julie said, astounded. It actually existed, and the library owned a copy? How had she never seen it here before? How had she never read it? A book with all the answers she’d ever wanted! Just thinking about it made her head spin.

“And so are the interlibrary loan copies and the copies in the Worcester Library,” Linda said. She headed for the circulation desk. “You won’t find it in Boston either.” Julie didn’t think to question how Linda knew about the other libraries’ copies.

Oh, Mom, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell anyone?

Outside, the police sirens screamed.
“An emergency evacuation is in effect,”
the megaphone blared. “Some might say,” Linda said softly, under the sound of the sirens, “this may not be such a horrible thing. With all the new people inside, there are bound to be new tales born out of the old stories. And the world needs new fairy tales. Or so some might say.”

Julie didn’t hear her. She stared at the cover of
Grimm’s
: a painting of a princess, a knight, a tower, and a frog. Did it matter that no one else knew? So long as Mom knew how to stop it, that was enough, wasn’t it?

If it was enough, why hadn’t she already escaped? Something must have prevented her: wolves, ogres, witches. She imagined her mother tied to a stake, a dragon circling above. Mom wouldn’t put up with it: she’d send the dragon to its room and cancel all its chocolate privileges. Julie half laughed, half hiccuped. No, no, she would not get hysterical.

But that had to be the reason why Mom wasn’t here right now: something had caught her before she could act, and she was a prisoner somewhere. Julie traced the image of the tower on the cover of the book. Rescues happened all the time in the Wild. She’d seen a dozen tales just now. All Mom needed was to be rescued, and then she could do the rest.

Julie just had to call a hero, and it would all be fixed. Yes, that was it! “Can I use the library phone?” she asked.

Linda’s forehead puckered in a frown. “The library phone is not for personal use . . .”

“Don’t you hear the sirens? This is an emergency! I need to call heroes!”

Linda began to smile. “Ah, yes. The new generation of tales do need heroes. Please, be my guest . . .”

Julie hurried past her. She picked up the phone at the circulation desk. She tried to remember the heroes’ real-world names: Jack the Giant Killer was Jack Bean; Prince Charming was Philip Charmin . . . None of the heroes lived in Northboro. Not enough adventure here, her mother had said. Some were in New York, some in L.A., and at least one was hunting yeti in the Himalayas. But they’d come back once they knew. Of course they would.

She dialed.

“What city?”
the computer voice said. “New York,” Julie said. She wiped her free hand on her jeans. She was sweating.
“What name?”

“Jack Bean.
B-e-a-n.
”

She’d start with hello, how are you. She’d say she had a problem. No, she’d flatter him first: she’d say she’d heard how brave a hero he was, and then she’d tell him about the Wild and Mom. She dialed his number, and the phone rang.

She heard a click, and her heart leapt.
“Jack and the
Giantess aren’t in right now,”
a woman’s voice boomed. A younger male voice continued:
“But if you’d like to leave a message, please wait for the ‘moo.’”
On cue, a cow mooed.

He wasn’t home? How could he not be home? She left a message, and then she tried Prince Charming: Philip Charmin in L.A. Another answering machine.

So far, she was batting zero, and it was getting harder and harder to stay calm. Who else could she call? She did-n’t know Aladdin’s last name. He was a test pilot in the air force. Pinocchio wasn’t much of a hero—he’d been a child actor for the past fifty years. The mattress princess’s husband was in Europe somewhere. The Frog Prince was a nature specialist in the Okefenokee Swamp. Julie had never met Snow’s ex-husband, and Rose (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) never even talked about hers. As for the others—the simpleton heroes, the lucky third sons, the invisible princes—Julie didn’t know if they were in the United States or Europe, or even if they’d ever escaped from the Wild in the first place. She certainly didn’t know their names, real or fairy tale. Her head felt as if it were buzzing. Julie’s plan was falling apart before it had even begun. She made herself put the receiver down on the cradle. Abruptly, the buzzing stopped.

There had to be some way she could find out their real-world names. Cindy and Goldie would know, of course, but she couldn’t go back to them. Who else . . .

Boots! Yes! Boots would know!

She ran around the circulation desk. “Thank you!” she called to Linda.

“You’re welcome,” Linda said. She still had an odd smile on her face. Julie didn’t have time to think about what it meant. And she didn’t see Linda walk back to the mouse cage and set the Three Blind Mice free. “You’re very welcome.”

Chapter Eight

Alone

Julie coasted into her driveway as the garage door lurched, closing. Mom was home! Cindy was wrong! Looking for Mom’s car, she stood up on the pedals.

A fat orange cat scooted out tail-first under the closing garage door. She swallowed back disappointment. It wasn’t Mom; it was Boots.

