Hannah and the Wild Woods Read online

  A bit later I hear the “ping” of an incoming message on my phone. It takes me by surprise because, as Ruth said, the cell service is so unpredictable. But when I open the message, my heart skips a beat. It’s a text from Max! He tells me that his family is about to leave their hotel in Mexico to go trekking in some remote area for a few days, and he’ll be out of range for a while. Great.

  But it doesn’t matter, anyway; there’s no way I can talk to Max about any of this. Because if I’m completely honest with myself, I’m still not entirely convinced he always believes some of the stuff I tell him. I guess I’m thinking about what happened to me when I was twelve, the summer I found the spindle whorl and met Jack—the whole time travel thing. To this day, he says he believes me, but … I just don’t know.

  Jack appears out of nowhere and flies over my head. I stop and hold out my arm, and when he settles on it, his talons sink into the thick wool of my sweater.

  “Glad to see you, Jack.” At least he’s on my side. I never have to question where Jack’s loyalties lie. Like a champ, he hangs out all afternoon with me while I work on the beach.

  When I’ve filled my last bag of the day, I stare out at the dark grey sea and wonder, just when exactly did my life get so crazy? Everything feels so unsettled. Unsure. To add to the drama, I am apparently sharing a room with a kitsune, to boot. Could things get any weirder?

  Later that night, while everyone shares a big plate of nachos in the Big Kahuna, I sneak outside, mostly to look for Sitka. The drizzle has finally stopped, and the sound of the ocean roars in the distance.

  I walk toward the beach steps and lean against the railing, gazing up at the handful of stars that wink down at me. Maybe the sky is finally clearing. Maybe we’ll see some sun tomorrow. Sun would be nice.

  As I walk back to the lodge, I look up at our bedroom window, and my breath catches in my throat. I can just make out the shape of Kimiko, half-hidden behind the heavy brocade curtain and still as a ghost, watching me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Breakfast at the Artful Elephant is always worth getting up for. Today, there are just-out-of-the oven breakfast muffins on a plate in the centre of the table, the sort that are full of raisins and nuts and cranberries and coconut and pretty much anything else you can think of. “Kitchen Sink Muffins” —that’s what Nell calls them when she makes them at the Toad-in-the-Hole. They’re different every time.

  The back door in the kitchen opens, and Kimiko walks in, dressed in an oversized sweater and a bright orange beret. She pulls out a chair at the dining room table and calmly smoothes out a napkin on her lap. There is condensation in her dark braided hair, and her eyes are bright and shining. How can anyone look so good first thing in the morning? She looks so refreshed, as though she’s just returned from a weekend at a high-end spa or something.

  Thing is, when I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning, Kimiko wasn’t in her bed again. But I guess that’s no real surprise; foxes are nocturnal, after all.

  “You sure got up early today,” I say when the others are out of the room.

  “I know,” Kimiko says without missing a beat. “I often get up at dawn.” She takes a muffin from the basket and breaks it in two on her plate.

  “Dawn?” I say. “Then you got up about two hours too early.”

  “Oh,” Kimiko says, smiling. “I already told you I have very good eyesight.”

  I’ll bet!

  “Eat up, guys,” Jade says, coming out of the kitchen. “Let’s get going. It looks like we might actually get some good weather today.”

  She’s right. There are faint fingers of diluted sunlight coming through the treetops near the beach, and actual shadows have already begun to stretch across the freshly washed sand. With any luck, we’ll be able to ditch our jackets by noon and just work in our T-shirts. That is going to feel great. It’s been so damp up here I wouldn’t be surprised if there are mushrooms growing inside my boots. But that’s the West Coast for you; it’s all part of its charm. At least that’s what the diehard West Coasters say.

  There’s a thin, cracker-like crust on the surface of the sand, created by the drying wind and satisfying to crunch across. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, nor is there the usual haze that normally sticks around till noon up here, even in summer. Instead, the sky is a huge swatch of blue. I tilt my head back just as a flock of Canada geese pass over, heading inland.

