Poppy hesitated. Mack was fascinated by human games—well, by anything human. Of course, he wanted to watch them. She sighed and pulled out her ponytail. Her parents were safe at home now, and she could put off her victory a few more minutes for her best friend. Jute wouldn’t mind if they were late for dinner. “Fine,” she said.
Mack’s grin was worth it. Without a word he flopped down on the grass to watch.
Poppy snorted, and flopped down next to him.
She didn’t blame the people of Strange Hollow for being afraid of her family. Or, at least, she understood. The house growing overnight had jump-started the breach, but it wasn’t the only thing. Everyone else avoided the forest, but Poppy’s home was made of it. Most families had lost someone to the Grimwood over the generations, but her parents went in and out of the forest all the time. It was practically their morning commute. Naturally, people assumed her parents were in league with the wood. It didn’t matter how many times they tried to explain that their work was in service to the Hollows.
Poppy had given up on the idea of ever having the Grimwood and being accepted in the Hollows. The Grimwood was in her blood, somehow, just as Mack’s mysterious human grandfather was in his.
Mack watched, spellbound, as the kids ran around the worn, man-high standing stones that dotted the landscape. Poppy could hear their laughter echoing across the valley, as one team made a break for the other’s flag.
She pulled out her journal. She had copied her parents’ more intriguing notes, and tried to keep track of what she saw in the Grimwood herself. So far, she’d drawn pictures of seven different species of tentaculars, seventeen different birds, and three mammals. She hadn’t gotten to the insects yet, though she had caught a glimpse of a picker a few weeks ago, ambling through the wood. The huge insects were like person-size stick bugs, but with strange human eyes and sad green faces.
In the middle of the notebook were the notes on maledictions. MALEDICTIONS YEARN TO BE USED, she had copied in her father’s bold capitals.
Maledictions grow out of the soil in a thorn grove as ordinary-looking human objects—a jar, a pen, a fork, a book.
We aren’t sure how the maledictions get into the Hollows. The pickers might move them from the thorn groves to the Hollows, but this is unconfirmed.
The thorn trees DO appear to have a symbiotic relationship with the pickers. We know it is the pickers that lead the victims of maledictions from the Hollows into the thorn tree groves where the trees will eat them.
In return, the thorn trees do not seem to eat the pickers—though they eat every other living thing that comes within reach.
We have also observed the pickers eating the soil at the base of the thorn trees.
Her father’s notebook, which she’d snuck a peek at just before her parents left, had held some new intriguing hypotheses.
Can a powerful creature change a malediction for its own purposes? What is the Soul Jar?
Poppy rubbed at the words “Soul Jar” where she’d copied them into her own journal. She wished she could ask her dad more about this.
Her thoughts flashed to the one time she had asked her parents her truest question. She had been almost ten. It was late—the sound of crickets so loud in the summer heat that it was even hard to hear her own thoughts. She’d lain awake listening for more than an hour, and finally got up to steal another look at one of her parents’ journals.
She had been shocked to see the light on. They were back from their latest adventure, and hard at work, each of them hunched over their desks in companionable silence. She had stood watching them from the doorway for some time before her mother looked up and saw her.
“Why, Poppy Sunshine! Why are you awake at this hour? Didn’t Jute put you to bed?”
Her father looked up, curious perhaps, to hear her answer.
“No—I mean, yes. He did. I just couldn’t sleep.”
“I see,” said her mother, the lamp light so bright against her dark hair that it cast shadows over the desk.
Poppy moved closer. “What … what are you doing?”
The corner of her mother’s mouth had lifted. “Putting a malediction in stasis. Come and see.”
“Jasmine.”
“It’s all right, David. She should know how to protect herself.”
Poppy had hurried to her mother’s side, her heart fluttering like a moth in a jar. Her mother held up her hands so that Poppy could see the long-sleeved black gloves. “Never touch an active malediction with bare skin.”
“It will have you in a blink,” her father called, unbending his long legs from under his desk and moving to stand behind Poppy.
“Now,” her mother said, reaching into a box to hold up a comb—pretty, but simple. She glanced at Poppy’s father. “If you’d be so kind, dear.”
He rose and picked up the silver sewing needle on her mother’s desk. Poppy watched, barely daring to breathe as he pricked his finger and let three drops of blood fall onto the comb.
She wasn’t sure what she had expected. Steam, or black smoke, maybe. Something. Instead the comb just sat there looking somewhat revolting. Her parents shared a look.
Her father cleared his throat and reached out to pick up the comb with his bare hand. Poppy stifled a gasp, snatching at her mother’s cool hand.
“Shhh,” she whispered. “It’s your father’s blood. The malediction can’t hurt him now.”
Her dad held the malediction and spoke clearly, so that the breath of his words swept across the comb’s teeth. “You will harm none. You will harm none. You will harm none.” He turned and deftly threw the comb, end over end, into another open wooden box at the end of his desk. A soft glow throbbed from
