The Crosswood Read online

  “I’ll come with you,” Mom says.

  “No,” I say. “You’ll just slow me down. You can barely walk.”

  “But—”

  “No!” I say firmly. “It’s my fault they ran off. It’s my responsibility to get them back.”

  When I look again at Olea, she’s smiling at me. Not a friendly smile. A sneaky smile. Like she knows something. I don’t trust her. But I shake that feeling off, because I’m going to need her help.

  “Can you take me into the Faerie Woods? Get me close to Farwood?”

  “I can,” Olea says, admiring her colorful fingernails. After a moment she continues. “What will you give me?”

  “Oh no you don’t!” Mom says, suddenly bold. “We’ve had enough of your deals, Olea of Nearwood.”

  Olea pouts a bit, but she shrugs. “Fine. I’ll take you into the Crosswood. You’ll have to find your way from there. Say goodbye to your mother.”

  Mom stands, and we hug. I realize I’m nearly as tall as her. When did that happen?

  “Be careful, Blue,” she says, holding me by the shoulders. “Don’t eat or drink anything Faeries give you. Um…don’t dance to their music. And don’t make any deals. Remember that above all. Deals made with Faeries rarely turn out well.”

  “Got it,” I say.

  Mom slips off her hoodie and gives it to me. I put it on, even though it’s purple and flowery. It fits me quite well. I guess we are nearly the same size.

  “There are two granola bars in the pocket,” she says. “And a juice box.”

  Mom always carries snacks on her for the twins. I’m grateful for that right now.

  “Be careful,” she says, kissing my cheek.

  “I will,” I say.

  “This is tedious,” Olea says. “Follow me.”

  I step away from Mom. Olea is already walking with her servants into the twisted trees. The throne has disappeared. I turn back for a last look at Mom as I reach the trees. She’s standing there, watching us. Crying. I have to bite my lip not to cry too.

  Then the forest spins again. The trees seem to reach down and encircle me with their branches. They push me down onto the ground. The roots of the trees twist around me, pulling me into the earth. I taste dirt in my mouth. For a second I can’t breathe or move. It’s like I’ve been buried alive. I try to struggle against it, but I’m being crushed.

  Then I feel someone tugging down on my ankle. I stop struggling. I sink and sink until finally I pop out of the earth like a cork. Spitting dirt, I roll over and realize I’m upside down. Or the world is upside down. I seem to be on the underside of the forest. The moment I think that, my mind flips everything, and I’m right way up again. I’m lying on the ground in a clearing surrounded by twisted trees. It looks just like the clearing where I lost the twins. But I know it’s not.

  Olea is looking down at me, an amused expression on her face. “Welcome to the Crosswood, Blue Jasper,” she says.

  Chapter Six

  I look around. The first thing I notice is the color. It’s deeper. Every green leaf and brown branch and red berry looks like it’s made from expensive silk. Even the dark turned-up earth I just crawled out of is like black velvet. Above me I can see the sky through the branches. It appears to be twilight. I don’t know how I’m going to survive when darkness falls. I need to find Farwood. And fast.

  “Which way is it?” I ask. “Farwood?”

  Olea’s servants chuckle. “There are many ways out of the Crosswood,” Olea says. “The important thing is to find the right one. It would be a shame if you accidentally fell through the wrong one.”

  Now her servants laugh, holding their sides.

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  Olea glares at her servants, and they fall silent.

  “The Crosswood allows you to return to the human realm. But not all exits return you to the same place. You might end up in—where is that cold place?”

  “Siberia?” one of her servants offers.

  “Yes, Siberia,” Olea says. “Or Toronto.”

  “So how do I find the right one?”

  Olea’s servants drift away. I watch, astonished, as each of them flickers and slips into the ground. They disappear like snakes into holes.

  “There are Faeries in the Crosswood who don’t belong to my court or the court of King Oren,” Olea says. “One of them can help you.” She turns and takes a step. Her body shimmers.

  “Wait!” I say. “How can I find them?”

