The Poison Jungle

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “As soft as a SapWing,” Sundew finished, sticking her tongue out at Willow.

  “Aw, you can be soft,” Cricket said to Bumblebee, still in her googly voice. The dragonet was curled in her arms now, preening and purring like a baby jaguar. “You don’t have to be mean and scary, no you don’t. You won’t be like the other HiveWings. You’re too cute and you have your own brain, don’t you?”

  “Snubble flump,” Bumblebee agreed, let out an enormous yawn, and drooped into Cricket’s shoulder with her eyes closing.

  “Blech,” Nettle grumbled. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “So sorry I didn’t manage to die for you,” Sundew said.

  She realized that Willow was lying down beside her, twining her tail around Sundew’s and resting her wing across Sundew’s back. “You scared me half to death,” Willow said softly in Sundew’s ear. “Are you all right? Can you please promise me you’ll never die?”

  “Yes,” Sundew said, nudging her with her snout. “I promise.” She was relieved to see that Willow wasn’t still upset about their argument on the other side of the lake. It was scarier than a tsetse fly to think that Willow might see Sundew differently once they were around other dragons … that she might think Sundew was just another Nettle. But that wasn’t what she saw in Willow’s eyes. She saw herself, loved, just the way she was.

  Nettle frowned down at Sundew and Willow, then turned and kicked Mandrake’s ankle.

  “Ow!” he protested. “I mean — uh, I’m glad you’re alive, Sundew.”

  “Thanks,” Sundew mumbled. “Just going to rest for a moment.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with Willow’s scent and her mind with the murmurs of plants who weren’t trying to murder her, at least not right that second. There were orchids nearby, each vying to be the most beautiful. She found the roots of sun lilies not far below the soil and quietly sang one up to the surface so it would peek through right between Willow’s front claws. Sundew didn’t have to open her eyes to feel Willow smiling.

  “I nearly got eaten, too,” Nettle complained, “and I didn’t require a nap afterward.”

  With a sigh, Sundew pushed herself to her feet. Nettle was the worst, but it was true that they didn’t have time to rest any longer. The sun had passed the midway point of the sky, and if Cricket and Queen Sequoia were right, the HiveWing army was almost certainly on its way.

  Willow leaned over her shoulder as Sundew unrolled the map again. Nettle shoved Mandrake so he stumbled into Sundew’s other side.

  “This is where the map gets extra unhelpful,” Sundew said, reaching out her wing to help him catch his balance. “I mean, what are all these small squiggly lines from here to the Eye?”

  “They look like snakes,” Mandrake offered. “Um. Someone tell me I’m wrong.”

  “They do look like snakes,” Willow said.

  “That’s fine,” Nettle scoffed. “I’ve killed hundreds of snakes. No problem.”

  “But … all at once?” Mandrake asked. “I mean … this whole section of the map is just … snakes. If those are snakes. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re very tiny rivers.”

  “It looks like there are words here,” Cricket said, crouching closer to the leaf and squinting at it.

  “You’re right.” Willow held the leaf up to the faint sunlight, and they all tried to read the miniature letters carved between the squiggle shapes.

  “Does it say tiny rivers?” Mandrake asked hopefully.

  “Den?” Cricket guessed. “Den … of …”

  “Vipers,” Sundew said. A shiver ran down her spine that felt like the sinister glee of a plant about to feast. “The last section of the jungle standing between us and the Eye is called the Den of Vipers.”

  Sundew couldn’t tell whether the jungle had gotten darker because the sun was starting to go down, or because the tree canopy was denser here and there was less room to maneuver, or because it felt like beady eyes were watching them from every tree. They had been walking (clambering, squelching, slogging) for a long time since crossing the lake and still hadn’t run into any snakes.

  “You are all ridiculous,” Nettle declared, shoving her way past Sundew as they climbed over a fallen tree. “Snakes are not scary.”

  “Nettle, you are very welcome to kill all the vipers for us,” Mandrake said in exasperation.