  It isn’t long before we all fall into a rhythm—all except for Sabrina that is, who appears to be in some sort of funk. What’s new? She tells everyone she’s going to stay up near the treeline, because the saltwater spray is wrecking her clothes. I watch her for a bit, but she mostly just stares at the bushes and kicks at random pieces of driftwood. There isn’t a whole lot of beach cleaning going on that I can see.

  I shrug, and get to work filling my own bag. There is so much plastic everywhere—tiny little pieces—probably more dangerous than the bigger floating bits because wildlife will end up eating them. Birds mostly. Peter tells us they mistake the garbage for food, and then it’s game over for them. I step up my pace, and my bag is full in no time.

  A piercing scream near the top of the beach makes me drop it, spilling half the contents. I run up and over the logs just as Sabrina bursts from the trees and collides with me, full on. Her travel mug lands in the sand at our feet, and I am sprayed with a shower of hot tea.

  My shoulder hurts where she careened into it, but before I can raise my arm to rub it, there is a loud grunt. A big black bear appears up ahead in the bushes. She stands on her hind legs, waving her head back and forth, trying to catch our scent. Holy crap! Since when are black bears this huge?

  Sabrina looks as though she might faint, and digs her fake gel fingernails deep into the flesh of my arm. I take a step back toward the beach, hoping she will follow, but her feet are rooted to the ground.

  Peter is suddenly behind us. “Sabreeeeena?” He whispers slowly as though he’s talking to a two-year-old. “We need to back away very slowly, okay? That’s a mamma bear, and I can hear a cub behind her.”

  I think Sabrina has stopped breathing.

  “Sabrina?” I whisper. “Move.”

  She digs her nails into me even harder.

  The bear drops heavily to all fours and snorts, while her cub bawls from further back somewhere. Mama waves her head back and forth, then suddenly pivots around and takes off into the bush. One final snort, and we hear both of them crashing through foliage, headed for the deep woods.

  My heart jackhammers inside my chest while a searing pain rips at my arm. The stinging pain, I realize, is coming from Sabrina’s unrelenting vice grip on my arm.

  “Wow!” I manage to squeak, prying her talons from my flesh. She looks at her freed hand as though it doesn’t belong to her body, and then starts to cry—big heaving gulping sobs that are accompanied by a whole lot of snot. “Come on, Webber,” I say. “Suck it up. It’s all good now.”

  “Oh, man! Are you guys okay?” Jade says, rushing over to us. Her face is flushed. “There’s a ton of new skunk cabbage growing up there. That’s prime bear food in the spring.”

  Peter takes one look at Sabrina, and stifles a laugh. “Relax, Sabrina. There hasn’t been a black bear attack around here for decades.”

  “I … I didn’t know that,” Sabrina sobs, “I … I don’t know anything!” She swats at a tear with her hand and I notice that she’s shaking. “I don’t know why I’m even here. I hate this place!”

  She looks so pathetic, and I can’t help feeling sorry for her. She’s probably never had a family camping trip in her whole entire life.

  We all walk back down the beach together, and Sabrina’s sniveling lets up a little. “Well, thanks for coming to my rescue and everything,” she tells us. “At least some of you care.” She glares down the beach at Kimiko, who hasn’t budged from the little patch of shade she’s been working in all day.

  “Kimiko!” Jade yells. “Come work in the sunshine, girl!” But Kimiko just smile
s and shakes her head, no. She’s been hiding in the shadows all morning. It’s like she’s allergic to the sun or something.

  Sabrina sticks to me like glue for the rest of the afternoon. I swear there is never more than three feet between us. She keeps looking up toward the trees, then over her shoulder, and even out to sea.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “Those bears are long gone by now.”

  “How can you know that for sure?”

  “Just relax,” I tell her. “And, by the way, I’m sorry I told you to suck it up. It actually was pretty scary.”

  She frown and kicks at a broken shell with her boot.

  “What?”

  “It’s just that I feel so out of place up here.” She shakes her head, and shoves her fists into her pockets. “But like you would understand. Adventure is your middle name.”

