by Colin Meloy
Pulling her messenger bag from beneath her desk, she upended it and dumped everything out onto the floor: her science book, a spiral notebook, and a clutch of ballpoint pens. She grabbed the flashlight she kept under her bed and took the Swiss Army knife her dad had bought her for her twelfth birthday from her desk drawer and stuck them in the bottom of the bag. She stood for a moment in the middle of her room and chewed on a fingernail. What did one pack for a trip into an impassable wilderness to retrieve one’s brother? She would get food from the pantry in the morning. For now, all she needed to do was wait. She thumped back down on her bed, pulled The Sibley Guide to Birds from inside her peacoat, and flipped through the pages, trying to clear her mind of the frantic thoughts that were racing through her head.
After an hour or so, she heard her parents walk up the stairs, and her heart started pounding again. There was a knock at her door.
“Mm-hmm?” she said, again feigning nonchalance. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to keep this act up, all this nonchalance-feigning. It was exhausting work.
Her dad cracked the door and peeked in. “G’night, sweetheart,” he said. Her mom added, “Don’t be up too late.”
“Uh-huh,” said Prue. She turned and smiled at them, and they closed the door.
Prue frowned as she heard their footsteps on the hardwood floor, moving toward her brother’s room. The sound of Mac’s door creaking open sounded like a peal of thunder to Prue’s hyperattentive ears, and her breath caught in her throat. Thinking quickly, Prue leapt from her bed and ran to her door, peeking her head out from around the jamb. “Hey, Mom? Dad?” she whispered loudly.
“What’s that?” said her father, his hand on the doorknob. The light from Mac’s night-light spilled into the hall.
“I think he’s really wiped out. Maybe try not to wake him?”
Her mom smiled and nodded. “Sure thing,” she said, before poking her head into Mac’s room and saying quietly, “Good night, Macky.”
“Sweet dreams,” whispered her father.
The door creaked shut, and Prue smiled at her parents as they passed her on the way to their bedroom. Seeing the door close behind them, she returned to her bed and let out her breath. It emerged from her chest as if she’d held it in all day long.
That night, Prue slept restlessly, her sleep fraught with dreams of great flocks of giant birds—owls, eagles, and ravens—in dazzling plumage, swooping down and carrying away her father and mother and leaving Prue alone in their emptied house. She had set her alarm for five a.m. but had been awake for a while when it finally went off. She rolled out of bed, careful not to make too much noise. The house was silent. The world was still dark outside and the neighborhood had yet to wake up, the only sound being the occasional car whispering past the house. Prue slipped into her jeans and threw on a shirt and a sweater. Her peacoat was still draped over her desk chair from the night before, and she cinched a scarf around her neck before putting on the coat. She wiggled her feet into her black sneakers and padded out into the hall. She put her ear to her parents’ door and listened for the sawing snore of her father. Her parents were fast asleep. She figured she had an hour before they would be up, which would be plenty of time to make her escape. She walked down to her brother’s room and pulled the stuffed animal from his crib and upset the blankets; she picked a set of warm clothes from Mac’s red chest of drawers and stuffed them into her messenger bag. Tiptoeing downstairs, Prue wrote a hasty note on the dry-erase board by the refrigerator:
Mom, Dad:
Mac was up early. Wanted to go adventuring.
Back later!
Love, Prue
She opened the pantry and puzzled over the potential rations she might bring along, settling on a handful of granola bars and a bag of gorp left over from the summer’s last camping trip. By the camping staples was the family’s emergency first aid kit, and Prue slipped the plastic case into her bag. An air horn, a kind of canister with a plastic belled horn on the top, caught her attention, and she picked it up, inspecting it. A picture of a menacing grizzly bear graced the label. The words BEAR-BE-GONE made an arc in the air above him. Apparently the noise was loud enough to scare away wildlife, something she imagined would come in handy in an impassable wilderness. She dropped it into the messenger bag and scanned the kitchen before slipping out the back door to the yard. The air was brittle and cold, and a slight breeze disturbed the yellowing leaves in the oak trees. Prue pushed her bike, the Radio Flyer wagon still attached, quietly out into the street. The first glimmers of dawn could be seen to the distant east, but the streetlights still illuminated the leafy sidewalks as Prue pushed her bike a safe distance from her house before climbing on. The scarf her mother had knit for her the prior winter clung snugly to her neck as she gained speed over the pavement, heading southwest through the streets and alleys. Lights in the houses began flickering on, and the hum of cars on the streets grew as the neighborhood awoke to the morning.
