Wildwood Page 2

  “Nothing, honey,” had been her father’s reply. He flipped back to the map of Russia they had been looking at moments before. With his finger, he traced a circle over the wide northeastern part of the country where the letters of the word Siberia obscured the map. There were no city names here; no network of wandering yellow lines demarking highways and roads. Only vast puddles all shades of green and white and the occasional squiggly blue line linking the myriad remote lakes that peppered the landscape. “There are places in the world where people just don’t end up living. Maybe it’s too cold or there are too many trees or the mountains are too steep to climb. But whatever the reason, no one has thought to build a road there and without roads, there are no houses and without houses, no cities.” He flipped back to the map of Portland and tapped his finger against the spot where “I.W.” was written. “It stands for ‘Impassable Wilderness.’ And that’s just what it is.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone live there?” asked Prue.

  “All the reasons why no one lives up in those parts of Russia. When the settlers first came to the area and started to build Portland, no one wanted to build their houses there: The forest was too deep and the hills were too steep. And since there were no houses there, no one thought to build a road. And without roads and houses, the place just sort of stayed that way: empty of people. The place, over time, just became more overgrown and more inhospitable. And so,” he said, “it was named the Impassable Wilderness and everybody knew to steer clear.” Her father dismissively wiped his hand across the map and brought it up to gently pinch Prue’s chin between his thumb and finger. Bringing her face close to his, he said, “And I don’t ever, ever want you to go in there.” He playfully moved her head back and forth and smiled. “You hear me, kid?”

  Prue made a face and yanked her chin free. “Yeah, I hear you.” They both looked back at the atlas, and Prue laid her head against her father’s chest.

  “I’m serious,” said her father. She could feel his chest tighten under her cheek.

  So Prue knew not to go near this “Impassable Wilderness,” and she only once bothered her parents with questions about it again. But she couldn’t ignore it. While the downtown continued to sprout towering condominium buildings, and newly minted terra-cotta outlet malls bloomed beside the highway in the suburbs, it baffled Prue that such an impressive swath of land should go unclaimed, untouched, undeveloped, right on the edge of the city. And yet, no adult ever seemed to comment on it or mention it in conversation. It seemed to not even exist in most people’s minds.

  The only place that the Impassable Wilderness would crop up was among the kids at Prue’s school, where she was a seventh grader. There was an apocryphal tale told by the older students about a man—so-and-so’s uncle, maybe—who had wandered into the I.W. by mistake and had disappeared for years and years. His family, over time, forgot about him and continued on with their lives until one day, out of the blue, he reappeared on their doorstep. He didn’t seem to have any memory of the intervening years, saying only that he’d been lost in the woods for a time and that he was terribly hungry. Prue had been suspicious of the story from her first hearing; the identity of this “man” seemed to change from telling to telling. It was someone’s father in one version, a wayward cousin in another. Also, the details shifted in each telling. A visiting high school kid told a group of Prue’s rapt classmates that the individual (in this version, the kid’s older brother) had returned from his weird sojourn in the Impassable Wilderness aged beyond belief, with a great white beard that stretched down to his tattered shoes.

  Regardless of the questionable truth of these stories, it became clear to Prue that most of her classmates had had similar conversations with their parents as she had had with her father. The subject of the Wilderness filtered into their play surreptitiously: What once was a lake of poisonous lava around the four-square court was now the Impassable Wilderness, and woe betide anyone who missed a bounce and was forced to scurry after the red rubber ball into those wilds. In games of tag, you were no longer tagged It, but rather designated the Wild Coyote of the I.W., and it was your job to scamper around after your fleeing classmates, barking and growling.

