Hannah and the Wild Woods Read online

  “You know, your kitsune life. Super X-ray vision at night. Fire starting. Leaping over logs. And what about getting your ninth tail? I mean, that’s a major big deal, right?”

  “Yes,” Kimiko says. “Receiving your ninth tail and the white fur that comes with it is … I mean, was, the ultimate power, but I’m sure I would have messed it up anyway. And besides, I would have had help to get it, the same way I got my other tails.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because of what you did for Jack,” I say. “With the last of your hoshi no tama’s power when you smashed it. You sacrificed everything to save him even though you didn’t know if you would live or die. Think about that Zenko oath, Kimiko. What you did was the ultimate benevolent act, and I think it was recognized.” I wait for Kimiko to say something, but she doesn’t.

  “Think about it!” I go on. “You broke your hoshi no tama and lost your kitsune status. so instead of your fox fur turning white, Jack’s feathers turned white. I think it may have been Inari’s way of recognizing your gift.”

  Kimiko looks thoughtful. “Well, that could be true. I mean, there’s not much known about half-kitsunes. Maybe this is what happened!”

  “And instead of dying, you were given a mortal life! Maybe that is your reward for saving Jack.”

  Kimiko nods. “that could be, but still …”

  “still?”

  “I don’t know where to start, and I have to admit, I feel a little lost. I don’t want to have to depend on others to get by anymore.”

  “Well, sometimes you have to,” I say. “no matter how strong you are, everyone needs a little help now and then.”

  She doesn’t disagree with me, but she doesn’t look reassured, either.

  “It will all work out, Kimiko. You’ll see.”

  She claps her hands in front of her. “I won’t worry about that today,” she says, “and can I share something with you?”

  “sure!”

  “It’s my birthday tomorrow.”

  “seriously?”

  “Yes, for real. I look pretty good for a nine-hundred-year-old, don’t you think?”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “But now it’s different,” Kimiko says with a contented sigh. “Now I will grow older with each birthday, just like you. So tomorrow, I will be eighteen. That is the age I have chosen. A teenager, but old enough to be on my own.”

  I have a sudden flash of insight; the perfect birthday gift for Kimiko. I wring my hands together with excitement. This is going to be good.

  “Hey, Sabrina?” I say after dinner. “Kimiko and I kind of need your help.”

  Sabrina is lying on the couch, flipping mindlessly through a fashion magazine. “Sorry,” she says, sounding bored. “Busy reading.”

  I snatch the magazine out of her hands and hold it high over her head. “No, you aren’t. And anyway, this is mindless trash.”

  “But I enjoy mindless trash.”

  “Well, I guarantee you’re going to enjoy this even more.”

  She sighs, sits up and flops her head against the back of the couch dramatically. “Highly doubtful. What do I have to do?”

  “Well,” I say, “we need you to be our beauty consultant.” This piques her interest, but she looks at me dubiously. “Come on, Hannah. Since when are you interested in anybody’s beauty advice?”

  “I didn’t say it was for me.”

  “Who, then?”

  I tilt my head toward Kimiko, and then extend my hand to Sabrina. When she takes it, I pull her to her feet. “Get off your butt. We’re going upstairs.”

  Sabrina and I both agree that Kimiko isn’t allowed to look in the mirror until we’ve finished. It’s going to be a time-consuming process, and she’s not very good at being patient another human quality she’s going to need to learn. It takes a while to undo all of her braids and then we have to comb the snarls out of her long hair.

  “Ouch!” she whines when Sabrina fights with a particularly nasty tangle.

  “Well, honestly,” Sabrina says. “I’m not doing it on purpose. I’m trying to be as gentle as I can. You should take better care of your hair.”

  When all of Kimiko’s braids are finally combed out, we divide it into nine equal sections. Then we pin all but one of them on the top of her head.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” I whisper to Sabrina.

  “Positive,” she says. “I did it to my cousin last summer.”

  “Okay, then. Full steam ahead.”

