Brave in the Woods Page 5

  “What do you mean?” Luca said.

  It was all she had left. Her only way to get Luca to understand.

  So, Juni explained what she’d seen in the pet cemetery. She told them about the buck, who seemed to have stepped off the mural from her wall. How she’d found the antler bone, right where the buck had stood, and the shimmery feeling of Connor that came with it.

  She kept the curse part to herself. How this quest would help her break it.

  “It has to mean something, right?” Juni said.

  Gabby didn’t look as doubtful as Juni had feared.

  Luca smiled. “I had a dream about Connor last night,” he said. “It was about this thing that happened when we were kids.”

  Luca showed them a small wrist tattoo. It was an inchworm. Juni hadn’t noticed it before.

  “We were ten, and Connor dug up this worm in Ma’s herb garden. He told me it had magical powers and said if I ate it, I’d be magical, too. Of course, I ate it, because Connor would never lie to me, right? He got so mad! He said now he’d have to eat one too or it wouldn’t be honorable. He didn’t think I’d do it.

  “We used to tell each other, ‘Eat worms,’ before we’d do something hard, or take a chance. Before a big test, or asking a girl on a date. It’s the last thing I said to him before he left for basic.”

  “Look!” Juni jumped up and grabbed the envelope from where it sat beside Mason. She gave him Connor’s letter. “Remember? He wrote about that in his first letter.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to tell you something, too, Luca,” Mason said.

  “We have to go get Elsie. She’s family,” Juni said again.

  Luca stood, hands on lean hips, and stretched. He grabbed a rake. “Let me think about it.”

  Juni stood and wiped the hay off her backside. The tops of her thighs were turning pink.

  “Listen, Juni, if I can make this happen, you aren’t to ask any questions. Got it? My methods are my own and you will do exactly what I tell you.”

  “Fine.”

  “And if I can’t, you need to promise you won’t try to go by yourself. Getting a bus ticket or whatever. Your parents would never get over it.”

  But Juni wasn’t so sure. Connor was the light and the laughter of their lives, while Juni was the midnight trip to the emergency room. The number on the peak flow meter.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Well, go on! I’m thinking,” Luca said. He began Juni’s job of cleaning up the goat berries, and they left him to it.

  As Juni trudged through the weedy ricegrass toward the house—Gabby on one side, Mason on the other—she decided that if Luca said no, she would find her own way.

  Because of course she would.

  WILD THINGS

  FOUR DAYS HAD passed with no word from Luca, so Juni was in the process of freaking out. It was already Tuesday, and the campout was supposed to start on Thursday. Juni was certain she’d lose her mind before then.

  Her alarm went off at 6:20, like it did every morning, waking her from a dream where she wore a dress made of paper and followed a trail of feathers deep into the woods. As though the curse had slithered into her dreams.

  Juni pulled on jean shorts and yesterday’s T-shirt and crept downstairs, avoiding the squeaky places in the floorboards so she wouldn’t wake Mom. She only had a couple of minutes to get to the Caprice or she’d miss it.

  Just before he left for basic training, Connor lost his watch in his car, a 1968 turquoise Chevy Caprice station wagon with wood paneling. And every morning at 6:35—the time Connor used to get up to swim before heading down the hill to his junior college classes at Feather River, or his job at the Sports Nut—the watch alarm went off. Juni liked to be there when it did.

  The station wagon turned heads because it was in such great condition for being so old, and probably because it was turquoise. Connor had loved the attention, talking with other car lovers about where he’d found the original metallic vinyl upholstery for the seats, and how long it had taken to get a complete set of matching metal hubcaps. Don’t even get him started on the Tripoli Turquoise paint and how he’d hunted down the formula so it was exactly the same as the paint they’d used in 1968.

  Connor was a tinkerer, a person who could look at something mechanical and know exactly how it worked. He was that way with people, too, knowing what to say, what to do, to make a person feel like a million bucks.

