Girlwood Read Online Free PDF Page A

collar slipped away, Bronco shook his neck in relief and rolled over onto his back.
    "No need for that," Baba said, but she rubbed his belly. "Best to run for the trees this time, Bronco. Head for the deep woods. That's what I'd do."
    As if the dog understood her, he jumped to his feet and took off at a great gallop. Polly watched him until he disappeared in the woods.
    "Aren't you afraid you'll get in trouble?" Polly asked.
    Baba laughed. "Of course I'll get in trouble! Let me tell you something, Polly. If no one's upset with you, you're doing something wrong."
    Polly's skin prickled. Whenever she was with her grandmother, stuff happened: dogs got away, people were healed, or Pastor Bentley showed up to try to cure Baba of her evil ways and her grandmother countered by offering him a glass of elderberry wine. Baba was blamed for everything that went wrong in their town, from the loss of all those logging jobs
forty years ago to the local girls turning to Wicca. She was the common enemy, the one thing most people could all agree to hate.
    And none of this bothered Baba one whit. She ignored the insults and went about her business. She knew just by looking at someone what hurt them and what they needed. She had a plant for every ailment, or so it seemed.
    "What color am I today?" she asked suddenly, waving a hand above her head as if she could touch the light Polly saw. Polly smiled. "Green," she said.
    Her grandmother was always green. Green as the meadows, green as the woods. The color of compassion and strength.
    Baba tilted her head, as if the answer surprised her. And just then Polly saw a flicker of orange in all that green. Then another of lavender. Beautiful colors, but Polly didn't like them. Her grandmother was
green.
    They crossed the street and put the steel cutters back in the shed.
    "Now," Baba said, "I assume you're here for Bree."
    ***
    Polly imagined that after she found Bree huddling in some crude shelter in the forest, she would not only save her, she'd transform her. She'd wave her wand and make Bree someone
everyone could love again. She'd give them all a second chance.
    "Do you know where she is?" Polly asked her grandmother. The sky seemed to have drawn down closer, like a velvet scarf above their heads. Polly expected a quick, nonsense reply, but Baba stayed quiet.
    "Baba?" Polly said. "Do you?"
    Baba walked out of the yard and into the woods. She was getting older, but she still walked more in a day than most people walked in a month. She'd never owned a car and so she walked to the market for the few supplies she needed and through the woods, sometimes staying out all night. A few times she was gone for nearly a week, and the townspeople began to hope that she'd disappeared for good. Then she showed up in her garden again, a little dirtier maybe, but with her medicine bag full.
    The woods behind Baba's house were relatively flat for fifty yards, then met the slope of Battlecreek Peak. Most people took the long five-mile trail around the mountain, but even in the growing darkness, Baba started straight up. Polly hurried after her, grabbing clump grasses and the trunks of white pines to keep her balance. By the time they reached the first forested summit, the velvet sky had become a vast black sea, and Baba was the only light around.
    Baba leaned against a tree to catch her breath.
    "Baba?" Polly said. "Are you all right?"
    With every ragged breath, her grandmother's color changed—the green giving way to gold, then to red and blue.
    "Listen," Baba said. "Can you hear that?"
    Polly tilted her head. She heard chirping and gurgling and buzzing—the supposed silence of the forest.
    "That's the sound of a million living creatures around you," Baba went on. "You're never alone, Polly. Don't think for a minute that you are."
    They headed down another hill, then up again, past hundreds of trees tagged for logging. Only the light around Baba kept Polly from tripping over the survey stakes that stuck