  Sabrina adds the hydrogen peroxide to the paper cup full of hair conditioner and mixes it thoroughly. Then she digs around in her cosmetic bag and pulls out a soft make-up brush. “This thing cost over twenty bucks,” she says. “But I’m sacrificing it in the name of beauty. You can thank me later.”

  “Very noble of you, Webber,” I say, smiling.

  “I know.”

  I’m not going to lie; I have to marvel at Sabrina’s talent. She really knows hair, and I watch as she applies the sticky paste quickly and confidently to a section of Kimiko’s hair.

  “How long do we have to wait?” I ask.

  “Patience is a virtue, Hannah,” Sabrina says, sounding a lot like a parent.

  “I take it that means a long time?” Kimiko slumps her shoulders and groans. “I’m so bad at waiting!” she sulks.

  “We noticed,” Sabrina and I say in unison.

  What Sabrina doesn’t say, however, is that we have to repeat the sticky-stuff-on-the-hair process several times, waiting for what seems like forever between the applications.

  When we send Kimiko to the shower for her last rinse and shampoo, she high fives both of us with great enthusiasm.

  We listen to her hum mindlessly as she showers, and literally twiddle our thumbs on our laps as we wait. Finally, the water shuts off.

  When Kimiko emerges in a robe with her hair wrapped in a towel, we sit her down away from the mirror, untwist the towel, and once again set about the challenging task of combing out all that hair. Our efforts have been rewarded! The bright white streak down one side of her hair is positively brilliant! It’s exactly as I’d imagined it would be!

  “Oh my God, Sabrina!” I say. “You’re a genius! It looks awesome!”

  “Of course it does,” she says calmly. “Were you actually worried?”

  “Not really,” I lie. “I knew you’d pull it off.”

  I want to hurry along the process, but Sabrina snatches the blow dryer out of my hand, insisting that Kimiko’s hair is in need of some “treatment” before it is subjected to the blow dryer. “Attention,” I discover, involves a de-frizzing spritzer and something made from tropical plants that grow on the other side of the world. Man, this is more complicated than I thought it would be. Who knew?

  “Is all this really necessary?” I say, flopping down on my back on the bed.

  “Absolutely,” Sabrina says. “You might want to take notes.”

  I ignore her, but when she finally turns on the blow dryer, I’m fully back in the game.

  “Okay,” Sabrina says. “She’s done. You can do that weird braid thing now if you want.”

  “Awesome!” I eagerly settle myself on the stool beside a fidgeting Kimiko and pick up the brush.

  “I still don’t really get it,” Sabrina says. “But I guess style is a personal thing. Can I go back to my magazine now?”

  “Your work here is done,” I say. “You are a free woman. And Sabrina?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks. This was actually really cool of you.”

  “Whatever.” Sabrina fluffs up her own hair, reapplies her lip gloss, and goes back downstairs.

  “Keep your eyes closed,” I tell Kimiko, and she obeys, albeit with a lot of fidgeting. I work quickly and carefully, creating four perfect braids on either side of Kimiko’s head, securing each one with a bright red elastic band. When I’m finished, I pick up the final section of bleached hair and start on K
imiko’s ninth and final braid.

  When I’m done, I take hold of her shoulders and propel her toward the big mirror in the bathroom, ordering her to keep her eyes closed. “Okay,” I say. “Happy Birthday. You can open your eyes now.”

  Kimiko stares at her reflection with awe. She picks up the snow-white braid in her hand and her jaw hangs open.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “I love it!” she squeaks.

  “You didn’t get to receive your ninth tail, so I’ve given you a ninth braid instead.”

  She doesn’t say anything right away. She doesn’t have to. Her face says it all. When she brushes the side of her cheek with the tip of the snow-white braid, she looks at me with a big grin on her face. “Thank you, Hannah. This is the best gift ever.”

  I grab my phone from beside my bed and then pull Kimiko over to stand beside me. “Selfie time!” I snap off a bunch of pictures, most of which are anything but flattering because we’re both laughing so hard.

  “Look,” Kimiko says as we scroll through them. “There I am. There I am, right next to you.”

