Out of the Wild

by Sarah Beth Durst

  From the shoe box, the mice shouted, “Danger, danger!”

  “Small enough for you?” Grandma asked. Her frizzed hair seemed to sizzle. “We must pretend we’re the same as everyone else. People fear what’s different, and ordinary people outnumber us by the billions. I will not play those odds with my daughter and granddaughter’s safety!” Ouch—the implication was clear: Dad would endanger them. Julie wanted to protest, It’s not like Dad meant to put us in danger! But Grandma wasn’t finished. “All you do, all you’ve ever done, is complicate our lives. Ruin our happiness! Zel and I were happy in our tower until you came and stole her heart from me. I will not let you steal my happiness again!”

  “Mother!” Zel said.

  Abruptly, Gothel spun away. Julie saw her shoulders shaking. Oh, wow, was she crying? Grandma, the former wicked witch . . . No, she was shaking in anger. Wasn’t she?

  Leaning over the green pleather couch, Bobbi poked the shoe box with her wand. “Why do you have a talking box?” she asked, breaking the awful silence.

  Mom pounced on the shoe box, clearly eager to change the subject. “It’s the two blind mice.” She handed the box to the fairy godmother. “Would you look after them? You have experience with mice.”

  “Of course, the poor dears.” Lifting the lid, Bobbi clucked at them. “Don’t you worry your pretty furry heads.” She emptied the box into her enormous purse, and the mice squeaked as they tumbled in.

  “He will need a name,” Grandma said, her back still to them but her voice calm.

  “Julie has already selected a name for me,” the prince said, his voice soft now too. She had? Julie didn’t remember doing that. She ran back through her memory of their conversations. Had they talked about names? “She calls me ‘Dad.’”

  Julie smiled.

  Not charmed, Grandma snorted. “Mortimer? Ebenezer? Bubba?”

  Tentatively, Mom said to Dad, “You have a chance to invent yourself anew, to be more than the sum of your stories. It’s a marvelous opportunity.” She put a world of appeal into her eyes. Julie could read it as clearly as if Mom had said out loud: please.

  “You do not wish me to be myself,” he said. “But it is this self who came to you in your tower, this self who embraced your dream of freedom, this self who fought and sacrificed for you against the Wild, this self who loves you.” He touched her silken hair.

  Julie felt her own eyes fill with tears. Swallowing, she spoke up: “Can’t we just call him Prince? Like the rock star.”

  Mom nodded wordlessly as he twined his fingers through her hair.

  Grandma bustled behind the registration desk. Opening cabinets, she pulled out papers, pens, jars of crickets and eyeball-like grapes (or were they grape-like eyeballs? Julie knew better than to ask). She scooted aside a bowl of apples, and Bobbi plucked a MacIntosh from the top. She tossed it into the air.

  “I will not disguise my origins,” Prince said. “I am not ashamed of my past, and I will not hide who I am out of mere fear. I am the prince. I rescue damsels in distress—”

  Bobbi caught the apple mid-air. “Oh my goodness, the dwarves! The thorns! I forgot about Sleeping Beauty!”

  Dad paled. “A princess is in danger while we linger here?”

  “She’s not in danger,” Mom said. “She’s perfectly safe, asleep and hidden in one of the motel rooms. We’ll find a way to wake her soon.” Rose might be safe, Julie thought, but she was not going to be happy when she woke. Julie had heard that she never slept more than an hour at a time for fear of never waking up. When Rose discovered that she’d been trapped in her story again . . . Sleeping Beauty had one of the worst fairy tales of any heroine. She was exiled from her family at birth, lied to about her identity by the people who raised her, and then forced to spend the rest of her story comatose. Julie shuddered.

  “She fell asleep in the Wild, and no one woke her before the Wild was defeated,” Bobbi explained to Dad. “But that’s not really the problem. The problem is the thorns. They won’t stop growing. In her fairy tale, they’re supposed to grow into a barrier around her, but now that she’s out of the Wild . . .” Shrugging expressively, Bobbi tossed the apple from hand to hand. “Snow’s seven are here to keep the thorns at bay—and because of their experience with guarding inert women.”

  “Why does her prince not wake her?” Dad asked. His hand, Julie noticed, was on his sword hilt again. If there were a white stallion nearby, she bet he would be leaping on it right about now.

