Where the Woods Grow Wild Read online

  “Evangeline never gives us this much trouble. If I find you grinning at me from your trough, I’ll...”

  He caught a whiff of an awful smell from the other side of the river. The air was damp, warm, and decayed, like the time Percy left a chicken carcass on the counter overnight, only worse.

  A shape darted through Martin’s peripheral vision. He spun around. He stood alone on the bridge, and nothing moved along either bank.

  Martin decided he had tried hard enough. Edgar would wander back to the Cabbage Cart sooner or later, and whatever smelled like old meat across the river was best left alone.

  Branches groaned in the trees. Something moved in the shadows beyond the far bank. Martin wondered what sort of wild animals inhabited these woods, and an unsavory thought struck him. Maybe Edgar hadn’t vanished on his own after all.

  Then, without warning, a snarling figure streaked across the bridge. The planks rattled and groaned. Martin forgot about Edgar in as much time as it took him to turn and run. The animal collided with him before he made it off the bridge. It was big, putrid, and hairy.

  Martin fell on his back and raised his arms. Jaws snapped near his face. A searing cold penetrated his hand and wrist. Martin shoved the creature off. His hand went numb, but he focused solely on running for his life. He didn’t slow down to see if he was being followed.

  By the time he caught the first glimpse of the open fields, his legs barely held him up. The trees wavered before his watering eyes. He fell again. His chest drove into the dirt. The cold spread up his arm, his tongue thickened into a useless sanding block, and he lost consciousness.

  * * *

  When Martin next opened his eyes, he stared up at a row of hardwood beams. He was on his back in a corner of the apothecary in Bardun Village. Feverish chills wracked his shoulders. His left arm hurt. Everything else remained numb. He tried to sit up, but firm hands held him down. Voices broke through the barriers in his senses. They were talking about him.

  While he waited for his throat to clear, he tested his muscles. All of his toes and five of his fingers responded, albeit reluctantly, but he couldn’t move his left fingers. He blinked a few times to clear his eyes. He lay on a table, beside which stood a three-legged stool with a steaming wash bin and a pile of rags. Clean bandages wrapped around his left arm from his wrist to his elbow. His fingertips were swollen and blotchy.

  Martin turned to the right, where the murmuring group stood in a huddle. Hergelo Stump rubbed his hand along his balding head and adjusted his eye-patch every few rubs. Next to him, Mayor Clarenbald finished saying something solemn, to which Stump responded with a grumble. The town pharmacist wrung his hands together, and a hunter completed the circle with his back turned. Percy Durbity sat on a stool in the corner, looking absolutely miserable.

  A fresh wave of pain flashed down Martin’s arm. He groaned, though it sounded more like a croak. All four heads in the room turned his way. Mayor Clarenbald whispered to the pharmacist, who shook his head and whispered back. Percy ran to the table. His mouth dropped open, his face went white, then red, and then he saw Martin’s fingers and it turned green. Stump pulled Percy away from the table right before the boy lost his supper.

  The pharmacist bustled about with clean rags, vials of unidentifiable liquids, and a towel to slip under Martin’s head. He didn’t accomplish anything, but he made himself look busy. Martin wanted to know what had happened to him, but for the moment, that one croak was all the sound he could muster.

  Just then, someone pounded on the apothecary door.

  Mayor Clarenbald waved his hands. “No, no, no. Not her. Absolutely not. Keep her out!”

  The door burst open. Footsteps dashed across the room. Mayor Clarenbald hopped out of the way with a yelp, the pharmacist went flying, and the next moment, Elodie stood at Martin’s side.

  She let out a small cry when she saw his bandaged arm. “What happened to you?”

  Martin did his best to answer, but his throat rasped uselessly.

  Elodie whirled on the others. “What happened to him? Who did this?”

  The pharmacist backed away while he tried to explain. Martin only heard portions of what he said. His own memory scrambled in his head. He remembered the bridge and the animal, but only in fragments, like shards from a broken mirror. He clenched his eyes shut, desperate to talk. The effort drained his energy, and he slipped away again.