  It’s so weird that she’s never seen a photograph of herself before this moment. “Yep,” I say. “There you are, and I have to say, you … are a total fox!”

  Chapter Thirty

  The young wolf wakes often during the night. She gets up from the base of the tree where she has bedded down, turns several circles, and curls up again. She licks at her hind paw, still tender.

  She is half asleep when she hears the pack. Her ears prick and she sits up, trying to catch its scent high in the air. She stares up at the sky. It will soon be dawn; it will soon be time.

  She gets up and pokes her muzzle through the bushes, taking careful steps toward the ocean through the thick forest, until she finds herself on the beach. She takes her weight off her injured paw, and bends down to lick the side of it. It is healing, and perhaps once she is in the water, the discomfort will ease even more.

  Soon…

  She travels along the tops of the logs, through beach grass, over rocks and broken shells, until she sees the house sitting in darkness on the point. No lights. It is still too early. She pads closer, and then closer still, until she is directly beneath the room—the one she knows they share. She sits down and waits, her ears pricked and eyes alert. There has been a change here. A good one—she can sense it. Now she knows the time has come for her to go home.

  As though on cue, the pack howls from over the water, from a distant island. At once, the young wolf stands, the tenderness in her paw giving her pause. But she begins the trek back up the beach, confident that she will reach the right spot before dawn breaks.

  I wake from a dream about sitka and rush to the window, bumping straight into Kimiko, who is doing the same thing.

  “A dream,” she says. “I had a dream. About the okami.”

  “You did? So did I!”

  “She was sitting right there,” she points. “Right outside our window in the dark. Then she went up the beach.”

  “I had the same dream! The other wolves called to her and she went to them!”

  I open the balcony door quietly, grab a couple of the folded blankets from the top of the trunk at the foot of my bed, and hand one to Kimiko. We wrap them around our shoulders and slip outside.

  Almost immediately, Jack is on the railing. His splendid white feathers are stark against the still dark sky, and his blue eyes are wide and alert. He is full of frenetic energy, and pecks at the blanket on my arm, pulling at the threads and chortling in raven speak at the same time.

  “What is it, Jack?” I say.

  He beats his ivory wings furiously, jumps to my shoulder, tugs at a strand of my hair, and then takes off to the shoreline. He circles twice over the water, lets out an ear-splitting cry and heads north, soaring fast just a few feet above the surface of the water.

  “We have to go,” I say suddenly. “We have to follow him.”

  “But where to?” Kimiko asks.

  “Tofino.”

  “But, how do you know he’s going there?”

  “I just do.”

  We both get dressed quickly and quietly, and then creep down the stairs in stealth mode. Norman opens one eye as we pass by, but doesn’t make a fuss.

  Once outside, I grab Kimiko’s hand and head for the trail that runs down the side of the lodge. “Come on!”

  “What now?”

  “That little aluminum boat of Ruth’s,” I say. “The one high up near the dune grass. The water is calm and it’s light enough to see!”

  “But I’ve never even been in a boat like that!”

  “Well, I was practically born in one,” I say, “and Ruth did say I could use it.”

  We drag the eight-foot skiff over the wet sand and down to the water. It’s heavy, but we manage it without losing too much time. The water is freezing, but I sure don’t have cold feet!

  When we’re in the boat, I set the oars in the oarlocks and row with all my might along the shoreline until we’re around the point. Then I drop hold of the oars and grab the outboard’s pull start. Thankfully, it starts up on the third try.

  Kimiko is fidgeting, and I tell her to relax and settle herself in the middle of the boat.

  In seconds, we are cutting across the flat surface of the water, and out of nowhere, Jack appears just feet from the boat. He swoops and zigzags in front of us. I know he wants us to follow him, so that’s what we do.

  “What’s he doing?” Kimiko asks.

  “He’s giving us an escort,” I say.

  Thank you, Jack. I knew you’d have our backs.

