Into the Wild (10 page)

“No, you don’t understand. It will be all right if I can just find my mom,” she said, but the soldier was focused on the forest-street. He wasn’t listening to her. She tried to get his attention: “Sir? Um, sir?”

“Sir, another one’s approaching,” a soldier said.

“A victim?” he asked.

“Can’t tell, sir.”

Julie crawled forward to peer through the bushes, but the captain pulled her back. “You stay here, miss. We’ll investigate this.” He nodded to two men.

All eleven left the bushes.

“Wait . . .” Julie said. They shouldn’t all leave. What if it was a trap, a story bit waiting to entangle them, like New Little Red’s wolf? She crawled forward. She could see a woman standing on the street. The woman wore a business suit, a royal cape, and a crown. She held eleven white shirts.

Eleven white shirts. Julie knew this tale. How did it go?

Like moths pulled to flame, the men ran toward the queen. She threw shirts at them. One by one, they turned into swans.

Oh, yes, that was how it went. She felt sick. “Mommy,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

Julie had no choice but to keep going. “I hate this,” she said to the trees. The trees were silent—no wind, no birds, no nothing. She had an urge to throw something or shout as loudly as she could—anything to break the awful, waiting silence.

She crept down the forested street, listening for any sounds of people or bits of story. She guessed it was maybe seven miles from here to the Wishing Well Motel. How was she going to avoid being caught in a story for seven miles?

The air began to smell sickly sweet, like cough syrup. She saw roses on the bushes. Up ahead, seven-foot stalks of purple flowers leaned against birches. Fat chrysanthemums engulfed the trunks of evergreens. She guessed this used to be Bigelow Nurseries. Now it had spread to cover the entire street.

This can’t be good, Julie thought. Could she go around it? She looked for a way to pass and saw a stream. Bubbling over in miniature rapids, the stream carved a path through the overgrown flowers. She could walk along it. Heading for it, Julie crawled under a low-hanging flowered branch, and the limbs above her erupted in shaking squawks. She covered her head as scattered petals fell down on her.

“Help me!” a voice chirped above her. “Oh, please, kind child, help me!”

Who said that? She looked up and saw a blackbird thrashing against the branches. A tangle of leaves pinned it to its perch.

“Please, set me free!”

Oh, no, Julie thought. When creatures asked for help in fairy tales . . . She began to back away. Her sandal sank into the muddy bank of the stream, and another voice cried out: “Down here! Please, kind child, help me!”

She looked down and saw a fish, stranded. Flopping on the bank, the fish seemed too large to have ever swum in a stream this size. “Save me, please!” The fish flopped pathetically.

Julie felt a sick, fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach. Had a story found her? What should she do? Should she run?
Could
she run, or was she already trapped? Julie took a tentative step away and a third voice, tiny and shrill, piped up: “Please, spare us!”

Ants. She saw them swarming over the mossy ground. She had nearly squashed them. A chorus of tiny voices, the ants shouted: “If you spare us, we will aid you later!” She knew that phrase: it was a phrase straight out of Grimm’s.

She had stumbled onto the animal helpers.

For an instant, she couldn’t breathe. In the stories, the hero met the animal helpers before he had to face a villain. Was she going to meet a villain? I don’t want to meet a villain, she thought. I want to go home!

All the creatures—bird, fish, and ants—clamored for her: “Save us! Save us!”

She took an involuntary step backward and the ants cried out, “Oh, thank you! Thank you! Someday, we will return to repay your kindness!” The ants scattered across the moss and vanished under a mat of fallen leaves.

Oh, no. She’d done it: a fairy-tale event. She hadn’t meant to. She wanted to run. She didn’t want to meet an ogre or a witch or a dragon or an evil fairy or a . . .

“Please, save me!” the fish cried.

I can’t run, she realized. Refusing to help was just as much a fairy-tale act as helping—except characters who didn’t help were always doomed. If a story had found her, she was going to need these creatures to survive whoever or whatever she met next. The tales were very clear about that.