Did Boots know about Mom? Oh, how was she going to tell him? He was not going to take this well. “Boots?” Julie said.

Boots jumped and turned. “You’re home!”

“Listen, Boots . . .” She looked down at the pavement and blinked fast. Why did she feel like crying again? Why was it so hard to say? “Boots, Mom’s in the Wild.”

He didn’t say anything—he’s in shock, she thought. Julie raised her head. “Boots, I need to call . . .” she began. She stopped. He was wearing his cloak and boots. He had a sack over his shoulder. Boots never wore clothes outside the house. “Are you running away?” she asked.

He ducked his head. “Not exactly.”

She had a horrible thought. “Are you running
toward
?”

“You don’t understand my kind of loneliness,” he said. “I am the only talking cat in the real world. I’ll never find love outside the Wild.”

Julie felt as if the pavement had been ripped from under her feet. Speechless, she stared at him. First her mom and Grandma, and now Boots. She was losing her family. She shook her head—maybe she’d misunderstood. “You don’t mean . . .”

“Plus there’s the constant fear of being tossed into some evil government laboratory where I’ll be dissected into a zillion pieces.” He said it casually, but he shuddered all the way down to the tip of his tail. “If I can avoid any poor miller’s sons, I might be able to stay free of my story, find my dream girl-cat, and start a new life. The Wild will be a jumble while it’s growing. I should be able to pick and choose my own tale or even avoid the tales altogether. It won’t be the same as last time.”

She didn’t understand. “You aren’t happy here?” A dozen memories jumped into her mind: hide-and-seek (he always hid in the cat food cabinet) and cards (he always demanded they play Go Fish). Sure, they weren’t always buddy-buddy. But brothers and sisters were supposed to fight and tease. She’d never meant anything by it. And she’d never thought it was serious enough to make him want to leave. “Is it me?”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “It isn’t you,” he said. “I just don’t belong here.”

“Of course you belong. You’re my brother!”

He flinched but said, “I’m a cat. A five-hundred-plus-year-old talking cat who eats Fancy Feast and pretends to chase squirrels so strangers will think I’m a pet.”

But . . . but she’d grown up with him. Maybe she wasn’t from the Wild. Maybe she didn’t know what it had been like outside the Wild for all those years, but he’d been her brother for every year she had been alive. That wasn’t something you could toss away like it didn’t mean anything. “We’re family. We have to stick together.” You couldn’t just stop being family. She gulped and blinked, trying not to cry. “Mom needs us.”

“Your mother had some money in her jewelry box. You can use it for a bus from the center of Shrewsbury. If you start now, you should be able to outdistance the Wild. For a little while, at least.”

How could he do this? Bad enough that the Wild had escaped and Mom and Grandma were lost—how could Boots deliberately abandon her? How could he reject her? They were family, whether he liked it or not. “What about family loyalty? Are you just going to abandon your own sister?” Despite her best efforts, her voice cracked. “Did you plan this? Did you make the wish in the well?”

“Of course not—Zel would skin me alive,” he said. “But I’m not going to cry over spilt milk either. I have a second chance—the love of my life could be in there.”

That was the most selfish, the most . . .

Dropping to four paws, he ran down the driveway. “I’m sorry, Julie!”

“You are the worst brother ever!” she called after him. “You’re not a cat; you’re a rat!” She chased him to the end of the driveway. “Come back! Boots!”

Brim of his hat bobbing, he only ran faster, disappearing over the hill without looking back. She hugged herself against the October air. Alone, she trudged inside.

The house felt very empty. The hum of the refrigerator was extra loud, like an overgrown mosquito. She heard the living room clock tick. Julie didn’t like the thoughts she was thinking. She didn’t like the feeling in her stomach, as if she were hanging upside down. She didn’t like the horrible whisper in her head:
What if they’re right?
What if all she could do was run?

Julie climbed the stairs slowly. Going into her mother’s bedroom, she lifted the lid of her mother’s jewelry box. Potpourri smells wafted out of it, and Julie swallowed a lump in her throat. Her mother loved “smell-good stuff,” as she called it—anything but rose or pine or forest-scented. Her jewelry box smelled a little like jam.

The money that Boots had mentioned was on top, a stack of folded twenties. She could take a bus from the center of Shrewsbury to New York and from there, anywhere.

Julie picked up the bills. Underneath them were her mother’s necklaces. Julie set the money aside and looked through them: the jade circle that the Nightingale had given her, the cat pendant shaped like Boots, the silver choker the dwarves had made. She held the choker in her hands, remembering how many times she’d seen it around her mother’s neck. She pictured her mom looking like a movie star in her black floor-length dress and this necklace. She had worn that outfit to Julie’s fifth-grade play, saying it was Julie’s premiere, so she should dress the part. Julie blinked fast.