  We reach Tofino quickly, and motor past the harbour for a few minutes until we find ourselves in a tiny, heavily forested cove. It’s here that Jack banks right and flies to the pebbled shore to light on a piece of driftwood.

  I ease up on the throttle and guide the skiff toward the dark wall of trees in front of us. That’s when I see her on the beach.

  “Look!” Kimiko whispers.

  “I know!” I whisper back, cutting the motor. “I see her!”

  Sitka is standing at the water’s edge, alert ears twitching back and forth.

  I tie the boat to a long-abandoned dock at the far edge of the cove.

  “What do we do now?” Kimiko asks.

  “We wait,” I say, “and make sure she crosses safely.”

  “To that island?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Meares Island. That’s where her pack is. I’m sure of it.”

  “But what if she can’t make the trip? What about her paw?”

  “Too many what ifs,” I say, even though I’m thinking the same thing.

  “So we wait?”

  I nod.

  And that’s exactly what we do; we stop talking and start watching. We wait beneath the pale morning light that spills over the surface of the water.

  Sitka paces up and down the shore. She looks out to sea, her stance firm, her silver sweep of a tail held out straight behind her.

  That’s when the wolf songs start. It rides across the channel—a chorus that floats over the water, through the morning mist, and to Sitka on the shoreline. My goosebumps have goosebumps, and I nudge Kimiko with my elbow. She nods at me, and we hold our breath and watch Jack, still as a statue, as he watches Sitka.

  She licks her lips and, excited, paces up and down the beach at the water’s edge. Then, she throws her head back and howls, a long, drawn-out, spine-chilling sound that moves all the way down my spine and makes me shiver. Then she walks straight into the water and begins to swim, her ears back behind her and her silver-grey back just above the surface of the water. She paddles in a straight line, putting distance behind her, and I swear she turns and looks right at us as she passes by, only a hundred feet or so from our boat.

  “You can do it,” I whisper to her. “Jack will be with you.”

  And he is! He flies in slow circles over her head, then zigzags back and forth in her path, clearly keeping his eye on her. We w
atch for a long time until both of them are mere specks against the green water. A little bit later, they are gone altogether.

  I pull the cord and start the engine again, but instead of turning for home, I follow in Sitka’s wake. I’m not going back until I know she has made the crossing safely. I know we’ll catch it from the others back at the lodge, but I’m prepared to take the heat.

  We head for Meares Island, and experience a little bit of a chop five minutes out. Kimiko, sitting near the bow, clutches the sides of the boat with both hands while I hold the rudder steady.

  I spot Sitka at the same moment that Jack begins to shriek! We see him fly up and down above her, then swoop down close to her head, all the while making the most awful noise!

  “What’s wrong?” Kimiko shouts over the motor.

  I twist the throttle and the boat shoots forward, the bow rising out of the ocean before slapping down hard on the water’s surface. In mere seconds, I can see Sitka’s head, but the water has covered most of it, and her back is no longer visible at all. There is a lot of splashing, but she’s not moving forward. It’s plain to see that she is in some kind of trouble!

  “She’s going to sink!” Kimiko says, panic in her voice.

  I ease up on the throttle and pull in beside her, then cut the engine. “Not if I can help it!” I shout. “Here!” I hand Kimiko an oar and tell her to steady the boat as best she can, all the while keeping my eyes on Sitka.

  The wolf struggles, her front legs churning the water in front of her, but she isn’t paddling fast enough; her hindquarters have dropped far below the surface so that her body is almost vertical in the water. It must be her injured leg. She’s exhausted!

  “Easy, easy,” I say calmly. “You’re almost there.”

  It’s true, but Sitka doesn’t look as though she could make it ten feet, let alone the 150 it will take to reach the shoreline of Meares Island.

  I am desperate—we have to do something! She’s so close! She has survived the woods on her own; she has watched over Kimiko; she has stayed alive, despite being hungry, and she is almost home! And whether or not Sitka is Kimiko’s Okami guardian wolf, or my spirit animal, she is a wild animal that needs our help. Wolf medicine may be strong, but this creature in front of us isn’t invincible.