  Juni opened the driver’s side of the Caprice, the vinyl seat cool against her legs as she slid in, and saw a folded piece of paper on the dash above the steering wheel, with Juni written on top. She unfolded it.

  We’re on.

  Luca

  Juni was momentarily stunned. And then she lifted her arms in a V for victory.

  Unexpectedly, the passenger door opened, and there, of all people, was Dad.

  “Good morning,” he said, and sat beside her. She dropped her arms and slid Luca’s note under her leg.

  The scent of woodsmoke and pinesap followed him into the car. Dad often woke in the middle of the night and walked through the woods until sunrise. Sometimes he sat inside a hollowed tree near the creek, setting small fires that cast dancing shadows onto the weeping cedars. Juni knew because she’d followed him.

  Connor’s watch went off just then, each muffled beep a stab to her heart. They sat through it quietly.

  “Where do you suppose it is?” Dad said.

  “I don’t know. Sounds like it’s coming from everywhere.”

  It had happened last summer when Connor had taken the seats out for reupholstery. He’d ripped out the carpet underneath the floor mats, too, to replace it. Right after the seats had gone back in, he’d noticed his watch was missing. They’d looked all over the house and yard, in his toolbox and the garage. No luck.

  Then one morning he went to work early for the Summerama Sale, and the alarm went off in the car while he was driving.

  You’ll never guess where I found the watch, Juni!

  He didn’t get a chance to take the car apart to find it before he left.

  Juni and Dad watched together as the sky brightened all around them. To Juni, this time of morning felt like floating up from a deep, dark well. She had the urge to tell Dad about what was happening. About growing antlers, and the curse. About her quest for Elsie. Maybe she could reach him. Maybe he would go with her.

  She used to tell him everything.

  But then Juni remembered a time she’d been walking in the woods and came upon a deer and her fawn grazing the wild blackberry bushes along a rocky stream. Juni was only five feet away when they all saw one another and froze. Juni hadn’t moved, overwhelmed by the unexpected need for them to trust her. To recognize her goodness. But it wasn’t in the nature of wild things to stick around.

  Juni had a similar feeling come over her now. If she made one wrong move, said one wrong thing, Dad would flee back into the woods.

  But there was a story she needed to hear, and she wanted to hear it from Dad.

  “Can you tell me about the day I was born?” Juni said.

  After a little while, long enough for Juni to think it had been too much to ask, Dad started talking. Juni closed her eyes, trying hard to believe in the possibility of one more miracle.

  * * *

  It had been a hot September. Before Dad had lost his job at the mill, they still had their own house, which had been about a mile through the woods from Anya and Grandpa Charlie. When Mom had been pregnant with Juni, she used to take a walk every morning along Last Chance Creek, ending up at Anya’s, the calm water soothing her worries. Because Mom wasn’t supposed to have any more babies. There’d been trouble with Connor’s birth, and Mom had almost died. Dr. Wanda had told her she was done. Too much damage on the inside had made another baby impossible.

  But Juni happened anyway. That was the first miracle.<
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  Mom took those walks to Anya’s by herself, and on those walks, she talked to Juni about all sorts of things, always starting the conversation with “Did you know, my miraculous baby girl?”

  But on this particular day, the day Juni was born, Mom had brought Connor along. She didn’t know why. Usually this was her quiet time, a few minutes of peace she liked to gather before heading into her day. When asked, Mom had said she’d woken with Connor on her mind, thinking she’d like to take him along. There weren’t many days left for just the two of them. Happily, Connor went.

  About fifteen minutes into their walk, Mom felt a pain in her lower belly. Just the one. Then she felt an urge she remembered from giving birth to Connor. The overwhelming urge to push.

  So right there, beside Last Chance Creek, Mom pushed once, twice, three times, and Juni was born into Connor’s waiting arms. She was lifeless and gray as a river rock, and Mom worked hard to stay calm as she walked Connor through each step.

  Take off your shoelace.

