Hannah and the Wild Woods Read online

  I lean over him. He is so cold, so still. His eyes are squeezed shut as though he’s sleeping, and his head is partially hidden by one of his wings.

  When I rest my cheek against him, the pain I feel is worse than anything I could ever imagine. I sit back on my knees, and with shaking hands, pick him up and hold him close against my heart. I wrap my arms so tightly around him but I know it isn’t any good. It’s too late. It’s just too late.

  Somehow, I find my way to my feet. I stay at the waterline for a moment, cradling Jack, staring zombie-like out at the ocean. I’ve lived by the sea my whole life. I miss it so much when I’m away from it, but everything is different now. Now what I see is an ocean that I hate. How can it be so calm and peaceful now, yet just hours ago so violent and menacing? How could it have been so cruel? How could it take away my best friend in the world?

  I walk on heavy legs up the beach and find shelter in between a haphazard pile of driftwood. Despite my shivering, I peel off my sweatshirt—down now to just my T-shirt—and lay it on the smooth sand. I place Jack on it, and go to work on the star ball, carefully untangling the chain from around his legs until the ball rolls away onto the sand, the glowing light flickering weakly inside it. I glare at the hoshi no tama, wishing now that I’d never found it. Wishing now, that I’d never come here.

  I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to go on without Jack. How can he be gone? I clutch at my sides, feeling dizzy, and then feel a hand on my shoulder. Peter.

  “Hannah,” he says softly, squatting down beside me. He puts his hand over mine, the one that’s resting on Jack. “I was getting wood. I saw you from the woodpile. Hannah, I’m so sorry.”

  I look up into his eyes, so warm and caring, but I can’t even open my mouth. There just are no words. None.

  “How,” he says softly. “How did this happen? What happened?”

  “He …” I stammer. “He must have drowned. His legs … they got tangled in that necklace. In the storm.”

  Peter doesn’t ask any more questions. He just keeps his hand over mine while I cry, and drapes his jacket around my shivering shoulders.

  My teeth won’t stop chattering, and I feel exhausted. I drop my head and press my fingers against my temples, squeezing my eyes shut. But even with my eyes closed, the image of Jack remains.

  “Hannah.” Kimiko, her face contorted with fear, stands beside me.

  “NO!” A rush of adrenaline surges through me as I jump to my feet and shove her away. “GET AWAY FROM HIM!” I yell, pushing Kimiko aside. She falls over like a feather. There is no weight to her at all. But I know what she’s after; she’s changed her mind. She wants her power back after all. She doesn’t care about Jack or me, or anyone except herself. All she wants is her hoshi no tama.

  “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” I sob. “You’re the reason that Jack is dead! You’re the reason for everything that has gone wrong up here! I can’t believe I tried to help you!”

  “Hannah, calm down.” Peter pulls me off her and I crumple on the sand.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah,” Kimiko whispers in a small voice, and then, still shivering, but summoning up all her strength, she snatches the star ball from where it sits in the sand. She holds it high over her head and brings it down hard on a rock at her side. The glass explodes into shards. The bright light bursts forth, and Kimiko catches it and holds it in her hands. When she leans over Jack, I make a lunge for her, but Peter grabs hold of my shoulders.

  “Let me go, Peter!” I scream. “Get her away from Jack!”

  Kimiko opens up her palms and the golden light—so much brighter now—escapes her hands to wash over Jack on the ground. His entire body becomes infused with light, almost as though he is on fire. It’s more than I can bear! I wrench myself free of Peter, shove Kimiko aside and reach out for Jack. But I can’t touch him. It’s as though the light has created a vibrating force field around him. All I can do is watch helplessly as he starts pulsating with a kind of blinding electricity.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” I screech at Kimiko.

  But Kimiko can’t answer me. She slumps down heavily on the sand, exhausted. The light that envelopes Jack begins to flicker and fade, and a minute later, it disappears altogether.

  Peter looks stunned. “What the—”

  We stare at Jack, watching in disbelief as his black feathers begin to change. His dark wingtips become tinged with white at the edges. His tail feathers begin turn to from black to grey and then lighter still.

