The Gift

And looked down one as far as I could…

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

“You wrote that?” I ask, aghast.

“Bertrand Snow actually,” Wisty admits.

“Well, you must be winning your battle with the drugs to remember anything from your lit class.”

I throw her over my aching shoulder one more time, and just then we hear a vehicle skidding to a stop on the road. Suddenly the woods behind us are alive with heavy-booted footsteps, men yelling… and dogs barking angrily.

“Maybe they’ll pick the wrong path,” I pant, and reflect that maybe we should have chosen the downward- sloping one. This trail has been 100 percent uphill so far.

“Um, I don’t think they’ll pick the other path, Whit.”

“Why not?”

She’s craning her neck behind me.

“Um, because I can already see them-and they can see us!”

Chapter 39

Whit

I CURSE under my breath and turn to assess. Sure enough, two soldiers and three large German shepherds have crested the last rise in the hill and are charging up the path toward us.

Only, wait-did I say two soldiers and three German shepherds? Because it’s actually one soldier and four German shepherds-or, wait, it’s all German shepherds -

“Did you see that?” demands Wisty. “They’re turning themselves into dogs! Very fast dogs.”

“Great,” I say, and stop running.

“Why are you stopping?” yells Wisty.

“There’s no point. I can’t outrun a pack of magical dogs with you on my back. It’s simple physics. I’d have to be a horse.”

“Well, I’ve turned myself into a rodent before. Maybe you can turn yourself into a horse. Aim big, Brother. We don’t have much of a choice right now.”

“I don’t know any horse spells -”

“Look in your journal and pray that it’s getting good reception today!”

I’m flipping the pages madly, and nothing about a horse catches my eye. It’s the first time in my life I actually wish I could look in an index.

There’s no index, of course, but what I stumble on is even better:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

After I recite the weird poem, the next thing I know I’m on all fours, with black-and-orange-and-white fur, my clothes split up and down and hanging in tatters.

So I turn to ask Wisty the obvious question: “Rrrrrrooaaarrr?”

“You’re asking if a tiger can kick a bunch of dogs’ butts, right?” asks Wisty. “I think so. But let’s not experiment if we don’t have to, especially with me on your back. Yah, tiger, mush!”

And then she digs her heels into my flanks. I yelp, and I take off up the hill-as a tiger. Ain’t magic great?

The dogs howl in rage behind us, and then there’s another noise-another sort of roar? I look back over my striped shoulder and see that our pursuers are now turning themselves into bears, grizzlies actually, as they continue after us.

Who are these guys? And where are they getting their magic?

The answer, unfortunately, reveals itself all too quickly.

We reach the clearing at the crest of the hill and are greeted by a tall bald man in an impeccable dark blue suit. He’s standing there as if he’s been waiting for us all his life.

Chapter 40

Whit

I WHEEL around immediately. I’d rather face a troop of charging bears than The One Who Is The One. Heck, I’d rather face a lake filled with piranha, a full stampede of tyrannosaurs, a mechanized infantry division… I could go on and on.

But even as we turn away, the trees of the forest weave their yellow-leaved branches and trunks together and seal up the path as if it had never been there. There’s no way through, no way out.

The ground buckles and sends us sprawling backward toward the middle of the clearing. Wisty topples off my back and lands with a whimper on the ground.

She’s still too messed up by the drugs to stand, but The One doesn’t cut her any slack-tree roots shoot out of the ground and quickly smother her in a dirty wickerwork of wooden tendrils.

“Whit!” she screams. “I’m trapped! I can’t move!”

There’s nothing worse than hearing someone you love scream your name in desperation. Rage boils up inside me. I spin and charge. Five hundred pounds of furious Siberian tiger ready to snap his bald-headed neck like a toothpick, ready to send my sharp teeth into whatever part of him I can reach first.

Unfortunately, The One Who Is The One has other ideas. Suddenly the wind kicks up so fiercely I have to close my eyes. And it’s as if I’m a stuffed tiger, flimsy as a carnival prize-and somebody has turned on a giant leaf blower. I’m flipped into the air, and I can’t tell up from down. Leaves and dirt are pelting me, stinging me, cutting through even my dense fur, and then-wait!-the wind has stopped already.

For a split second I can see the sky.

And then, oh no-I can see the earth! I make out Wisty’s form so far, far below, pinned on the hilltop way down there like some human sacrifice. I must be a thousand feet above her.

I hear laughter. His laughter… echoing up as if the entire forest is mocking us.

And then I’m no longer a tiger.

I’m just me in my torn clothing.

Falling.