“You said yourself, we’re heading into trunder territory. They can probably smell us a mile away, just like we can smell them. We may not be the ones doing the finding before the day is done.”
Illo shuddered. “Either way, you take the lead now. I just hope you’re ready to use that spear.”
The woods began to shift as they wound farther north. Little creatures crossed their path more and more often, the colors ebbed, and Elodie felt a familiar heaviness on her heart. Memories from her night spent in the dark woods reassured her they were going the right direction. She didn’t tell Illo, but she was tempted to turn around and run back to the river. No trunder smell reached them yet, but that didn’t mean their presence hadn’t been noticed.
The forest grew wet, and soon Elodie and Illo found themselves at the edge of a bog. Tree roots roped along a bank of firm, dark mud before trailing into murky water.
Illo crouched in the mud. “Look.”
Several rows of sharp hoof prints crisscrossed the mud into the bog.
Elodie took a closer look. “Deer?”
“Nope. Bog boar. Too bad we’re so far from the cottage. Otherwise, I’d come back sometime. Bog boar meat smokes beautifully, you know.”
The bog stretched out in all directions except behind them, so they tried to wade through, following the boar tracks. Toads burped as they approached the water. Shoes in hand, they made it a few squishy steps out before a snake skimmed the weedy water between Illo’s feet. She jumped back with a stifled scream.
“I can’t go through there,” she said. “Not with snakes. No way.” She touched her collarbone, staring bug-eyed at the water.
Elodie took her hand and pulled her back to dry ground. “We’ll circle around.”
Their new path led them through a stretch of dense thicket, where burrs clung to their clothes like hungry little insects. Elodie gave up on picking them off her pant legs. She was glad she had taken the time to tie her hair back.
The going got easier thereafter. The trees thinned out, allowing them to walk side by side without having to duck, weave, and pry themselves loose every other step.
Illo pulled up short and grabbed Elodie’s arm. “Smell that?”
“Trunder?” Elodie’s hand shot to the knife in her belt.
“I don’t think so. Smells like...gutted boar.”
“The bog’s behind us, though.”
Illo took off at a broken jog. “Trust me, I know a boar’s scent when I catch it. And I have a hunch. There aren’t many predators capable of bringing down a bog boar. We may find something. Let’s check it out.”
Elodie watched, fascinated, as Illo’s hunting instincts took over. She moved stiffly yet silently, bent at the knees, her bow at the ready. She reminded Elodie of a hyper, aggressive version of Nayadu. Elodie followed close behind. She clutched the dryad spear in both hands and checked over her shoulder every few minutes. Then she heard running water, not a constant rush like the Minnowchuck, but a gentle trickle in the background.
The boar scent and the running water both drew them in the same direction. A deep trench split the woods over the next rise, and from its depths ran a whisper of a creek. Illo knelt to taste the water.
“It’s clean.”
Elodie refilled the flask and drank. She filled it again after Illo drained the last drop.
“I’m sure of it now,” said Illo. “That’s a bog boar.”
They entered the trench single-file. The water wasn’t deep enough to cover the toes of their shoes. At the opposite end, the trench opened into a round grotto with loose shale covering the ground and natural stone walls. A waterfall fed a shallow pool, the creek’s birthplace, and sure enough, the mangled carcass of a boar lay by the water. A few flies already hovered around it.
Elodie plugged her nose and looked away from the poor animal, but Illo gleefully tottered around carcass.
“We’re definitely on to something,” she said, clapping her hands. “Come and see!”
“I’d rather not,” said Elodie.
“There were trunders here,” said Illo. “Recently, too. What’s left of the boar is already turning black and purple, and the shale’s all dug up.” They circled the pool as she spoke. “And a tuft of black fur here. I think we know who that belongs to.” At the back of the grotto, she gasped. “That’s a lot of blood. Not boar, though. It’s trunder blood. I wonder what happened.”