Following the path of her pursuit the day before, Prue made her way through the park to the bluff, the wagon jumping and clattering behind her. A heavy mist hung over the river basin, obscuring the water completely. The lights of the Wastes on the far banks of the river flashed under the cloud. An inscrutable clanking noise was carried across the wide trough of the river, echoing off the cliff walls of the bluffs. It sounded to Prue like the grinding gears of a giant’s wristwatch. The only thing beyond the bluff that was exposed above the bank of clouds was the imposing iron lattice of the Railroad Bridge. It seemed to float, unmoored, on the river mist. Prue dismounted her bike and walked it south along the bluff toward an area where the cliff side sloped down into the clouds. The world around her dimmed to white as she descended.
When the ground below Prue’s feet finally evened out, she found she was standing in an alien landscape. The mist clung to everything, casting the world in a ghostly sheen. A slight wind was buffeting through the gorge, and the mist occasionally shifted to reveal the distant shapes of desiccated, wind-blown trees. The ground was covered in a dead yellow grass. Just beyond a line of trees, a span of railroad tracks carved a straight line east to west, disappearing into the haze on either end. Assuming the tracks would lead over the bridge, Prue began following them westward.
Ahead, the mists lifted, and she could see the spires of the Railroad Bridge. As she made her way toward it, she suddenly heard the sound of footsteps in the gravel behind her. She froze. After a moment, she cautiously looked over her shoulder. There was no one there. She had turned and kept walking when she heard the sound again.
“Who’s there?” she shouted, searching the area behind her. There was no response. The railroad tracks, flanked by the line of strange, squat trees, disappeared into the mist; there was no sign of a pursuer.
Prue took a deep, shuddering breath and began walking faster toward the bridge. Suddenly, the footsteps sounded again unmistakably, and she spun around in time to see a figure dart off the tracks and through a gap between two of the trees. Without thinking, she dropped her bike to the ground and gave chase, her shoes sending up a small plume of gravel as she took the corner into the trees.
“Stop!” she yelled. She could now see the person through the mist—it was rather short and wore a heavy winter coat. A stocking cap was pulled down over the figure’s head, obscuring his face. When Prue yelled, the person momentarily looked behind him—and slipped in a patch of loose dirt, slamming shoulder-first into the ground with a hoarse yell of surprise.
Prue dove onto the prostrate form of her pursuer and yanked the figure’s stocking cap away. She gave a startled cry.
“Curtis!” she yelled.
“Hi, Prue,” said Curtis, out of breath. He squirmed underneath her. “Can you get off of me? Your knee is really pushing into my stomach.”
“No way,” said Prue, regaining her composure. “Not till you tell me why you were following me.”
Curtis sighed. “I w-wasn’t! Really!”
She jamm
ed her knee farther into his ribs, and Curtis let out a cry. “Okay! Okay!” he shouted, his voice quavering on the edge of crying. “I was up early taking the recycling out and I happened to see you riding by and I just wondered where you were going! I heard you talking to yourself last night about your brother and how you were going to get him, and then I saw you leave your house so early this morning and I figured something had to be up, and I just couldn’t help myself!”
“What do you know about my brother?” Prue asked.
“Nothing!” said Curtis, sniffling. “I just know he’s . . . he’s missing.” He blushed a little. “Also, I don’t know who you were trying to fool with that wet blanket in the wagon.”
Prue released the pressure on his ribs, and Curtis let out a breath of air.
“You scared the crap out of me,” said Prue. She stepped off his body, and Curtis sat up, dusting off his pants.
“Sorry, Prue,” said Curtis. “I didn’t really mean anything by it, I was just curious.”
“Well, don’t be,” said Prue. She stood up and began to walk away. “This is none of your business. This is my mess to deal with.”
Curtis scrambled to his feet. “L-let me come with you!” he shouted, following after her.
