Out of the Wild Read online

  She wasn’t going to . . . Oh, no, she was. As soon as she reached the ground, she’d chop down the beanstalk. He’d fall. He’d die. And then he would return to the beginning of the story, without his memory, to relive it all again.

  Julie fought harder. She didn’t want to hurt him. He’d tried so hard to escape this. Stop climbing, she ordered herself. Stop, stop, stop! But her hands and feet kept moving.

  “Let me go!” she cried to the Wild.

  Did it hear her? Did it care? It wanted this. It wanted her trapped in a story. It had tried to make Linda trap her as Sleeping Beauty. Since that had failed, it was now trying to trap her as Jack. In fact, she thought, the Wild could have brought Boots to the clouds and kept Gina free precisely to trap Julie. And its plan was working! When Julie reached the bottom, she’d chop down the beanstalk, and the tale would end. Julie would forget who she was. She’d forget about the Wild and the door to the well. And then she would climb another beanstalk and chop it down . . . over and over and over—forever.

  Her feet touched the ground, and she released the leaves. An ax suddenly appeared in her hands. Stop! she tried to tell her arms. Don’t do this! He’ll be trapped! I’ll be trapped! Her arms swung the ax toward the beanstalk.

  Crack.

  She wanted to shout to the giant, to warn him. But her throat wouldn’t work. Even if she could warn him, he knew even better than she did what was about to happen.

  Crack, crack, crack.

  Julie kept pounding it with the ax. Green bits sprayed off in all directions. Beanstalk juice splattered her face and stung her eyes. Her palms ached. Sweat prickled her forehead and ran down her neck.

  Crack!

  She heard his voice drift down from above. “Goodbye, Julie.”

  And the beanstalk began to tip.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The End

  The giant didn’t scream as he fell, but Julie did. She heard her own voice echoing in her ears as she watched the beanstalk plummet toward the earth. Its leaves fluttered as it fell. He clung to it. She saw a glimpse of his face: no fear. Just . . . sadness.

  And then the beanstalk crashed down. She heard a horrible, echoing smack.

  Silence.

  “The end,” she whispered, and the forest vanished.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jack

  A girl stood on a moss-covered path with an orange cow beside her. Forest hemmed the path on either side. Branches stretched like arms up over her, blocking the sun except in narrow shafts of dust-speckled light. She looked behind her. The path curved behind a tree and disappeared into shadows. She didn’t remember coming from there. She didn’t remember coming from anywhere. She was simply here.

  Do I live here? she wondered. Where is here?

  Ow, ow, ow, she thought as her head suddenly began to ache. It felt as if someone was squeezing her brain. Trying to distract herself from the sudden pain, she listened to the birds singing in the trees. Most chirped and twittered, but a few were singing in English about springtime and love. How pretty, the girl thought. The pain in her head began to fade. “Pretty,” she said out loud, and the pain disappeared entirely.

  “I want to chase those birds,” the cow said.

  She laughed as she pictured the cow trying to climb a tree.

  “It’s not funny,” the cow said. “They’re making me hungry.”

  “Sorry,” she said, and stifled a giggle. Maybe he could swat them with his tail.

  “Stop laughing.”

  The girl was saved from having to respond by the appearance of a man in blue jeans and a tattered coat walking through the forest toward them. As he approached, he waved and said, “Good morning! Where are you off to?”

  How could she know that? She didn’t . . . Ouch, her head hurt again. “I’m going to market to sell our cow here,” her mouth said. Aha! She had a destination!

  “Sell?” the cow said.

  Funny how she hadn’t known about the market before she spoke. Her mouth had simply known what to say. “I could save you a trip,” the man said. “How would you like to swap your cow for these beans here?”

  “I’m sure I’m worth more than beans,” the cow said in an irritated voice. He pawed at her leg with his hoof. “Don’t do it.”

  The girl patted his neck. Of course she wasn’t going to sell him for beans. He was her first friend. She felt like she’d known him a long time, even though she could only recall the last few minutes.