  It was the specter of these coyotes that made Prue ask her parents a second time about the Impassable Wilderness. She had been awakened one night in a fright by the unmistakable sound of baying dogs. Sitting up in bed, she could hear that Mac, then four months old, had awoken as well and was being quietly shushed by their parents as he wailed and whimpered in the next room. The dogs’ baying was a distant echo, but it was bone-shivering nonetheless. It was a tuneless melody of violence and chaos and as it grew, more dogs in the neighborhood took up the cry. Prue noticed then that the distant barking was different from the barking of the neighborhood dogs; it was more shrill, more disordered and angry. She threw her blanket aside and walked into her parents’ room. The scene was eerie: Mac had quieted a little at this point, and he was being rocked in his mother’s arms while their parents stood at the window, staring unblinking out over the town at the distant western horizon, their faces pale and frightened.

  “What’s that sound?” asked Prue, walking to the side of her parents. The lights of St. Johns spread out before them, an array of flickering stars that stopped at the river and dissolved into blackness.

  Her parents started when she spoke, and her father said, “Just some old dogs howling.”

  “But farther away?” asked Prue. “That doesn’t sound like dogs.”

  Prue saw her parents share a glance, and her mother said, “In the woods, darling, there are some pretty wild animals. That’s probably a pack of coyotes, wishing they could tear into someone’s garbage somewhere. Best not to worry about it.” She smiled.

  The baying eventually stopped and the neighborhood dogs calmed, and Prue’s parents walked her back into her room and tucked her into bed. That had been the last time the Impassable Wilderness had come up, but it hadn’t put Prue’s curiosity to rest. She couldn’t help feeling a little troubled; her parents, normally two founts of strength and confidence, seemed strangely shaken by the noises. They seemed as leery of the place as Prue was.

  And so one can imagine Prue’s horror when she witnessed the black plume of crows disappear, her baby brother in tow, into the darkness of this Impassable Wilderness.

  The afternoon had faded nearly completely, the sun dipping down low behind the hills of the Wilderness, and Prue stood transfixed, slack-jawed, on the edge of the bluff. A train engine trundled by below her and rolled across the Railroad Bridge, passing low over the brick and metal buildings of the Industrial Wastes. A breeze had picked up, and Prue shivered beneath her peacoat. She was staring at the little break in the tree line where the crows had disappeared.

  It started to rain.

  Prue felt like someone had bored a hole in her stomach the size of a basketball. Her brother was gone, literally captured by birds and carried to a remote, untouchable wilderness, and who knew what they would do to him there. And it was all her fault. The light changed from deep blue to dark gray, and the streetlights slowly, one by one, began to click on. Night had fallen. Prue knew her vigil was hopeless. Mac would not be returning. Prue slowly turned her bike around and began walking it back up the street. How would she tell her parents? They would be devastated beyond belief. Prue would be punished. She’d been grounded before for staying out late on school nights, riding her bike around the neighborhood, but this punishment was certain to be like nothing she’d ever experienced. She’d lost Mac, her parents’ only son. Her brother. If a week of no television was the standard punishment for missing a couple curfews, she couldn’t imagine what it was for losing baby brothers. She walked for several blocks, in a trance. She found that she was choking back tears as, in her mind’s eye, she witnessed anew the crows’ disappearance into the woods.

  “Get a grip, Prue!” she said aloud, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Think this through!”

  She took a deep breath and beg
an assembling her options in her mind, weighing each one’s pros and cons. Going to the police was out; they’d undoubtedly think she was crazy. She didn’t know what police did with crazy people who came into the station ranting about murders of crows and abducted one-year-olds, but she had her suspicions: She’d be carried off in an armored van and thrown into some faraway asylum’s subterranean cell, where she’d live out the rest of her days listening to the lamenting of her fellow inmates and trying hopelessly to convince the passing janitor that she was not crazy and that she was falsely imprisoned there. The thought of rushing home to tell her parents terrified her; their hearts would be irretrievably broken. They had waited so long for Mac to come along. She didn’t know the whole story, but understood that they’d wanted to have a second child sooner, but it just hadn’t come about. They had been so happy when they found out about Mac. They had positively beamed; the entire house had felt alive and light. No, she couldn’t be the one to break this terrible news to them. She could run away—this was a legitimate option. She could jump on one of those trains going over the Railroad Bridge and split town and travel from city to city, doing odd jobs and telling fortunes for a living—maybe she’d even meet a little golden retriever on the road who’d become her closest companion, and they’d ramble the country together, a couple of gypsies on the run, and she’d never have to face her parents or think about her dear, departed brother again.

