Brave in the Woods Read online

  They met in the Wheeler driveway at nine o’clock sharp, Gabby and Mason each shoving their packs through the back window of the station wagon. Mason looked slightly ill in his favorite green alien T-shirt—he wasn’t a fan of lying, either—and Gabby already had about five thousand tiny braids in her hair, sticking out at odd angles. Juni was grateful for her friends and felt steadied by Anya’s words: Go get our girl.

  Dad wandered in from the woods and stood next to Mr. Wheeler with his stethoscope. Mr. Tavares walked over to join them and squeezed Dad’s shoulder in his coachlike way. Mrs. Tavares and Mrs. Wheeler were bookends to Mom and Anya at the porch railing. They were one of the few reasons Mom left her room—to drink the tea they brought, or eat the cookies and pies they baked. Even if it was only a bite or two at a time.

  As Juni leaned forward to slide her own pack into the back of the station wagon, the antler bone swung forward.

  “Can I touch it?” Gabby said.

  Juni held it out by the cord, and Gabby let it rest against her palm.

  “It’s warm,” she said.

  Juni wondered if Gabby had felt something more, though. Because Gabby suddenly let go of the antler bone and hurried to the front seat, rubbing at her palm.

  The rest of them climbed in, too, and as Luca started the engine to let it warm, Mrs. Tavares walked over and gave them each a St. Christopher’s coin. For luck on their travels. She did it every year.

  “Thanks, Ma.”

  “Say the Hail Mary and be careful, Luciano.” She kissed both her hands and pressed them onto Luca’s cheeks, then hurried back to stand beside Mom.

  Juni knew she was on borrowed time. Even though Anya thought she could talk Mom and Dad into letting her finish the trip, Juni was doubtful. But what would she do when the phone call came? Would she hang up and keep going? Or turn around and come home?

  Juni didn’t know.

  “And we’re off!” Luca said. Gravel popped under the wheels, and they all waved out the windows. He drove down their tree-lined street and out onto Highway 36. They passed the Holiday Market, the Burger Depot and True Value Hardware. And just as they were about to turn left onto Highway 89, a small group of dusty PCT hikers came around a bend in the road.

  Luca pulled onto the shoulder. He got out and zoomed around to the back of the station wagon.

  “What are you doing?” Gabby said, turning around in her seat.

  “Giving away a little trail magic.”

  As the hikers approached, Luca gestured for them to come over and handed out tamales. They barely got out thank-yous before inhaling those tamales like they hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days. Which they probably hadn’t.

  Chester, California, was the unofficial halfway point of the Pacific Crest Trail, and all through the summer months, hikers would come down off the trail to pick up supplies. People in town offered washing machines and showers, and Dr. Lansford, the local dentist, even did free dental work in case of emergencies. PCT hikers were part of Juni’s summer just as much as swimming in the lake.

  After a few minutes, the hikers went on their way toward town, waving, and Luca got back in the station wagon. “Nine down, sixty-six to go.”

  He smiled. A big, toothy smile that Juni hadn’t seen in a long time—thirty-eight days, to be exact. It crinkled his eyes, even, and Juni wondered if he was thinking about Connor. That if Connor were here, he would have smacked him on the back and said, Nicely done.

  “I made a reservation at Convict Lake in Mammoth,” Luca said. “We can drive straight through to the Wilders’ today or we can take our time, Juni. Maybe camp tonight and head over there first thing. This might be my last trip for a while, and I’d like to stretch it out with you bozos.”

  “Nope. We have to stick to a schedule,” Juni said, thinking how Dad or Mom could call at any minute. “Anya told me she knew where we were going.”

  Mason and Gabby gasped, and then Gabby smacked Luca on the shoulder. “How could you?”

  “I had to tell at least one of them,” Luca said. “I figured Anya was the only one who probably wouldn’t say no.”

  “Probably!” Gabby said.

  Juni kicked herself again for thinking she could trust Luca.