  “Do you think they’re dragonbite vipers?” Cricket asked anxiously. “I read that those can kill one of us with a single bite. Have any of you ever seen one? I’ve never seen one. We don’t exactly get a lot of snakes in the Hives. Not even in the greenhouses. I saw some little snakes in a pet shop in the market. Do LeafWings have pets?”

  “Yes,” said Willow at the same time as Sundew said, “No.”

  They glanced at each other. “SapWings do,” Sundew added with a shrug.

  “PoisonWings don’t,” Willow agreed.

  “We’re not PoisonWings!” Sundew objected for the millionth time. “That really makes us sound like the bad guys!”

  “I’ll stop if you stop,” Willow offered. “I mean, SapWings sounds like a tribe that drips around sticking to everything.”

  Cricket giggled and Sundew smothered her own laugh. “All right, truce,” she said.

  “LeafWings,” said Willow. “We’re both LeafWings.”

  “But only the drippy sticky half of us have pets,” Sundew pointed out. She ducked away from Willow swatting at her and thought she saw something dart by under the leaves. Something long and gold and black and green.

  She froze, staring at the ground as the others kept walking.

  But now the leaves were still. She didn’t see any sign of whatever had moved. Maybe she had imagined it, as nervous as she was.

  She hurried to catch up to her friends.

  “I have a cockatoo,” Willow was saying to Cricket. “Her name is Talkatoo and she’s the smartest bird in the world SUNDEW STOP LAUGHING AT ME.” She shoved Sundew’s shoulder affectionately. “I was only a little older than Bumblebee when I named her! I’d like to see you come up with a better name at that age!”

  “Wordibird,” Bumblebee said sleepily from her sling, and Cricket laughed again.

  “Could you keep the racket down back there?” Nettle shouted from up ahead.

  They fell silent for a moment, navigating an uphill slope covered in ferns and moss-covered rocks and death cap mushrooms. Sundew glanced up at the looming trees. She’d never felt trees loom like this before. Even with her leafspeak, she couldn’t connect well with them. These trees grumbled and muttered; they were unhappy about something that had gone on long enough to register even with them. But they couldn’t articulate it — of course they couldn’t, trees almost never could. They could only radiate discontent and gloom.

  “Is it me,” Cricket whispered, “or is it a lot quieter all of a sudden?”

  Willow and Sundew both stopped beside her and listened.

  Cricket was right. The constant chirping of cicadas and grasshoppers had fallen silent. There was no sound of monkeys swinging above them or calling across the jungle. Sundew couldn’t even hear any birds. The wind rustled the branches overhead; that was all.

  Sundew was searching the treetops for any birds, when she saw the first dragonbite viper’s head. She looked past it twice at first, because it was perfectly still. But the third time, something about the smooth, serpentine shape caught her eye.

  The head was poking up out of a cluster of green weeds only a few steps from Willow. It was, most definitely, the head of a viper, attached to the rest of the body of a viper, as far as Sundew could see … but it was not moving. It seemed frozen there, like a statue of a snake.

  She noticed that Mandrake and Nettle had fallen silent, too, and stopped where they were, at the top of the slope. They both had their eyes fixed on something near their feet, and Mandrake looked close to fainting.

  “That is really weird,” Willow said, answering Cricket’s question. She clearly hadn’t see
n the snake. With a shrug, she stepped forward, and Sundew reached to pull her away from the viper — but it still didn’t move.

  “Willow,” she whispered, poking her tail. “To your left. Ominous paralyzed viper or something.”

  Willow saw it and started back in alarm. But it still didn’t move.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Cricket whispered. “Can’t it see us? Is it dead?”

  “No,” Sundew whispered as the snake’s tongue slithered out, tasted the air, and slithered back in. Its lidless bright yellow eyes seemed to be staring right at them. But when they edged forward together, its eyes didn’t follow. It stared directly into space, head raised, completely still except for its tongue.

  “Should we try to kill it?” Sundew asked quietly as they stepped forward, keeping their gaze on it.

  “That might wake it up,” Willow whispered. “I say as long as it’s not moving, don’t touch it. Let’s just get away from it.”

  They moved softly but quickly up the hill, staying on the rocks and away from the long weeds as much as they could.