  But there’s a flash and a strong smell of strawberries, and then she’s gone.

  I stand there for a few seconds, breathing hard. Olea’s mention of “creatures other than Faeries” comes back to me now. That could mean anything! I have no weapons. I have no idea which way to go. All I have are two granola bars and a juice box.

  My only hope is to find another Faerie before darkness falls. I peer through the trees. There’s nothing but forest in every direction. Just as I’m about to give up, I see something. A little flash of light in the distance. It moves.

  A person? Someone with a lantern? I almost yell, but I hesitate. What if they’re not friendly? I decide to sneak up on them instead.

  I arm myself with a long, broken branch and tiptoe through the trees. At least if I get attacked I’ll have some chance. It briefly occurs to me that I must look like a wizard with a staff.

  When I get closer to the light, I realize that’s all it is. A light just floating there.

  It looks like a firefly bobbing in front of my face. Suddenly it whizzes off. I follow it for what feels like a long time. But I don’t get anywhere. Finally the light stops by another twisted tree. It hovers there for a moment. Then it disappears into a crack in the trunk.

  “Hey! Wait!” I say.

  Suddenly something tackles me. I crash onto the forest floor. Without thinking, I roll over and swing my wizard staff. It makes a loud crack as it hits whatever tackled me.

  “Ow!”

  I barely dodge a webbed foot flying in my face.

  A webbed foot? Am I fighting with a frog? I scramble away. Turning back, I raise my staff, ready to strike.

  At first there doesn’t seem to be anything there. But then part of the mossy undergrowth moves. It sits up.

  “Lily pads, that hurt,” the creature says, raising a webbed hand to rub the side of its head.

  “What…?” I start. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Salix,” it says.

  I raise my staff again as Salix stands. It’s not a frog. Salix appears to be a boy about my age. A green boy. His hair is like grass growing from the top of his head. His face is a pale green, like the inside of a cucumber. And his clothes seem to be woven out of fern leaves.

  “Put down your stick,” he says, irritated. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Why did you tackle me then?”

  “Ugh,” Salix says. “Humans. I tackled you because I was afraid you were going to follow that Will-o’-the-Wisp into the tree. That crossing comes out in a grizzly bear’s den. That would not be good for you. What’s your name?”

  “Blue,” I say. “Blue Jasper.”

  Salix widens his large yellow eyes. “You’re Blue Jasper? The foster brother of the prince and princess of Nearwood?”

  It feels weird to be called their foster brother, but I nod. I’m still getting over the grizzly-bear thing. “So you’ve heard of me?” I ask.

  Salix reaches forward and pulls me upright. Then he shakes my hand so vigorously I nearly fall over.

  “Of course I’ve heard of you. Everyone in the Crosswood has!”

  I look down at our hands as he lets go of me.

  “Are you a…Faerie?”

  “Sort of,” Salix says. “I’m a Nixie. Kind of like a water Faerie.”

  That explains the webbing.

  “So if you know about Indigo and Violet, then you must know they’ve been kidnapped,” I say.

  “What?” Salix’s large eyes get even larger. “When did that happen?�
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  “About an hour ago,” I say. “King Oren of Farwood has them. I have to get them back or my mother’s broken pact will mean she dies.”

  Salix cringes. “Oh no. A pact with Queen Olea?”

  I nod. “I’m going to do everything I can to sneak into Farwood and get the twins back,” I say. “But I need help.”

  “Flippers,” Salix says, shaking his head. “Who in the Faerie Woods would be silly enough to help you do that?” His laugh stops abruptly when he notices me staring at him. “No,” he says firmly.

  “Please.”

  “King Oren hates me,” Salix says. “I dripped pond water on his favorite rug, and mushrooms grew there.”

  “I’m sure he’s forgotten about that,” I try.

  “It was last week.”

  “He’s probably had the rug cleaned by now.”

  Salix rolls his eyes. “You really don’t know how Faerie mushrooms work, do you?”

