CHAPTER ONE
There were terrible things in the Grimwood. Things that could, and would, try to kill her. This was why Poppy’s parents didn’t want her in the Grimwood at all. She understood that, and yet here she was, standing at the forest’s edge.
Her heart raced, but not from fear. It wasn’t likely she’d bump into a monster—not at high noon, so close to the town of Strange Hollow.
She peered into the wood’s dappled shadows where the trees stretched away behind the cockeyed arches and towers of her house. Poppy could only manage one hundred paces into the wood before the ward her parents put on her became unbearable. They hoped it would curb her thirst to learn everything there was to know about the Grimwood, but it didn’t. Trying to make her stay out only made the longing worse. Especially when her parents were always leaving on long, mysterious trips into the wood themselves.
She was nine when her parents stopped sharing stories of their work. They must have realized that the light in Poppy’s eyes was more than just a passing fancy. Instead they huddled together in the kitchen reviewing their plans when they thought she was asleep. Poppy, in turn, perfected the art of eavesdropping. She learned a lot that way, not just about the woods, but about the dangers her parents faced hunting maledictions. They risked their lives to bring the objects home and put them in stasis—making them powerless to lure the people of Strange Hollow into the wood.
Poppy tugged her long black hair into a ponytail and wiped her palms against her black jeans. She carried her small day pack, filled to bursting with her mother’s old net gun, an extra knife (her favorite was holstered in her right boot), two apples, bug spray, and a water bottle. She slung the length of rope over her shoulder. Before she left the house, she’d swapped her own black T-shirt for one of her mother’s from the laundry—decorated with a sea dragon and the words “They Might Be Giants,” whatever that was supposed to mean. She lifted the neckline of the shirt and closed her eyes to take a deep breath. The bunched muscles of her shoulders eased as the warm green scent of her mother’s vetiver oil washed over her.
Her parents had hunted maledictions in the Grimwood for the last three days. Jute told her they were back the moment she had woken up that morning. They’d arrived home when the sun was just a hint of green on the horizon, and they would sleep for most of the day. So Poppy was taking matters into her own hands.
It was time to prove they could make the Hollows safer as a family. She was tired of being alone. She was tired of hoping they would see she wasn’t just another kid they had to protect, who had nothing to offer.
They had taught her a lot about the forest—more than they knew—but it wasn’t enough. Poppy wanted to know all the Grimwood’s secrets. Her questions itched under her skin, as numerous and irritating as the mosquitoes buzzing around her. Some of them were big … like whether the Alcyon sea was bottomless, or whether the Holly Oak could talk, or if unicorns were real. She wanted to know more about the maledictions—and how to tell the difference between a good witch and a bad one. Big or small, any question could keep her awake for hours—like, what did a thorn tree look like, or how many species of tentaculars were there?
Poppy wanted to see it all with her own eyes—was going to see it all. She was done starving for answers while her parents threw them out like bread crumbs.
She tugged on the fingerless leather gloves her uncle Jute had given her for her last birthday. The black leather made her skin look even paler than usual, but they beat the cuts and insect bites she used to come home with on her hands. Jute wasn’t really her uncle. He was a hob her parents had rescued in the forest and invited home before she was even born.
Poppy finished pulling on her gloves, and straightened her spine. She would go in, get the Mogwen feather, and come straight out again. Alone, the Mogwen were no threat to a human—but they were rarely alone. A symphony of Mogwen, once angered, became merciless predators. But if she could get a Mogwen feather, her parents would see she was ready. She let herself imagine it—holding the long red and turquoise feather out as her mother’s eyes widened in shock. Her father’s mouth falling open … their faces full of resigned respect.
Poppy stared into the forest and considered. Yes, that would make them listen. It would prove she deserved to go all the way into the Grimwood—not just a hundred steps. She hoped that after today her parents would take their ward off her themselves.
Her parents were always going on about the town’s useless obsession with wards. They carved statues of monsters and placed them on roof beams and posts outside their doors to keep the real monsters away. They put out bells to appease faeries. But they were just trinkets. They sang songs, too, and they were pretty—but what good was a song, her father would scoff.
No, there were only two kinds of wards that did any good at all. Rock salt mixed with iron shavings was one. The other was a blood ward, like the one her parents had put on her.
Poppy took a deep breath and stepped into the forest. Her ears buzzed with the warding, but she ignored it. The air was cool and smelled of sap and heat, and something else bitter-sharp, and like always—despite the ward, there was part of her that could breathe better here. It was as though she was