  “No,” I say. “I do. I get it.” And then for some strange reason I end up telling her about my dad and Anne and their plan to move to Victoria. I tell her about the house down in Beacon Hill Park, and how I’m not going to have to go to a different school in September. It feels good to get it off my chest, even if it is to Sabrina Webber.

  “Wow,” she says when I’m done talking. “You’re so lucky, Anderson. I’d love to have a fresh start somewhere new.”

  “Hmmph,” I say. “Not me.”

  “Strange, I always figured you were up for anything.”

  I blink at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know, like you could handle anything. I never figured you for the timid type.”

  “Well,” I say. “Guess you were wrong.”

  And then, as though on cue, a cloud appears out of nowhere and moves directly in front of the sun.

  Chapter Fifteen

  For the rest of the day, I work with my head down, listening to the “mellow out” playlist on my iPod. It doesn’t help. With each passing hour, I seem to get farther and farther away from “mellow.” And by the end of the workday, even though I have more garbage collected than everyone else and have managed to write four pages of notes in my environmental notebook, I still feel restless.

  I tie off my last garbage bag and raise my arms above my head in a long stretch, leaning first to the right, then to the left. My collarbone cracks, and I rotate my shoulders back and forth until I feel the tightness let go.

  The sun returns and I lift my face, feeling the immediate soothing warmth on my cheeks. What is it about sunshine that instantly makes you feel better? Such a wonderful, temporary Band-Aid.

  Still, I wish Max were here. Stupid Max and his family vacations to remote and unreachable places! But again, if I were to tell him what I know about Kimiko, he’d think I’d lost my mind for real. Izzy, on the other hand, is great with this kind of stuff. She’d be all over this mystery. I wish she were here.

  Jack appears with a clamshell in his beak, and lands in front of me, proud of his fishy catch. He is clearly enjoying the West Coast. Up here, it’s five-star dining for hungry ravens.

  “Way to go, rock star,” I say.

  We hang out together, me chilling on a log, and he enjoying his snack. It’s often like this with Jack and me. I guess that’s why our friendship is so easy. We don’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, or hurting each other’s feelings. We don’t ever have to “get through” awkward silences. We just hang out, no questions asked.

  That’s when it dawns on me. I don’t have to keep this all to myself. I can tell Jack. My secrets are safe with him. Jack always has my back—it’s been that way right from the get-go. I wait until he’s finished his snack, crack my knuckles, check over my shoulder for any potential eavesdroppers, and then tell him what I know. It feels strange for the first few seconds, but when Jack hops up onto the toe of my hiking boot, I know he’s listening to me. I know I have his complete attention.

  I tell him about finding Kimiko by my bed in the dark, and then about the missing glass ball the next morning. I tell him about the burning tree in the woods, and the multi-tailed fox I’ve seen twice. He blinks at me as I fill him in on Kimiko’s strange behaviour, and how I now know the red-spiraled glass ball he found is her hoshi no tama. I tell him about Marcus in the diner, and lastly, I talk to him about Sitka.

  “What do you know about that little wolf, Jack?” I ask. “Are you one of those wolf birds that Jade was talking about?” Jack blinks twice.

  “Man, I wish you could talk,” I say. “I mean, if mynah birds and parrots can do it, you could, too.” He’s listening to me, and I swear he smirks a little.

  I know people might think that having a one-sided, heart-to-heart discussion with a windblown raven is completely messed up, but it’s not. Honest. Jack listens to every single word, just the way he always does when I talk to him. I know he’s taking it in, because he blinks at me in a strangely human way at just the right moments, and when I stop to pause, he leans in a little closer to me, occasionally tapping my knee with his beak as if to say, “Go on. I’m listening. What else?” Then he waits.

  After I’ve unloaded, I feel better. Lighter somehow. Maybe I just needed to hear myself say some of these things out loud. It helps to unscramble my head, and although I’m no closer to enlightenment, it’s a great relief to get stuff off my chest. Sometimes keeping secrets can really be a burden. I should have thought of Jack sooner. He always listens.