Elodie pointed to a smattering of dark drops on the stone near the trench opening. “There’s more here.”
Illo hurried over. “You’re right.” She retraced their steps. “And there’s another splotch here in the trench. It’s hard to see when you’re not looking for it.”
“If this is a trunder den,” said Elodie. “Shouldn’t we be leaving?”
“Not so fast,” said Illo. “See the flies around the boar? Nothing’s been here for a few hours at least. We’d be able to smell them.”
“Of course. So...what now?”
Illo sat in the shale. She propped her chin in her hands. “Let’s think. These clues could very well point straight to Martin.”
“How so?”
“Let me talk this through.”
Elodie sat.
“Okay, here’s what we have to go by.” Illo was getting worked up already. “Three trunders attacked us—a black one, a red one, and a brown one. That’s a chubby pig over there, or at least it used to be. It’s too big for one trunder to eat so much of it. Not only that, but the black fur and the bloodstains were on opposite sides of the grotto, both around spots where the shale had been moved. I think it’s safe to assume more than one trunder camped out in this grotto. If I had to guess, I’d say all three.”
“They did come together,” offered Elodie. “And they flew away together, too.”
“Exactly! They stick together, kind of like a wolf pack.”
“Nayadu compared them to wolves when we were talking about them.”
“Which brings me to my next point. How many trunders did you say you and Nayadu ran from?”
Elodie closed her eyes. “Two. Just two. Come to think of it, I’m sure one of them was the black one. Nayadu must have torn that piece of its wing off, remember?”
Illo smacked her fist into her palm. “Right, right. I get it now. How many days ago was that?”
Elodie knew Illo already had the answer. “Six.”
“Six,” Illo repeated. “So the night you spent on this side of the river was the same night Bramble took Martin from the cottage. In other words, the same night he turned into a trunder. Now, I’ve never been poisoned and transformed, but I imagine it would take time for him to figure out how to be an animal.”
“Please don’t say it like that.”
“Sorry. Anyway, do you follow me?”
Elodie rubbed her forehead. “I think so. You’re saying Martin’s the third trunder. You think he found the others, or they found him, sometime during those six days.”
Illo nodded enthusiastically. “Six days is a long time. Don’t you think it’s possible that Martin found acceptance with creatures like him, and that in the span of six days he learned to move like them, eat like them, and even hunt like them?”
“But...that would mean Martin attacked us just like the rest of them. That can’t be! He wouldn’t.”
“Maybe he didn’t, though.” Illo grabbed Elodie’s hands. Her eyes were wide and bright. “What if I told you I know which trunder Martin is?”
“How can you?” Elodie couldn’t hide the hope in her voice.
“Think about it. When they trapped us in the cottage, which one clawed through the roof?”
“The black one.”
“And which one broke through the window?”
Elodie thought back. “The red one.”
“So...where was the brown one?”
“I saw it on the roof,” said Elodie, shaking her head. “It was fighting to get...oh, no. It wasn’t.”
Illo’s grin flashed. “And when they chas
ed us to Podgin’s house, which trunder grabbed Fella?”
Even Elodie was smiling now. “The black one.”
“And which one almost broke my leg?”
“The red one!”
“And where was the brown one?”
“Pulling them both away,” said Elodie. “Why didn’t I see that sooner? Poor Martin. He was trying to protect us the whole time. But can we be sure? What if we’re wrong?”
“We’re not,” said Illo. “There’s one more thing. On the day we found you, earlier that morning, a trunder came to the cottage. Only one. It was our brown friend. It didn’t attack me, it just...looked at me. That was the morning after Martin left. There’s no way it wasn’t him! He must have come back to the cottage for help, and I…oh.”
“What did you do?”
Illo cringed. “I may or may not have tried to shoot him. I didn’t know, honest! And I missed. Podgin slammed the door and scared me half to death. The trunder—Martin—ran away and didn’t come back until six days later.”