  “What’s happening to him?” I cry, clutching Peter’s arm. I watch as each one of Jack’s feathers, once so glossy and black, turn pearly snow white, right before my eyes. It happens in a matter of seconds. Even his beak, legs and talons change from their usual black to a light, pinkish hue.

  “Peter!”

  “I know!”

  When the transformation is complete, one of Jack’s wings stirs. Just a little. A second later his leg twitches. And then his whole body shudders and jerks from side to side as both of his wings slowly unfurl. He eyes—once black, now blue blink several times before looking straight into mine.

  “JACK!” I drop to my knees and stretch my arms out in front of me, and then, just like always, he cocks his head to one side, gets up and hops forward. He lets out a little croak and steps tentatively onto my forearm, digging those strong and familiar talons straight through my sleeve and against the flesh of my arm.

  “It’s you! You’re back! You’re here!” I can barely contain myself. Jack is alive! He’s right here! Alive! He picks up a little bit of my wet hair in his beak and gives it a tug, and I laugh out loud. I want to pinch myself but I’m not dreaming. Jack is right here!

  “Holy crap!” Peter says, looking a little pale. “I do not believe what just went down.”

  “Me either!” I say, “But look! Peter, Jack is—”

  Kimiko sits on the wet sand, pale and silent.

  “Kimiko!” I say incredulously. “How? How did you do—”

  “What,” a voice says beside me, “is that?” I look over and see Sabrina, the crocheted afghan from the couch draped around her, and her hair sticking up every which way. “I just got up. I could see you guys from the kitchen window.”

  “It’s Jack,” I say quietly.

  Sabrina stares at Jack as though he has six heads. “Yeah, right,” she says. “Like I’m supposed to believe that’s your raven friend? As if.”

  At that precise moment, Jack caws and flaps off my arm to land right on top of my head.

  “OW!” I say, shooing him off and back onto my arm. “Cut it out, Jack.”

  “Wait. Is this for real?” Sabrina says. Then she stops looking at Jack, and starts staring at Kimiko and me. “Why are you guys so wet? Did you fall in the ocean or something?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We did. Over there.” I point to a little rocky point down the beach.

  “Which is why you both need to get back to the lodge and get warm. And right now,” Peter says. “If Ruth catches wind of this, you guys are toast.” But despite the warning, he doesn’t move; he just stares at Jack and keeps shaking his head.

  “Isn’t anyone going to tell me what happened?” Sabrina asks impatiently.

  “We don’t know!” Peter and I say in unison.

  As we walk back to the lodge, I hang back a little with Kimiko. “Are you okay?”

  “I just need a hot shower,” she says quietly. “But I feel a lot better all of a sudden.”

  Strangely, the colour has returned to her cheeks, and her eyes look brighter.

  “But your hoshi no tama,” I say. “It’s broken. What if—”

  “I know,” she says, “I don’t get it either. But I feel okay. Really.”

  I stop and look out at the ocean, the familiar weight of Jack now on my shoulder. Thanks to Kimiko, Jack is here. I have so much to say, but I can’t think of the right words. I have felt so many mixed up emotions in the past hour, that I can’t make sense of anything. “Kimiko, I—”


  She puts an index finger to her lips. “It’s okay. We can talk later.”

  So we just walk, because maybe Kimiko is right. There will be time to talk later.

  But almost immediately, I stop suddenly and turn around.

  “What is it?” Kimiko asks, her teeth chattering.

  “I’m not sure.” But through the spitting rain and deep in the shadows between the trees, I’m pretty sure I catch a fleeting glimpse of silver fur.

  “Did you see something?”

  “Sitka,” I say. “I think she’s still watching us.”

  Kimiko and I stand together, motionless on the beach, and wait for our wolf to reappear. When she doesn’t, we turn around and walk the rest of the way to the lodge.

  I place the palm of my hand over Jack’s feet, and he starts pecking at the signet ring on my baby finger—a present my mom gave me when I was seven. I can’t begin to describe how wonderful it is to feel the heat radiating off his body.