  The next thing he knew, rays of morning light poked through the apothecary windows. Clean bandages covered his hand and arm. Everyone but Elodie had left. She slumped on the stool next to him, leaning on the table with her head in the crook of her elbow. Her hair splayed over her arms and shoulders in disarray.

  Martin tried to say her name. He didn’t croak anymore, but he still sounded like a dying buzzard.

  Elodie woke and lifted her head with a bleary smile. “Shh, don’t bother,” she said. She touched his forehead, scowled, and tipped a shallow bowl of water to his lips.

  Martin drank. The liquid burned through the cracks in his throat. He wondered if it was water at all, but in a few moments the pain faded to a dull throb. He worked his tongue loose, an exercise that required more effort than it should have. “Elodie.”

  She put a finger to his lips. “I said don’t talk. I kicked the others out, so you’d better do as I say.” She lifted his head and refolded the towel under it. “Go back to sleep, Martin. I’ll be right here with you.”

  2. Martin Half-Handed

  Martin’s arm took a turn for the worse that night. The dark blotches on his hand, which the pharmacist had written off as bruises, did not fade. Instead, the stain spread until the veins in Martin’s wrist darkened as well. None of the pharmacist’s concoctions worked.

  Elodie came to the apothecary to check on Martin every chance she got. At one point, when the pharmacist was out, Percy tried to smuggle in Evangeline to cheer Martin up. The pig took one look at the shelves of vials and tools, squealed in terror, and waddled out the door as fast as her stubby legs could carry her.

  On the third night in the apothecary, Martin broke out in a cold sweat and began to see things that weren’t there. He caught himself babbling nonsense to Elodie, only to realize the room was empty. More than once, he was sure he saw animals moving in the rafters, but they disappeared whenever he sat up.

  “It’s poison,” the pharmacist concluded at last. “Not an infection, not even a circulation problem. Whatever bit you in the woods had something nasty in its teeth. The hallucinations gave it away. Mandrake will do the same to a man twice your size, as will datura, if you give it a chance.”

  Contrary to the pharmacist’s expectations, his antidotes did nothing but turn Martin’s stomach into a brittle sponge. Over the course of the next day, the pharmacist talked less and frowned more. He kept the door locked whenever he was in.

  On the fourth night, the pharmacist sat on the stool in the corner, his face buried in a book. He tapped his fingers on the pages, muttering to himself. Then he shook his head and closed the book with a long sigh.

  “That’s it, then. I have nothing else. No answers, no diagnosis, no solutions. The poison in your hand doesn’t match anything in my books, but it’s still spreading. I fear I may have already postponed this decision too long. We have to remove the hand before your whole arm gets infected.”

  Martin lacked the will to argue. He closed his eyes to the inevitable and let the familiar darkness sweep him away.

  * * *

  The following months tested Martin’s resilience in a way he had never experienced before. He spent two more weeks in the apothecary to give his arm time to heal, and then the pharmacist deemed him fit to go home.

  For Martin, home meant a tiny room on the second floor of the Cabbage Cart. He felt useless, since he depended on help from Elodie and Percy for everything during the first few days. Elodie helped him fashion a sleeve out of old leather to slip over the stump of his arm, cinched with cords he could tighten or loosen with his teeth. Mart
in only meant to wear it long enough for his arm not to flinch at the slightest touch, but he got used to it and decided to keep it.

  Another week passed before Hergelo Stump let him resume work, and even then Martin had to prove he could scrub pots faster with one hand than Percy could with two.

  Despite his gradual reintegration into a normal routine, one urge remained lodged in the back of his mind. It was the urge to settle scores with the animal in the woods. He knew it was foolhardy to think such thoughts, but each time Percy gawked at his stub, each time Elodie sighed and touched his forearm, the urge grew stronger.

  During the last hours of work one day, Martin struggled furiously in the stable to use a pitchfork on his own, Percy poked his head in and watched with wide, curious eyes.

  “I say, Martin,” he said cheerfully, “you’re stronger half-handed than I’ll ever be.”