  “He said no,” Bobbi said. “He said he’s ‘moved on.’” Julie knew from Mom that that wasn’t all he’d said. He’d also said that he wouldn’t be responsible for making the Wild grow—fairy-tale moments enacted by real fairy-tale characters fueled the Wild an incredible amount even when they happened outside the Wild.

  “I am a prince,” Dad said. “I will wake her!” Spinning on his heels, he strode out of the lobby. The bells on the door jangled.

  “Wait!” Mom cried. She rushed out the door after Dad.

  “I told you,” Grandma said. “He’s trouble.” Dropping her magical supplies, she stalked around the registration desk. Hurrying after Gothel, Bobbi shook her back until her wings lay flat, and then she rewrapped her cloak around her shoulders. Under it, her wings looked like an ordinary bulge due to bad posture or old age.

  Outside, Julie spotted Sleeping Beauty’s motel room instantly. Thick brambles spilled out the window of room twenty-three and snaked up the door to encase the doorknob. A knot of thorns twisted over the rusted air conditioner.

  “Oops,” Bobbi said.

  Julie’s heart started to thud faster. It’s not the Wild, she told herself. These brambles were brown. The Wild was a bright, lush summer green. But the growing thorns looked enough like the Wild that she felt her palms begin to sweat.

  “This is not good,” Mom said. “Someone might see this!” She shot a look at the parking lot. Beyond the Vacancy sign, Julie saw cars whiz by on Main Street. So far, no one had noticed, but if the thorns grew much more . . . The last thing they needed was to draw attention to the Wishing Well Motel, the site of the magic wishing well.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Gothel growled at Bobbi, who was again tossing the apple from hand to hand.

  She caught the apple. “Hmm? Oh, I got distracted.” She waved a hand at Prince, who was poking at the brambles around the doorknob.

  “Do you have any gardening shears or . . .” Mom began to ask.

  Dad drew his sword out of the duffel bag. “Prince, no!” Mom said. He swung at the doorknob. Brambles shriveled away from the sword, retreating from the door. Mom ran forward and grabbed his arm. “Stop!” she shouted. “You can’t behave like you’re in a fairy tale! You’ll make the Wild grow! Please, Prince. Fairy-tale actions by real fairy-tale characters fuel the Wild more than anything else!”

  But it was too late. He was through the thorn barrier. He reached down with his free hand, twisted the doorknob, and pushed the door open.

  Had Dad fueled the Wild? How much had it grown? Had Julie lost her room? Her house? No, it couldn’t have grown that much. He’d only swung his sword a couple of times, and it was only a small patch of brambles. At worst, the Wild had expanded a few feet beyond her bed. They could easily trim it back.

  All of them quickly piled into the motel room. Grandma switched on the fluorescent bulb. Sickly green light flickered on, illuminating the peeling beige wallpaper and the well-worn orange shag carpet. A two-decade-old TV set perched on the chipped dresser. Faded photographs of Worcester landmarks decorated the wall. And Snow White’s seven dwarves lay curled up on the floor, sound asleep, axes beside them. They’d been caught inside the thorns’ spell. Seven voices snored in unison.

  In the center of the room, Julie saw a queen-sized bed with a tacky brown and green 1970s bedspread. In the bed lay a beautiful blonde woman. Her lips were slightly parted, as if waiting for a kiss. She was the only one not snoring. Dad strode toward her. Grandma planted herself firmly between Dad
and Sleeping Beauty. Red eyes flashing, she put her hands on her hips. “Let me pass, witch,” he said.

  Mom clung to his arm. “No, you can’t!” she said.

  Julie ran forward and grabbed Dad’s other arm. “Please, Dad! You’ll make the Wild grow! Listen to Mom!”

  “You will not let me save her?” Dad asked, confusion filling his face. “But I am still a hero even here in this strange world, am I not?”

  From the doorway, Bobbi the fairy godmother said, “We shall see.” She tossed the apple out the door, and she waved her wand at it. Sparkles flew, and the apple instantly ballooned. Tiny buds sprouted and grew into wheels. The peel split and rolled back to create windows and a door.

  “What are you doing?!” Gothel began to step away from the bed and then halted, eyes fixing back on Prince. “Don’t you move an inch.” She shook her finger at him.

