Where the Woods Grow Wild

by Nate Philbrick

  “Why? I need it. If I tried to help Percy carry firewood into the shed without it I’d end up with more splinters than skin.”

  “That’s not really why you wear it, though.” She undid the straps and slid it off his arm, revealing the rounded stub where his hand used to be. “Just like people shouldn’t think any less of you, you shouldn’t think any less of yourself.”

  Martin looked away. “I’m not used to it yet, that’s all.”

  “You’re going to have to accept it sooner or later. Wrapping it up all the time won’t help that.”

  “I know.”

  He put the sleeve on and pretended he didn’t see her frown. A rustle in the oak limbs above the bridge caught his ear. A thick branch snapped and fell.

  Martin jumped out of the way. He lost his balance and crashed into the rail. The old wood snapped under his weight. Trees and sky and river spun into one dizzying wheel before he plunged into the water with the broken rail on top of him. By the time he freed himself and floundered to the surface, Elodie was already reaching down for him.

  “Grab on!”

  Martin swung his arm, but the current swept him out of reach. Though he fought against the swift water, the river carried him away like driftwood. Elodie called out to him, but the water crashing into his face drowned her voice out. Then she jumped in, and he lost sight of her.

  Between the current and his clothes and shoes weighing him down, Martin tired before he could find something to grab onto. He couldn’t find Elodie—he couldn’t even stop spinning long enough to swim to the bank. Water found its way into his eyes and nose and mouth. He sputtered and went under. The current knocked him head-over-heels. Martin broke the surface. He thought he caught a glimpse of Elodie, but the river pulled him right back under, and this time he couldn’t fight it anymore. One last fleeting thought crossed his mind before he succumbed to the water—Percy was right. He should have never gone into the forest.

  3. The Servant of Nayadu

  Martin came to his senses as he washed up to the riverbank in a calm pool full of cattails and algae. Wondering how he was still alive, he found the roots of an oak dipping into the water and pulled himself to dry ground. He spat out a mouthful of water and fell with his back against the trunk.

  “I wish you hadn’t jumped, Elodie,” he said. “I had it all under control.”

  He cracked his eyes open. Elodie wasn’t there. He shot to his feet, but a wave of dizziness knocked him back down, so he crawled to the edge of the water.

  “Elodie!”

  He saw no trace of her in the green pool or in the swifter current farther out. He searched upstream and downstream, but she wasn’t there. The bridge was gone as well. The river must have carried him deeper into the woods. On his knees in the mud, Martin steadied his breathing. Elodie had always been the better swimmer of the two of them. If he had made it out of the river in one piece, so had she. It was hard to tell just how far from the bridge the river had pulled him, but Elodie was bound to be looking for him by now.

  Martin stood and wrung water from his shirt. He resigned himself to a long and drippy walk back upriver. He picked a few strands of algae from his hair, and it was then he realized his leather sleeve was missing. He searched the oak roots and the shallow water at his feet, but it wasn’t there, and he didn’t want to spend time looking for it. He set off with a squish in his step.

  The trees, as grand as they were, spread wide enough for him to follow the river without ever losing sight of it, and he kept his eyes peeled for Elodie’s courier uniform. Every now and then he called her name, but he heard no reply.

  As he passed under the boughs of a particularly ambitious oak, a thick vine dropped by his face. Martin pushed it aside, and it felt wrong under his hands. It wasn’t a vine at all, but a green serpent dangling from the branches. It curled up, hissing, and flicked a vibrant red tongue in and out of its mouth.

  Martin backed away. He had encountered his share of snakes before. He and Percy had even had to beat one out of Edgar and Evangeline’s pen a few years back. But this snake was not like any of the muddy garters slithering around the Cabbage Cart. Its scales were sharp and lime-green, its head wide and flat like a spade, and its sinuous body nearly as long as Martin was tall.

  The serpent lazily opened its mouth to flash a pair of white fangs, and Martin understood the message clearly. He intended to comply with the snake’s need for personal space, but he tripped over his heel on his way out from under the oak and landed on his rump. Startled, the snake stiffened and hissed. The scales down its back ruffled up not unlike the fur of an angry cat.