Elodie studied the grotto again. “Okay. So we know how many there are and which one Martin is. That’s only half the battle. Where are they now? Are they still together? How do we find them?”
“We could wait here and hope they come back, but that could take some time, and there’s more information we haven’t taken into account yet.”
“The blood.”
“Right, the blood. Let’s back up again. The biggest depression in the shale is right next to the boar. That’s also where I found this.” She held up the tuft of black fur. “If the black one lay there, then either the red one or Martin lay where the blood is.”
“But which one?”
Illo drummed her fingers on her knees for a minute. “The blood starts in the back,” she said slowly, “away from all the commotion by the boar, and then trails around this side of the pool and out the trench—or the other way around. Either way, whichever trunder shed blood didn’t join the pig feast. What good reason would a hungry trunder, fresh off a failed hunt, have for not taking easy food?”
Elodie hugged her knees. “I don’t like where this is going.”
Illo snapped her fingers in front of Elodie’s face. “Hey. Stay with me. He’s fine. It’s not a lot of blood, just a thin, broken trail. He has a flesh wound, at worst. It could be anything.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Elodie. “I guess we won’t know for sure until we find him.”
“Theoretically, no, but I’m confident. It all fits.” Illo stood. “What are we waiting for? Let’s track him down—I mean, let’s go find Martin. If I’m right, all we have to do is follow the blood trail.”
By that time, Elodie’s muscles had gone stiff. She stretched her legs and adjusted her belt. “I’m ready.”
Illo’s eyes were sharp, and since they knew what to look for, it wasn’t hard to follow the scattered drops of blood from the mouth of the trench northward. Then it stopped. Illo scoured the ground in all directions, but the trail simply ended.
“He took off flying,” said Elodie.
“Looks that way.” Illo touched the final bloodstain. “It’s dry. That’s time enough for a long head start.”
“Can we catch up to him?”
“If his injury plays in our favor, yes. Especially if...” her voice trailed off. “He was going north. We may find him yet. Let’s keep our noses busy—we don’t want to get caught by surprise.”
A hill gradually rose above them, dark and silent through the trees. The closer they got, the damper the forest grew. The sun inched below the trees in the west. They only had a few more hours of daylight.
Despite her excitement and energy, Illo’s limp was worse than when they left the cottage. Soon she was hopping more than walking.
Illo suddenly pointed. “Up ahead, look!”
The ground had been torn up in ragged chunks. Something big with sharp claws had riddled the earth with deep furrows.
“The trunders were here,” said Elodie. “Those claw marks. Nothing else could have made those. But what happened?”
Illo knelt to examine the broken ground. “Not trunders plural. Just one. Look at the claw patterns. Two front paws, see? That’s great news for us.” She moved past the stripes. “And look! More blood. This is where he came from.”
A trail had been broken through the forest. Saplings doubled over, the grass was trampled, and many of the low branches were bent back or broken. Illo ran her fingers over one of the crushed saplings. They came back covered in thick red goo.
She sniffed it and stuck out her tongue in disgust. “I don’t think he’s flying anymore. I wonder...” Once again, she left her thought unfinished. Her voice lost its giddy tone. “Come this way. I want to check something.”
They followed the fresh trail. At one point they lost it and ended up detouring through a tight clearing. As they hurried across to find the trail again, Elodie nearly fell down a cleft in the ground, hidden by leaves and roots. She jumped away in case anything grabbed her from the dark, but Illo chuckled.
“It’s just an empty den,” she said. “Badger, judging by the size. Those critters get big around here.”
Elodie nodded, edging away from the den. She was well familiar with badger sizes in the forest. Before long, Illo gave a yelp and limped forward. The trunder trail picked up in another patch of torn ground. Instead of precise claw marks, however, a wide swathe of leaves and dirt had been cleared.
“This is where it landed,” said Illo. “It crashed down through those trees. See where the branches have been parted? It was flying, but something made it come down in a hurry.” She worked her way around the crash area. “Something like this.” She picked an object from the leaves.