  He hops up onto my arm but I can tell he’s still puzzling about something; I know he’s restless by the way he keeps pulling at a loose loop of wool in my sweater.

  “Thanks, buddy,” I say, “for listening.” He opens his beak as though he’s going to call out, only he doesn’t. It makes me laugh.

  Ruth comes out onto the deck ringing an old ship’s bell, even though we’re well within yelling distance. (I think she just likes the bell.)

  I walk back toward the lodge—Jack riding shotgun on my shoulder—following Peter and Jade. Sabrina brings up the rear, stumbling awkwardly over driftwood in an effort to catch up to us.

  I look at our shadows stretched out in front of us in the late afternoon sun, and realize Kimiko is missing from the group. Then I spot her, still up near the trees—the same spot she’s been in all day.

  I hang back a little, and squat behind a stumpy piece of driftwood, watching the crew climb the stairs to the lodge: first Peter, then Jade, and then Sabrina. Kimiko watches, clearly waiting until the others have gone inside the lodge. She stands perfectly still, staring first at the sky, then at the ground, and finally, her feet. When I see her shield her eyes and look up and down the beach, I shrink back down behind my stump. I watch her tentatively place a foot outside of the shadows, then race along the beach to the stairs. She gets up them in two impressive bounds! But something isn’t right. As she climbs the stairs, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Kimiko’s shadow is not the shadow of a teenage girl. Kimiko’s shadow has four very distinctive legs, and several large bushy tails!

  In the evening, everyone piles into the Big Kahuna to watch a movie on the big flat screen. Jade has made her specialty popcorn—a mixture involving a lot of soya sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

  “Now comes the hard part,” she says, setting the bowl down and reaching into a big wicker basket beside the couch. “Picking a movie. There must be at least two hundred in here!”

  But I’m not thinking about what movie to watch—I’m thinking about how I’ll confront Kimiko with what I know. Will there ever be a “right” time for that conversation? And how would I even start it in the first place?

  While the others rifle through the box, I continue leafing through a heavy coffee table book I’ve been absorbed in. It’s called Ghost Wolf, and it’s all about Vancouver Island wolves. To be honest, I’d rather just keep reading.

  “You really like wolves, huh?” Jade says, making a third pile of DVDs on the floor.

  I look up from the pages. “What? Oh. Yeah. This book is awesome.”

  Kimiko eyes the book suspiciou
sly, and then wanders over to peer out the window, even though it’s pitch black outside.

  When it’s showtime, I don’t want to be rude, so I close the book and climb onto the couch, wedging myself in between Sabrina and Norman. After a few minutes, Sabrina elbows me hard in the ribs.

  “Ow!” I say.

  “Will you please quit twitching around?” she hisses. “And also, you’re totally hogging the blanket.”

  She’s right. I’ve been yanking mindlessly on the crocheted afghan and picking at its woolly orange fringe while Sabrina keeps trying unsuccessfully to claim a corner of it.

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  “Coming to watch?” Jade asks Kimiko, still at the window. “I think we’ve finally narrowed it down to three movies.”

  Kimiko jumps. “What? Oh! Of course.”

  “What are you looking at out there, anyway?” Peter asks. “Stars,” Kimiko says. “Just stars.”

  “Well,” Jade says cheerily, “come on over here and help us eat this popcorn.”

  I don’t pay much attention to the movie—a comedy about two guys on a road trip through the desert. Halfway through, I say I’m tired and that I’m going to go upstairs to bed. Everyone tries to convince me to stay, and I know I’m being a giant buzz kill, but I just need to be alone.

  I get up, pick up the Ghost Wolf book from the table, and fake a big yawn. Sabrina looks visibly relieved, and quickly commandeers the entire blanket for herself.

  I take my mug into the kitchen, rinse it out in the sink and place it in the dish drainer.

  Norman follows me in, and whimpers at the back door.

  “Really,” I say. “You need to pee again?” I open the door, and he takes a couple of steps outside, only to come right back in to sit by the fridge.