The Crosswood

by Gabrielle Prendergast

  Copyright © Gabrielle Prendergast 2021

  Published in Canada and the United States in 2021 by Orca Book Publishers. orcabook.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: The crosswood / Gabrielle Prendergast.

  Names: Prendergast, Gabrielle, author.

  Series: Orca currents.

  Description: Series statement: Orca Currents

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200270370 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200270397 | ISBN 9781459826625 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459826632 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459826649 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8631.R448 .C76 2021 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939209

  Summary: In this high-interest accessible novel for middle-grade readers, 14-year-old Blue Jasper must enter the enchanted Crosswood when his twin siblings are kidnapped by a Faerie king.

  Orca Book Publishers is committed to reducing the consumption of nonrenewable resources in the making of our books. We make every effort to use materials that support a sustainable future.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Edited by Tanya Trafford

  Design by Ella Collier

  Cover photograph by Getty Images/Donald Iain Smith

  Author photo by Erika Forest

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  24 23 22 21 • 1 2 3 4

  Orca Book Publishers is proud of the hard work our authors do and of the important stories they create. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or did not check it out from a library provider, then the author has not received royalties for this book. The ebook you are reading is licensed for single use only and may not be copied, printed, resold or given away. If you are interested in using this book in a classroom setting, we have digital subscriptions with multi user, simultaneous access to our books, or classroom licenses available for purchase. For more information, please contact digital@orcabook.com.

  ivaluecanadianstories.ca

  For Dylan and Ethan

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  An Excerpt from “The Wherewood”

  Chapter Three

  Chapter One

  It’s quite comfortable here in the woodshed. With the door open it’s not dark. And I found a nice log to sit on. I lean back on the dusty wall and look at the ceiling. Okay, there are a couple of spiders up there. That’s not great. Outside, back at the house, I hear the screen door slam open.

  “Blue! Blue? Where are you? I need help with the twins!”

  The twins. My brother and sister. They are nearly ten. Their names are Indigo (a boy) and Violet (a girl). And they are, in my mother’s words, “holy terrors.” I don’t see how that’s my problem.

  It is nearly dinnertime. I’ve spent most of the day chasing after the twins in the yard. I am over it. Over them and their antics. Indigo filled his pockets with beetles. I think he might have eaten one. Violet got sap in her hair and a pine needle in her eye. They both lost their socks. How do you lose socks in your own yard? I’ll tell you. Somehow you throw them up into the tallest tree. If I lean out the woodshed door, I can still see them up there. Indigo’s mismatched blue and white socks. Violet’s red socks, one with a hole in the toe. I have no idea how they got them up there. Neither does Mom, even though she watched us all day from where she was building a chair on the porch.

  “Blue, get back here! Indigo is in the rafters again!”

  Mom never lets the twins out of her sight. She even homeschools them! I take the bus to the school in town. But the twins get to stay here in our cabin at the edge of the woods. I’m pretty sure they just run around all day. I don’t think they learn much. But they don’t need to. They’re both weirdly smart. Unlike me. I’m weirdly average.

  The twins are weirdly weird, actually. I know it’s normal for little kids to have active imaginations but…wow. Indigo and Violet take it to new levels. They claim they’re royalty. They tell me their real last name is Nash Panash Buckthorn Briar. It’s not. It’s Jasper, same as mine. They talk to fireflies. Only not in English. Not in any language I recognize. They speak it to each other too. Mom says that’s normal for twins. But nothing is normal about Indigo and Violet. They drive me crazy.

  “BLUE! Get in here NOW!”

  I’m fourteen. I’m starting high school at the end of this summer. Ninth grade. I’m going to have enough stress. I’ll have to take a new bus to a different town. I’ll have to get up earlier. I’ll probably have a ton more homework. I’m not going to have as much time to help with the twins. Mom is going to have to get used to that. I’ve tried to convince her to let Indigo and Violet go to school. But she won’t listen. If they went to school, at least she’d have some time to herself. As it is, the only time she gets is after the twins go to sleep. And they only do that after being read about a hundred fairy tales.

  I help out around the house. I sweep every day and wash the dishes. I even chop wood for our woodstove. Yep, we have a woodstove. Our little cabin is like something from another time. Sure, we have a proper toilet and electric lights, but that’s about it. The woodstove is for cooking and heating. Our fridge runs off a solar battery. For entertainment we have books. No TV, no internet. To make a phone call Mom sends me up to the highway, where I can get a weak signal on her cell phone. A ten-minute walk. Five minutes if I run.

  “Off-grid,” Mom calls it. Off-planet is more like it.

  It’s just the four of us. Mom, the twins and me. No dad. My dad left when I was a baby. And the twins’ dad…well, I don’t even remember Mom being pregnant, so that shows how much I know.

  I look up at the spiders again. They seem to judge me.

  “I’m tired,” I tell them. “I just needed a break.”

