Shadows of Sherwood (14 page)

A Ragtag Band of Outlaws

It had been an eventful twenty-four hours. Two missing parents, two narrow escapes, two shoplifting excursions, a wanted poster, more time in the woods than she'd ever thought possible, a mysterious tree house, and a semipublic shower. Robyn was beyond exhausted, yet she huddled under the blanket for hours, unable to sleep.

Robyn lay on Key's sleeping pallet with Laurel curled beside her, tucked safe between Robyn and the tree house wall. The smaller girl's face looked calm and innocent in sleep. Robyn wished her good dreams, a respite from the quiet storm that rumbled behind her waking eyes.

Key sat leaning against the tree house wall across from them, arms folded over his chest and legs crossed at the ankles. Robyn stared up at the stocked shelves above him. The snacks and provisions in the cabin might last another day or two, but no longer. Robyn hoped they wouldn't need to.

Late into the night, like clockwork, the screen corners lit up from time to time, and Crown's stern voice shared another bulletin with the citizens of Nott City. Each time he revisited the new strange horrors, it all felt a little deeper. More real.

Concrete walls were being built between the districts, with monitored checkpoints for crossing in between.

The Notting Wood, once public land, had been declared private government property. Citizens from most counties—all but the Castle District, it seemed—were not to enter the woods anymore without permission.

Crown's desire to crush all rebellion was taking a hard toll on Sherwood.

Everything—
everything
—was going to change.

Robyn was too numb to feel any additional fear. She couldn't even comprehend what all of these changes meant for Nott City.

Robyn stared at the shelves. She stared at the annoying screen space. Her mind clicked around the problems at hand. Her parents had not come for her, despite her deepest hope. She now knew they might never come, though she still didn't want to believe it.

Across the room, Key sat wakeful, gazing through the small window at the leaves, the sky, the moon. She could tell by the soft, studious expression on his face that he was trying to read the moon. Her father used to get that very same look on his face, late in the night, from the moon porch on the roof of Loxley Manor.

“What does it say?” she whispered.

Key's attention shifted to her. “Nothing,” he answered. “At least, I don't know.”

“Oh.” Key was older, and seemed to know about things. Robyn had hoped he might understand more than she did.

“It's okay to fall asleep,” he says.

Robyn sat up in the darkness. “I can't.”

“I was kidding before,” Key admitted. “You can trust me.”

“How do we know you won't sneak out the second we're asleep and turn us in?”

“The woods are off-limits to everyone,” he says. “In case you hadn't noticed, I'm an outlaw, too.”

Robyn had noticed. She'd wondered, in fact, how Key could seem so calm in the face of everything. He moved around the tree house with familiarity. Whatever had sent him running to live in the woods must not have happened recently. “I—”

The screen snapped on again. Key groaned and covered his ears. Laurel's tiny frame twitched under the blanket, but she didn't wake.

“If we put on a movie or a show, would it block these messages?” Robyn asked.

Key shook his head. “No, I've tried. Crown's signal overrides whatever you're watching.”

“Why is he doing this?” Robyn asked. The segments now played on a loop, repeating themselves. The same information, hour after hour. Though it had all seemed new at first, apparently there were only six original reports. Now everything was a rerun.

“Intimidation. He wants to remind everyone that he's in charge. Everything happens on his terms now.” Key sounded sure, and it made enough sense that Robyn believed him.

“He must be a horrible person,” she said.

“Understatement,” Key agreed.

Robyn remembered Crown a bit better now. He had offered her candy once, at a party a long time ago, before he was elected governor. A chewy caramel-nut bar that didn't happen to be among Robyn's favorites. If she had liked the candy, things might have gone differently. As it was, Robyn remembered, she merely glanced at the slender bar in his hand, then looked him square in the eye and said, “I don't take candy from strangers.”

“I'm not a stranger,” he answered.

“How can I be sure of that?” she told him. “You seem strange enough to me.”

Crown laughed. “I'm a colleague of your father's.”

“How do you know who my father is?” Robyn asked him.

She didn't like the cold smile she received in return. “He stands out in a room like this, don't you think?” Crown said.

Dad stands out in every room
, Robyn thought. He's handsome and smart, not to mention a well-liked member of Parliament. But she knew enough to know that Crown didn't mean those things. He was referring to Dad's dark skin.

“Yes, he's very well-known,” Robyn answered, to avoid being impolite. She couldn't help adding, “Which is why some people who are strangers to me think they are not.”

Robyn especially remembered Crown's incisive stare following that comment. “Very well,” Crown said. He ripped the candy wrapper off and bit into it himself, right in front of her. “See? Perfectly safe.”

But Crown had not made Robyn feel perfectly safe. Then or now.

