Shadows of Sherwood (18 page)

All Manner of Camouflage

Robyn couldn't decide if Chazz's words were a threat or a warning. But Laurel seemed to trust him, Laurel, who claimed to never have had a friend. Robyn knew something about going it alone, but Laurel seemed to know even more.

The girls climbed back on the bike and zipped around the cardboard city. It was quite the elaborate arrangement, really. At the other side of the lot, Robyn steered the bike between two large stone pillars bearing signs that read City Fairgrounds. Suddenly the “
un
fairground” joke made sense. She'd have to remember to explain it to Laurel later.

Riding on the road was much easier than riding in the woods. They tooled along the streets quickly and smoothly. Robyn decided she could get used to traveling this way. They passed through a deserted street, all boarded up with sheet metal. Robyn glanced up at the abandoned structure—a massive brick church that filled the entire block—the famed Nottingham Cathedral, now gone to ruin.

Robyn stopped the bike along the side of the road. Something was nagging at her. She pulled Dad's map from her pocket and looked at the marked insignia. These rectangles could be the two towers of the church! The location would be about right.

“Look, Laurel,” she said. “If the spiral in the woods is the staircase, maybe this is the cathedral!”

They circled the block, looking for the door. But there was no way to get inside. The structure was boarded up tight on all sides.

“The map is too old,” Robyn said. The sudden rush of hope and excitement drained away in a flash. With the hologram message incomplete, all of Dad's clues were turning out to be dead ends. Maybe none of the points on the map were what she'd guessed, after all. She needed more clues.

“Gather the Elements,” Robyn mused aloud. “What are the Elements?”

“Earth, air, water,” Laurel chimed in. “I know that one.” She raised her pointed chin to the sky and recited:

Gather the Elements as you will:

Earth to ground you, Water to fill,

Air to sustain, a Fire to ignite;

Elements gather, all to fight.
”

The smaller girl smiled proudly. Robyn stared openmouthed. “Where did you hear that?”

“It's an old song,” said Laurel. “Do you want me to sing it?” She paused, and frowned. “Well, I don't exactly remember how the music part goes. It's from the old moon lore.”

Robyn felt a trill of certainty in her chest. So, that had to be it. “Earth, air, water, and fire.”

“Earth, air, water,” Laurel corrected. “I'm not sure about fire.”

“It's right there in the song.”
And it was in Mom's Elements painting . . .

“Yeah, but . . . ,” Laurel said, and shook her head. “I don't know. Anyway, I'm hungry. Aren't you hungry?”

They drove back beneath the trees. Riding the bike in the pine forest was not as treacherous as riding it in the woods; the ground was a soft bed of needles with few exposed roots. But Robyn had been caught here before, so she knew danger could be just around the corner. When they reached the hardwoods near the tree house, Robyn said, “Where are we going to park this thing?”

“Do you think Key's camouflage trick would work?” Laurel suggested, referring to the cape of sticks and branches he wore to move through the woods unnoticed.

“Let's give it a try,” Robyn agreed. The girls parked the bike between two bushes. They plucked foliage from the forest floor and carefully built a natural tarp. Robyn's fingers braided leaf stems together easily, and Laurel turned out to be an expert weaver of bark. The bike's green-and-black coloring helped—it only needed to be disguised, not completely concealed. Before long, they had a decent shroud over the moped. When they stepped back ten feet the spot didn't attract any particular attention.

They stood beside the tree house entrance longer than they should have.

“What are you doing?” Key asked. He shed his own camouflage cloak and popped up near them.

“I don't know,” Laurel said, with a big, cheesy wink at Robyn. “What do you think we're doing?” She spread her hands out, inviting Key to look around. He glanced left and right.

“I think you're giving away the hideout, standing here,” he said in a tight voice.

The girls giggled. “Don't worry. We just got back,” Robyn said. She clapped Key on the shoulder. “We'll tell you all about it upstairs.” They climbed into the tree house.

“We forgot the camo suits,” Laurel reminded Robyn.

“Oh, right,” Robyn said. And her circuit board, and the TeXers. They'd left them stuffed inside the bike seat. Robyn jogged down to retrieve them. She returned to find Laurel regaling Key with a dramatized tale of their bike ride through Sherwood.

Robyn freed the circuit board and tossed down the plastic packages. “We swiped a couple of MP uniforms. Thought they might come in handy for getting in and out of the woods.”

Key smiled. “You want to masquerade as MPs?”

“Better than wearing sticks on our heads,” Laurel quipped.

Key's grin broadened. “That's debatable. Where'd you get all this stuff, anyway?”

“Oh,” Laurel started. “That's the best part. Robyn's got this great big—”

“My parents left a few things for me,” Robyn said, interrupting before Laurel gave away too much about her past.
“They . . . they were taken on the Night of Shadows,” she told Key. A lot of people had been taken. Robyn figured it was okay for him to know that much.

Key's eyes widened. “Oh. I figured you were an orphan, or something. Like me.” He lowered his gaze. “Sorry.”

“I kind of am right now, I guess,” she admitted.
At least, temporarily.

“Me, too.” Laurel chimed in. The three looked at each other. Well, they had that much in common.