Back at the railroad tracks, Prue pulled her bike up from the gravel and started walking it toward the bridge. “No, Curtis,” she said. “Go home!” The riverbank sloped in toward the first abutment of the bridge, creating a kind of peninsula, and the track followed a gentle slope to meet the lattice of the bridge. Prue led her bike up the middle of the tracks while she balanced on the rail. As she climbed, the mists began to clear to reveal the first spire of the bridge. The spires housed the pulley mechanism that lifted the middle section when taller boats crossed under it, and they were topped with flashing red beacons. Prue breathed a sigh of relief to see that the lift span was down, allowing her to cross.
“Aren’t you worried that a train’s going to come?” asked Curtis, behind her.
“No,” said Prue, though in truth it was one thing she hadn’t really considered. Between the track and the truss of the bridge there was barely three feet of space, and the loose gravel was not too friendly to pedestrian traffic. As she arrived at the middle section of the bridge, she looked over the edge and gulped. The mist sat heavily on the river basin and created a floor of clouds that hid the water below, giving the illusion that the bridge sat at a tremendous height, like one of those delicate rope bridges spanning some cloudy Peruvian chasm Prue had seen in National Geographic magazine.
“I’m a little worried that a train’s going to come,” admitted Curtis. He was standing beneath one of the spires in the middle of the track.
Prue stopped, leaned her bike against the bridge truss, and picked up a rock from the gravel bed. “Don’t make me do this, Curtis,” she said.
“Do what?”
Prue threw the rock, and Curtis leapt out of the way, nearly tripping on the rail of the track.
“What’d you do that for?” he yelled, couching his head in his hands.
“’Cause you’re being stupid and you’re following me and I told you not to. That’s why.” She bent down and selected another rock, this one sharper and bigger than the previous one. She juggled it in her hand as if gauging the weight.
“C’mon, Prue,” Curtis said, “let me help you! I’m a good helper. My dad was den leader of my cousin’s Webelos group.” He let his hands fall from his head. “I even brought my cousin’s bowie knife.” He patted the pocket of his coat and smiled sheepishly.
Prue threw the second rock and swore as it glanced off the ground in front of Curtis, missing his feet by inches. Curtis yelped and danced out of the way.
“Go HOME, Curtis!” Prue shouted. She crouched down and selected another rock but paused as she felt the ground give a sudden tremble below her. The rocks began to clatter in place as the bridge gave a long, quaking shudder. She looked up at Curtis, who was frozen in place in the center of the track. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, as the trembling began to grow stronger, the steel girders of the truss lowing in complaint.
“TRAIN!” shouted Prue.
CHAPTER 4
The Crossing
From the quick glance that Prue was afforded of the train, she could tell it was not a long one, but it was moving at a fairly steady pace, puffing up the incline of the hill they had climbed minutes before. She turned and bolted for her bike, lifting it from where it rested against the side of the bridge and tossing it between the rails of the track. She vaulted the seat and jammed down on the pedals, sending the back tire into a free spin against the loose rock between the railroad ties.
“Wait for me!” screamed Curtis from behind her.
The metal of the bridge was now heaving and rattling under the weight of the oncoming locomotive. Prue was already in motion and threw a fast glance over her shoulder to measure the distance between her bike and the train. Backdropped by the ominous iron face of the train bursting through the mist, Curtis was running toward her, his arms swinging in frantic arcs. The bike frame jolted with every wooden tie she crossed, and she had to keep a studied eye on the space in front of her in order to keep the bike upright on the unsteady ground. The Radio Flyer in tow hopped from tie to tie, threatening to upend at each pedal. “Jump in the back!” shouted Prue over the deafening hiss of the train.
“I can’t! You’re moving too fast!” shouted Curtis.
Prue swore under her breath and pumped the handle brakes, her back tire fishtailing in the gravel. The train, now reaching the middle section of the bridge, let out a staccato burst of whistle, the tracks audibly groaning under its weight. Curtis dove for the Radio Flyer and let out a bone-numbing “OOF!” as his body met the metal floor of the wagon. He grasped the sides of the wagon and hollered, “Go!” and Prue was off, peeling a wake of shale from the track and firing down the far side of the bridge.
