Some Kind of Happiness (5 page)

I grin, and run to catch up.

NE DAY THE ORPHAN GIRL
was walking through the Everwood alone, when she came upon a lady knight polishing her armor.

The orphan girl was careful around any stranger, for in strangers lay the possibility of pain. But the knight greeted her warmly and proposed that they travel together.

And so they did, exploring an area of the Everwood that was new to them both. The trees stretched into a high world of green; neither the orphan girl nor the knight could see the sky above.

The farther they walked, the quieter the woods became. The world took on an eerie feeling, as if the air had been disturbed by something malicious and slow-moving.

“Something terrible has happened here,” whispered the orphan girl.

“How can you be sure?” asked her friend.

“Can't you feel it? The air is heavy with secrets.”

Then the orphan girl saw a shape in the shadows beneath a thin white tree. The shape gave off a quivering power—weak, but once strong.

“Be careful,” said the knight. “I don't know this part of the forest. Perhaps we should turn around.”

But the orphan girl was too curious. She reached into the briars and pulled out a fine bridle laced with gold. It hummed with power, rattling her teeth and leaving her breathless.

“Put it away,” urged the knight. “There is something evil about this place.”

“I cannot,” said the orphan girl. “I must find to whom it belongs.” She tucked the bridle into her pack.

Not long after this, they found another object, half buried in the dirt.

“A boot?” mused the orphan girl.

“A fine one,” added the knight. “The leather is like velvet.”

“ 'Tis a shame to misplace something so valuable,” the orphan girl observed.

“Misplaced, perhaps. Or stolen. Or worse.”

The orphan girl shivered at her friend's dark words. The boot's power was even stronger than the bridle's, making her bones ache as if with fever.

“Do you think it has been enspelled by a witch?” whispered the knight. “Enchanted by a fairy?”

“It has certainly known pain,” said the orphan girl soberly, “for when I touch it, I feel it too.” She tucked the boot into a pouch on her pack.

Deeper in the Everwood, where the light was as dim as evening, a wave of power washed over the orphan girl and her knight. They staggered, gasping.

The orphan girl caught a glint of metal.

“A dagger,” she said, lifting the weapon from the tangled forest floor.

“It is a fine blade,” said the knight. “But what has happened to it? I feel ill to look at it.”

“Something cruel,” concluded the orphan girl. “Something that left much pain behind.”

“Wait a moment. Look!”

The orphan girl raised her head and saw a strange light shifting through the Everwood leaves. Following it, she emerged into a gray field. Few trees stood here, and no birds sang.

In the middle of the field stood a small castle of crumbling stone. Wind whistled through the dry grass, and a torn flag hung from a crooked tower.

“It is a wasteland,” whispered the orphan girl, for she could think of no other way to describe it. Determined to explore, the orphan girl wrapped the dagger in cloth and tucked it into her pack with the boot and the bridle.

No sooner had she done this than three figures tumbled out of the castle door. Their laughter was high and sharp, their voices vicious. They wore filthy rags tied around their heads, and their coats were black with mud.

The lady knight unsheathed her sword.

“Who are they?” asked the orphan girl.

“Rotters!” shouted the lady knight. “Come, my brave friend! We cannot let them catch us!”

“You would run from a fight?” asked the orphan girl.

For answer the knight raced back into the trees, away from the castle and its gray field, and the orphan girl had no choice but to follow.

I
SPRINT AFTER
G
RETCHEN, DODGING
trees and jumping logs. I do not want to leave the house we found without seeing what is inside it, but these boys are definitely chasing us, and they are fast.

“Wait, the who?” I shout.

“Come
on
, Finley!”

“But who are the Baileys?”

Even in galoshes Gretchen is lightning fast. “They're these kids from next door,” she yells back at me. “Well, across the river, I mean!”

As we run, my mind races.

The Baileys. In the Everwood they would not be neighbors across the river; they would be pirates. The Rotters, to be specific: an infamous trio of rogue pirates hailing from the Bitter Sea, who befoul and besmirch everything they touch, and who have come to the Everwood to plunder it of its riches.

Thinking about the Everwood turns my chest light and my legs powerful. I dodge trees and jump over logs, passing Gretchen. A creeper vine whips past my face, and I almost drop the tiny shoe I found.

Behind us the Bailey boys holler at us:

“Trespassers!”

“You'd better run faster!”

“No Harts allowed!”

I look back and see one of the boys grinning at me. He darts through the trees and disappears, but I still hear him laughing.

Back at the river Gretchen and I scoot across the pipe bridge as fast as we can. Once we get to the other side, there is no sign of the Bailey boys.