  Another snake was poised near the top, staring at Nettle and Mandrake. This one was coiled around a thorny shrub, its green-and-black head jutting out into the air like an extra-creepy branch.

  “Has it moved?” Sundew whispered from a boulder behind them.

  “Not yet,” Mandrake answered through his teeth. “But neither have we.”

  “See if you can slide away,” Sundew suggested. “We saw one below that stared at us but didn’t attack. Maybe this one is frozen in place, too.”

  “I should wring its neck,” Nettle growled. But she didn’t make a move toward it, and after another moment, Mandrake cautiously sidled a step away, and then another.

  The snake’s tongue flickered in and out, but it stayed poised in place, enormous yellow eyes glaring. Sundew guessed it was as long as a dragon, if you straightened out all its coils.

  “Let’s go,” Willow whispered. “Watch where you step.”

  She led the way as they paced single file with careful steps along the ridge of the hill and down the other side. Sundew kept her wings tucked in close and her tail lifted off the ground. Each time her talons came down on a slick of wet leaves, she expected to see a blur of motion and feel fangs sinking into her ankle.

  “There,” Cricket breathed, inclining her head to the left.

  Two more snakes were looped around the branches of a tree with their heads reaching toward the path, staring and still.

  “Over here, too.” Mandrake flicked his tail slightly. They were passing a patch of tangled ivy, vines, and long grass that appeared to have strange plants growing up from the center of it … but they weren’t plants. They were more snakes, six or more, smooth heads curled up like cobra lilies with their menacing dandelion eyes glittering.

  “Why aren’t they moving?” Cricket asked. She hesitated at a large tree root, inspected the shadows around it, then gingerly stepped over it.

  “Stupid question. We obviously don’t know,” Nettle muttered. “Never seen snakes act like this.”

  “Maybe they’re watching for better prey than us,” Willow whispered.

  Sundew could hardly stand it. Her sore muscles protested at the slow, tense pace. She wanted to scream; she wanted to seize a tree and shove it over on top of the snakes; she wanted to throw exploding seed pods at them. She would rather fight than deal with this … this awful creeping, this prickling feeling of waiting for something to attack.

  They reached the bottom of the slope and found a stream, its muddy water trickling slowly over stones. Willow began to pick her way across, silently pointing to branches that were actually snakes, rocks that were actually snakes, and glimmers of fish that were actually underwater snakes. There were a lot of snakes in the stream.

  “Maybe we should fly,” Mandrake suggested, halfway across. “We could go over the whole Den of Vipers, couldn’t we?”

  Nettle snorted and jabbed one claw at the trees overhead. Sundew looked up.

  The branches above them were dripping with snakes. Scales gleamed between the leaves; hundreds of yellow eyes watched them, unblinking. There were so many coils wound around each branch that it was impossible to tell where one snake ended and another began.

  Sundew glanced back at Bumblebee, asleep in her sling. Maybe we shouldn’t have brought her out here, after all.

  The water was very cold around her talons, colder than she thought it should be.

  I wish we knew how much farther we have to go.

  They waded out of the stream on the other side and kept going, between trees that pressed closer and closer, below more and more frozen, watchful snakes. Sundew reached out tentatively with her leafspeak and felt the presence of plants so dangerous her tribe had cleared them out of the area around the village. Malicious blistering hogweeds chuckled nearby, spiking through the murmur of the other plants. A hungry gurgling hum underneath everything told her that kudzu vines were wound throughout this area, devouring and choking the quieter trees.

  But there was something worse … something much creepier. Something that reached out to her mind with cold tendrils.

  She hissed softly. Willow paused to look back at her.

  “The breath of evil,” Sundew whispered. “It’s here. I can feel it.”

  She could smell it now, too, the same peppery rotting smell that she’d encountered in Queen Wasp’s greenhouse. She had examined that vine while they hid there, but it hadn’t spoken to her at all. Nothing like what was currently reaching back toward her, as though it was trying to plant little seeds in her brain and slither through the cracks in her scales.

  “Look,” Mandrake said, pointing. There was a light up ahead — a break in the trees where full sunlight was shining through to the forest floor.