  Inside the Artful Elephant, the clock on the stove is blinking—a clear sign the power was out. No big surprise there.

  When Norman spies us, he thumps his thick tail against the side of a kitchen chair, eager for someone to remember that it’s his breakfast time. While Peter dumps the kibble into his bowl, I can’t help noticing that Norman doesn’t seem the least bit bothered about Kimiko. In fact, he barely notices her at all. He’s well aware of Jack, though, and Jack is not too stoked about it. I make a beeline for the pantry, shove the woolly afghan into the old forgotten dog crate that sits in the corner, and place Jack inside it. He seems happy to be in a safe place—even though it was once probably Norman’s— and settles himself deep into the afghan. With any luck, he will sleep, and I can check on him while he does.

  I take a moment to stroke the side of his smooth white head, and stare into his familiar eyes. They have a light blue-grey hue to them now, but they’re still Jack’s eyes. They still look at me with the same mixture of familiarity and cheekiness. “Go to sleep, buddy,” I tell him. “You’ve earned it.”

  Peter puts the kettle on while Kimiko and I each take long hot showers up in our room. When Kimiko is done, she looks about one hundred percent better. In fact, she looks better than ever. So much for the hypothermia I thought she had. I, on the other hand, look like a tired hag!

  When we’re finally warmed up and dressed in dry clothes, we come downstairs, where Peter hands us mugs of hot, sweet tea. I can’t remember when anything has ever tasted so wonderful. “Thanks, Peter,” I say. He gives me a wink and a big smile. He doesn’t ask me any questions about why Kimiko and I were outside in the first place. I’m grateful for that, because I honestly don’t know what I’d say, and I wouldn’t want to lie to him. Peter is a pretty decent guy.

  When I’m confident that Jack is sleeping soundly, I walk to the window in the Big Kahuna. The ocean is flat as a pancake now, the calmest I’ve seen it since we arrived here. There isn’t a puff of wind, and the sky is already bluer than blue. In my whole life, I’ve never seen weather change so quickly from one extreme to the other.

  “That was one powerful storm!” Ruth says, coming down the stairs. “And I overslept! My alarm never went off! Did we lose power?”

  “Yep, and we figured we would let you sleep in for once,” Jade says. “Apparently there’s a big tree down on the main road, too.

  “Pretty sure everyone around here lost power,” Peter says.

  And Kimiko is no exception.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It’s going to be a rough day of work. All I really want to do is sleep for about one hundred hours, but that’s just not going to happen, and it isn’t like I can tell anyone why I’m so tired!

  When I go upstairs to get some dry work gloves, Norman is pacing back and forth outside our bedroom door, wagging his tail.

  “Nope. Don’t think so, buddy,” I say. “Your nemesis is in there.” I open the door a few inches, and begin to squeeze my body through, but Norman lets out a resounding “woof” and pushes right past me.

  “Hey!” He bounds across the room and launches himself right in the middle of Kimiko’s bed.

  “OH!” Kimiko jumps, and the notebook she’s been writing in bounces off the bed and onto the floor.

  I rush to grab Norman’s collar, but my hand stops in midair, and I can’t help but laugh. This crazy black dog has somehow managed to crawl onto Kimiko’s lap, his back end wiggling so enthusiastically that the lamp rattles on the bedside table.

  Kimiko shuts her eyes tight, and tries unsuccessfully to push him off, but the harder she pushes, the closer Norman gets to her. When he begins to cover her face with slobbery wet dog kisses, I decide it’s time to intervene. Easier said than done; it’s no easy task to hold back eighty pounds of wiggle!

  Kimiko wipes at the dog slobber on her cheeks. “Ugh! My face is all sticky.”

  “Those are dog kisses,” I say. “They’re always sticky.”

  “Well, I guess it’s not that awful,” she says, a smile forming.

  “This is really strange,” I say. “I mean, not only the past twenty-four hours, but this whole Norman thing, too. It’s like he’s suddenly decided that you’re his best friend or something.” And at that very moment, he breaks free from my arms and commando crawls up the bed to snuggle close to Kimiko again. Only this time, he buries his snout in her armpit.