“Yes, he's horrible,” she whispered. She tried to push his leering grin out of her mind. Tried to picture Dad, instead. His wide brown face and big smile that lit up the room. He would have loved Key's tree house. Dad was always looking for an adventure—Robyn got her restless bug from him, Mom liked to say. Lately Parliament had been enough of an adventure, though, and Dad had been concerned about all manner of things.

Dad had known something was brewing, Robyn now realized, but Dad acting weird hadn't seemed like such a big deal a few days ago. Everything with Dad was either very serious or very silly. If Dad was laughing, everyone was laughing. His laugh was loud, bursting and deep.

Mom, on the other hand, rarely laughed out loud, but she constantly smiled. She had a soft, strong way about her that made her good at caring for people and for plants. Mom loved working in the garden, which was good because in other ways she was very proper and prim. Gardening meant Mom didn't mind dirt, and Robyn was almost always getting herself dirty. Somehow Mom could get elbow-deep in her garden and be able to just brush herself off afterward, whereas Robyn could take a simple walk through the lawn
and come back looking like she'd been through a tornado. They used to smile about it together.

Robyn's heart welled up. Would she ever hear Mom say,
There's my smudged-up kiddo
, again? Or hug her and feel the warmth of the white stone pendant she always wore around her neck? When Robyn was very small, sitting on Mom's lap, she would play with the pendant. If you closed it in your hand, it would grow warm. When Robyn asked why, Mom always said,
Because it's special
.

It had been so easy to think that things would always just be fine. Robyn and Mom had always teased Dad for his paranoid ways. Now Robyn wished she'd paid more attention to Dad's lessons and drills, even if they seemed a little overboard. A simple alarm system wasn't enough for her dad; he put in the security cameras because he wanted to be able to see if anyone came in and out of the house. He was more afraid of spies than of burglars . . .

Robyn sat bolt upright again.

“What?” Key said, startled. “What is it?”

Cameras! The security cameras in Loxley Manor must have captured Crown's men breaking in. The video would show what happened to her parents, too. Robyn had to get back to the house and view them. Then she would know for sure—did they somehow get away, like she did?

“Nothing, sorry,” Robyn told Key. He didn't need to know what she was thinking about. Robyn lay back down, though her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She felt herself drifting
almost immediately this time. It helped, knowing what she had to do tomorrow. No matter what, she was determined to make it back to Loxley Manor and find out what had happened to her parents. They could still be alive—no, they had to be! Robyn would find them, and as soon as she did, things could go back to the way they should be.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Home, Sweet . . . Barracks?

In the morning, while Key slept, Robyn quietly shared her plan with Laurel. “I'm going home,” she told her. “Like I planned. I don't know how long I'll be gone, but—”

“I'm coming with you,” Laurel said, frowning as if this was obvious.

“What?” Robyn said. It hadn't occurred to her that the girl would still want to come. Robyn didn't think the idea of going to Castle District would appeal to Laurel as much, now that they had found this excellent tree house.

“You think I'm going to stay here?” Laurel whispered, hitching her chin toward Key. “With HIM?”

“Well, I didn't think—”

“And,” Laurel said, tapping a small foot indignantly. “Do you really think I'm going to let you do something crazy like that all alone?”

Robyn smiled, unexpectedly happy and relieved. “It's a long walk,” she said. “We'd better get going.”

The walk home didn't take nearly as long in the daylight—largely because Robyn didn't have to feel her way along. Instead the girls jogged easily through the woods, leaping stumps and dodging vines and finally relying on a tried-and-true trail.

When they emerged onto the grass, Robyn said, “There it is. We made it.”

“Whoa.” Laurel's eyes popped open wide at the sight of the enormous home. “You live here?”

Running across the lawn toward Loxley Manor, Robyn's heart leaped into her throat. She couldn't contain the blossom of hope that had bloomed inside her. The hope that her parents might be inside . . .

But the house was dark. The back door, locked. Robyn wasn't surprised at that. Her parents usually kept it locked unless one of them was out in the yard or the garden. What surprised her was that the locked door failed to open, even when she touched the coded pad beside the door. It should've recognized her prints and let her into the house.

“That's strange,” she murmured. So instead Robyn led Laurel to the familiar spot beneath her window.

Laurel glanced up at the sheer white wall. “You think we can climb that?” she whispered.

“I do it all the time,” Robyn said, shimmying up a few feet. She glanced back. Laurel's nimble toes curled around the corner of a stone, ready to go.

They climbed inside. With one glance at the state of her bedroom, the excited flutter in Robyn's throat became a lump too hard to swallow. Robyn's canopy bed had been pulled down. Not just the ruffled canopy—the whole bed
was gone. In its place stood four metal bunk beds, space enough to sleep eight men. All her old toys and belongings were piled in a corner.