Reckless (Free Preview) Read Online Free PDF Page B

canopy
above them was still so dense that the day beneath it dissolved into a
checkered autumnal twilight.   They soon
had to start leading the horses on foot, for they kept getting caught in the
thorny undergrowth.   Jacob had instructed
Will and Clara not to touch the trees.   However,
the shimmering pearls that a Barkbiter had left sprouting as bait on an oak
limb made Clara forget his warnings.   Jacob barely managed to pluck the foul
creature from her wrist before it could crawl up her sleeve.
    “This here,” he said, holding the Barkbiter in front of
Clara’s face, close enough for her to see the sharp
teeth above the scabbed lips, “is just one of the reasons why you shouldn’t
touch the trees.   His first bite will
make you drowsy.   A second one, and you’ll be completely paralyzed.   But you will still be fully conscious while
his entire clan starts to gorge itself on your blood.   Trust me, it’s not a
pleasant way to die.”
    Do you see now that you should have sent her back?   Will read the reproach on
Jacob’s face as he pulled Clara to his side.   But from then on she was careful.   It was Clara who pulled back Will in time when
she saw the glistening net of a Trapper stretched across their path, and it was
she who shooed away the Gold-Ravens trying to squawk dark curses into their
ears.
    And yet — She belonged here even less than his brother did.
    Fox gave him a look.
    Stop it, her eyes said.   She
is here, and I am telling you again:   He
will need her.
    Fox.   His furry shadow.   The
will-o’-the-wisps, drifting in thick iridescent swarms among the trees, had
often led even Jacob astray with their alluring hum.   But Fox just shook them from her fur like
troublesome flies and ran on unwaveringly.
    After three hours, the first Witch’s tree appeared between
the oak and ash trees, and Jacob was just about to warn Will and Clara about
their branches and how they loved to poke at human eyes, when Fox suddenly
stopped.
    The faint sound was nearly drowned out by the hum of the
will-o’-the-wisps.   It sounded like the
snip-snap of a pair of scissors.   Not a terribly threatening sound, and Will and Clara didn’t even
notice it.   But the vixen’s fur
bristled, and Jacob put his hand on his saber.   He knew of only one creature in this forest
that made such a sound, and it was the only one he definitely did not want to
run into.
    “Let’s get a move on,” he whispered to Fox.   “How much farther to the
house?”
    Snip-snap.   It was
coming closer.
    “It’s going to be tight,” Fox whispered back.
    The snipping stopped, but the sudden silence was no less
ominous.   No bird sang.   Even the will-o’-the-wisps had vanished.   Fox cast a worried glance at the trees before
she scampered ahead again, so briskly that the horses barely managed to keep up
with her through the dense undergrowth.
    The forest was growing darker, and Jacob pulled from his
saddlebag the flashlight he had brought from another world.   More and more often they now had to skirt
around Witch’s trees.   Hawthorn took the
place of ash and oak.   Pines sucked up
the scant light with their black-green needles, and the horses shied when they
saw the house appear between the trees.
    When Jacob had come here some years earlier with Chanute, the
red roof tiles had shone through the undergrowth so brightly, it had looked as if the Witch had painted them with cherry juice.   Now they were covered in moss, and the paint
was peeling off the window frames.   But
there were still a few pieces of gingerbread stuck to the walls and the steep
roof.   Sugary icicles hung from the
gutters and the windowsills, and the whole house smelled of honey and cinnamon — as befitted a trap for children.   The Witches had tried many times to banish the
child-eaters from their clans, and two years ago they had finally declared war
on them.   The Witch who had plagued the
Hungry
Forest
was now supposedly living out her