  Gabby put a hand over her heart. “Honestly, though? I thought I might die from the stress of keeping a secret this big.”

  “You can’t die from keeping a secret,” Mason said.

  “Of course you can. Oh, gosh! Is she going to tell our parents?”

  “Anya said it wasn’t right to keep it from them,” Juni said. “But she’s giving us a head start and hopes she can talk them into it.”

  “We’ll be grounded forever,” Mason said. “They won’t let us see any concerts or get a job or go to college or get married or anything. It will be epic.”

  “At least we’ll be grounded together. Do you think they’ll take away club soccer?” Gabby did not sound as upset by the idea as Juni would have thought.

  They drove in silence for a few miles until Luca said, “I’m assuming you have a plan for what to say to the Wilders?”

  “I’m just going to tell them that we need Elsie more than they do.” It was the only argument Juni thought she would need.

  “We should look for them on Facebook!” Mason said. “Old people are always on Facebook!”

  “Here, use my phone. I’m already signed in,” Luca said. “And I’m not old.”

  “Pfft,” Juni said. “You act like it.”

  Mason touched the screen of Luca’s phone. “There are a lot of John Wilders.”

  He finally found one that looked right. The profile showed he was retired U.S. Army and worked for a company in Mammoth Lakes.

  “His profile is private, so we can’t see anything else. Luca, do you mind if we friend him?”

  “How do you know all this? You aren’t allowed on Facebook, either,” Gabby said.

  Mason gave her a look. Because Mason knew stuff. Not necessarily important facts, the kind you’d find on a test. But he could tell you a million little interesting things he’d discovered while searching the internet for test facts. Like how Facebook works or how to use a loom or work a combine tractor or shoe a horse. He was obsessed with yurts at the moment and was attempting to build one in the back corner of their yard next to the pet cemetery, which Gabby insisted was creepy and therefore, wouldn’t help.

  Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler encouraged him to follow his passions, which changed every time he discovered something new and interesting.

  “Go ahead,” Luca said.

  “Here, you do it,” Mason said, handing the phone to Juni.

  Juni hesitated, feeling the enormity of it all. Her missing brother. The Grimm family curse. The quest that would help her break it. It was like a boulder going downhill. She couldn’t stop it now even if she wanted to.

  Juni poked the button.

  Just then, Luca pushed an 8-track tape into the Caprice’s stereo system. The previous owner had left a box of them in the back, and Connor had played them all the time. When Juni was especially missing him, she’d play them, too—Johnny Cash or Loretta Lynn—listening to them sing about walking the line or hearing the train a-comin’ or being a coal miner’s daughter.

  Luca had chosen “King of the Road” by Roger Miller.

  Which was such a Luca thing to do. It was completely unoriginal.

  “I hope you can forgive me for telling Anya, Juni.” Luca reached his hand over the bench seat.

  She didn’t take it. “Maybe someday,” she said.

  VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO

  THIRTY-SEVEN MINUTES into their trip, and Juni was a ball of worry. Would Anya wait the whole two hours to tell Mom and Dad? Or less? They still had another half hour before they’d reach Quincy and Madame Ophelia’s Crystal Emporium, so Juni only had a half hour to figure out how to explain this peculiar s
top to her friends.

  If Mom or Dad didn’t call first and demand they turn around.

  “Luca, I need you to stop in Quincy,” Juni said.

  “What for?”

  “Um . . . Anya. For Anya. She asked me to bring her a very specific . . . creativity crystal. It’s supposed to help her get through the last part of this book she’s been writing.”

  Juni had exactly twenty-seven dollars and fifteen cents in her backpack and no idea how much a crystal would cost. She also had no idea how she’d explain her interest in witches and other curse-related information once she got to Madame Ophelia’s, but she was certain she’d come up with the perfect excuse. Because of course she would.

  She clung tightly to the antler bone and the shimmering feeling that came with it.