  Stump overheard Percy’s observation. From then on, whenever he needed Martin, and sometimes just for fun, he called out ‘Martin Half-Handed!’ The nickname became a bitter reminder that Martin was lesser than others. And he thought of the bridge, and of going back to find the animal.

  A stinging nickname was only the start of the trials Martin faced. He had to learn how to perform simple motions all over again. Eating, bathing, tying knots, moving things, and other tasks proved trickier than he expected. Slowly but surely, he adapted.

  While his arm fully healed, Elodie showed up at the Cabbage Cart early each morning to check on him. Once he convinced her that he was, in fact, able to function on his own, she found ways to brighten his long days in the kitchen.

  Now and then she sent Percy to deliver an orange or, on special occasions, something warm from the bakery. Martin never figured out how she slipped the treats past Stump. Some days, and it was these Martin looked forward to the most, Elodie kept him company out back by the pigpen. Sometimes Martin wished she didn’t care so much, but whenever she couldn’t make it, he missed her sorely.

  * * *

  “Martin Half-Handed!” Hergelo Stump’s voice carried through walls and down the hallway straight into the Cabbage Cart’s kitchen, where Martin and Percy were scrubbing the floors.

  Martin took his weight off the brush and shared a quizzical glance with Percy. For Stump’s bellowing to resound so much, he had to be in the common room. He only left his bucket throne when important people came to the Cabbage Cart, or when he was bored enough to come down and criticize his employee’s work.

  “What do you suppose he wants?” said Percy.

  Martin stood and stretched his aching back. Any excuse to get off the grimy floor was good enough for him. He tugged off his apron, wiped his hand as clean as he could, and hurried down the corridor.

  Stump was waiting for him just inside the entrance with a pair of newcomers to the inn—a husband and wife, judging by the way they held hands. The pair was too wealthy to be from Bardun Village. They were dressed in fine clothes of bright colors and looked about the rustic inn as if examining a bad painting.

  The woman spotted him. Her eyes roamed up and down his filthy frame, and when she spotted his left arm, her eyebrows popped up. She quickly leaned in and whispered something to her husband. He nodded gravely, stroked his mustache, and put on all the wealthy airs he had at his disposal.

  Martin decided he didn’t like them.

  “Here’s my boy,” said Stump. “Martin, the gentleman is my cousin once-removed, Gerald Cribbs, along with his resplendent wife Hilda. They’ll be taking a room for the night.”

  Hilda Cribbs sniffed the air. “We’re just passing through.”

  She and her husband Gerald floated past them without a second glance, picking their way through the empty tables and chairs to the inn room hall.

  Stump watched them go with a wistful sigh. Then he jerked his thumb at the door. “Horses out front. See they’re taken care of.”

  With a curt nod, Martin ran to do as he was told. He led the horses, both coal black and quite something to look at, around the inn to the stables. Once they were each in a stall, he did his best to prolong his time away from scrubbing floors. He brushed them both down mane to hoof, brought in fresh hay to spread about, and even dug out a handful of sugar cubes from the pantry.

  The horses were munching on them when Martin heard someone approaching him from behind.

  “Stable boy?” It was Hilda Cribbs.

  She tiptoed through the hay-strewn mud with her dress pulled up to her shins. Martin picked straw out of his leather sleeve until she reached cleaner ground in front of the stable.

  Hilda eyed his handiwork. Her pointy chin bobbed up and down. “You’ve done a fine job, especially for one in your state. Poor thing. My husband and I noticed your plight earlier, but of course we wouldn’t say anything in front of good cousin Hergelo. You must be ashamed enough to be handicapped without people pointing fingers, aren’t you?” She pulled a velvet pouch from her sleeve and pinched two coins between her fingers. “Here, for your trouble.”

  The coins clinked into his palm, and before he had time to say anything, Hilda was on her delicate way. When she rounded the corner, Martin balled up his fist and threw the coins as far as he could. He stormed to the kitchen, where Percy had almost become one with the grease puddles. He ignored the boy’s bewildered stare and snatched a knife from the block on the counter.