  Tie it around the umbilical cord.

  Take that sharp rock.

  Cut just there.

  And still, Juni wasn’t breathing.

  Mom placed Juni in Connor’s arms, pulling the edge of his T-shirt around her tiny body. Hold her head. Hold her neck. And run. Fast. Run as fast as you can to Anya and Grandpa Charlie.

  Connor didn’t want to go, of course. Mom was pale, shaking. But his new sister was so tiny. Fragile. And she wasn’t breathing. Mom told him she was fine. She could take care of herself. His sister needed him.

  So Connor ran, tears falling on his new baby sister.

  There was a flash of white off in the trees. The sound of hoofbeats.

  It was a buck, running through the underbrush on the other side of the path, shadowing him step for step. Connor didn’t know whether to be afraid or in awe, so he decided on both as he picked up speed.

  And about halfway to Anya and Grandpa Charlie’s house, as he passed through the cool shade of the only juniper tree in their woods, Connor said later, Juni took her first breath. He didn’t know how he knew, but there was a shift in the forest. An unseasonal breeze had gathered. The juniper above him, the trees all around, seemed to sigh with relief.

  The buck had vanished.

  Connor said it was magic.

  That was the second miracle.

  Juni stayed in the hospital for six weeks. The doctors said they had done everything they could; the rest was up to her. She would either find the strength deep inside her tiny body, or she wouldn’t.

  She found the strength. That was the third miracle.

  They’d written about Juni’s birth in the Chester Progressive. “Brave in the Woods” was what they’d titled the article. The mayor had given Connor a medal for heroism. It was Connor who had named her Juniper, for the tree whose cool shade he’d passed through when she’d taken her first breath.

  * * *

  When Dad stopped talking, there were tears on his cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” Dad said, and wiped the tears roughly with his palms. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Here. It was Connor’s. They sent it with his personal effects. Much better than the Fireplug, or Dragonfly, or whatever it is that Mom makes you carry around. You’re almost a teenager. Time for a teenager’s phone.”

  Dad placed it in her hand. Juni hadn’t known they’d sent Connor’s things.

  “No social media. Of any kind. This is strictly a communication device. Reception is bad most everywhere, anyway, but you’ll figure it out.”

  Connor’s smartphone had a new plastic cover. Purple, her favorite.

  “About Elsie . . .” Dad started. “Mom and I . . . we just couldn’t have her here.”

  “But how do you know? What if we’d gotten Elsie and it was the very thing we needed most? What about when Connor comes back?”

  Dad stared at a honeybee crawling across the hood of the car. “He’s not coming back, Juni.”

  Juni had read that certain people couldn’t live with the unknown, and their only way of coping was to believe the missing person was dead. She had never thought her own father would be one of those people.

  “You don’t know that,” she said.

  Dad opened the door. “He’s gone, Juni. It’s time you accepted that.”

  But she wouldn’t accept it. Not ever. It was as though Connor and Juni had been fused in some magical way under the juniper tree, and Juni felt certain she would know if Connor was gone from this world.

  Now she just had to prove to everyone that she was right.

  ON BORROWED TIME

  WEDNESDAY WAS TAMALE day. They gathered early on Gabby and Luca’s deck, where Mr. and Mrs. Tavares cooked in the summer. A camping stove had been set up under the eaves where they boiled water and stewed the meat so the house stayed cool. Inside the house, Mr. Tavares set up stations with the hojas, masa, and stewed meat, and they all stood in an assembly line: Mr. and Mrs. Tavares, Mrs. Wheeler, Luca, Juni, Gabby and Mason. Mrs. Tavares put on the usual upbeat tamalada music; this time it was Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly.

  In the past, Mr. Tavares would take Mrs. Tavares in his arms from time to time and swing-dance her around the table. She would shout at him, “¡Ándale! ¡Ponte a trabajar!” and laugh. There would be gossip and snacks and lots of critiquing of one another’s work.