  Prue stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and shook her head dolefully.

  What are you thinking? She reprimanded herself. You’re out of your mind! She took a deep breath and kept walking, pushing her bike along. A chill came over her as she realized her only option.

  She had to go after him.

  She had to go into the Impassable Wilderness and find him. It seemed like an insurmountable task, but she had no choice. The rain had grown heavy and was pelting down on the sidewalks and the streets, making huge puddles, and the puddles became choked with flotillas of dead leaves. Prue devised her plan, carefully gauging the dangers of such an adventure. The chill of evening was draping over the rain-swept neighborhood streets; it would be unsafe to attempt the trip in the dead of night. I’ll go tomorrow, she thought, unaware that she was mumbling some of the words aloud. Tomorrow morning, first thing. Mom and Dad won’t even have to know. But how to keep them from finding out? Her heart sank as she arrived at the scene of Mac’s abduction: the playground. The play structure was abandoned in the sheeting rain, and Mac’s little red wagon sat on the asphalt, a heap of soggy blanket sitting inside, collecting water. “That’s it!” said Prue, and she ran over to the wagon. Kneeling down on the wet pavement, she started to mold the sopping blanket into the form of a swaddled baby. Standing back, she studied it. “Plausible,” she said. She had started to attach the wagon to the back axle of her bike when she heard a voice call:

  “Hey, Prue!”

  Prue stiffened and looked over her shoulder. Standing on the sidewalk next to the playground was a boy, incognito in a matching rain slicker and pants. He pulled the hood back on his slicker and smiled. “It’s me, Curtis!” he shouted, and waved.

  Curtis was one of Prue’s classmates. He lived with his parents and his two sisters just down the street from Prue. Their desks at school were two rows apart. Curtis was constantly getting in trouble with their teacher for spending school time drawing pictures of superheroes in various scrapes with their archenemies. His drawing obsession also tended to get him in trouble with his classmates, since most kids had abandoned superhero drawing years before, if they hadn’t abandoned drawing altogether. Most kids devoted their drawing talent to sketching band logos on the paper-bag covering of their textbooks; Prue was one of the only kids who’d transitioned away from her superhero- and fairy-tale-inspired renderings to drawings of birds and plants. Her classmates looked askance at her, but at least they didn’t bother her. Curtis, for clinging to his bygone art form, was shunned.

  “Hey, Curtis,” said Prue, as nonchalantly as possible. “What are you doing?”

  He put his hood back on. “I was just out for a walk. I like walking in the rain. Less people around.” He took his glasses off and pulled a corner of his shirt from beneath his slicker to clean them. Curtis’s round face was topped by a mass of curly black hair that sprang from beneath his slicker hood like little coils of steel wool. “Why were you talking to yourself?”

  Prue froze. “What?”

  “You were talking to yourself. Just back there.” He pointed in the direction of the bluff as he squinted and put his glasses back on. “I was sort of following you, I guess. I meant to get your attention earlier, but you looked so . . . distracted.”

  “I wasn’t,” was all Prue could think to say.

  “You were talking to yourself and walking and then stopping and shaking your head and doing all sorts of weird things,” he said. “And why were you standing on the bluff for so long? Just staring into space?”

  Prue got serious. She walked her bike over to Curtis and pointed a finger in his face. “Listen to me, Curtis,” she said, commanding her most intimidating tone. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I don’t need you bothering me right now, okay?”

  To her relief, Curtis appeared to be easily intimidated. He threw up his hands and said, “Okay! Okay! I was just curious is all.”