  “Ah, but these are special beans!” the man said. “Magic beans! If you plant them, they will grow into a beanstalk that reaches right into the sky.”

  She didn’t want a beanstalk that reached into the sky. Why would anyone want that? But her hand stretched out and opened. She frowned at her hand. Why had it done that? Again, as soon as she asked a question, her head throbbed. Grabbing her wrist, the man poured five beans onto her palm. The girl’s fingers closed over them. She stared at her fist holding the magic beans.

  “Nooo!” the cow said. “Don’t sell me!”

  The man threw a rope around the cow’s neck.

  “I do not need a leash,” the cow said. “I’m not a dog. I’m a . . . Am I a cow? That doesn’t sound right . . .” He continued to protest as the man led him down the path through the trees. Soon, they disappeared from view.

  The girl stood alone in the forest with five magic beans in her hand. Birds warbled in the trees, singing of princes and princesses. Why did I do that? she wondered. She hadn’t wanted to sell the cow. He had made her laugh. Maybe she could trade back.

  Putting the beans in her pocket, she started walking in the same direction as the man and the cow. As she walked, she saw she wasn’t alone in the woods. By a pond, a girl played with a golden ball while a frog wearing a crown watched. In a clearing, two children nibbled on the roof of a candy house. She saw an old woman with a basket of bright red apples, and she saw a girl in a red cape and hood picking flowers. A knight in armor rode past her on a white horse. “Excuse me,” she called to him. “Have you seen an old man with a cow?”

  He didn’t answer, and his horse didn’t slow. It was as if he didn’t hear or see her.

  Walking farther, she came across a woman in front of a small cottage. Her face was expressionless, her arms hung listlessly by her sides, and her head was tilted as if she were listening to the birds sing. Intending to ask about the man and cow, the girl headed for the house.

  As she reached the front gate, the woman said, “Back so soon, Jack?”

  Back? Had she been here before? And was her name really Jack? A sharp pain immediately shot through her head. Okay, okay, she thought, I’m Jack. “Yes,” she said to the woman. Instantly, her head felt better.

  The woman shepherded her inside. “I see you no longer have the cow with you. You must have sold him. How much did you sell him for?”

  The girl Jack reached into her pocket and drew out the five beans. She held them out on her upturned palm. “Five magic beans,” she said.

  “Beans? Beans!” The woman’s face contorted, and she clutched her head as if she were suddenly in pain. She raised her hand. Her arm began to shake. Tears sprang into the woman’s eyes. And then suddenly her arm swung fast at the girl’s face, and her open palm cracked against her cheek. “Take that, you stupid child!” the woman cried.

  Run, the girl told her feet. Run! But her feet wouldn’t move. Why wouldn’t her feet move? Run!

  “Take that!” The woman struck again.

  Pain exploded on her arm and shot up her shoulder.

  And again. “Take that!”

  She dropped to her knees, and the beans clattered to the floor. “Stop, please, stop!” the girl cried. “I’m sorry!” She shouldn’t have given her the beans. But the girl didn’t have anything else. She plunged her hands into her front and back pockets, and she pulled out a wad of crumpled and stained paper. She held it up like an offering. “Here! Please! This is all I have!”

  Ignoring the paper, the woman scooped
the beans off the floor and threw them out the window. “Out the window with the beans! And you, to bed without supper.” Yanking the girl to her feet, the woman shoved her toward a doorway.

  Hugging the paper, the girl cringed away from her.

  The woman’s face contorted again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she shut the door. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  The girl stood alone in the room and blinked back tears. Her shoulder ached, and her face stung. What had happened? What had she done wrong? What was she doing here? As her head began to throb again, tears spilled out of her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks and onto the papers that she clutched in her hands.

  She looked down. She held several sheets of folded paper, all with writing on them. Sitting on the bed, she unfolded them and read the first sentence:

  Once upon a time, everyone lived in a fairy tale . . .

  What was a “fairy tale”? As soon as the question entered her head, a sharp pain stabbed into her with such fury that she gasped. The papers fell out of her fingers and fluttered onto the floor. As soon as they landed, the pain subsided.

