Where the Woods Grow Wild Read online

  “It’s a bestiary,” said Martin.

  Illo shook her head. “I used that word the first time I saw this book, but Fella wasn’t too fond of the term. She called it a reference journal. I was young at the time, so I didn’t even know what reference meant.”

  “I wonder if Bramble has a page of his own.”

  “Nope,” she said. “I checked.”

  “You’ve read this whole thing?”

  “Read? No way. I don’t have time for that many words. But I looked at most of the drawings.”

  “Can I see it for a minute? I just got an idea.”

  She handed it back to him, and he carried it to his stool where he could set it comfortably on his knees. The others gathered behind him.

  Martin sped through the pages until his finger landed on a sketch of a long, thick snake with pronounced scales and a spade-shaped head. Sage Viper. Of all the pages, this one had the most information jotted under the sketch.

  “Is that what you were looking for?” Illo looked away from the page.

  “No,” said Martin. “But now that I’ve seen it like this, I wonder...” He tugged at his leather sleeve.

  Illo caught the motion. “I doubt it. Sage viper fangs leave a clear mark. Besides, out of all the venomous bites you can get in the woods, a sage viper’s spreads the fastest. It’ll paralyze you within the hour. No time for amputations.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Like I said, I looked at the drawings.” She leaned over and turned the page for him. “Whatever else you want to see, check it quickly. If you want to read the whole thing, borrow it after I’m done with you.”

  “It’s fine,” said Martin, closing the book. “I was just curious to see if Nayadu was in there.”

  “Where’d you hear that name?”

  “Bramble mentioned it. He said Nayadu was a shape-shifter, or at least that’s what I think he meant. Are those real?”

  “They’re called morphers, and it’d be hard to tell, wouldn’t it?” said Illo. “Nayadu’s a beast, a monster, something lurking in the darkest, slimiest caves in the forests.” She wiggled her fingers in his face.

  “I’m not sure how seriously to take you,” said Martin.

  “This forest is deep,” said Aguilax. “Deeper than you town humans could even imagine. Looking for reliable information about Nayadu, or any morpher, for that matter, is a pointless endeavor. Monster or otherwise, she’s a mystery.”

  “In other words,” said Illo, “Bramble is a nincompoop.” She grabbed the book and flipped to the back. Several folded scraps of paper slid out. “I believe this is what we need.”

  The yellow fragment she opened was a maze of lines, circles, dirt smudges, and fingerprints. Illo put the book down. She squinted at the jumbled markings.

  “Let’s take it outdoors. I can’t see squat in this light.”

  The four of them grouped around the map outside by the earth bank.

  “Please don’t hurt it,” said Podgin.

  Illo turned away from him. “Take a look, Martin. See this squiggle? That’s Podgin’s artistic rendition of the Turtlegabble. Your bridge is somewhere along this stretch.” She jabbed her finger at the parchment. “Now, Elodie’s on foot, correct?”

  “I don’t see why she wouldn’t be,” said Martin.

  “How much time passed between your spill into the river and your spill into my pit?”

  “I wasn’t keeping track,” he said. “An hour or two? Maybe more.”

  Illo frowned. She drew an invisible circle around the Turtlegabble. “Then this is our search radius. It’s a big area. That’s the bad news. The good news is that my house and Podgin’s hole are both in it. The fastest way to—”

  Martin cut her off. “Listen. Does anyone else hear voices?”

  The four of them paused. Heads shook all around.

  “As I was saying, the fastest way to cover the circle will be to split up,” said Illo. “Podgin can teach you how to make a grass whistle. We’ll—”

  “Hold on,” said Martin. “There it is again. I hear singing.”

  “Will you quit interrupting me? I’m trying to make a plan.”

  Podgin cupped his hairy hands to his ears. “Good gumtree glop, he’s right. I hear singing, too.”

  Tuneless voices floated through the air, stronger by the second. Martin grinned smugly. It felt good not to be wrong for once, but when he noticed the alarm on Illo’s face, the good feeling melted away.

