The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root

by Christopher Pennell

  “There must be more stories,” said Green quickly, seeing how upset she was. “I’ll find them. I’ll look every chance I get. And maybe we missed something in one of the other stories, maybe there’s some clue, something that would tell us how to make the whistle root trees ring without the Crank.”

  Green pulled out the other two stories and they read them again but didn’t find anything new. They also kept checking on Green’s grandmother, who was very restless. They tried to wake her but nothing worked. And when it was very late, Green fell asleep and Carly sat on Granny Pitcher’s bed the rest of the night, held her hand, and spoke softly to calm her, just in case she could hear.

  An hour or so before sunrise, Carly woke Green and said that she should go. She started walking toward the fireplace.

  “Why don’t you use the front door?” said Green with a smile.

  Carly had imagined that there would be just a wall of dirt behind it. But when Green got up and opened the door, she saw a dark tunnel instead.

  “It leads to our garden in the woods,” he said. “Granny and I dug it out over the years. C’mon.” He grabbed two candles and lit them and handed one to Carly.

  The tunnel was tall enough that they could walk without stooping. But large tree roots poked through the dirt in the ceiling and walls, and Carly jumped every time one brushed against her.

  “So if this was never the Kingdom of Endroot, how do you think the whistle root trees got here?” she asked Green as they made their way through the dark passage.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But however they got here, they’ve been here a very long time. Granny told me they’re hundreds of years old. But even she didn’t know where they came from—or at least she never told me.”

  Carly suddenly thought of an answer. “The boy must have brought them!” she said. “The Moon King! He must have come here, somehow, after he got out of the dungeon! That’s how the rats know about him. They even have this old chair that Breeza Meezy told me was his. He must have planted the whistle root trees here just as his father had planted them in the Endroot!”

  They had stopped walking and stood facing each other in the dark tunnel.

  “That has to be it!” said Green.

  “But I guess knowing that doesn’t help us very much, does it?” said Carly. “It doesn’t tell us how to make the whistle root trees ring.”

  “True,” said Green. “But it’s still important.”

  They continued walking and finally reached the end of the tunnel. There was a ladder there. When Carly looked up, she saw a door in the ceiling above their heads.

  “This is where I found Granny,” said Green. “She was here at the bottom of the ladder. I had to pull her through the tunnel back to the cabin.” He climbed up the ladder and unlocked the door with a large old-fashioned key. He then pushed it open and Carly could suddenly see stars.

  Green climbed through the opening and Carly followed right behind him. She found herself in a small clearing in the woods. At first, it looked as if she was surrounded by weeds. But as she looked closer, she saw that it was a carefully disguised garden. There were no orderly rows of vegetables or pleasant little fences here. Everything was in disarray and planted without any sort of pattern that would attract attention. Someone could walk right through it and never even notice it was a garden at all.

  “Granny’s very secretive,” said Green, an explanation that was probably unnecessary given that they had just walked through a tunnel from a cabin hidden under a school to get here.

  Carly noticed the moonlight shining on the skin of a squash and felt as if her heart had stopped beating.

  Moonlight!

  “I have to go!” she told Green. “Do you know which way my neighborhood is?”

  Green thought for a moment.

  “It’s that way,” he said, and pointed east.

  “I’ll see you Monday at school,” she yelled, and took off running. She heard Green ask if something was wrong, but she didn’t have time to stop and answer him.

  She ran through the woods, desperate to reach her house. When she finally got there, and had climbed up the young oak tree onto her roof, she saw exactly what she had feared.

  The squash was there, as always, with the drum beside it. But now there was also an onion with a horn propped against it that wasn’t hers.

  A band had to have three members, and she hadn’t been there when Lewis came to her rooftop tonight. He had told her once that it would be a great embarrassment to have two vegetables in the band, but he had clearly done just that.

  How determined he must have been to play his fiddle, regardless of the danger. With the moon still in the night sky, Carly knew he’d be there yet, unless something had happened.

  Even as the owls swooped down on him, Lewis wouldn’t have stopped playing. And he must have held his fiddle tightly when they carried him away, for it was nowhere to be seen.

  Carly couldn’t stop the tears that were falling onto her cheeks and nose.

  Lewis was gone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TREE RINGS

  “HE WAS THE LAST MUSICIAN,” said Breeza Meezy when Carly told her about Lewis the next night. “There is no reason for us to stay in these woods any longer.”

  She told Carly that the scouts had found a new cave, far from the whistle root trees and on high enough ground that they would never have to worry about flooding again.

  Carly had come to see Breeza Meezy as soon as she had woken up. She couldn’t bear to stay in her room.

  She hadn’t even eaten the dinner her aunt had left for her. She hadn’t been hungry. She had only felt tired, something that she never felt at night.

  She missed Lewis terribly and had convinced herself that his death was her fault.

  He had told her he was coming to her rooftop. Why hadn’t she thought about him before leaving her room last night?

  “We should be ready to leave tomorrow,” said Breeza Meezy, interrupting her thoughts.