  “Maybe that’s the Eye,” Cricket whispered. “Where Hawthorn lives?”

  “How can he live here?” Willow whispered back. “Surrounded by all these vipers and the breath of evil?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t,” Nettle said. “Maybe he’s dead.”

  “That’s the spirit, Nettle,” Sundew said. “Let’s go check it out.”

  They headed toward the light, and as the jungle became easier to see all around them, Sundew spotted the scarlet-and-green vines overhead. It was here, growing freely, hardly a day’s walk from Queen Sequoia’s village. She shuddered. Why hadn’t any scouts encountered it? Why didn’t everyone know about it? Was it too well hidden behind the vipers and the manchineel trees, so no one ever came this way?

  They were almost at the edge of the clearing when the snakes suddenly moved.

  An enormous one dropped straight out of the tree in front of them, blocking their path. Five more glided out of the bushes behind them; others slithered down from the branches. They were surrounded, and the vipers began to hiss.

  “Sundew?” Willow said, taking a step closer to the group. “Any ideas?”

  “Why bother asking her?” Nettle demanded. “I have a great idea. Let’s kill them!” She lunged toward the one in front of them. It bared its fangs and darted at her, fast as lightning, and Mandrake screamed, and Sundew felt Willow grab one of her talons as they threw their wings out to form a shield around Cricket and Bumblebee.

  A gust of wind billowed from the clearing as something gigantic swooped down, and then wings blocked the sunlight and giant claws stabbed into the snake, stopping it barely a heartbeat away from sinking its fangs into Nettle’s throat.

  The snake writhed in its death throes, and as one, all the vipers around them rose up like cobras about to strike, glaring with their yellow eyes.

  “Begone!” shouted the new dragon. “Leave these travelers in peace!”

  The hissing intensified, slipping along Sundew’s nerves and all through her bones, but after a horrible, heart-pounding moment of stillness, all the snakes dropped to the ground and slithered away into the underbrush.

  “Well, you very nearly just died!” the giant LeafWing said, smili
ng down at them. He shook the snake’s corpse to make sure it was dead, then tossed it away like a weed he’d just yanked out of the dirt. “What kind of idiots come to a place like the Den of Vipers?”

  “Desperate ones,” Sundew admitted. “We’re looking for a dragon named Hawthorn.”

  “Thank you for saving my sister,” Mandrake interjected.

  “I didn’t need saving!” Nettle barked. “I was about to kill it myself!”

  “If you had, then the others would have immediately killed all of you,” the stranger pointed out. “I mean, only reasonable, right? You did come into our territory. No one ever does that! So they tend to be a bit overprotective.”

  “They … I’m sorry, who? The vipers? They’re protecting you?” Cricket asked. “They’re protecting you? What?”

  “Oh, yes,” he answered. “I’m Hawthorn, and those were my vipers. Who wants tea?”

  Hawthorn turned and sauntered cheerfully off into the sunlight. Mandrake followed him, blinking in confusion. Willow stopped Sundew with her wing as she stepped forward.

  “I feel like we should be really careful,” she said softly.

  “Me too,” Sundew agreed.

  “Same here,” Nettle said unexpectedly.

  “But this is the dragon we’re looking for, right?” Cricket asked. She adjusted her glasses. “The one with all the answers? Who knows everything about this vine and the mind control?” Her tail was twitching with nervous excitement.

  “Yes,” Willow said. “And he seems nice enough. It’s just … everything else.”

  “We’ll go with him,” Sundew said to Cricket. “But carefully.”

  Cricket nodded, and they edged out into the clearing, squinting in the much brighter light here.

  All the low-hanging vines had been cut back along with sections of the canopy overhead, leaving space for grass to grow in the patches of sun. A small vegetable garden covered a quarter of the clearing, with the undergrowth cleared away all around it. And in the center of the clearing was a house shaped like a cell in a hive, not a nest or a hammock or a platform in a tree. Someone, presumably Hawthorn, had taken the time to turn tree trunks into smooth, flat boards; someone had fitted them together; and someone had woven flax curtains for the door and windows, then dyed them pale red.