Robyn set the circuit board carefully on the floor. It wouldn't take long to rig the wires up around the tree house. That way, if anyone came snooping around, Robyn would know. She could also use the connections to test the batteries in the TexTers and see if they worked.

But it could wait. She and Laurel hadn't eaten since the morning. They went straight to the food stores on the wall. The shelves above seemed all too empty; just a few boxes of juice and cans of fruit and beans remained.

“Is this all we have?” Robyn asked. “It's definitely time for a shopping run.”

“There's a new wrinkle,” Key said, turning serious again. “Big mess down at the market, didn't you see?”

The girls shook their heads. Neither mentioned that they hadn't been in Sherwood most of the day.

“By tomorrow, there won't even be a market,” Key said. “MPs are shutting the whole thing down.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A Food Problem, Compounded

“Nooooo. How can they close the market?” Laurel moaned. She lay flat on her back, her spaghetti limbs sprawling.

“They have their ways,” Key explained. “Intimidation, buying people out. Arresting vendors for so-called infractions to threaten others into backing off.”

“Yeah, we saw some of that the other day,” Robyn said.

Key nodded. “It's been going on forever. But it's official now. No market.”

Laurel threw an arm over her eyes, despondent. “It's so much harder to shop in the real stores. Hello, even I got caught doing it last week. Me!”

Key and Robyn exchanged a glance. Laurel's melodrama would have been amusing if the situation hadn't been so serious. “How are we going to eat?” Robyn asked. She wondered if Key now regretted sharing his stockpile with them. His brow furrowed, but he didn't seem upset. He was just working on the problem.

“We'll figure something out,” Key said.

“Everyone in Sherwood shops at that market, at least for some things,” Robyn protested. “There's probably a hundred vendors. How can they just close it?”

“You need a street vendor license to sell goods in public,” Key explained. “Nott City just revoked them.”

“The only way to get food now is through the groceries, if you have a Tag, or else the new food depots the MPs are setting up,” Key said. “And everything is protected with security cameras and InstaScan checkout. People without Tags are going to get some kind of card, or something. No more bartering.”

“That's just stupid,” Laurel wailed. “How are we supposed to SHOP when there's SECURITY?”

Robyn circled the girl's thin wrist and squeezed lightly. “It's okay,” she said, although it sounded to her, right now, like it wasn't. “Where are these food depots?”

“There's going to be one right down on the Cannonway,” Key said. “I saw them confiscating goods at the market and trucking them over there.”

“Crown wants to control everything in the city,” Key said. “And the quickest way to get control of people is to get control of the food supply. He has that now.” He ticked off the items on his fingers. “One: block public access to the woods, so no one can pick fruit or forage. Two: stop the market, so independent farmers and producers can't sell their goods direct to the public anymore. Three: take control of the grocery stores so everyone has to buy everything from you.”

“People still need food,” Robyn said. “Where is it all going to come from?”

“Crown is going to buy from food suppliers, at a lower wholesale cost, then store the goods in big compounds around the city.”

“
Eww
,” said Laurel, wrinkling her nose. “That's just creepy.”

“It'll be all profit for Crown and no profit for anyone else.”

“How do you know all this?” Robyn asked.

Key shrugged. “It's basic economics.”

“Eco-what?” Laurel repeated.

Key leaned over and tousled her blond hair. “That's what you get for not staying in school,” he told her.

“Bo-ring,” Laurel droned. She rolled back and forth over the wooden floor slats.

“Let's get a look at these new food depots,” Robyn suggested.

Laurel perked up immediately. “Just a look?” she asked.

“We have to know what we're dealing with,” Robyn said.

“Not a good idea,” Key said. “What are you going to do, walk up to the MPs and see what they're doing? Your wanted poster could be right outside. The description is pretty accurate.”

Robyn grinned. “Are you volunteering?”

Key shrugged. “I already saw them. It's safe for me to get a little closer than you can, sure.”

“Aren't you wanted?” Laurel asked him.

Key's voice tightened. “I don't think they've made any posters for me, if that's what you mean.”

“Oh,” Laurel said cheerfully. “You're lucky.” But Robyn found herself wondering once again about Key's fugitive status.

They left the bike in the woods. Robyn was concerned about the amount of power in the battery and having to recharge it if it got low. Plus, riding around on a bike was a lot more conspicuous. Better to save the wheels for later, when they might really need a quick getaway.

When they got to the market, the girls' eyes widened in shock. MPs swarmed the large lot, one by one stripping vendors of their goods. They loaded boxes and crates and piles of wares onto trucks lined up along the edge of the market square. A separate group of guards had cordoned off the area with police tape.

“See?” Key said. “I told you it wasn't safe for you here.”

They moved along the edges of the crowd. The familiar stalls looked desolate without their occupants. The streets were cluttered with refuse from fallen products and collapsing stands. Vendors clamored around the boundaries of the scene, shouting and shoving in effort to have their wares returned to them.

“Oh,” Laurel cried, “this is terrible!”

“It'll be okay,” Robyn said. She put her hands on her hips. “So, no more easy pickings. It'll be Crown's food depots or bust.”