  “But how will you move the houses and tower?” asked Carly. She desperately wanted the rats to stay, but she couldn’t ask them to risk their lives any further.

  “We cannot,” said Breeza Meezy. “We’re leaving them here. We will fly to the new cave in daylight while the owls are sleeping.”

  Carly thought sadly of all the little homes sitting empty. She was about to say something else when a loud whistle broke through the air. A rat came running from the cave entrance toward the tower.

  “Your majesty,” he said to Breeza Meezy when he reached them. “We must prepare for an attack—I was standing guard just now—they’re coming from all directions!”

  “The owls?” asked Breeza Meezy. “They won’t be able to fly past the whistle root tree. We should be safe as long as we stay in the cave.”

  “No, your majesty,” said the rat. “Not the owls. I saw snakes, weasels, and foxes—more than I have ever seen before!”

  “What? You mean they’re all together?” asked Breeza Meezy in disbelief. “But they always hunt alone.”

  “Yes, your majesty, I don’t understand it!”

  “Get the other guards!” commanded Breeza Meezy. “Gather them in front of the cave! You must blow the whistle roots immediately. Go!”

  The rat ran through the village banging on doors. Other rats emerged and followed him. There were eight of them altogether, and they ran toward the entrance of the cave carrying their whistle roots.

  When they were outside, Carly heard one of them yell, “Now!” and the sudden blare of their whistles erupted like an explosion. The sound echoed through the cave, and Carly and the rats were thrown to the ground by the force of it. The houses and tower were shaking, and Carly feared they would break apart. Trying to block the sound was useless, but everyone had their hands over their ears. What else could they do? The terrible sound seemed to go on endlessly.

  When it finally stopped, everything was quiet. Carly didn’t know if the attack was over or if she had gone deaf
. But she soon heard voices coming from the front of the cave.

  “They’re still coming!”

  The guard came running back to the tower.

  “Your majesty,” he said. “It didn’t work!”

  “Impossible!” said Breeza Meezy. “The whistle roots have always worked before!” But she was already thinking of a new plan. “We have to get every rat out of the cave. We’ll fly away! It’s sooner than planned but we don’t have any choice.”

  “But your majesty,” said the guard. “The night’s perfectly still. There aren’t any breezes. There’s no way for us to fly!”

  “Is there another way out of the cave?” asked Carly.

  “No,” said Breeza Meezy. “There’s not.”

  “I can help . . .” Carly pulled out the whistle roots that she kept around her neck. She hadn’t been there to save Lewis, but she wasn’t about to let more of the rats be taken—although she didn’t feel as brave as she wished. “We’ll make it even louder this time,” she said.

  Breeza Meezy agreed and Carly ran with the guard to the front of the cave.

  The moon was in the sky. The other guards were standing in front of the whistle root tree and the creek was close by at their feet. And on the other side of the creek, the ground was alive with movement.

  Animals were everywhere, growling and hissing, their eyes shining hungrily in the moonlight. They were closer than Carly had thought they would be, and snakes were beginning to swim across the creek. Carly looked around and saw foxes and weasels on top of the rock wall behind them, already climbing down toward the cave.

  Animals were everywhere, growling and hissing, their eyes shining hungrily in the moonlight.

  “Now!” yelled one of the guards, and Carly raised the whistle roots to her mouth and blew into them as hard as she could.

  The sound was worse than it had ever been. Carly was immediately dizzy from the pain in her head and ears. The ground seemed to shake and she was afraid she’d be knocked down again. But she forced herself to stay on her feet.

  She kept blowing until there wasn’t any air left in her lungs. And when she stopped, she realized that the rats had stopped blowing as well. They were staring in terror at the snakes that were crawling out of the creek in front of them.

  The whistle roots hadn’t worked.

  “Get back in the cave!” she yelled to the rats. But as they turned to run, weasels entered the cave and several foxes stalked toward them. Carly and the rats backed up against the whistle root tree. There was no time to climb it. The animals would pounce on them as soon as they turned their backs.

  Carly panicked as she imagined being bitten. Her mind raced with worry about what was happening to the rats still in the cave, especially Breeza Meezy.

  “What’s that sound?” one of the rats asked suddenly.

  Carly listened. The animals were almost on them. The sound was faint, but it was growing stronger—it was bells!

  She looked up at the whistle root tree and saw its leaves swinging back and forth. Was this really happening? But Carly also noticed that none of the other whistle root trees were moving; it was only the one in front of the rats’ cave that was ringing.

  And then it stopped, just as quickly as it had started.

  “Look at the animals,” a rat said.

  Carly looked and saw that the animals seemed confused, as if they had woken up from a nap and found themselves surrounded by strangers.

  She had an idea and lifted her whistle roots to her mouth and began to blow again. This time, the animals reacted immediately. They ran and slithered away to escape the sound, and plunged across the creek and into the woods beyond.

  Carly ran into the cave, still blowing her whistle roots, and chased out every snake, weasel, and fox. She ran after them until they too were on the other side of the creek and she was certain they weren’t coming back.

