Chapter Five
I ripped off part of my undershirt and wrapped Holly’s ankle for support. The shirt wasn’t going to help much, but Holly believed me when I said it would. Before long, I was leading her down the path again. The sun was high in the sky, and so were the vultures. Holly still wasn’t moving quickly, but at least she didn’t need to lean on me anymore. No matter how sore her ankle was, I wasn’t about to stop and let her rest in any more caves.
“We should stay under these overhanging trees,” I said, watching the vultures.
“Why do you keep looking up?” Holly asked as she leaned one hand on a tree and stepped over a fallen branch.
“Well, first of all, I noticed it’s getting late. Mom’s definitely home by now.”
“She’s going to think we were kidnapped or something,” Holly said.
“I don’t think so. There’s a big blank spot above the fireplace where the painting used to be. Mom’s bound to notice it. She’ll figure out what we did. Especially if she goes to the park and finds the painting on the merry-go-round.”
“Should we turn around and head home?” Holly asked.
“We can’t. We’d have to walk back past that cave, and we definitely wouldn’t be lucky enough to get by those stone wolves again.” I couldn’t believe I’d said that out loud. Holly and I froze, afraid the forest would create more stone wolves or that the ones Holly had made earlier would magically appear. Nothing happened. “I guess the forest knows the difference between talking about the past and voicing our fears.” I relaxed a little, but Holly still looked nervous.
“What if Mom comes looking for us? All those things our fears created might get her.”
I had to bite my tongue when Holly said our fears—as if I had anything to do with the bears or wolves. I’d learned my lesson after the living tree people. “I don’t think Mom would come after us by herself. She knows there are hundreds of different paths in these woods. She wrote about them in the journal. She wouldn’t have any way of knowing which paths we took. We should keep walking and try to find another way out.”
Holly nodded, but I could tell by the way she chewed on her lower lip something still bothered her. “Hey, J.B.? When I asked you why you kept looking at the sky, you said ‘first of all’ and explained about the time, but what’s second of all?”
“I don’t want to scare you, but do you remember when I left you in the cave and scouted out the path?”
She shivered. “Don’t remind me!”
“Well, I found something.”
“The Grimault thieves?”
“No. Vultures. They’ve been circling overhead.”
“I thought vultures only ate dead animals.”
The vultures spiraled through the air. One flew low enough that I could see its sharp talons. “I don’t think we’re in any danger.” I hoped I was right.
We continued to walk along path after path, always taking the paths on the left in case there was no other way out of the forest and we needed to retrace our steps. I was exhausted, and my stomach growled so loudly that every once in a while, I looked around expecting to see a growling bear—real or the leafy variety.
“Why can’t we come across a fruit tree?” Holly asked, rubbing her stomach. “Any chance that thinking aloud works for good things, too?”
I considered it for a second, but no magical fruit trees appeared, so I assumed the forest strictly tuned into fears. “I’m hungry too, but I’m more worried about finding water. I thought we’d find another stream somewhere, or if that stream we crossed earlier today was big enough, maybe we’d come across it again.”
“But we haven’t changed directions, and I think we’re walking away from the stream.” Holly was giving up hope of finding water and, more importantly, of ever getting home.
“I’m sure we’ll find water soon,” I said, but I wasn’t convinced. I was trying to be brave for Holly, but I’d never been so scared in my life. We’d never be able to retrace our steps and go home because, even if we were lucky enough to get past the wolves a second time, Holly wouldn’t be able to cross that stream with her sore ankle. Especially without the rope.
“How long have the vultures have been circling above us?” Holly asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Do you think we could follow them to find water? If they live in this forest, they must know where to find water, right?”
“That’s true, but if we follow the vultures, we might have to stop taking the paths on the left, and then how will we get home if we can’t find another way out of here? We won’t be able to retrace our steps.”
“I don’t think we have a choice. If we don’t find water, we won’t be alive to worry about how to get home.”
“You’re right, and that means we need to take this path on the right because the vultures just changed directions,” I said.
Getting Holly to keep up with the vultures was pure torture. The vultures started turning in all directions like they were playing a game. We couldn’t stay on the paths anymore, and I had to let Holly lean on me again as we pushed through the bushes and climbed over boulders.
I was about to give up on the plan when I heard the sound of crashing waves. The sun was getting lower in the sky, but I could see a beach beyond the trees up ahead.
“We’re out!” I yelled, running for the sand. The forest went all the way to the shore. I threw my body down on the cool, soft sand and let out a cheer. “We can walk to town from here and call Mom.”
Holly walked over to me, but she wasn’t nearly as relieved as I was to be out of the woods. “J.B., look!” She pointed a shaky finger down the beach.