  A small, brown object zipped through the air and smacked the serpent between the eyes. There was a sharp crack, followed by a puff of brown dust. Blinded, the snake recoiled. A second projectile flew in the wake of the first, then a third and a fourth. All of them found their mark, and amid a growing cloud of dust, Martin watched the snake slither back into the oak.

  The cloud dissipated. Martin remained on his backside. Truly, this forest was the strangest place he had ever set foot in.

  “Elodie?” He spoke only when he was sure the serpent was gone. “I don’t suppose that was you...”

  Branches rattled in the neighboring tree. Martin found his feet and put a prudent distance between himself and the oaks. He looked around for a stick or a rock, anything with which to defend himself.

  Then he spotted the source of the rattling. A creature no larger than a rabbit sat in the crook of a branch over Martin’s head. It was covered in scraggly, brown fur from its squat head to its stubby legs. A shining pair of blue eyes blinked at him over a mischievous grin. Its ears flopped over its head like rags. The creature stared back at Martin with its head tilted to the side and its little feet swaying back and forth.

  Martin had never seen any animal like this one before, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. The creature held more of the brown, exploding projectiles in its hands.

  “Did you throw those?”

  He spoke to the creature the same way he might have to a friendly dog, but to his utter surprise, the furry little thing nodded, and its floppy ears wiggled.

  “You—you understood that? What are you? And what are those?” He pointed to the miniature dust bombs in the creature’s hand.

  The creature picked one of the projectiles from his fistful and for a moment looked like he might throw it at Martin.

  “Puffernuts,” it said in a mousy voice. It didn’t answer the first part of Martin’s question.

  “I see,” said Martin.

  “Strange man only has one hand,” the creature said, “and strange man would surely end up with none if he pokes his finger at a sage viper.”

  “Will it come back?”

  The creature waggled its head.

  Martin eyed the snake’s oak warily, and when he turned back, the creature was gone. “Hey! Don’t go! I need help.”

  The creature popped from the grass at his feet like a stage rabbit from a magician’s hat. “Bramble didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Bramble? Is that your name?”

  “Bramble is Bramble’s name.”

  “Do you always talk like this?”

  Bramble, who only stood as high as Martin’s shins, cocked his head and blinked again. “If strange man needs help, Bramble would be happy to be strange man’s friend.”

  “My name’s Martin, and I’m not strange at all.” He slipped his handless stub behind his back. “But yes, I need help. I’m looking for a friend of mine. A girl.”

  Bramble bounced on his little feet. “Bramble also has looked for a girl. Under rocks, up in trees, and in the bushes, but Bramble hasn’t ever found one.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Never mind, then. If you can’t help me find her, could you at least show me the way back to the village? I’m lost.”

  “Village?”

  Martin frowned. “Yes, Bardun Village. Past the fields at the forest’s edge. That’s where I live.”

/>   Bramble checked around his legs and under his arms. “Bramble hasn’t heard of that place before.”

  Martin sat on the riverbank. He picked up a twig and chucked it into the river, at a loss for what to do next. While he sat there in a heap of gloom, Bramble scampered up his tree, stuck his furry torso in a dark hollow, and came back down. He plopped down beside Martin, fiddling with an object in his hands and muttering to himself.

  Martin wished to be left alone until he saw what Bramble was toying with. It was his leather sleeve. He snatched it away. “Where did you get this?”

  The blue eyes went wide. “Bramble found it.”

  “It’s mine,” said Martin.

  “Oh.” Bramble picked at his toes.

  Martin strapped the sleeve to his arm. “Where did you find it?”

  “Maybe Bramble found it under the sticky-bridge.”

  “What do you mean, maybe? You either did or you didn’t.”

  Bramble’s ears drooped some more. “Oh dear.”

  “You lied to me, didn’t you? You were there, and you do know about the girl I’m looking for.”