  “Yep, he’s definitely stoked on you,” I say.

  “I’ve never been friends with a dog before,” she says, her face flushed.

  “Well, dogs are awesome. I have a dog friend back home named Quincy. He doesn’t smell great, but he’s pretty cool.”

  Kimiko lays a tentative hand upon Norman’s head, and then gently rubs him behind his ears. Norman responds by lunging forward to lick her on the nose. I honestly wouldn’t believe any of this if I weren’t watching it happen right before my eyes. Who is this dog?

  Kimiko smiles. “I think I like him.”

  “See? That’s how it works. He’s totally winning you over.”

  “Hah,” Kimiko says. “Could be.” She gets up and goes to the bathroom to wash her face, and that’s when I notice there is something different about the way she walks. She seems a little off balance—a little uncertain of her normally sure-footed steps.

  “Are you still dizzy?” I ask.

  “Maybe a little,” she says.

  “Well, don’t lock the door,” I caution as she walks into the bathroom. A moment later she peeks her head around the door, a look of disbelief on her face. “HANNAH! Come see!”

  “Come see what?”

  “Look!” She points at her reflection in the big mirror over the sink. Only this time, it isn’t the face of a fox that stares back. This time, it’s a pretty Japanese girl who looks at us—a Japanese girl with eight braids and twinkling amber eyes that flash with excitement.

  “It’s my reflection!” she says, gripping her hands together. “My human reflection!”

  “I see!”

  “A kitsune’s reflection is never a human reflection,” she explains. “Even when we’re in human form. Mirrors have always been one of my biggest fears!”

  She leans over the sink to study her face in the mirror, poking at her cheeks and shoulders as though she half expects to see her image vanish into thin air.

  Sabrina comes into our room, and, sidestepping Norman, she walks into the bathroom to stand beside Kimiko. She peers into the mirror, obviously confused about what it everyone is looking at. “What?”

  But Kimiko and I can’t stop smiling, and nothing either of us can say will make any sense to Sabrina anyway.

  “Oh,” Sabrina says finally, nodding her head. “I get it now.”

  “You do?” Kimiko says.

  “Sure.” Sabrina leans over the sink and stares at Kimiko’s reflection closely. “It’s plainly obvious. You need to do a better job plucking your eyebrows.”

  Kimiko and I double over laughing, while Sabrina looks at us as though we’ve completely lost ou
r minds.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny about sloppy personal hygiene,” she says. “But they’re your eyebrows.” She sneers at both of us. “And FYI,” she says, closing the door behind her, “we’re supposed to be working right now.”

  What? Since when did Sabrina grow a work ethic?

  I check in on Jack in the pantry one more time before I go outside. I find him casually investigating a sack of potatoes, tugging at a few loose strands of the burlap bag as though nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. How can he have this much energy?

  “You,” I say, folding my arms over my chest, “are something else.”

  He loses interest in the potatoes, and struts across the floor to check out some acorn squash in a box in the corner, looking at me briefly as me as if to say, “I know.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Ruth says after lunch. “A bird can’t just change its colour. Chameleons, sure, but ravens, I don’t think so.”

  “Well you’re looking right at him,” I say, watching Jack preen his snowy-white feathers on the concrete birdbath outside.

  “It isn’t possible,” Ruth says. “It must be a different raven.”

  “He’s not an it,” I say. “He’s Jack.”

  Ruth looks to Peter for backup but Peter is just smiling his wide, easy smile, his arms folded across his chest as he leans against the door frame watching Jack.

  “Peter?” Ruth says.

  “Mmmmm?”

  “Are you buying this stuff?”

  “Well, I’m not not buying it. You can’t always have all the answers, Ruth,” he says, his eyes crinkling up at the edges. “Even psychics can’t know everything.”

  “So … you think that’s Jack?”

  “Not saying it isn’t.”

  “Come on!”

  Peter pushes himself away from the door and plops himself down on the end of the couch in the Big Kahuna. “Back on Haida Gwaii,” he says, “there was once a white raven. He lived in Port Clements for a couple of years. I used to see him all the time when I was a kid.”