  “No,” I admit, and though I’m very curious to learn, I need to focus. I can learn all about this weird world later. I reach into my pocket. “Here.” I hold out a granola bar. “If you help me, you can have this.”

  “Ew! No thank you.” Salix wrinkles his nose.

  I pull out the juice box. “How about this?”

  He examines the juice and smiles. “Yes, all right then. I’ll help you get to Farwood if you agree to give me something.”

  “Yes, okay, fine,” I say. I try to hand him the juice.

  “I don’t want that,” he says.

  The trees around us shimmer as I realize what I’ve done. I’ve agreed to give him “something” if he helps me. Not a juice box. Just something. I’m an idiot.

  I’ve just made a deal with a Faerie, and I don’t even know what it’s for.

  Chapter Seven

  “You tricked me!” I say.

  “Can I still have the juice?” Salix asks as we start walking.

  “No!” I say, popping the straw into the top of the juice box. I take an exaggerated sip.

  Salix actually looks remorseful. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s the Faerie way. It’s hard to resist.”

  “What is this ‘something’ going to be?”

  “I don’t know,” Salix says. “But I promise it won’t be bad.”

  I try to make the juice seem as tasty as possible while I ignore him.

  This forest seems to go on forever. The sun has now gone down completely. Salix has a tiny lantern that is surprisingly bright. If not for it we’d be walking in the dark.

  Salix sighs. “Well, if I’m going to help you properly, I suppose I could teach you some things about Faeries.”

  I tuck the empty juice box back into my pocket. “Like what?” I ask.

  “Helpful things,” Salix says. “Things to help keep you safe. Like…well, for example, you should know that Faeries can’t lie.”

  “You can’t?” I say. “So if I asked you to say, ‘Salix is a bloated baboon,’ you couldn’t do it?”

  “No,” he says. “Could you say that?”

  “Salix is a bloated baboon.”

  He frowns at me. “I deserved that,” he says.

  “What else can you tell me about Faeries?” I ask.

  “Faeries have very long full names,” Salix says.

  “How is that helpful?”

  “If you know a Faerie’s full name, and you use it to command them, they have to give you three wishes. You can even make them do magic things. Or things that seem impossible.”

  “Wait,” I say. “So if I had said to my brother, ‘Indigo Nash Panash Buckthorn Briar, I command you to clean the bathroom,’ he would have done it? That would be magic.”

  “Yes,” Salix says. “But it only works three times. And only for humans.”

  “I’m going to remember that when I find him and Violet,” I say. “That reminds me of something I’ve been curious about. Why do their names match mine?”

  “What do you mean?” Salix asks.

  “Like, my name is Blue, and they’re Indigo and Violet. Our names go together. They’re from the colors of the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. But if I’m not their real brother, why do we match?”

  Salix grins. “I heard it was because Olea forgot to name them,” he says. “She was in such a hurry to get them out of the Faerie Woods that she forgot to give them names. When your mother asked what their names were, Olea told her to pick something!”

  I think about that for a while. It seems strange that Olea would have forgotten to name her own children, but she’s a strange…woman. And it makes sense that Mom would have chosen matching names. Even though we don’t match. I look nothing like Indigo and Violet. I have brown hair and dark eyes. They have blond hair and light blue eyes. Maybe Mom thought the names would make us seem more like real siblings.

  I get sad thinking about it. I miss those rotten little monsters.

  “How much farther is it?” I ask after another hour passes. We don’t seem to have gotten anywhere.

  Salix stops and stares into the distance ahead of us.

  “About three or four days, I think,” he says.

  “Three or four days?! But I have to get the twins back by tomorrow at sunset.”

  “Flippers!” Salix says. “Why didn’t you say so? We’ll have to fly.”

  “Fly?” I ask. I’ve never flown before. Not that I remember anyway. Not even in a plane. “Can’t you just…Olea and her servants just kind of disappeared.”

  “That’s because they are Nearwood Faeries,” Salix says. “Any Faerie can slip into their own wood with magic. But they can’t slip into other woods. Not unless they’re invited.”