On the other side of the bridge, the tracks split into a Y at a dense, deep green bank of trees. Prue was picking up speed on the gradual incline as the end of the bridge came into view, and her bike leapt and kicked against the pounding of the tires on the ties. The wagon, now freighted with Curtis’s writhing body, held to the ground much better, though Prue was panting to keep her momentum up. The train was getting louder behind them. She couldn’t bring herself to steal a glance to mark its progress; her eyes were intent on the far side of the river.
“Hold on, Curtis!” she shouted over the din as she reached the spot where the tracks split and angled away from the bridge in either direction. She shoved her right foot down on the pedal and hopped her front wheel over the track, sending the bike over the rail and into the deep, loose gravel of the ditch that fell away from the track at the bridge’s end. The back tire and the wagon followed quickly after, and the whole bike pitched forward in a violent spasm, sending both occupants over the handlebars and into a dry bed of scrub brush on the other side of the ditch. The train went screaming by, the steel rails wailing under the weight of the train as the engine rolled southward into the bank of clouds.
Prue lay flattened against the cold ground, rapidly panting. Her every limb felt charged with electricity. She pushed herself onto her knees and spat, wiping a smear of mud from her cheek. She looked around her; she was sitting in a shallow culvert in a drab field of dead grass. Just beyond stood the Industrial Wastes, a bizarre and imposing neighborhood of windowless buildings and silos; beyond that lay the first rise of a steep hill, blanketed thickly with a dizzying retinue of towering trees. They were on the borderlands of the Impassable Wilderness. She shuddered. A grumble issued from the bed of grass beside her, and she looked over to see Curtis struggling to his knees, the red Radio Flyer wagon obstinately clinging to his back like a turtle’s shell. He threw it off and rubbed at the nape of his neck.
“Ow,” he said. He looked at Prue mournfully and repeated, “Ow.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have followed me, then,” said Prue, bringing hersel
f to her feet. The wreckage of the bike and wagon lay in a crumpled mess next to them. Prue grunted as she pulled the frame of her bike from the grasp of the culvert’s sticker bushes and studied the remains: Most of the bike had withstood the impact well enough, but the front wheel was irretrievably bent, its twisted spokes jutting from the rim at desperate angles.
Cursing loudly, she dropped the bike and kicked at a clump of thistles, sending up a spray of dirt.
Curtis was sitting cross-legged, marveling at the bridge behind them. “I can’t believe we made it,” he wheezed. “We outran that train.”
Prue was not listening. She was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at the twisted remnants of her front bike wheel, her brow deeply furrowed. She’d worked all summer on tuning up the bike. The front rim, now disfigured beyond repair, had been practically brand-new. Her mission was clearly not getting off to a very good start.
“We did pretty well back there,” Curtis was saying. “I mean, we worked together really well. You were riding the bike and I was . . . on the wagon.” He laughed as he massaged his temples with his fingers. “We were like partners, huh?”
Prue’s messenger bag had been thrown to the ground during the crash, and she stooped and picked it up, fitting the strap over her shoulder. “Bye, Curtis,” she said. Leaving behind the bike and the wagon, she began walking through the Wastes toward the steep hill of trees.
The tawny field of dried and burned grass led into the tight grid of the mysterious buildings. Some appeared to be warehouses, paneled in corrugated metal, while others had the aspect of massive boxy silos and had doors at wild heights that seemed to open to nowhere and yards of metal ducting snaking out of them, leading to their neighboring buildings. A few of the buildings had windows that glowed and flickered red, as if great fires were raging within them. All along, this “city” rang with an insistent metallic clanging and the gaseous belching of smokestacks, giving it the strangest appearance of being completely abandoned yet perfectly active. Far off, the grunts and shouts of stevedores, their bodies lost to the low-lying mist, rang from the metal walls. As Prue walked, she cast her eyes about her; no one she knew had ever ventured here before. So soon in her journey, she already felt like the first explorer of some alien world. The fog continued to dissipate. Recessed in the grid of the gravel-paved avenues was a gray stone mansion, its mossy roof topped by a clock tower. A bell tolled the hour; Prue counted six bells.