  The spiders are unimpressed. But so what? Spiders have hundreds of kids, and they usually get eaten by them. So they’re not really a model of childcare I want to be aiming for.

  Suddenly Mom screeches from the house. “No! Violet! Get down. Stop!” There’s a huge crash. And another yell. Before I even think, I’m on my feet, out of the woodshed and running for the house.

  Violet jumps when I burst through the back door. I mean, she really jumps. Somehow she ends up on top of the bookshelf. Indigo is above her, perched in the rafters like an owl. The dinner table is completely overturned. The dinner is on the floor. Dishes and mashed potatoes and lentil curry are everywhere. And in the middle of it sits Mom, clutching her ankle. Her face is twisted with pain.

  “Mom! What happened?” I ask.

  “Where were you? I told you I needed help with the twins!”

  “Did they do this?” I’m suddenly so angry I want to break something. But it looks like there’s nothing left to break. I turn toward the rafters and shout, “Indigo! Did you do this?”

  “Violet was trying to catch me,” he says quietly. He’s not crying or anything, but I can tell he’s upset. As brat
ty as they are, the twins love Mom.

  I turn to Violet.

  “Mom was trying to catch me,” she says.

  “Neither of you should have needed to be caught!” I yell. “Why can’t you just settle down?”

  “It’s all right, Blue,” Mom says.

  “It’s not all right!” I shout. “They’re not chimps! They need to start acting like human beings!”

  “But we’re not human beings,” Violet says sweetly.

  “Enough!” I bellow, making her twitch. The bookshelf wobbles under her. “Enough of your fantasies! Look what you’ve done!”

  I’m furious now. I know it’s partly because I’m worried about Mom. But I’m also really mad at the twins for always being so…wild. For taking up all of Mom’s time. All of her attention. For the first four years of my life, it was just me and her. We were doing great. I had started preschool. Mom was studying. She was going to go back to work. Then these two lunatics came along and ruined everything. Including tonight’s dinner.

  Indigo swings under the rafters and seems to float down to the floor. Violet jumps from the bookshelf and lands as softly as a cat. They stand in front of me, holding hands.

  “We’re sorry, Blue,” they say together.

  I want to rant at them some more, but Mom whimpers as she tries to get up.

  “Can you stand?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so,” she says, holding her ankle again. “I think it’s just sprained though. Take the phone up to the road. Call Mrs. Chen. She can drive us to the clinic. We’ll get pizza in town.”

  The twins start to cheer but stop when I glare at them.

  “You two,” I say, grabbing Mom’s phone. “If you don’t clean up this mess by the time I’m back…”

  They both open their eyes wide. But I can’t think of any way to threaten them. And I don’t really want to. They might be monsters, but they’re annoyingly cute. And I can’t help but love them.

  “If you do clean this up by the time I come back,” I say instead, “I’ll read you the first chapter of The Hobbit.”

  Then the little brats do cheer.

  Chapter Two

  It turns out Mom’s ankle is broken. It’s just a hairline fracture. But it is enough to make Indigo and Violet calm down for a few days. I think they are actually ashamed. That’s progress.

  Truth is, I’m ashamed too. If I hadn’t been hiding in the woodshed, the accident would never have happened. I’m paying for it too. Even though Mom got a walking cast, she has to take things slow. The twins don’t really do slow. So it’s me who has to run around chasing them. After a week of this, I’m exhausted. Finally Mom relents. She lets the twins listen to an audiobook on her old tape player.

  I’d really like to take a nap. But the house is a mess. And Mom’s ankle hurts. She sits with it propped up on a pillow. The twins lie on the floor at her feet, headphones on, kicking each other. At least they’re quiet.

  I grab a broom and sweep the kitchen. I quickly do the dishes. I gather some clothes and towels off the floor and drop them in the laundry basket. When that’s done I sit with Mom for a few minutes. The twins are playing with a long piece of knitting yarn while they listen to the story. They tie and tangle it into impossibly intricate knots and webs. I watch for a while, trying to figure out what to say to Mom.

  “Maybe the twins could go to a day camp,” I try.

  Mom just laughs.

  “Seriously. There’s a sports camp at the community center. They could run around all day.”

  “That would end in tears,” Mom says. “And blood. And neither of them coming from the twins.”

  I look down at the twins on the floor. Violet has tied Indigo’s wrist to the chair leg with the yarn. Her ankle is tied to his knee. One of his toes is tied to one of her braids. They don’t seem worried about it, so I decide to leave them for now. At least they can’t run around this way.

  “What about school?” I ask. “Maybe they could start at school in September?”

  “Blue,” Mom says. “The twins are fine here with me. Regular school wouldn’t work for them. They’re too…”

  “Smart?” I ask. “They have a gifted class at school.” I always wanted to be in the gifted class. Unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough.

  “Special,” Mom says. “The twins are too special.”

