Brim of his hat bobbing, he only ran faster, disappearing over the hill without looking back. She hugged herself against the October air. Alone, she trudged inside.
The house felt very empty. The hum of the refrigerator was extra loud, like an overgrown mosquito. She heard the living room clock tick. Julie didn’t like the thoughts she was thinking. She didn’t like the feeling in her stomach, as if she were hanging upside down. She didn’t like the horrible whisper in her head: What if they’re right? What if all she could do was run?
Julie climbed the stairs slowly. Going into her mother’s bedroom, she lifted the lid of her mother’s jewelry box. Potpourri smells wafted out of it, and Julie swallowed a lump in her throat. Her mother loved “smell-good stuff,” as she called it—anything but rose or pine or forest-scented. Her jewelry box smelled a little like jam.
The money that Boots had mentioned was on top, a stack of folded twenties. She could take a bus from the center of Shrewsbury to New York and from there, anywhere.
Julie picked up the bills. Underneath them were her mother’s necklaces. Julie set the money aside and looked through them: the jade circle that the Nightingale had given her, the cat pendant shaped like Boots, the silver choker the dwarves had made. She held the choker in her hands, remembering how many times she’d seen it around her mother’s neck. She pictured her mom looking like a movie star in her black floor-length dress and this necklace. She had worn that outfit to Julie’s fifth-grade play, saying it was Julie’s premiere, so she should dress the part. Julie blinked fast.
Reaching back into the box, her fingers brushed her mom’s key. All the times that her mother had reminded her to lock her bedroom door hadn’t mattered at all. Even if she’d piled on locks, the Wild still would have been whisked to freedom. It had escaped through a wish, not through doors.
Cindy had said it wasn’t Julie’s wish. It couldn’t have been. Grandma had called Ursa at the motel before Julie had said that horrible thing. Something had happened at the motel before Julie ever spoke. But even though her wish hadn’t caused this, she still felt responsible. The Wild had been under her bed, after all.
Julie tried to remember if she had seen the Wild last night when she went to bed, and she couldn’t remember actually looking. She had assumed it was there. She should have checked. If she’d checked, if she’d known sooner . . . But no, she’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself.
It hit her like a blow: what if her wish—her horrible wish that Zel weren’t her mother—were the last thing she ever said to her?
Thinking about it made her insides twist. It didn’t matter that her wish hadn’t caused the Wild to escape, she realized. What mattered was that she’d said it at all. Mom was now trapped in the Wild thinking that Julie hated her, and Julie might never have the chance to explain. She kept replaying the night in her head. What if she never saw her mother again, never heard her say “uppy snuppy” again, never laughed at her horrible quiche again? What if that was the last moment she got?
She couldn’t let that happen. If no one would go in to rescue Mom, she’d go herself. The thought made her catch her breath. Could she . . . No, no, it was crazy. She wasn’t a hero. The idea of voluntarily entering the woods with all its dragons, witches, and ogres . . . Julie shuddered. It was a job for a hero. Like my father, she thought. He died in there. Her hands clenched. The Wild killed her father, and now it had her mother.
The Wild has declared war on your family, she thought. Now, what are you going to do about it?
“Stupid,” she said out loud. How could she go up against the Wild? She was one girl. She had nothing to help her make it through the Wild . . .
Or did she? Dropping the necklaces, she picked up Mom’s special key—the key that opened all locks, including the linen closet.
Chapter Nine
The Linen Closet
If this was a war, here was her arsenal.
What should she take? What did heroes use against witches, wolves, ogres, magicians . . . ? She’d better take everything.
Julie inhaled deeply, then plunged into the closet and began shoveling items into her backpack: wands, hats, scarves, small boxes. Into a side pocket, she dumped a handful of magic rings. She added a jeweled knife, a tablecloth, several feathers, and a purse with pebbles. Shelf by shelf, she emptied the closet and stuffed the backpack until it was bursting.
When she finished with the shelves, she knelt down and sorted through the boots on the floor—too small, too large, too incomplete . . . She extracted a pair of brown boots and examined them. They looked like they would fit, and (except for a frayed lace) they were mostly whole. Julie flipped off her left sandal and put on a boot. Holding on to the linen closet door, she stood up on her other foot. Carefully, she placed the boot down. With a whoosh of air, she found her nose pressed against the wall.