Elodie joined her. It was the feathered end of an arrow. The shaft was made of dark wood and the feathers were gray.
“It’s one of mine,” said Illo, a waver in her voice. “This is what I feared. I thought I missed when the trunders flew away from Podgin’s house, but apparently I was wrong.” Her face paled. “Elodie, I’m sorry. I think I shot Martin.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” said Elodie. “We don’t know any of this for sure. Not yet, anyways. If you can still walk, come back to the first clawed spot with me. I need to check something.”
They retraced their steps. Elodie noticed more blood along the way. There were paw prints, too, where the ground was soft. Back where they first found the torn ground, Elodie knelt in amid the gouges. She sifted through clumps of dirt until only the grass and petal shreds were left in her fingers.
A groan caught in her throat. “This isn’t grass, Illo. It’s clover.”
“And?”
“Remember the clover field I mentioned? Martin and I used to go there together. That field was one of my favorite places in the world. He used to tease me and say I spent so much time rolling around there that clover became part of my permanent aroma. This is the only place the trunder tore up on purpose. Here, in the clover. Now I’m convinced. It’s him!”
“So that’s it, then. I did shoot Martin.”
Elodie clasped Illo’s hands in her own. “But don’t you see? We know the truth now, and we’re so close to him. I can help him. I’ll go to him, and when he sees me he’ll remember me, and he’ll change back. I know it sounds silly, but what if? I have to try. I have to find him.”
Illo was silent for a long time. She eyed the hill above them. “He went up there,” she said at last. “Notice the loosened rocks and the torn moss. I doubt he was able to climb very far, since he’s hurt.”
“I think we can make it.” She made for the hill.
Illo stayed where she was. She gripped her bow tightly, and her lips pressed together.
“What’s wrong?”
“My leg. I didn’t want to admit it, but...it’s bad. I can’t climb terrain that steep and ragged.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I forgot all about that.”
“I’m fine,” said Illo. “Just go. I’ll find a tr
ee to hide in, one that I can haul myself into. I’ll wait for you down here. For both of you.”
“Sounds like a plan. Keep this,” she gave Illo the spear. “It’ll weigh me down. I’ll take the knife.” Elodie paused, then pulled Illo into a tight hug. “Be careful.”
“Please,” said Illo with a snort. “It’s not me I’m worried about. You make sure you don’t get eaten.”
“I don’t care what he looks or smells like on the outside,” said Elodie. “He’s no animal. He’s still my Martin, and I’m not afraid of him.”
With a final nod, Elodie set off alone. It took her several minutes to reach the foot of the hill. She peered over her shoulder, but Illo was gone.
Elodie let out a breath. “I’m on my own now.”
She began the long climb up the hill.
* * *
Wearier than he had ever felt before, Martin sought sleep in the cave. He lay between two hefty stones at the far back, where no light reached him, yet the arrow wound kept him awake. His strength ebbed with each passing minute. He wondered if he was slowly bleeding out. He strained to reach the arrow shaft, though he knew it was pointless. His head fell back, his body limp and shivering. Pain and darkness were his companions now. He had chosen this, and he would live with it. Things were as they should be.
At last, Martin’s body succumbed to exhaustion. He slept off and on, waking himself every time he shifted his weight, but some rest was better than none, and he welcomed it.
He woke a final time to find he had dragged himself halfway across the cave in his restless sleep. He shuffled forward just enough to peer outside. The sun sank somewhere behind the hill. Purple shadows washed the woods outside the cave. Something else was different, too. A warm breeze teased his nostrils, bringing with it a scent that made him scurry into the deepest corners of the cave. It was sweet clover and sweat and aching memories. Elodie was near.
* * *
Elodie made slow progress. The hill was even steeper than it looked from the bottom, covered in leaves, logs, and plenty of mossy stones for her feet to slip on. She had to climb some parts on her hands and knees.
Where the Woods Grow Wild Page 21
