“Hm? Oh … I was thinking about this story my parents told me about the Holly Oak one time.”
Mack’s smile cracked wider. “What’d they say?”
“Well…” She reached up to yank her ponytail tight. “They had gone into the wood—into the deeps to one of the big thorn groves. And I guess they passed through a Hyphae village without realizing it.” She watched his face for a reaction.
Mack cringed. “The fungus folk don’t like anything to touch their soil without their permission.”
Poppy smirked. “Right, well, my parents didn’t know that at the time. The Hyphae mother tangled them in these long fungal ropes. Mom said they were so tight it was hard to breathe.”
Mack shivered. “They’re lucky they didn’t get spored. How did they escape?”
“They didn’t. The Hyphae took them to the Holly Oak.” Poppy smirked. “It was the first time they met her. The Hyphae mother asked the Oak for justice.”
Mack scrubbed one hand over his face. “Thorns! What happened?”
“The Holly Oak told Mom and Dad that ignorance was not an excuse. She said if they insisted on being in the Grimwood, then it was their task to learn about it and understand it. She told them how to watch for the Hyphae boundary.”
“The ring of red mushrooms.”
“And then she told them they had to make amends.”
Mack pulled a face. “Make amends … how?”
Poppy grinned, holding back a laugh. “Mom told that part … and you should have seen the look she gave Dad.”
Mack raised both brows. “What—”
“They had to carry these huge…” She snickered. “These huge backpacks full of fresh manure from Strange Hollow, back to the outskirts of the Hyphae village.”
Mack barked a laugh. “I bet your mom loved that!”
Poppy couldn’t hold back her laughter. “They had to … make two trips,” she wheezed.
Poppy turned to the page in her journal where she’d had her dad draw one of the red mushrooms that signaled a Hyphae village, lifting it to show Mack. “Don’t worry. I know what they look like now,” she added.
Mack chuckled. “I know them. I’m sure we can make plenty of our own mistakes.” He stretched his arms over his head, reaching for the lowest branch of a tall ash tree. “Speaking of which … you know the Holly Oak is way too far for one day’s travel, right? I know you have plans and all, but we should set up camp for the night.” He paused. “Please tell me you brought salt and iron.”
“I did. But we’re not camping.”
“But—”
“We won’t be in the wood for the night at all. Really,” she added when he pulled a face. She shoved her journal back in her bag. “I have a plan.”
“But Poppy—”
“Trust me, Mack. Now, come on. There’s no time to waste.” Poppy called Dog to her side and traipsed through the brush, following the riverbank upstream.
“Okay, so where are we going to spend the night?”
“Shush. I’m looking for the dock.”
She heard him stop walking. “You mean … a dock for the Boatman? That kind of dock?”
She reached into her hoodie pocket and tossed an apple over her shoulder. “Yup.”
Mack caught it and took a bite, jogging to catch up to her. “How are you going to pay him?”
“My gold coins are burning a hole in my pocket.” Poppy had been young when her mother, speaking where Poppy could hear her, let it slip that three gold coins would buy a ride with the Boatman to anywhere in the Grimwood. She’d fallen asleep with more questions on her lips, but she remembered that much.
Mack rolled his eyes. “Your birthday money?”
Poppy winked. “It’s weighing down my pocket.”
“I thought you wanted to buy books at next solstice.”
She lifted a shoulder. “This is better.”
“Right. Well, I suppose I should be grateful. At least you’re not running around looking for old ladies to trust and give your gold to,” he muttered. “That never goes well in the wood.”
Poppy looked up at him. “Well, I wasn’t even considering that option … but why doesn’t it?”
“When is an old lady in the Grimwood ever just an old lady? Answer … never! They always turn out to be witches.”
Poppy laughed but quickly smothered it at the sight of Mack’s earnest expression. “Huh. But witches help you sometimes if you help them first, don’t they?”
“I mean, there are good ones and bad ones, sure. If you help an old woman in need, theoretically they might owe you something.”
“Like information?”
“Sure, or, they might give you a poison apple that puts you to sleep for years, or steal your voice, or make you an old lady too.” He punctuated the comment by biting his own apple. “Point is, you never know what you’re going to get with old ladies in the wood. Unreliable.”
His eyes followed Poppy as she moved ahead, searching the river. She was just beginning to doubt her parents’ notes when they came around a bend and Poppy spotted an old dock, twisted and rotting. It stuck out into a deep part of the river and looked more likely to collapse than to hold their weight. What would the Boatman be like, she wondered. He was a strange creature, she had gleaned that much—a creature, not a human. Her mother’s notes said he looked like a man, but … wrong. Whatever that meant.
Regardless, he might be the only creature who had access to the entire wood. His docks sprang up here and there all along the river Veena inside the forest, like fingers pointing. There were none of the Boatman’s docks in any of the Hollows.
She had asked her father once how the Boatman got through the shallow parts of the river in his boat. Her father had laughed and told her he didn’t think the actual river made much difference one way or another. She’d tried to get him to say more, but he only shuddered, and added that he sometimes wondered if, once you were in the Boatman’s boat, the whole river might be