  “What is it?”

  Illo grabbed her bow. “Those are dryads.”

  “Dryads?” Martin exclaimed. No one answered him.

  “Today’s turning out to be a horrid day,” said Podgin. “Just watch, they’ll trample right through the portabellas.”

  “They’re trampling right through our search radius, you mean,” said Illo. “That’s what worries me. Dryads never come this far west.” She pulled an arrow from her quiver.

  “No need for that. I’ll take a look,” said Aguilax. “Don’t worry, Podgin. I’ll give them a good fright if they wander too close to the portabellas.” He took off.

  Illo watched him go, twirling her arrow in her fingers. “Let’s hope they’re just passing through.”

  5. A Badger Ride

  Elodie woke slowly. The process took effort, like climbing out of a well. The colors around her blurred like the paintings in Mayor Clarenbald’s study. Water popped in her ears. She shook her head to clear the fog and received the first pounds of a headache as her reward. The river roared somewhere nearby, though she couldn’t see it. Martin must have pulled them out somehow.

  Damp strands of hair stuck to her forehead and hung over her eyes. She tried to brush them aside so she could get a better view of where she was, but found to her surprise that she couldn’t move her arms at all. As the nerves in her body slowly kicked to life, she felt something hard and rough press between her shoulders and rub against her arms.

  She was sitting against a green sapling with her wrists bound to the trunk. She couldn’t see the river or the bridge, and to make matters worse, Martin was missing.

  Elodie squirmed, trying to loosen the cords holding her in place, but her jostling only skinned her elbows. She took a few deep breaths. What on earth was going on? This wasn’t right. No one back home had ever meant her harm, not even old Hergelo Stump, for all the times she had sneaked around the Cabbage Cart behind his back. And yet here she was, tied to a tree without a clue where she was.

  She called Martin’s name. Nothing. Bewildered, she bit back a string of unpleasant words and tried again to free her hands, with the same results as before. A handful of worrisome thoughts passed through her mind at once. She had been found by thieves. They were holding her ransom. Martin had been taken as well. Or worse, what if he hadn’t made it out at all? What if he had drowned? What if kidnappers had taken her without realizing he was in the river too, and he had gotten out and thought she had drowned?

  With another shake of her head Elodie shut out those ideas. More likely than not, someone was playing a cruel practical joke on her. Yes, that had to be it.

  “Martin!”

  The forest remained as silent as an empty room.

  Elodie sat still, trying to think of a clever way to get herself out of the knots and out of the woods. If Martin was in on the joke, she...well, she didn’t know what she would do, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

  A breeze picked up, and between that and her wet clothes, she was soon shivering. Only then did she notice that her shawl was gone as well. She tried to ignore the chill and counted out two full minutes. She was about to shout for Martin a third time when she heard movement behind her.

  Her breath caught in her chest. All the rumors about the forest Elodie had gleaned from Mayor Clarenbald’s maids came back to her, exclamations and gasps over tales of bears, wolves, and worse. But before she could decide whether to play dead or to make as much noise as she could, the voices came.

  They whispered, but the result
was the loudest whispering Elodie had ever heard. There were three, no, four of them, and she held still as they came closer.

  “Look. She’s shivering.”

  “Of course she’s shivering. She’s all soggy, and you put her in the shade.”

  “I didn’t put her in the shade! Nettle was the one who tied her up.”

  “We should have tied her up in the sun so she could dry.”

  “What’s the point in making her comfortable? She’s our prisoner.”

  “The king wants a flower, not a fish. We need to let her dry.”

  “We haven’t got any hanging pins.”

  “I bet she’s cold, too. Perhaps we should have kept the blanket after all.”

  “That wasn’t a blanket, it was a scarf of some sort. You’re as thick as a stuffed quail.”

  “Anyways, it’s too late for that. The scarf-blanket is gone, and there’s no point trying to track it down now.”