  “I thought we were in a hurry,” Luca said.

  Juni glared at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Okay! Okay. It’s your trip.”

  Juni needed to clear her mind and thought now was a good time to dig into Anya’s story. Or draw a fresh set of antlers. The urge to draw them had been building, the way it did each day, like an itch deep inside where she couldn’t reach to scratch.

  “What did you mean earlier when you said it’s your last trip, Luca?” Mason said, cutting off Juni’s thoughts.

  Gabby, who had been gazing out the window, nibbling on the edge of her thumbnail, said, “Luca will be an EMT by next summer. He’ll have a full-time job and won’t have time for kid stuff. We won’t either. We’ll be getting ready for high school.”

  “It isn’t the Olympics, Gabby,” Mason said. “It’s high school. You don’t have to prepare for high school. You just show up and do stuff.”

  “You have no idea how hard it’s going to be, Mason Harold Wheeler the Fourth. First, there are the extracurriculars you have to take if you want to get into a good college. There are AP classes and tutors and test preparation. Oh, and volunteering! You want colleges to know you aren’t a robot.”

  “You won’t even take a break in the summertime?” Juni said. “When will we ever see each other?”

  “Of course you can’t take a break! Your brain forgets what you’ve learned if you don’t keep it working. All the French and algebra and Shakespearean sonnets will drain right out of your head.”

  “That’s good. I hate algebra,” Mason said.

  “Sure, laugh all you want,” Gabby said. “Your brain is leaking knowledge, and you don’t even care.”

  “Shoot. I’ll get the Caprice seats dirty with all my leaking knowledge.”

  “Har, har,” Gabby said.

  With her dad’s encouragement, Gabby had created an entire bulletin board dedicated to images of Ivy League colleges and their Latin mottos, her favorite being Dartmouth’s “Vox Clamantis in Deserto,” which meant “a calling voice in the wilderness.” She said it made her think of lighthouses, how if you were lost, a calling voice was a beacon. Gabby loved poetry, and Juni felt this was evidence that somewhere deep inside herself, Gabby must believe in magic, too. She just didn’t know it yet.

  “So, Anya gave me a sort-of project. She wants me to read her life story,” Juni said. “She gave me a book—it’s a story she wrote when she was a kid—and said I should read it with you guys.”

  “Really? Even Abuela doesn’t know Anya’s life story,” Gabby said.

  Luca turned off whoever was singing “Bluuuueee velvet, whoa, whoa.” Which sounded to Juni exactly like a calling voice in the wilderness.

  She opened Anya’s old leather book, and a letter addressed to her fell into her lap. Juni unfolded the letter and read it to herself.

  Juni,

  I have never told this part of the story. Even to your grandpa Charlie. When you read through it, I hope you will understand why. Even after all these years, it’s still hard for me to think about. But I really have come to understand we are only as cursed as we believe ourselves to be. The time always comes for us to take charge of our own destiny.

  All good journeys end by facing the truth, and perhaps I’ve reached the end of this particular journey—the one that started with an antler bone when I was eleven years old—and can finally face mine.

  I love you and send you luck on your own journey.

  Love,

  Anya

  Juni tucked the letter away in her shorts pocket, took a deep breath, and began to read.

  “‘If there is one thing that stands out after all that has happened, it’s something Mama whispered to me before she died . . .’”

  WHERE THE STORY ENDS

  Summer 1960

  If there is one thing that stands out after all that has happened, it’s something Mama whispered to me before she died.

  “You have to know where you begin, Anya, and where the story ends.”

  At first I thought she was talking nonsense, the way she had so many times toward the end. But then she touched the empty place on her chest. The place where the antler bone necklace should have been.

  I couldn’t help it. I gasped. She’d known all along that I’d taken it.

  I tried to explain why, to let her know there’d been a good reason. But she closed her eyes, her mouth dropping open, and I knew she’d be sleeping for a good long while.

  She died two days later.