  Bobbi reached into her oversized purse, drew out the two blind mice, and wiggled her wand at them. Growing, they leapt out of her hands. Their paws hit the ground with the clatter of hooves as they changed into two white horses.

  Releasing Prince, Zel rushed toward her. “Stop! You’ll draw more attention—”

  The fairy godmother smiled. “Sorry, but I don’t take orders from you anymore, Zel. But thank you for bringing the prince here.” What was she talking about? What did she mean, “thank you”? She waved her wand again, this time directly at Mom.

  Sparkles descended over her. With a pop, Mom shrank, zooming down toward the carpet. In an instant, an orange pumpkin sat on the floor. Julie screamed. “Mom!” She threw herself onto her knees beside the pumpkin.

  “You—” Grandma began.

  Quickly, Bobbi flashed her wand toward Gothel. In an instant, a second pumpkin lay on the motel room floor. “No! Grandma!” Julie cried. As Bobbi waved her wand for a third and final time, Julie dove down behind a sleeping dwarf.

  But the sparkles weren’t aimed at Julie.

  In a halo of golden glitter, the body of Sleeping Beauty rose into the air and sailed out of the motel room, over the two pumpkins and seven sleeping dwarves, and into the open door of the apple carriage. “There’s a damsel in distress,” Bobbi said to Dad. “If you’re truly a hero, you’ll come save her.” She tapped herself on the head with her wand and vanished.

  An instant later, the apple coach (drawn by two blind and tail-less horses and driven by the fairy godmother) dashed out of the parking lot in a clatter of hooves. Dad ran out of the motel room. Julie sprang to her feet. “Wait! Mom and Grandma—” Julie shouted, chasing after him.

  Dad raced to Mom’s car. He pulled on the door handles. It didn’t open; Mom had locked it. “Where are you going?” Julie called. “They’re pumpkins!” She pointed back toward the motel room, where the two pumpkins lay. “She turned Mom—your love!—into a pumpkin!”

  “She will be caught and punished!” he said as he ran to the motel lobby and flung open the door. He reappeared a second later with one of Grandma’s brooms in his hand.

  “Dad, stop!” Julie cried. What was he doing? She raced across the parking lot. As Dad jumped on the broomstick, Julie grabbed for him. She wasn’t strong enough to stop him or even slow him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, Julie did the only thing she could think of: She climbed on the broomstick behind him.

  He leaned forward, and they flew after the giant apple.

  Chapter Four

  The Big Apple

  Up ahead, the red apple coach zigzagged down Main Street, dodging cars and veering onto the sidewalk. Car horns blared as the blind and tail-less horses thundered by, faster than any ordinary horse could run. At Rapunzel’s Hair Salon, they turned right and shot down Church Street toward the highway.

  Julie clung to her father’s waist as they flew after the coach. “Dad, stop! We have to go back! Mom and Grandma are pumpkins!”

  “Do not fear!” Dad shouted. “I will catch the villain!”

  No, no, no, they had to turn around right now! Mom needed them! “Your true love is a fruit! We have to help her!” She saw the green sign for the entrance to Route 290. “Not the highway! Dad, please, turn around!”

  “Rapunzel will be herself again when the clock strikes midnight,” Dad said. “And I will be there to present her with her enemy! She will know then that I am still her hero!” He flew over the highway.

  An eighteen-wheeler rumbled by below, and a gust of wind slammed up into Dad and Julie. Dad fought to control the broomstick, and Julie shrieked as they flipped upside down. Her coat flopped over her face. Blood rushed to her head. Above them, cars streaked by. Below them, the sky opened wide and blue.

  “Lean left!” he shouted.

  She leaned, and Dad jerked the handle of the broomstick sideways. They spiraled. Oh, I’m going to throw up! Julie thought. She gritted her teeth together as they spun to face the ground, the sky, the ground, the sky. . . . He wrestled the broomstick until they steadied, finally upright again.

  Dad leaned forward, and the broomstick sped up. The apple coach now (impossibly) raced down the highway at twice the speed of any vehicle on the road. Looking like a spherical race car, it wove between cars and trucks as they whizzed past Boylston, Shrewsbury, and then Worcester.

  “Please, please, please, stop!” she begged.

  He didn’t.