  The attack was over and all of the rats in the cave had survived. They had locked themselves in their houses, and Breeza Meezy had sealed herself in her tower.

  “Begin preparations immediately,” commanded Breeza Meezy when all of the rats had been accounted for. “We leave at sunrise. The Moon Child has saved us, but it’s not safe to stay a moment longer.”

  Carly was about to explain that the whistle root tree had really saved them, but a rat spoke first asking, “How will we fly to the new cave if there aren’t any breezes?”

  “The breezes have already returned!” said another rat, who was standing near the cave entrance. Carly was standing there too, and she felt the breezes lifting her hair and twirling around her arms and legs, almost playfully.

  Moonlight glowed on her pale skin. The rats gathered at her feet, gazing up at her and making her feel like a giant. They were whispering. Carly could hear them saying “Moon Child.”

  She looked out at the whistle root tree and saw that its leaves were moving again. Her heart raced for a second, but she quickly realized it was only the breezes causing it this time.

  And when she looked up at the sky and saw the moon, she immediately thought of Lewis. She knew what he would be thinking if he were here.

  Despite the attack, despite the whistle root tree ringing, despite the plans to leave in the morning, he would have thought what he always thought, no matter what the circumstances.

  It was a perfect night for music.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NIGHT SOUNDS

  “THIS IS FROM YOUR UNCLE?” asked the substitute teacher when she looked at the note Green had handed her. He nodded. It was Monday morning and Carly’s teacher, Ms. Hankel, wasn’t there. Surprisingly though, Green was back in class.

  “And your uncle’s last name is Kunderskool?”

  “Yes.”

  “But your last name’s Pitcher . . . you don’t have the same last name?”

  “That happens sometimes with uncles.”

  The substitute stared at Green with a blank expression. “You know, I think I remember reading about you years ago in the newspaper. Wasn’t your grandmother that crazy old woman who wouldn’t leave her cabin when they wanted to build the school? What ever happened to her?”

  “She died,” said Green.

  “Oh,” the substitute said tactfully.

  “May I go back to my desk?”

  “Of course.”

  In her isolated corner of the room, Carly felt sick. Green’s grandmother . . . dead? How could that have happened?

  She tried to get Green’s attention, but he never looked in her direction. First Lewis and now . . .

  Carly felt her eyes closing and fought to keep them open. Not now! Green would think she didn’t care. How could she fall asleep after hearing that his grandmother had died? She pinched herself, shook her arms, and looked up at the air-conditioning vent, hoping to get a blast of cold air in her face. But ultimately, there was nothing she could do.

  Carly’s head landed on her desk with a gentle, defeated thump.

  “DOES SHE ALWAYS SLEEP LIKE this?” the substitute asked the class later that morning. She was clapping her hands and stomping her feet beside Carly’s desk.

  “Yes,” said Hetta. “She must be the laziest person in Whistle Root.”

  “She is not,” said Green. “She just can’t sleep at night.”

  “Oh, yeah . . . and that’s normal,” Hetta replied.

  When it was time for their study period, Green finally managed to wake Carly. And in the library, they chose a table away from the other students. They had just sat down when Hetta walked over.

  “Well, well, well . . .” she said. “What do we have here? Looks like something green and bitter to me.”

  “Go away, Hetta,” said Green.

  “Green and Bitters. Makes me think of an unripe nut. And speaking of nuts, Green, what were you saying about your grandmother?”

  “Stop it, Hetta!” said Carly. She looked anxiously at Green. How could Hetta be so cruel?

  “Or maybe it makes me think of roots,” continued Hett
a. “Like the ones you’re wearing around your neck, Bitters. Did you dig them out of the ground yourself? They look lovely.”

  Hetta laughed and walked away to join her friends at another table.

  Carly touched her whistle roots self-consciously and tucked them back inside her shirt.

  “Well, I like them,” said Green. “Especially since I know they could blow Hetta’s ears clear off her head.”

  Carly grinned. But her smile quickly faded and she told Green how sorry she was about his grandmother.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You told the substitute she died.”

  “Oh, well, most people think she died a long time ago,” said Green. “And Granny likes to keep it that way.”

  “So she’s not dead?” Carly felt relief sailing through her. “She’s okay?”

  “Well, she’s still asleep, but she’s not any worse. And I knew she’d be mad if I missed any more school, so . . . here I am.”

  “But what about the note from your uncle?”

  Green smiled.

  “I don’t really have an uncle,” he said. “Granny knew the school had to think I was living with someone, so she made him up.” He suddenly thought of something. “Hey, why did you run away so fast the other night?”

  Carly explained, and then told him everything that had happened since she’d last seen him.

  “So that’s what the kids were talking about,” said Green.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone was talking about the loud noise they heard coming from the woods last night. I think it even broke some windows. It must have been the whistle roots. I guess I couldn’t hear it down in the cabin. You’re really lucky you weren’t hurt, you know. A lot of snakes in the woods are poisonous. And I sure wouldn’t want to be bit by a weasel.”