  “You put in too much meat!”

  “You didn’t put in enough meat!”

  But this year was serious, quiet.

  In just under four hours, they had 103 tamales. The kids were supposed to take seventy-five for themselves and the hikers on the PCT. But they weren’t going to Domingo Springs now, and even though they could never eat that many tamales on their own, they had to pack them or the parents might be suspicious. Luca said he’d figure something out, and that was the end of that.

  Gabby looked miserable the whole time they put the tamales together. She had never once lied to her parents. Never once. Mr. Tavares had told them he would always know if they were lying. Un chile no le pica a los mentirosos. A chili pepper isn’t hot to liars.

  And although Juni wasn’t quite as strict about the truth as Gabby—for example, she didn’t report every last wheezy breath to Mom—this particular lie made the bees hum.

  * * *

  The day of the trip finally arrived, and just as Juni packed the last of her things into a duffel, including a map to Madame Ophelia’s, Anya let herself into Juni’s room. She carried a thin leather book, its cover embossed with flowers.

  “I believe it will help you to know what happened all those years ago.” Anya sat on Juni’s bed and patted the space beside her. Juni sat. “It’s the first story I ever wrote, and it’s about the time I came to live with Teddy and Abigail. It explains why I ran away.”

  There had always been an undercurrent inside of Anya, like the heavy flow of snowmelt from the Feather River rushing under the surface of Lake Almanor. A deep sadness that would sweep her away for hours, sometimes days, at a time. Juni had believed she’d never know why.

  The small book felt heavier than it should as Juni took it into her hands. She knew the mysteries written in its pages were the cause of that undercurrent, and for a brief moment, Juni worried that uncovering Anya’s dark secrets might pull her under, too.

  And yet, it was the most precious thing anyone had ever given her. She wrapped her arms around her grandmother and they rocked back and forth, back and forth.

  “Read it aloud,” Anya said, sitting back. “It’s good to reason things out with friends. There are lots of blank pages left. Use them for yourself. Sketch your antlers. Write about your trip. It helps.”

  “What trip? We’re just going around the corner,” Juni said, nervous.

  Anya took Juni’s cheek in her pa
lm. “Don’t be mad at Luca. He had to tell someone.”

  Juni closed her eyes. She should have known, of course. Luca was a disappointment in every way. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”

  “It wouldn’t be right not to, but I’m going to give you a couple hours’ head start,” Anya said. “Certain things need doing, and I think I can help them understand that.”

  Juni calculated the odds of getting all the way to Mammoth now that her parents were about to find out what she’d done. She had no hope they’d do anything other than freak out and demand she come home. Without Elsie.

  For the second time, Juni felt uncertain in her quest. What was the point of doing something this difficult if she was sure to fail? Even a two-hour head start wouldn’t matter in the end.

  Anya reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a thin black satin cord. “If you’d like, I can attach this to your antler. Then you can wear yours the way Mama did.”

  Juni handed her the small tip of the buck’s antler and Anya wrapped a thin silver wire around the top, making a loop for the cord to pass through. She placed it over Juni’s head so it lay flat against her chest. Juni took the whole thing into her palm and felt the shimmer of Connor again, like the tail end of a musical note, warm and resonant in her chest.

  Maybe this feeling, this certainty, was all that mattered.

  “Thank you,” Juni whispered.

  Anya touched the antler bone one last time. “Go get our girl.”

  * * *

  Even though the Wheeler family had Cheez Whiz money, the house could have used a fresh coat of blue paint and white trim. Plus, there was that little knobby thing at the top of the banister that was always falling off for no apparent reason. Because there were bite marks all over it from when Izzy the German shepherd used to knock it down and bury it in the yard, everyone said Izzy’s ghost was there, still trying to play, which made the knob a good luck charm for the Wheelers. They’d never fix it, of course, and Mrs. Wheeler said that was why they didn’t fix up the rest of the house, either. For continuity purposes.