  “What’s that for?” Percy asked.

  “I’m going to the bridge in the forest. I don’t care if it was a wolf that took my hand, or a bear, or whatever other story people made up. I’m going to hunt the miserable animal myself. Maybe then they’ll see I’m worth more than pity-pennies and sad glances.”

  “You can’t leave! What if Stump comes looking for you? What’ll I tell him if he asks me where you’ve gone? I don’t want to get the foot again.”

  “Hide in the cupboard.”

  Percy scrambled to his feet and put himself between Martin and the door. “But—but Elodie’s coming today, remember? What am I to say to her? I don’t like keeping secrets.”

  “Out of my way, Percy. I don’t care who comes or what you say, I’ve made up my mind.” He stopped at the door. “Will you think of a way to cover for me?”

  The boy’s eyes swelled to the size of saucers. “I’m not good at lying, Martin.”

  “You’ll manage.”

  Percy snapped his fingers and brightened. “Oh, here’s something! I’ll tell her Evangeline escaped, and that you’ve gone—”

  “For goodness’ sake, Percy, anything but that!” Martin flung the door shut behind him.

  * * *

  A wind picked up as Martin passed the farmhouse under the holly grove. He was halfway across the fields between the road and the forest when the hot air left his head in a rush. He slowed down. Of all the ways to react to the good intentions of an ignorant stranger, storming off to slay a beast he wouldn’t be likely to find wasn’t the best by any standard. He knew he had made a fool of himself in front of Percy.

  All the same, he kept going. This was as close to the forest as he had come in almost a year, and he was curious. A voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Percy told him to turn around. The forest wasn’t safe. Martin ignored the voice. He wanted to see for himself.

  Besides the lack of pigs to chase down, everything felt the same when he entered the woods. The bugs and rushing grass faded into heavy silence. Martin took a moment to listen and smell, but the air was clean and the trees were still. He remembered the layout of the woods and the path Edgar had taken. Soon he heard swift water, and he followed his ears until he struck the river not far from the bridge itself.

  After a thorough examination of the opposite bank, Martin stepped onto the bridge. He let his hand glide along the rail and stopped halfway across, where the river was at its deepest under his feet. If he closed his eyes, he could probably imagine the attack had never happened here and that both his hands were attached to his arms, but he didn’t want to put himself through that. He stood there,
staring at the water, letting the rhythmic flow ease his frustration. With a shake of his head he dropped the kitchen knife over the rail.

  “Martin?”

  He spun around, startled by the soft voice calling his name.

  Elodie stood at the foot of the bridge, hugging a blue shawl around her shoulders.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Percy told me where you’d gone,” she said. “Please don’t be mad at him. He tried his best to keep it a secret, but it’s not like you to run off alone, so I pulled his ears until he confessed. Why did you come here?”

  Martin didn’t want to explain everything he was feeling. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t entirely sure he could. “This is where it happened.”

  Elodie joined him in the middle of the bridge. “I think I understand.” For a while she, stood quietly beside him. Then she said, “I brought you something.”

  “I don’t think I can stomach an orange today.”

  “Guess again.” She held out her hand and showed him a ring made of polished brass. Other than a simple etched pattern on its surface, there wasn’t much remarkable about it, but she held it like a jewel and searched his eyes. “This ring was my mother’s and my grandmother’s, and I’ve been keeping it safe for someone special.”

  Martin raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the mayor’s? It’s got the town crest.”

  She stamped her foot. “Fine, then, be that way. Yes, I found it when I was cleaning out one of his old desk drawers, and I took it because he has enough brass rings to fill a bean jar. But the fact is I thought of you and I want you to keep it. It’s not the prettiest, I know, but there are days when an orange simply isn’t enough. But first you have to promise you won’t make Percy lie to me and that you won’t run and hide from me ever again.”

  Martin slid the ring over his index finger. “Deal.”

  “Good,” said Elodie. She took his left arm in her hands. She tapped the leather sleeve. “I wish you wouldn’t wear this all the time.”