“Where'd they go?” I ask, panting.

Gretchen points across the river, and I see it now: a house, hidden in a mess of trees. It is as grand as Hart House, with a massive porch and too many windows to count, but this house is brown with dirt. The roof sags, and the paint is peeling.

“Are you friends with them?”

Gretchen clutches her side. “Are you kidding? No way.”

I stick my hand into my pocket. I wonder what Mom would think if she knew I was running away from boys, through a forest, with a wrapped knife in my jeans.

The Bailey boys climb up the hill to their house. It's so steep on that side that they have to pull themselves up tree roots, like climbing the rungs of a ladder.

One of them, the one who smiled at me, turns around at the top of the hill. He makes a gesture that would no doubt make my issue with the dinner forks seem like nothing to Grandma.

Gretchen flings sticks across the river. They plop into the water. “Stay out of our woods!”

“I don't think they're our woods,” I point out, once I have gotten my breath back. “Right? I don't think where we were is Grandma and Grandpa's land.”

“Whatever. God.” Gretchen's face is red and splotchy, but on her it is somehow appealing. How does she do that?

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HART

• You look pretty even after sprinting across a forest.

I am not sure how to talk to Gretchen right now. “Are you . . . mad?”

“Yes, I'm mad! The Bailey boys are such trash. I can't believe they chased us. They know they're not supposed to come near any of us. Grandma says so. She told them so.”

“Well, we were the ones messing around by their . . . whatever that was. That house.”

“Nah, that's not the Baileys'. It's just some house that's been abandoned forever. We're
definitely
not allowed to go there. I tried to stop you, but you wouldn't listen.” Gretchen grins a little. “I didn't think you'd be such a rebel.”

I have to write a story about this house, and the pirates, and everything. The words racing through my head aren't big enough to describe what has happened.

Before today I didn't know there was an abandoned old castle in a gray field, deep in the Everwood, but now it seems
obvious it has always been there, hidden and waiting. For me.

I have to sit down with my notebook and think. I have to write it just the right way, pick my words carefully. The Everwood deserves to be written about like it is important.

My fingers itch for a pencil.

“But why aren't you allowed to go there?”

“To that house? I don't know, because it's condemned or whatever. Ugh!” Gretchen kicks dirt toward the Bailey house. “Just look at that place. It's a disaster. Grandma calls them a blight on the town. Sometimes when I sleep over, I can hear them up in the middle of the night, yelling and blasting music. Like, what, they can't sleep like normal, civilized people?”

I wonder if Grandma has told Gretchen bad things about me and Mom and Dad, like she has about the Baileys.

She has had a lot of time to do so.

The Bailey boys disappear inside their house. A screen door slams.

“Have you ever talked to them?”

Gretchen stares at me. “No. Why would I?”

I am not sure how to answer her. I don't want her to think I don't belong here, that I don't understand how things work at Hart House.

“You don't get it, Finley. These aren't normal boys. It's like they're . . . I don't know.”

“They're pirates,” I say. “Ferocious scoundrels come to pillage the Everwood. They're known as Rotters, wicked and completely without honor.”

“Ha! If those are the pirates I have to fight, I can totally handle it.” Gretchen finds yet another stick to throw. “You hear me? I can take you!”

She runs after the stick, kicking up chunks of mud.

As I watch her, I consider asking Gretchen what Grandma has said about me.

Does Grandma think I am a blight on the family?

Does she think I am a disaster?

These questions make me feel like I am shrinking inside myself, but I will not disappear. Not now that I've found the Everwood.

Gretchen is marching around, whacking branches with a stick, still grumbling about the Bailey boys.

To distract myself, I take out our finds to examine them:

A shoe. Child's size 11. For the left foot. Black with mud and mildew. The fabric is a faded pink.

A pocketknife that flips open when you press the side. Rusty blade. The hilt is marked with initials, but they are so faded I cannot read them.

Then there is the bicycle, buried back in the woods, where Gretchen and I were exploring—blackened and twisted, its spokes warped.

Something about these three objects, quite frankly, creeps me out. They do not seem to fit with the gleaming white world of Hart House. They belong to the dry field where we found them. To the crumbling old house.

Especially this child's shoe. When I hold it, the Everwood
seems to shift around me, as if to say,
Here. This. This is important.

I wonder if these objects are connected somehow, and if what I have always guessed about the Everwood is true:

Such a large forest must be full of secrets.

Now that I am here, I will find them.

HE TREES IN THE
E
VERWOOD
were turning gray. Their leaves began to fall, dry and shrunken, although autumn was still months away.