  “A girl with a blue neck-sail? Bramble doesn’t remember...” Bramble stopped and pulled down on his ears with clenched fists. “Bramble mustn’t lie. Remember, mustn’t lie! Yes, Bramble saw a sun-drop girl by the tumble-water, too. Girl had a blue neck-sail—”

  “It’s called a shawl.”

  “—and Bramble maybe...Bramble knows which way she went.”

  Martin jumped to his feet. “Will you take me to her?”

  Bramble curled up his short legs and hugged his knees, rocking back and forth like a child throwing a fit. “One for the trees, mustn’t shake the leaves. Mustn’t tell a lie, and mustn’t make a peep.”

  “What on earth are you going on about?” said Martin.

  Bramble tugged on Martin’s pant leg. “Martin must follow Bramble. Bramble can take Martin to the sun-drop girl.” He set off away from the river, pumping his little legs.

  Martin had to hurry to keep up. “Her name is Elodie.”

  “That is a strange name.”

  “And you’re sure you can find her?”

  “Must be speedy-quick. Must follow Bramble.”

  * * *

  There was a stark difference between the forest close to the clover fields, where the river ran, and the forest deeper in, where the sunlight splashed in wavering pools between the trees. Between the fields and the bridge, the woodland was slow and quiet, but beyond the river, where Bramble now scurried along before Martin, the trees stirred with life.

  Though no more sage vipers dropped from the branches, Martin sensed signs of the forest’s curious inhabitants all around him. A rustle in the leaves as he passed through, the patter of little feet among the oaken latticework overhead, or the breathy rush of small wings flitting by. From the streets of Bardun Village, the forest looked and felt like a dark wall not to be crossed, but now Martin ran through an undiscovered world where everything moved, breathed, and thrived.

  At first Martin spent some time trying to figure out what exactly Bramble was, but he soon abandoned that task. He thought it would be rude to ask, and it wasn’t hard to assume there would be many more secrets and surprises hidden in the forest, so he focused on trying not to lose sight of Bramble.

  The little creature’s legs pumped at a mad pace, and he scampered over rocks and logs without missing a beat. Martin, on the other hand, was panting and sweating a good twenty steps behind, and he feared Bramble had forgotten he existed. He called ahead to Bramble and leaned against a tree to catch his breath.

  Bramble came back with a hop and a grin. “Mustn’t stop,” he said cheerfully.

  “I thought you were taking me to Elodie.”

  “The sun-drop girl? Bramble has been leading the way just as Bramble said.”

  “I hope you are,” said Martin. “But I can’t think of any reason why she’d have come all this way. Did something happen to her? Did she have to run from one of those sage vipers too?”

  Bramble shrugged and looked away.

  “Either way,” Martin went on, “I can’t keep up with you, so you’re going to have to slow down.”

  “Mustn’t slow down.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mustn’t slow down because the forest is not a safe place for strange men with only one hand. If Martin has never been in the forest before, Bramble must warn Martin about the three mustn’t-dangers.”

  “I don’t have time for lectures. I’ve got to find Elodie.”

  “Must listen closely,” said Bramble. He lifted up three fingers and counted them down as he spoke. “Mustn’t poke a turtle blossom. Mustn’t eat a puffernut. Mustn’t make Nayadu angry.”

  “Nayadu? Is that a person’s name?”

  Bramble’s eyes darted from side to side. “Nayadu is the shifty-shaker.” Then he added quickly in a whisper, “Mustn’t tell a lie.” And he pulled on his ears so hard that Martin thought he might yank them from his head.

  Martin shook his head, bewildered. He spun a full circle, looking for any movement, any clue. “I’ve got to find her,” he muttered to himself.

  “Martin is done his rest?”

  Martin scowled. “Yes, it’s been very pleasant, thank you.”

  “Bramble knows Martin must be worried about his sun-drop girl.”

  “I am.”

  The furry little creature patted his knee. “Follow Bramble.”

  And with that they were off again. A thought occurred to Martin. Once he found Elodie, they would have to find their way out of the forest, and he had been too concentrated on following Bramble to mind his directions. Though he rarely left town, Martin knew how to find his bearings with the sun, but that was a difficult task when the sun poured through the leaves from all directions at once without actually showing itself.