  When Will died three months after that, I convinced myself the curse was alive and humming. Their deaths were my fault. Just as bad, I let Will die without confessing my thievery. That was how deeply I carried my shame.

  Teddy and Abigail have helped. Helped in ways they’ll never know. But I suppose I should start from the beginning. Not with the antler bone necklace. That will take some time. But I can start with Teddy and Abigail Scott and Hickory’s Miracle Café.

  Teddy and Abigail came to pick me up at the social worker’s office in South Lake Tahoe on July 31, 1960. They were taking me to their home in a place called Chester, up north on Lake Almanor. I’d never heard of Lake Almanor, but Teddy said I should feel right at home there, seeing as how it’s a lake town and all. As though you can substitute one lake for another. I wondered if he felt the same way about family.

  Abigail reminded me of a snowy egret with her long, dignified neck and skinny calves. She had a careful way of moving, too. Like she was nursing a wound. Or had sore joints. Teddy had more hair on his face, in the form of a thick mustache and beard, than he did on the entirety of his head. He talked with his hands and moved around a lot and didn’t quite finish his sentences. I later learned this was how he acted when he was nervous. At the time all I could think was how they were truly an oddly matched couple and that I had no idea how I had come to be in their possession.

  Teddy loaded my only bag into the bed of their sky-blue Chevy pickup, and Abigail offered me the window seat. “This way you have the open window. It’s a three-hour drive.”

  Right, because I wanted scalding July heat blasting my face for the next three hours. I honored Mama’s memory, however, by being more polite than usual. “Thank you, Mrs. Scott.”

  “Please, call me Abigail,” she said.

  But I wasn’t ready for that kind of familiarity.

  We buckled in, side by side by side, and as Teddy backed out of the parking space, he beeped his horn twice and waved out the window to the social worker, Mrs. Deakins, who may or may not have waved in response. I didn’t look.

  I was too busy drawing myself a map. I plugged in a starting point of Lake Tahoe Boulevard and then drew landmarks like the bowling alley and Freshies Market. I was going to write down every twist and turn so I could get myself back here if I needed to. No harm in having an escape plan. If the curse had taught me anything, it was that I needed to be prepared.

  Abigail turned on the radio, and I noticed she wore glittery light pink fingernail polish. Mama had never worn fingernail polish in all her
life, because she considered it “fussy.” She wouldn’t have been able to keep still long enough for it to dry, anyway, since she was always so busy with her hands. Playing Scrabble. Knitting. Reading.

  Right then I figured I knew something about Abigail Scott. She had chunks of time with nothing to do but stare off into space as her fingernails dried.

  Teddy started humming under his breath with the radio, the theme song from A Summer Place, a movie Mama had seen three times last year.

  “Melodrama at its finest” was what she’d said. Mama was a sucker for melodrama.

  I think about that day a lot, my first day with Teddy and Abigail. How if they hadn’t been such kind people, things might have ended up different. Instead of having our own future melodrama, I would have simply arrived at their house and eaten their vegetables and gone to school and done a proper amount of homework and chores and it would have been like checking things off a list. I would have behaved myself, of course, so I could stay in one place instead of hop all over the way Lucy Williams had. I’d met her in the halfway house, and she told me the world was filled with horrors. I told her I knew that to be true.

  If they hadn’t been so kind, I might never have thought to keep them safe from the curse, as terrible as that is to admit.

  But then we got to Hickory’s Miracle Café.

  “Why are we stopping?” I said as Teddy turned off the engine.

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and we’d only been driving an hour. I’d already eaten lunch, and I assumed they had, too.

  “I noticed you were drawing a map,” Teddy said.

  I quickly closed the leather notebook Mr. Halloran had given me “for my thoughts and such.” Nice Mr. Halloran who took us in temporarily when Mama was in the hospital.

  “I like maps,” I said.

  “Looks that way, so I figured you had to see this one. I’ll get your door.”