She picked up the fish by its tail fin. Eww, slimy. She dropped it in the water and wiped her hand on her jeans. “Thank you!” it cried. “Someday, I will return to repay your kindness!” She was sure it would—that was the problem. She didn’t want to need its help.

In the bush, the bird squawked again. Halfheartedly, Julie tugged at a branch. Snarled, it held fast. She braced herself and yanked. Leaves rustled, the wood bit into her palms, and the bird squirmed free.

“Thank you!” it cried. Julie muttered with it: “Someday, I will return to repay your kindness.” The bird flew up toward the treetops.

Maybe if she got out of the area quickly, she could avoid the villain. Mud sucked at her flip-flops as she hurried down the stream. Maybe this fairy-tale event was an isolated incident. After all, she didn’t feel compelled to do anything right now. Maybe she could meet the animal helpers and not have to meet a . . .

Julie heard a crunch, and a pale, slim tree stepped onto the path in front of her. She was 99 percent sure it hadn’t been there a second ago.

And she was 99 percent sure it wasn’t an ordinary tree. Its bark looked more like scales. Its roots had toenails. Splashing into the stream, she backed away from the “tree.” There was a second “tree” beside it with the same scaly bark. She looked up.

Perched on top of enormous chicken legs was the witch’s house.

Chapter Twelve

The Witch

Run,
Julie thought, staring up at the former Agway rooster sign.

But what if it chased her? She imagined it leaning down to peck, and she shuddered. Maybe she could sneak away. Had the house’s owner seen her yet?

Tumbling from the porch, a rope ladder smacked down in front of Julie.

Okay, that would be a “yes.” She squinted up at the porch. A face poked over the edge—Julie saw a mass of white, frizzed hair—and then the face disappeared.

It almost looked like . . . No, it couldn’t be. Out of the whole forest, Julie couldn’t have found her own grandmother so quickly. Could she have? No, it was wishful thinking. Trying to see better, Julie stepped back from the house. The chicken legs stepped forward. Gulping, Julie gawked at the giant legs. Imagining them move was one thing; seeing them move was another.

She heard footsteps on the porch. “Come on up, dearie!” she heard. Julie’s heart skipped a beat. That voice! It was Grandma’s voice! Wasn’t it?

“Grandma, is that you?” she called.

Oh, please, please, let it be her.

Grandma—if it was her—didn’t answer. Julie steadied the rope ladder. “Grandma, I’m coming up!” She climbed onto the ladder, and it swayed under her weight, reminding her unpleasantly of the rope climb in gym class. I’m not afraid of heights, she told herself. Just a wee bit terrified of falling. But she could do it if it meant finding Grandma. Slowly, she climbed up the rungs.

One, two, three . . . don’t look down . . . nine, ten, eleven . . . At the top, Julie swung her leg up and flopped onto the porch like a beached fish. “Oof.”

Knees shaking, she got to her feet.

“Well, now, what a fine, plump girl you are. I think I’ll have you basted with a dash of oregano and a sprig of rosemary. And perhaps a squeeze of lemon.”

Julie didn’t hear her. Her own mind was shouting too loudly: it
was
Grandma! She was alive! She wore a billowy black dress rather than her usual sweats, and her hair was frizzed like a thundercloud, but it was unarguably Gothel. Julie threw her arms around the witch’s neck. “Oh, Grandma, I’ve done everything wrong! I lost the Seven League Boots! And then I helped the ants and the bird and the fish . . .”

The witch squirmed. “Release me, child.” She peeled Julie’s arms away.

Gulping down a sob, Julie let go. “Grandma?” Wasn’t she glad to see her? Or was she angry because Julie was in the Wild? Did she think Julie shouldn’t have come? Julie was beginning to think she shouldn’t have come—she’d probably made the Wild grow with the story bit with the animal helpers. “I’m sorry,” Julie said.

“Unprecedented. Inappropriate,” the witch muttered. She flattened her hair and straightened her dress. “Let’s start over, shall we?” The witch tapped a crooked finger on Julie’s arm. “Well, now, what a fine, plump girl you are,” she said. “I will have you basted . . .”