  He yanked the broomstick to the right, and they zoomed over an exit ramp. Up ahead, she saw the apple coach zip through a tollbooth so fast that the toll collectors must have thought they’d imagined it. A few seconds later, Dad and Julie flew over the tollbooth and zoomed over the Mass Pike. At exit 9, the coach sped through another toll booth.

  This was ridiculous. This was beyond stupid. What were they doing?

  Entering Connecticut.

  What? Did that sign just say they’d entered another state? “Dad, please!” How many people must have seen them between the Wishing Well Motel and here? When Mom found out they’d chased a magic coach at super-speed down multiple major highways in broad daylight . . . “We have to go back! Mom would want us to go back!”

  “Rapunzel does not need me now,” he said. “I can serve her best by doing what I do best: rescuing princesses.”

  This was a big mistake. A huge mistake. A massive misunderstanding. There had to be an explanation for why Bobbi had changed Mom and Grandma into pumpkins and taken Sleeping Beauty. There had to be a good explanation. “She’s the fairy godmother, not a kidnapper,” Julie said. “If you just turn around and help Mom change back into herself, she’ll sort everything out!”

  “If we stop now, we will lose the apple,” Dad said. “I must restore Rapunzel’s friend! I must right this wrong!” He increased their speed to that of a small plane. Below, the leafless tress blurred into a sea of brown. Houses, towns, and strip malls flashed by. Wind whooshed in Julie’s ears until it sounded like a steady hum, and she shivered within her coat. But still, the apple coach outpaced them, always just at the horizon.

  As the exits counted down, Julie saw the blocky silhouettes of smokestacks, construction cranes, and enormous oil tanks. Beyond them, she saw the blue of the Long Island Sound. She wished she’d stayed at the motel. If she hadn’t jumped on the broomstick with Dad, maybe she could have found a way to break the pumpkin spell before midnight. At the very least, she could have made sure Mom and Grandma were safe until the clock struck twelve. She’d left them on the floor of the motel room with the door wide open.

  Just before the Sound, Dad dove toward an underpass. “Watch for trolls!” Dad cried. “They live under bridges!” Trolls? What about trucks and vans and cars and SUVs and . . . Julie squeezed her eyes shut as they zipped under the bridge. She heard horns honk and smelled car exhaust. When she opened them again, they were flying west. Was he ever going to stop? Or was he just going to keep flying until they hit California? She resumed trying to convince Dad to turn around, bringing up every argument she could think of, pleading with him, even ordering him. But he ignored her.

  “She heads for th
e pinnacles!” he shouted, interrupting her.

  Pinnacles? She leaned to see around Dad.

  Skyscrapers. New York City. “Dad, no!” How many zillion people would see them in Manhattan? Why wouldn’t he listen? He was supposed to listen to her! He was her father!

  “Hang on!” he cried as they flew into the heart of New York.

  They whipped through canyons of glass and steel and concrete. Wind whistled past Julie’s ears. Below, the red apple zigzagged between yellow taxicabs. Dad urged the broomstick faster.

  Suddenly, the coach darted down a side street. Dad yanked on the broomstick handle, and the broom fishtailed as they turned. Julie shrieked, and the bristles slapped the corner of a brick building. But Dad merely leaned forward and shot down the street.

  The apple coach was a full block ahead of them.

  It turned down another street. And another. With each turn, by the time Julie and Dad rounded the corner, the apple coach was farther ahead. Impossible! It had taxis and cars and pedestrians to weave between. How could it be outdistancing them? They turned another corner in time to see the apple disappear down the next street.

  “Faster!” Dad yelled to the broom as they rounded a corner and flew into the heart of Times Square. Neon bombarded them on all sides: swirls of blue and white, dancing green numbers, starbursts of silver. “Witchcraft!” he shouted as green neon cascaded in front of them. “Giants!” Dad cried as he veered around a billboard with a thirty-foot photo of a pouty-faced woman in jeans. The broomstick bucked as Dad dodged the lights and signs.

  Below, horns blared. Clinging to Dad’s waist, Julie looked for the apple coach. Where was it? Had it already turned down another side street? Had they lost it? Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a splash of red on the street below. But in seconds, they were blocks beyond it.

  Had she seen the coach? Should she tell Dad? If she didn’t tell him, maybe he’d give up and go home.

  Or maybe he would just keep flying forever.

  “Dad!” She thumped his shoulder. “I think I saw it behind us!”