  “Well, don’t be,” she said. “Just forget everything you saw, all right?” She started to push her bike away toward home. As she straddled the bike seat and put her feet in the toe clips, she turned to Curtis and said, “I’m not crazy.” And she rode off.

  CHAPTER 3

  To Cross a Bridge

  It was nearing seven o’clock as Prue approached her house, and she could see the light on in the living room and the silhouette of her mother’s head, bowed over her knitting. Her father was nowhere in sight as she crept around the side of the house, moving slowly so as not to disturb the pea gravel of the walk. The soggy blanket in the wagon made a convincing slumbering one-year-old but definitely wouldn’t withstand close inspection, so Prue held her breath in hope that she wouldn’t encounter an inquisitive parent. Her hopes were dashed as she rounded the back corner of the house and saw her dad fumbling with the garbage and recycling bins. The following day was garbage day; it had always been her father’s task to wrestle the bins curbside. Seeing Prue, he wiped hands together and said, “Hey, kiddo!” The porch light spread a hazy glow across the darkened lawn.

  “Hi, Dad,” said Prue. Her heart was racing as she slowly walked the bike over to the side of the house and rested it against the wall.

  Her dad smiled. “You guys were out late. We were starting to wonder about you. You missed dinner, by the way.”

  “We stopped at Proper Eats on the way in,” said Prue, “shared a stir-fry.” She stepped awkwardly sideways so as to stand between her dad and the wagon. She was painfully aware of her every movement as she tried to feign nonchalance. “How was your day, Dad?”

  “Oh, fine,” he said. “Fairly hectic.” He paused. “Get it? Craft fair? Fairly hectic?” Prue let out a loud, high-pitched laugh. She immediately second-guessed the reaction; usually she groaned at her father’s terrible puns. Her father seemed to notice the inconsistency as well. He cocked an eyebrow and asked, “How’s Mac?”

  “He’s great!” Prue sputtered, maybe too quickly. “He’s sleeping!”

  “Really? That’s early for him.”

  “Um, we had a really . . . active day. He ran around a lot. Seemed pretty tuckered out, and so after we had food I just wrapped him up in his blanket and he fell asleep.” She smiled and gestured at the wagon behind her. “Just like that.”

  “Hmm,” said her father. “Well, get him inside and into his jammies. He might be down for the count.” He sighed, looked back at the recycling bins, and began dragging them along the side of the house toward the street.

  Prue let out a breath of relief. Turning around, she carefully scooped the wet blanket out of the wagon and walked into the house, boun
cing and shushing the bundle as she went.

  The back door let into the kitchen, and Prue walked as softly as she could across the cork flooring. She had almost made it to the stairs when her mother called from the living room, “Prue? Is that you?”

  Prue stopped and pressed the wet blanket against her chest. “Yes, Mother?”

  “You guys missed dinner. How’s Mac?”

  “Good. He’s sleeping. We ate on the way home.”

  “Sleeping?” she asked, and Prue could imagine her bespectacled face turning to look at the clock on the mantel. “Oh. I guess get him—”

  “In jammies,” Prue finished for her. “I’m on it.”

  She tore upstairs, skipping every other step, and rushed into her room, dumping the soaked blanket in her dirty clothes hamper. She then walked out into the hall and headed into Mac’s room. She grabbed one of his stuffed animals—an owl—and placed it in his crib, carefully shrouding the toy with blankets. Satisfied that the lump, at a glance, would suggest a sleeping baby, she nodded to herself and turned off the light, then headed back into her room. She closed the door and threw herself onto her bed, burying her head in her pillows. Her heart was still beating wildly and it took several moments to get her breath under control. The rain made a quiet rattle against the glass of her window. Prue lifted her head from the bed and looked around her room. Downstairs, she could hear her father shutting the outside door behind him and walking into the living room. The shushed murmur of her parents’ voices followed, and Prue rolled out of her bed and set about preparing for tomorrow’s adventure.