To our left, a string of caves lined the coast. I knew she was thinking about the wolves, and I was about to tell her we were perfectly safe, when I heard something moving in the cave closest to us. I jumped up.
“Wolf!” Holly screamed, and she darted back into the woods.
“Wait!” I yelled, but I didn’t even look in her direction. My eyes were glued to the cave, or more specifically the girl coming out of the cave. She was about my age. Her hair was dark brown, and the ends had the slightest little curl. She was easily the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but it was her eyes that I couldn’t look away from. They were the deepest shade of blue-green. I was so shocked by their color that I stumbled backward.
She jumped when she saw me. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Blood rushed to my cheeks, and I couldn’t form words. At first, I thought I was imagining her. But then I realized I wasn’t in the forest anymore, and besides the forest only made people’s nightmares come true. This girl was definitely not a nightmare.
She repeated her question, staring at me like I was a complete mental case. I shook my head, forcing myself to snap out of the weird trance I was in. “I’m fine.”
“Is your friend okay? She just screamed and ran off,” the girl said, looking toward the woods. I spotted Holly peering out from behind a large pine tree at the edge of the forest.
“Oh, yeah. She’s my younger sister. We were born exactly a year apart.” Why was I babbling?
“You have the same birthday? What are the odds of that?” she said, brushing back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “I think I’d like sharing my birthday with someone. I kind of always wished I had a twin.”
“Yeah, I bet it’s fun to be a twin. You should try it. I mean—” What was wrong with me?
I turned away, wanting to shrink from embarrassment, and I felt Holly’s hand on my shoulder. “You should try it?” she whispered with a laugh. Of course she’d heard that! She’d never let me live this down.
Holly sized up the girl and winked at me. She knew I had a crush. I glared at her, silently begging her to shut up, although I didn’t think she could do anything to make me feel more embarrassed.
“I should go,” the girl said, fidgeting uncomfortably.
“Wait,” Holly
said. “I’m Holly. You’ve met my brother, J.B.”
“Sort of.” She glanced at me, taking another step back. “I have to go.” She motioned to the cave behind her and ducked inside.
Holly shrugged her shoulders. “Was it something I said?”
“More likely something I said. I was a babbling idiot! Nothing I said made sense.” I kicked a clump of wet sand.
“You’re right. It didn’t.” Holly laughed.
I was about to retaliate when the girl came walking out of the cave again. Holly stopped laughing and grabbed my arm. “She’s got a knife! She must be one of the Grimault thieves! Run!”
I didn’t have time to react. Holly took off again, but this time she didn’t duck behind a tree. She kept going.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare her.” The girl held a broken seashell in her hand, not a knife. “I’m Noelle.”
“I’m J.B.”
“Yeah, your sister said that.”
My face reddened again. Why did I keep making a fool of myself? “What are you doing here?” I asked.
Noelle just stared at me. Why would she tell me anything? All I’d done was freak her out.
“Look, I’m sorry about before. My sister and I ran into some scary animals in the forest, and I guess I’m still a little shaky.”
Noelle’s face lit up. “Did you see anyone else in the woods? A man?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m looking for my dad. He’s missing. I saw him in the forest, and well—he was in trouble.” Her speech sounded awkward, like she was trying too hard to form sentences.
“You saw him in there?”
“Sort of. He was in the caves first.” Noelle’s hands shook, and she dropped the seashell in the sand. I picked it up and handed it to her. Our fingers touched and a surge of electricity shot up my arm. We both jumped backward.
“Sorry, static electricity, I guess.”
Noelle squinted at me. “Can you keep a secret?”
I couldn’t believe she wanted to tell me a secret after the weird way I’d been acting. “Absolutely.”
“I had this dream about my dad. He was wandering around in these woods, and he was mumbling. The dream really shook me up, and when I woke up this morning, he was gone. Missing.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to make her worry even more, but I couldn’t keep the truth about this forest a secret. Not if she was planning to go looking for her dad. “Listen, Noelle, these woods aren’t like anything you’ve ever seen. Any and every scary thing you can imagine—it all comes to life in there.”
I expected her to laugh or yell at me for trying to scare her, but Noelle didn’t look surprised.
“I know. I saw it in my dream. I can’t tell you how, but I knew the dream was real. I knew it was really happening.” She looked down the shoreline, avoiding my eyes. “You probably think I’m crazy.”
“No, not at all. After what I’ve seen in the forest, I think I might be the crazy one.”
Noelle turned back to me and smiled. “Will you help me look for my father?”
I nodded. “But first, we have to find my sister. Before something else does.”