  There was a pause. Elodie let out her breath slowly and quietly.

  “Should we move her?”

  “No, wake her first.”

  “I say we move her and let her wake on her own when she pleases. No need to frighten her.”

  “You’re all as blind as bulbs, she was moving when we got back.”

  “She can’t be awake already. If she were awake, she’d be screaming.”

  “Yes, right. If she were awake, she would definitely be screaming.”

  Elodie was fed up. “I am awake,” she said loudly. “And I’m not screaming. If you’re going to rob me, or hurt me, or keep me for ransom, you may as well have the decency to show yourselves.”

  The voices went quiet. Then a figure slowly stepped around the tree and stood before her.

  Elodie gasped. She hadn’t known whom to expect, but whom wasn’t the word in this case. What was more appropriate, because her captor wasn’t human at all. It looked like a man, but it was short, no more than four feet tall. Its skin was coarse and dark like tree bark, and where its joints met, branch knobs stuck out. Its ears were long and tapered to a point, its hair was like wild grass, and its amber eyes peered at her like a cat’s.

  The thing pointed a spear at her. “Now, let’s set things straight, human. You’re our prisoner, whether you like it or not. That means you have to do as we say or suffer the consequences.”

  “Can I at least ask a question?” Elodie said.

  The spear inched closer. “You may.”

  She tried not to look at the weapon’s sharp point. “What are you, and why are you holding me against my will?”

  The creature blinked its yellow eyes. “That was two questions.”

  “Hasn’t she ever seen a dryad before?” said one of the voices behind her.

  “Dryads?” Elodie exclaimed. “Dryads aren’t real.”

  “Not real!” said the one in before her. “Did a turtle blossom swallow you and not spit you out for a hundred years? I am General Tum, commander of the dryad army and loyal servant of King Prickle. Prune my arms if you think I’m not real, and see if I don’t holler. Which, by the way,” he added quickly, “I wouldn’t.”

  General Tum lowered his spear. He motioned with his hand, and one by one, three more dryads came to stand beside their leader. They all looked half-human, half-tree, but at the same time they were each different. The one standing next to General Tum had no hair on his head at all and his mouth turned down in a scowl. The second dryad had eyes as pink as rose petals, and the last was a sickly green color that stood out next to his brown comrades.

  The dryads stared back at her with their spears half-raised, as if they were torn between curiosity and a willingness to skewer her on a whim.

  Tum pointed at each of them in turn. “This is Root and Nim and Nettle,” he said, finishing with the green dryad.

  Elodie mouthed the names to herself. “Nettle. Is he younger than the rest of you?”

  The three others glanced at the dryad in question.

  “Correct,” said Tum. “He’s not much more than a sapling.”

  “She’s clever, for a human,” said Nim, the dryad with the pink eyes.

  “The king will like that,” said Tum.

  “I don’t imagine he’ll care if she’s clever or thick,” said Root, tapping his bald head.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Elodie asked. She tested the ropes again, just in case. They didn’t yield an inch.

  “Never mind that for now,” said general Tum. “We’ve got business to tend to first.” He turned to his companions. “Fetch the food, Nettle, and don’t drop the basket again. Nim and Root, untie the girl and move her into the sun. Where have the badgers wandered off to this time?”

  Nobody answered him. Nettle hurried off out of sight, and Root and Nim got to work on the knots around her wrists. Their twiggy fingers scratched at her skin.

  The dryads led Elodie to the aforementioned patch of sunlight and sat her down. She briefly considered trying to run during the few seconds she was free, but decided against it. Her legs were stiff, she wouldn’t know which direction to go, and the dryads still hadn’t put down their spears. She didn’t want to find out how good their aim was.

  General Tum stood over her. “What’s your name, little flower?”

  “I’m bigger than you are,” she retorted. “And my name is Elodie.”

  “Three syllables are too many for a decent name, if you ask me.”

