She squeezed her hands into fists, gritting her teeth as she fought to push away the itching pinpricks of the ward. The pain was supposed to keep her out of the wood altogether. It was supposed to make her turn around and go home, but it only made her more determined.
She was shaking her hands out when a thump from below caught her attention. Mack scowled up at her. Her best friend’s skin and chestnut curls were almost as dark as the pine bark, and for a moment all Poppy saw were his copper eyes looking up at her from the dappled shadows. Mack was an elf, but still growing and, for now, only a little taller than her. In addition to his many good qualities as a friend, Poppy had to admit that his forest savvy had been helpful on several occasions. From where she sat, high in the tree branches, he looked small. She gave a tiny wave.
“What are you doing?” he mouthed up at her.
She pointed across at the Mogwen.
Mack shook his head.
Poppy nodded and lifted her net gun from her lap.
She could hear his nose-sigh from all the way up the tree.
She scooted farther from the trunk to take aim, her body rocking as she balanced on the narrowing branch. She forced herself not to cringe as the buzzing of her ward grew louder in her ears. Slowly, she lifted the net gun to peer through the crosshairs and sighted a beautiful male Mogwen singing the bass line.
The gun gave a twang. The net careened toward the bird, and he squawked a deep cry, lifting into the air as it wrapped around his branch. Poppy let out a swear word as a single black whip, longer than the rest, looped up from the thorn tree, wrapped around Poppy’s ankle, and yanked.
She toppled from the tree.
Mack dived to catch her, and she landed on him, knocking the wind out of both of them. Another whip struck the ground next to their faces, and Poppy rolled over, tugging to get her leg free as the thorn tree reeled her in.
Mack, choking and gasping for air, grabbed under her arms and scuttled backward, pulling until Poppy was suspended in the air, with Mack on one side and the thorn tree on the other.
“Lose the boot,” Mack grunted.
Poppy tried to bend her knee, but her leg was pulled taut. “They’re my … favorites,” she ground out. Her knee-high leather boots had thick soles, and thick leather—and cute little skulls on the sides.
“By thorns, Poppy! Lose the boot!”
“I thought you were strong! Pull like you mean it, Mack!”
He gave her a yank that bent the thorn branch toward them. “Harder,” Poppy hollered. “It’s loosening.”
Mack grunted again. “Your arms will come out of your sockets if I pull any harder.”
“They’ll heal! I’m not losing these boots! Wait! Move me forward.”
Mack’s heels skidded forward an inch. He tugged back again. “Forward? Toward the thorn tree? No way! You’ll be killed!” He yanked again. “Thorns, Poppy! We’ll both be killed!”
“My knife’s in my boot. I can cut the whip.”
Mack’s grip loosened a little and Poppy stretched to just reach the wooden handle of her knife. She pulled it clear and swiped across the whip.
They fell back, but this time, Mack pulled them out of range of the thorn tree.
Poppy sat up and examined her boot. There were thorn scratches all over the leather, but no holes. She patted it with a smile, and returned her knife to the ankle holster inside. “Good boot.”
She turned to look at Mack. He was lying on his back, staring up at the canopy and breathing hard. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thanks for the help.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean … I could have dealt with it … but thanks.”
Mack’s gaze shifted to meet hers, then returned to the treetops. “You should have waited for me.”
“I missed the Mogwen.”
Mack scanned the trees. “You’re lucky they flew away instead of attacking us.”
Poppy pressed her lips tight. “They’re faster than I expected.” She hopped up and brushed herself off, then held out her hand to Mack to help him up.
He was barefoot, as always. The tight spirals of his hair—the same tawny brown as his skin, hung low over his coppery eyes. The points of his ears didn’t give him better hearing, exactly, but they did pick up on vibrations that came through his feet. Today Mack had on a pair of jeans, and a green T-shirt with a hand holding a bunch of flowers on it.
He pointed at her T-shirt. “‘They Might Be Giants’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Poppy shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s my mom’s. I think she got it at the last solstice trade.”
“So … it’s a human thing—from outside the fog?”
“Probably,” Poppy agreed, rolling her shoulders to work out the ache.
“It’s a sea monster, though … not a giant.” Mack shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed. “And there’s only one. It should say, ‘It might be a sea monster,’ not ‘They Might Be Giants.’”
Poppy waited. She knew where this was going.
“You don’t think humans outside the fog think giants are … are sea monsters, do you?”
“No. I doubt it.”
Finally, he got around to the point. “I wonder if my grandfather would have known about this.”
Poppy put one hand up on Mack’s shoulder in solidarity—united in their quest for the unknown. Ever since Mack had found out that one of his grandparents might have been human, he was as obsessed with learning about human things as Poppy was about the Grimwood. The grandparents in question had apparently had a whirlwind romance, then the grandfather had disappeared, and probably died, before the question could be resolved to Mack’s family’s satisfaction, apparently. The whole thing had been making his brain itch ever since.
“But