  She looked down at the papers. Everyone lived in a fairy tale . . . The words echoed inside her. The pain in her head, she decided, wasn’t much worse than the ache in her shoulder or her back. She picked up the pages.

  Everyone, she read, lived in a fairy tale while they were inside the Wild. “The Wild,” she said out loud. She knew that word! How did she know that word? This time, she ignored her aching head. The Wild, it said, was the essence of fairy tales. While you were inside it, you were a princess or a knight or a witch. You were Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or Jack . . . Jack? But she was Jack, wasn’t she? She read further. You could choose to do whatever you wanted with your fairy-tale life. If you didn’t want to go to the ball, you didn’t have to. If you didn’t want to fall asleep, you didn’t have to. If you didn’t want to sell your cow for magic beans, you didn’t have to. And then, whenever you wanted, you could exit the Wild and return to your ordinary life. The papers went on to describe an adventure with two girls named Gillian and Julie . . .

  Gillian and Julie.

  The girl gripped the pages so hard that the edges crumpled in her fists. She knew those names. But this story wasn’t right. The Wild wasn’t like that. The Wild didn’t coexist in peace with the world. It was either reduced to a tangle of vines under her bed or it dominated the world. There was no middle ground.

  The girl Jack . . . No, not Jack. Julie. She was Julie! Julie hugged the pages to her chest as the memories rolled back over her. Gillian had written this story back before Julie’s dad returned, before Julie was eaten by a wolf, before she was chased by a dragon in the Grand Canyon, before the Wild swallowed her family . . . before the Wild swallowed everything!

  Julie jumped to her feet. She knew what she had to do: (1) find a castle, (2) find the door, (3) find the well, and (4) make a wish—four steps, all of which had to happen before the Wild caught her again.

  You can do this, she told herself. You’re the daughter of Rapunzel and the prince—the daughter of a general and a hero. You have both their strengths. This time, you won’t fail.

  Step one: find a castle.

  She knew exactly where to look. Rushing to the window, Julie threw open the curtains. Giant green leaves blocked the view. She shoved Gillian’s story back into her pocket and raised the window. As soon as she did so, the Wild grabbed control of her. Her shoulder twinged as her arm reached for a leaf, but she didn’t fight it. She wanted to climb. She needed to climb. Scrambling out the window, she latched onto the beanstalk. Her hands reached for leaf after leaf, and up she went. Julie climbed higher and higher until she was surrounded by thick white mist. Soon, the beanstalk narrowed, and without pausing, she stepped off the leaf to stand knee-deep in white fluffy clouds.

  Julie had control of her body again, but she didn’t stop moving. She marched across the clouds toward the castle. She climbed onto the drawbridge and then knocked on the vast castle doors.

  Once again, Gina the giantess opened the door, and Julie felt the Wild take hold of her again. “Please,” her mouth said, “may I have a bit of breakfast?”

  “It’s breakfast you want, is it?” the giantess said. Her voice boomed across the clouds. “It’s breakfast you’ll be! My husband is a giant, and he’ll eat you with toast if he finds you.”

  “Please, I beg of you!” Julie said. “Some food to eat!”

  “Very well,” the giantess said. “Come with me.” As before, Gina led her into the castle, laid a napkin on the floor, and gave her a human-sized wedge of bread and cheese. Julie automatically ate a bite, and then the Wild released her.

  This time, Julie decided, she wasn’t going to ask if Gina knew who she was. She wasn’t going to try to save her. She was going to leave Gina in her story. She couldn’t afford to lose the time. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  Step two, she thought: find the door.

  This time, she wouldn’t let herself be distracted. Boots might be here, again laying golden eggs, but she had to leave him in a story too. She couldn’t try to find him. Without another word, she leapt to her feet and ran across the banquet hall to the archway that she’d seen before. It felt wrong, deliberately leaving behind her brother and Gina. She told herself that this was the only way to save them all. They’d understand later.