  He shrugged aside the concern. One problem at a time. Perhaps Bramble would agree to lead them back to the river.

  As they made progress, Bramble added a host of warnings to his three original rules of the woods.

  “Mustn’t stick one’s nose in a puddle plant, mustn’t steal a sting finch egg, mustn’t taste any grimy dew nectar, mustn’t step on a prickle toad, mustn’t touch the shimmery shine leaf, mustn’t sleep in creepy caves, mustn’t...”

  Martin eventually stopped paying attention. At one point, the stump of his left arm began to itch, as it had occasionally in the past few months. He wondered if the animal that had attacked him on the bridge was among the names Bramble rattled off. The itch soon went away.

  Not long after Bramble ran out of warnings, they stopped at the foot of an old and twisted oak with branches winding skyward and leaves as wide as Martin’s splayed hand. Bramble hopped up the knobby roots, muttering to himself, and came to a stop at the base of the trunk.

  “Why have we stopped here?” Martin asked.

  “Bramble must fetch more puffernuts. Bramble always hides puffernuts in trees all around in case Bramble ever runs into boggy-piggies.” He shivered. “Bramble is afraid of boggy-piggies.”

  Bramble scurried up the trunk and disappeared into a hollow. A moment later, however, there came a muffled ‘oh dear,’ and Bramble popped back out. He rolled down the trunk and landed upside down at Martin’s feet.

  “Bramble’s hidey-hollow has been found out.” He shook a fist at the red squirrel that poked its head from the hollow. “Mustn’t eat a puffernut!”

  “Can’t we keep going without them?” Martin asked.

  Bramble gave a long, disappointed sigh. “Very well. Bramble can find another tree with puffernuts hidden in hidey-hollows.”

  “Only if it’s on the way to Elodie. I want to get out of this forest safely and quickly.”

  After leaving Bramble’s desecrated puffernut stash well behind, Martin and Bramble came to a stretch of forest where the ground had been trampled and dug up by some animal.

  “Boggy-piggies,” muttered Bramble. “Mustn’t go where the boggy-pi
ggies oink, but Bramble does what Bramble mustn’t do.”

  “This reminds me,” said Martin softly, unsure what to expect, “when Elodie and I were on the bridge, just before I fell in, a branch dropped from a tree above us and nearly knocked my head off. Any idea what makes that sort of thing happen?”

  Bramble swung his arms back and forth. “Maybe a windstorm broke the branch?”

  “We haven’t had any windstorms.”

  “Mustn’t be afraid,” said Bramble to himself. “Mustn’t tell a lie, mustn’t be afraid, mustn’t...” He trailed off.

  Martin pointed across the way. “See, just over there? The branches aren’t broken and the bushes aren’t flattened anymore. I don’t know what sort of pig you’re so scared of, but we can cross quickly.”

  This seemed to cheer Bramble up a little bit, for his ears drooped less and he gave a few tentative hops. They hurried through, making as little noise as possible. Martin stayed alert in case anything came their way, but nothing did.

  They were halfway across the trampled stretch of woodland when the earth crumbled under them and they fell into a hole in the ground. Bramble landed on Martin’s chest, and a mass of leaves, dirt, grass, and sticks landed on Bramble. Martin clawed his way out of the pile, spitting a clod of dirt out of his mouth.

  “Why?” he yelled. “Why is there some random pit in the middle of the woods?”

  Bramble shook dirt from his ears. “Oh dear.”

  Martin stood on his toes, but the edge of the pit was just out of reach. There was no way to climb out with only one hand to grasp at the crumbling dirt.

  “Bramble, someone must have dug this hole, someone who was clever enough to cover it up like that. Do you know who? And more importantly, how are we to get out?”

  Bramble stood very still, his ears pointing in two different directions. “Oh dear,” he said again, “Bramble smells...”

  “What do you smell?” His stump itched, and then it stung. He ignored it.

  “Bramble smells the servant of Nayadu.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”