Basted?
Plump?
Grandma called her
plump
? “Grandma?”

The witch scowled. “Stop calling me that, child.”

For an instant, Julie didn’t understand. Didn’t Grandma recognize her? Staring at her grandmother in confusion, she noticed Gothel’s eyes were their natural color: red. She wasn’t wearing her tinted contact lenses, Julie realized with relief. That explained it! She probably couldn’t see Julie as more than a blur. (A plump blur, Julie thought.) Julie leaned in so Gothel could see her better. “It’s me. Julie. Grandma, don’t you recognize me?”

The witch squinted at Julie. “You weren’t the one I turned into a flower, were you?”

Stricken, Julie opened and shut her mouth. It wasn’t just the lenses: Gothel didn’t know her. Her own grandmother didn’t know her.

“Or, I know,” the witch said, “you’re the squirrel.”

No, no, no! She had to recognize her! “It’s me! Your granddaughter! Julie Marchen!” Julie clutched her grandmother’s wide sleeve. “Don’t you remember me?”

The witch pried the fabric out of Julie’s fingers. “This is not how it is done,” she said. She drew herself up to full height, and Julie instinctively shrank back. “You must perform a task for me,” the witch said.

Julie felt as if she’d been hit in the stomach. “T-task?” she repeated.

“I have emptied a dish of lentils into the ashes for you. You must separate them out,” the witch said. She pointed to a gray pile of dust and a silver bowl. “Succeed, and I shall reward you. Fail, and I shall have you for my dinner.” And then the witch took her broomstick and leapt off the lip of the porch.

 
 
Dazed, Julie sank down on the porch. What had just happened? Did her own grandmother really just threaten to
eat
her? Why didn’t Grandma remember her?

Julie thought of the New Little Red, blithely picking flowers. Grandma had acted like that, consumed by the fairy tale. Was it because she was in a fairy tale?

But that didn’t make sense. Julie was involved in a fairy-tale sequence now too, but she still had all her memories. She knew who she was. Why did Grandma have this weird amnesia but not Julie? What did the Wild do to her?

Maybe the Little Red woman had just cracked under the strain, but Grandma was one of the strongest personalities Julie knew. Julie had an awful thought: if the Wild had done this to Grandma, what had it done to Mom?

She had to get out of here. She had to find Mom. Julie jumped to her feet and hurried to the ladder . . .

It wasn’t there. Dropping to her stomach, she looked over the lip of the porch. No ladder. The witch must have taken it. How was Julie going to get down?

She studied the surrounding trees. She’d never climbed a tree so tall in her life. She reached out to touch a branch. The chicken legs took a step backward, and the leaves slipped out of her fingers. She was trapped. What was she going to do?

A blackbird cleared its throat. “Ahem?”

She looked up. The bird she’d freed! The first animal helper! She was saved! “Can you help me get down?”

He ruffled his feathers, confused. “No. But you have lentils in the ashes.”

For an instant, she had no idea what he was talking about, and then she remembered the witch’s task. “Oh. Right.” She shouldn’t have been surprised: he was an animal helper, and here was his task. “Please, be my guest.” Leaning back his head, the bird caroled. Leaves shook as fluttering sounds filled the woods, and birds burst out of the branches and swooped onto the porch. A mass of feathers, the birds pecked at the pile of ashes. Lentil after lentil hit the dish with tiny pings.

As suddenly as they had come, the birds swarmed into the air and vanished in a flurry of wings. “Uh, thanks,” she said to the empty air. She didn’t know whether to feel grateful or unnerved. She picked up the lentils as the witch swooped onto the porch.

“Basted or broiled?” the witch said.

“Grandma . . .” Her throat clogged. Oh, Grandma! Seeing her like this . . . it was wrong. Yes, Julie knew the stories, but they were Grandma’s past. She’d left this behind centuries ago. She wasn’t evil anymore. She was Julie’s grandmother—fun and smart and sweet and wild.