  “And you can’t slip into woods?”

  “No,” Salix says a little sadly. “I’m not part of any wood.”

  “Why not?”

  He looks away for a second. I regret asking the question. It clearly upsets him.

  “My wood disappeared,” he says at last. “Or at least the way into it did. It’s hard to explain.” He looks a little irritated. “We don’t have time.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Can you fly?”

  “I can’t, no. But I know someone who can.”

  He turns off the path, and we start to head downhill. After a few minutes we arrive at a pond. In the dark it’s hard to see how large it is. Weeds and vines hang down around us. The whole thing is a little spooky. I can hear the water lapping a bit. But I can’t see anything. What is in there? One of the “creatures other than Faeries” that live in the Crosswood?

  Salix puts his fingers up to his teeth and whistles. “Finola!” he calls out. “Finola, are you here?”

  I see something move in the distance, on the other side of the pond. Something white and ghostly glides toward us. I step back into the cover of trees and vines. But as the thing gets closer, I realize it’s a swan. A giant swan. It swims right up to Salix and nibbles at his knee.

  “Hello, Finola,” he says. “Still stuck in swan form, I see.”

  The swan nods. She flicks her head at me as I emerge from the trees.

  “That’s Blue,” Salix says. “He’s human and the foster brother of Princess Violet and Prince Indigo. They’ve been kidnapped by King Oren of Farwood.”

  Finola opens her beak like she’s shocked. I have to cough back a laugh.

  “This is Finola MacLear,” Salix says. “She was cursed by a bog witch a few months ago, and now she’s stuck as a swan.”

  “That’s…um…unfortunate,” I say. I feel foolish talking to a swan, but I guess that’s life in Faerie land. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Finola nods at me.

  “Finola,” Salix says. “We need a favor. Blue needs to get the prince and princess back before sundown tomorrow or his mother will die. Can you fly us to Farwood Castle? You’re able to go over the mountains instead of around them.”

  Finola looks at each of us as if she’s measuring us up. Then she nods.

  We step back as she clambe
rs out of the pond. She shakes herself, spraying water everywhere. She flicks her head toward her back. Salix climbs on first, straddling Finola’s back like she’s a horse. Actually, now that I’m near her, I can see she’s nearly as big as a horse. I get up behind Salix.

  “Hold on,” he says.

  I grab his shoulders. Finola spreads her wings. She turns back to the pond. My feet get soaked as she takes off. She half runs, half flies just above the water. At the very last second before I think we’ll go crashing into the dark trees, she lifts off.

  We’re flying!

  Chapter Eight

  Finola starts to descend just as the sun peeks over the horizon. The flight wasn’t too terrible. That is, I only barfed once. Not bad for my first time. Soon we’re sailing just above the treetops. I can see the tall towers of a castle in the distance. I never thought I’d see a castle in real life. I certainly never thought I’d fly to one on the back of a giant swan.

  We land outside the castle walls. Finola brings us down on a small pond. We jump off just as she hops up onto the shore. Honestly, it feels good to be back on the ground.

  “We’re very grateful, Finola,” Salix says.

  “Yes,” I say. “Tha—” Salix kicks me. “What?”

  “You should never say ‘thank you’ to a Faerie,” he says. “It’s insulting.”

  Finola sniffs and looks away.

  “Oh. Okay.” That’s kind of a weird rule, but what isn’t in Faerie land? “I might be able to help you, Finola,” I say instead. “I thought of something while we were flying.”

  Finola looks at me.

  “What if I say your full name?” I ask. “If I knew it, I could command you to turn back into a Faerie—or back to your original form. Would that work?”

  Finola actually shrugs, ruffling her wings.

  “It might work,” Salix says. “But all I know is Finola MacLear. Do you have middle names, Finola?”

  She suddenly waddles into the trees. Salix and I chase her. When we find her, she is nibbling on a thorn and tapping the trunk of the tree. Over and over.

  “Thorn?” I try. “Thorntree?”