Colin Meloy - Under Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book II

COLIN MELOY once wrote Ray Bradbury a letter, informing him that he considered himself an author too. He was ten. Since then, Colin has gone on to be the singer and songwriter for the band the Decemberists, where he channels all of his weird ideas into weird songs. With the Wildwood Chronicles, he is now channeling those ideas into novels.

As a kid, CARSON ELLIS loved exploring the woods, drawing, and nursing wounded animals back to health. As an adult, little has changedexcept she is now the acclaimed illustrator of several books for children, including Lemony Snickets The Composer Is Dead, Dillweeds Revenge by Florence Parry Heide, and The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.

Colin and Carson live with their son, Hank, in Portland, Oregon, quite near the Impassable Wilderness.

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Under Wildwood

Copyright 2012 by Unadoptable Books LLC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Meloy, Colin.

Under Wildwood / Colin Meloy ; illustrations by Carson Ellis.

p. cm. (Wildwood chronicles ; bk. 2)

Summary: Prue and Curtis are thrown together again to save themselves and the lives of their friends, and to bring unity to the divided country of Wildwood Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-06-202471-8 (hardback)

EPub Edition AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062119636

[1. Fantasy. 2. AnimalsFiction. 3. Portland (Or.)Fiction.] I. Ellis, Carson, ill. II. Title.

12 13 14 15 16 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

For Steve Malk

1. The strange wolf stared silently into the glow of the fire.

2. A length of bright golden filigree connected each of these objects in the mandala, one to the other, a sign of the interconnectedness of the Wood.

3. The three girls crested a small hillock and found themselves looking down into the trough of a narrow vale, where lay nestled a quaint wooden cottage.

4. She approached the City of Moles, carefully watching each footfall so as to avoid adding any undue bloodshed to the chaos.

5. The children of the Unthank Home for Wayward Youth were revolting.

S now is falling.

Snow as white as a swans feather, white as a trillium bloom. The whiteness is nearly blinding against the dark green and brown of the surrounding forest, and it lies in downy heaps between the quiet, dormant clutches of ivy and blackberry bushes. It is heaped against the bases of the tall fir trees, and it carpets the little trenches in the shallows around the wide cedar roots.

A road carves its way through the deep forest. It, too, is covered in an untouched shroud of snow.

In fact, if you didnt know there was a road beneath the snow, if you didnt know there were centuries of footsteps and hoofbeats and miles of weathered flagstones beneath the snow, you might just think it was a fallow stretch of woods, somehow left untouched by the forests teeming greenery. There are no wheel tracks, no tire treads on this road. No footprints mar the delicate white of the snow. You might think it was a game trail, a stretch of ground where no tree could take root because of a constant traffic of silent walkers: deer, elk, and bear. But even here, in this most removed area of the world, there are no animal tracks. The more the snow falls, the more the road disappears. It is becoming just another part of this vast, unending forest.

Listen.

The road is quiet.

Listen.

A distant clatter suddenly disrupts this placid stillness; it is the sound of wagon wheels and the whinnying of a horse, pushed to the limit of its strength. The horses hooves beat a mad rhythm against the earth, a rhythm dulled by the mute of the snow. Look: Around a bend comes flying a carriage, two of its four wheels lifting from the ground momentarily to make the turn. Two sweat-slick black horses are harnessed to the coach, and plumes of steam blow from their nostrils like smoke belching from a chimney. Perched above the horses is the coachman, a large man piled in black wool and a tattered top hat. He barks gruffly at the horses at their every stride, shouting, GYAP! and FASTER, ON! He spares no strike of the whip. There is a look of deep consternation on his face. He spends the brief moments between the snaps of his whip eyeing the surrounding forest warily.

Look closer: Below him, in the simple black carriage itself, sits a woman, alone. She is dressed in a fine silk gown, and her face is covered in a shimmering pink veil. Rings studded with bright jewels glint on her fingers. In her hands, she holds a delicate paper fan, which she opens and closes nervously. She, too, watches the flanking walls of trees surrounding the carriage, as if looking for someone or something within them. Opposite her sits an ornate chest, its sides decorated with gold and silver filigree. A lock holds the chests twin clasps closed, the key to which hangs at the womans throat by a thin golden cord. Antsy, she raps at the ceiling of the carriage with the fan.

The driver hears the rapping and spurs the horses on, raining even more blows from his whip down on their heaving flanks. A sudden flash of movement on the road ahead catches the drivers attention. He squints his eyes against the blinding white of the falling snow.