  Root retied her hands behind her back. At least this time she didn’t have a tree digging into her spine. Nettle soon returned with a horn-shaped basket strapped to his back. The other dryads gathered around him and began to pull out its contents, which consisted mostly of fresh fruit and bread.

  Tum set aside five equal portions and brought Elodie her share. She wasn’t particularly hungry at the time, but she didn’t know when she would have another chance to eat.

  “I don’t have levitation powers,” she said. “So unless one of you wants to break pieces off for me, keeping my hands tied isn’t very practical.”

  The dryads all looked at Nettle, who vigorously shook his head. Tum slipped behind her and had the knots undone in no time.

  “I just finished those,” Root grumbled over a mouthful of plum.

  Tum tapped the ground between Elodie’s feet with his spear before retreating. The message was clear. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  She ate slowly, keeping a wary eye on the dryads. As they stuffed their mouths with chunks of bread and dripping fruit, they talked among themselves, and now and then one of them would sneak a look in her direction—mostly Nettle. Nim spoke the least, never more than a few words at a time, but the others made up for his lack of conversation. Though she couldn’t hear what they were saying, she noticed Root wasn’t too pleased about the topic of discussion. She wondered if he was ever pleased about anything.

  When she grew bored of watching them, Elodie considered her predicament. From falling branches and river plunges to dryads and ropes and spears, things had certainly spiraled into the uncontrollable unknown since she and Martin had entered the forest. She still didn’t know what the dryads wanted from her, and they hadn’t shown much interest in explaining themselves.

  “You never answered my second question,” said Elodie.

  All four knobby heads looked up as one, and their chatter stopped.

  “That is,” she added, “I think I deserve to know what you want with me and what happened to my friend.”

  “Friend?” said Nettle to the others. “What friend?”

  “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Tum. “You were alone.”

  The dryads finished eating and placed the leftovers back in Nettle’s wicker basket. They stood, stretched, and licked their fingers as if they had just enjoyed a picnic.

  “The badgers are still gone,” Nettle pointed out. “I bet they went to splash about in the river.”

  “Yes, someone should do something about that,” said Tum.

  The others looked at him expecta
ntly.

  “Oh, right.” Tum pursed his lips and whistled.

  Almost immediately there came from the forest loud crashes and grunts, and five sleek badgers, bigger than any Elodie thought possible, bounded into the clearing. They jumped up at the dryads, sniffing at their faces like eager dogs.

  “Stop that,” said Tum. “Settle down, I say.” He whistled again.

  The badgers grouped together and sat down.

  “Better.” Tum motioned Elodie over. “Have you ever ridden a badger before?”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  “Today you will,” he said cheerfully. “It’s not hard. Just hop on and hold on, as they say. Take that one. He’s not as prone to tossing his rider as the others. Nettle took a nasty spill on our way down, but we won’t put you through that.”

  “Do they have names?”

  “I imagine so,” said Tum. “But they’re badger names, tricky to pronounce, so we haven’t bothered asking. Now, up you go.”

  As a child, Elodie had tried to ride one of the goats on the farm outside town. Swinging her leg over the badger’s furry back brought back sore memories.

  The dryads mounted their badgers amid a flurry of hops, complaints, and grunts. Only Elodie’s remained still for more than a few seconds at a time, for which she was thankful. Then Tum raised his spear.

  “Now, soldiers—and lady—forest inward we go!”

  The badgers took off at a bumpy lope. Elodie clutched handfuls of the animal’s shiny coat to keep from sliding off. She looked over her shoulder at the receding clearing, now empty. Finding Martin would have to wait until she got herself out of this mess.

  * * *

  Tum led Elodie and the dryads at a brisk pace. They twisted and turned with the forest, and it felt to Elodie like they were going in circles. The forest itself had no end.

  Each sharp turn, bounce, and bound sent another jolt up Elodie’s spine, and within an hour her backside felt bruised beyond repair. The dryads made sure to keep her in the center of the line, not that she had any chances to dismount without risking a broken bone or two.