  She doesn’t mean special as in disabled. The twins aren’t disabled. If anything, they have more abilities than most kids. She means special as in weird. It seems unfair to me that weird kids can’t go to school. Actually, I think weird kids should go to school. If there had been a few more weird kids at my school, I might have had a better time.

  I was the weird kid at my school. I only hope high school will be different.

  Suddenly I don’t want to talk about the twins anymore. I’d love to talk about my own problems. My worries about going to high school. The fact that I have hardly any friends. That I need new clothes. That I’m starting to grow a mustache and I don’t know how to shave.

  Mom never has time to listen to my problems. Whenever I try to tell her something, one of the twins interrupts. By the time she gets them into bed at night, she’s too tired. Sometimes I wish the twins would just disappear. Not forever or anything. Just for a day or two.

  I turn back to Mom. She’s busy stopping Indigo from winding the yarn around his own neck. She doesn’t even notice me.

  The audiobook only works for an hour. Before long the twins are jumping from the back porch down onto the lawn. Mom watches them uneasily, her fingers gripping the railing.

  “I don’t want another broken bone in this house.”

  I think that’s unlikely. Neither of the twins has ever broken anything. They’ve jumped out of trees, out of windows and once out of the back of a moving truck. It was moving slowly, but still. They never even get sick. I was sick all the time when I was little. I was so sick I had to be in the hospital for a month around the time the twins were born. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember Mom being pregnant.

  “Why don’t I take them for a walk?” I suggest. Walking is safer than jumping off things, at least.

  “I’m not really up for a walk n—” Mom starts. But Violet interrupts her.

  “Yes! Let’s go into the woods!”

  “Yes!” Indigo agrees. “I want to look for slugs!”

  I hesitate to ask what plans he has for the slugs.

  “I’ll take them, Mom. You can stay here.”

  “No!” she says a little sharply. “I’ll come. We just have to go a bit slow.”

  Like I said, the twins don’t really do slow.

  They run through the yard to the path leading into the woods behind our house. I chase after them, with Mom limping behind me.

  “Wait!” I yell. “Slow down!”

  By the time I catch up to the twins, Mom is far behind us. I manage to get them to walk slowly so she can catch up. The forest is quiet and smells like earth and leaves. The path is one we’ve walked many times. But it seems especially beautiful today. Maybe it’s just seeing the twins bouncing along in their bright clothes. They seem so at home here. Like they belong.

  I turn to see how Mom is doing behind us. When I turn back, the twins bounce off the path and into the trees.

  “Hey! Wait!”

  I chase after them, barely aware of Mom’s frantic cries behind me.

  There’s a rough path where they turned. I’ve never noticed it before. It winds through tall, twisted trees. I catch a glimpse of Violet’s golden braids just disappearing into the dense green branches.

  “Catch them, Blue!” Mom yells. I don’t look back. I can hear the fear in her voice. I don’t really understand why she’s so scared. This forest isn’t dangerous. Is it? Surely the twins will stop or come back eventually. Won’t they? Something fills me with fear too.

  I push through the trees, sharp branches scratching at me. I can’t even see the twins anymore. Not their colorful clothes. Not their bright blond hair. Nothing.


  “Indigo! Violet! Come back!” I yell. The thick blanket of leaves above me absorbs my voice. “COME BACK!”

  Suddenly the forest starts to spin. It’s as though the ground is moving under my feet. The air gets thick, and everything seems to slow down. And a weird smell drifts around me. A sweet smell. I can hear Mom's voice, now faint and far away. Over her voice I can just hear the twins laughing happily. But then it stops. It’s as though a recording has been turned off with a switch.

  The twins were here only a second ago. Now they’re gone.

  Chapter Three

  I can hear Mom yelling through the blood pounding in my ears. The forest has stopped spinning. Now, apart from Mom’s voice, it is deathly quiet. Desperate, I tear at the undergrowth. I search under shrubs and bushes and rotting logs. There are half a dozen places for two small kids to hide. But I don’t find them.

  “INDIGO! VIOLET!” I yell. But there’s nothing except my voice bouncing off the trees.

  I spin when I hear a crunch behind me. It’s only Mom.

  “They were right here!” I wail before she even says anything. “They were only ten feet away.”

  “What happened?” she asks. Her face is set and hard. Like stone.

  “They just vanished,” I say helplessly. “I could hear them and then…”

  “What? What?” Mom prods.

  “It was weird,” I say, feeling tears prickling the back of my eyes. “It was like I felt them disappear.”

  I expect Mom to start yelling at me or telling me I’m crazy, but she just frowns.

  “How did it feel?” she asks. “You said you felt something? What was it?”

  I close my eyes for a second and try to think back. It feels like trying to remember something that happened a long time ago. But it was only a few seconds ago. I think something is wrong with my brain.

  “It was like the air pressure changed,” I say. “My ears popped or something. Like when we drive up the mountain.”

  Mom nods. “Did you see anything?”