  She wondered if this was how Dad felt when he chose to chase after Sleeping Beauty and leave Mom or when he chose to chase the dragon and leave Julie. Like father, like daughter, she thought.

  It took her five very long minutes to cross the enormous banquet hall and another two very long minutes to climb over the threshold into the corridor. The hallway was lit with torches the size of bonfires. Orange light played over the faces of massive doors. Please, please, please, be here, she repeated to herself as if she could make the motel room door appear by sheer will.

  Julie raced down a hall so wide that it could have been a freeway. Every door she passed was a towering slab of wood and iron. She needed a small motel room door that was painted a faded purple with a gold number thirteen in the center.

  What if it wasn’t here? But it had to be, she thought. She’d told her story to people. People had heard it, and then they’d retold it. She’d made it a real fairy tale. The door had to be here!

  Julie nearly ran by it. In a corridor of colossal doors, the human-sized door was minuscule. If it hadn’t been painted purple, she wouldn’t have seen it.

  Without hesitating, Julie threw it open. Behind her, she heard the giant begin to shout, “Fee, fie, foe, fum!” Julie plunged through the door. It shut behind her, and everything was suddenly silent.

  Green vines brushed her arms as she walked forward. She pushed aside a screen of leaves and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the Wishing Well Motel. It worked! She was here! All she had to do now was cross through the lobby into the backyard, find the well, and make a wish to destroy the Wild.

  The bells on the lobby door rang as she pushed it open. All the lights were out. Shadows fell across the lime green sofas. She hurried across the lobby. The lobby’s back door was locked with triple dead bolts, but she knew where Grandma kept the keys. She dug them out of a fake plant’s pot.

  “Do not do this,” a voice said behind her. “Please.”

  She spun around to see Henry standing beside the registration desk. “You’re okay! How did you . . .” She stopped. Expressionless, he stared at her. She took a step backward. His voice . . . it had sounded flat and empty, like the voice in her nightmares, like Boots’s voice when the Wild had used him like a puppet to talk to her. “You’re not Henry,” she said. “I mean, you’re using Henry. Like a puppet. Do you think I’m going to listen to you just because you’re ‘borrowing’ his body?”

  “Inside my forest, he can be your prince.”

  For an instant, Julie stared at him—the Wild in Henry’s body, the Wild looking out at her through Henry’s green eyes. The Wild could do it, s
he thought. It could arrange for her to be a princess in a fairy tale with Henry as her prince. Of course, they’d forget who they were once they reached their fairy-tale ending. And who knew what sort of awful things would happen to them before they got to happily-ever-after? “I’m glad you didn’t let him get eaten by the dragon. Thank you for that.”

  “Oh, he was,” the Wild said.

  Julie’s heart lurched. He was . . . But the Wild had brought him back, the same way it would bring the giant back to life, the same way it had erased the scars on her father’s face so that he could fall from the tower into thorns over and over again.

  If she didn’t stop the Wild, Henry would be condemned to be eaten over and over again forever—or something else horrible would happen to him when the Wild made him her prince. She unlocked the three dead bolts.

  “Please,” the Wild said, “do not destroy me.”

  He sounded so soft and sad that she paused as she twisted the doorknob. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t have a choice. It’s you or me.” If she wanted to continue to exist as herself—if she wanted to have her family back—then Julie had to put a stop to this, to the Wild, permanently.

  “You need me,” the Wild said. “I am your dreams. I am your wishes. Destroy me, and you will destroy stories.”

  “I’m sorry,” Julie said. This time, she meant it. As Gillian was constantly pointing out, stories weren’t all bad. Stories had wonderful, magical, beautiful things too, like pumpkin carriages and castles in clouds.

  “Your world would be lost without me—dreamless, soulless, empty,” it said. “Imagine your world without fairy tales.”

  What would the world be like without the Wild? Julie thought of the riot in Disneyland and shivered. People wouldn’t want anything to do with fairy tales now. If it was dangerous for fairy-tale characters before, now it could be deadly. They’d be hunted down. Julie would be hunted down. She’d told the truth. She’d even told people her name! How long would it be before people came after her?