Kit and the Nine-Tailed Fox, page 1
Dedication
To Mirelle Ortega—
My brilliant illustrator. You have poured your humor and heart into every drawing and made these sweet girls look so special. Thank you for being my copilot on this wild and wonderful journey. With so much love and thanks.
And also to Gail Shalan—
My dynamic audiobook narrator. Thanks for breathing life into the words and for giving these girls the perfect voices.
—L.M.
To Mariela, whom I’m lucky to call a best friend
—M.O.
Map
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Map
1. Not Out of the Woods Yet . . .
2. Follow to the Next Landmark
3. Trust
4. The Trickster
5. Home Again
6. The Severe Seven
7. Lakeside Muds
8. The Epicenter
9. Betrayal
10. Seeing Red
11. The Last Mythie
12. Melee in the Meadow
13. Grassroots
14. The Prisoner
Acknowledgments
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Not Out of the Woods Yet . . .
Kit was not hopeful as she glanced between the glowing arrow on her palm and the thicket of trees in front of her. Her arrow was supposed to lead to her mythical beast familiar. And judging by the brightness of her glowing hand, it seemed like she was destined for some kind of forest Mythie.
Kit was not sure she liked the sound of that.
“Are you okay?” Pippa asked, gently touching Kit’s back. Pippa was the nicest person Kit had ever met. Sometimes Kit wondered how anyone could be so nice all the time. Where was her sarcasm? Her quips? Her snark?
“I’m fantastic,” Kit said. “Just wondering why I traveled all over the world looking for my Mythie, only to end up back where I started. I could’ve just stayed home in Woodside Timbers this whole time!”
“We’re going . . . in there?” Marina asked as her kraken—appropriately named Kraken—nervously drooled on Marina’s head. Marina stood beside Kit and gulped as she peered into the forest. Marina was very smart, and she was also the biggest worrier. She began to mumble all the dangers of Woodside Timbers under her breath. “Falling branches, getting lost, rabid mammals, wolf spiders, ticks, poison mushrooms, poison ivy, poison oak . . .”
“Sounds like the perfect place for daring heroes! Let’s do it!” Hailey shouted, running into the forest. Hailey’s Mythie, a dragon named Sherbet, flew after her.
Kit smirked. Hailey was always eager for adventure . . . sometimes too eager. She perpetually jumped into action without thinking. But that was part of what made Hailey fun.
“I think Hailey forgot we’re following my hand,” Kit said to Marina, Ember, and Pippa.
And then all four of them followed Hailey into the dense, dark wood.
The forest was still. Leaves blocked out most of the sun. Even though it was morning, it looked like twilight in the woodlands. All around them, roots were gnarled, and the trees leaned in like they were reaching for the intruders. Everything was silent.
“Light! We need light!” Marina squeaked.
“Happy to help,” Ember said, holding out her hand. She was cradling a tiny fire, which illuminated the area right around them. Ember’s phoenix familiar, Ashley, trilled and made her tailfeathers burn brighter.
Kit could always count on Ember to be confident and passionate. Whenever the group seemed to be falling apart, Ember kept them together with her upbeat, go-getter attitude and good leadership skills. Kit had no idea how Ember always stayed so positive—sometimes, to Kit, it was like Ember was speaking a totally different language.
But it made sense that Ember would be a guiding light—figuratively and literally—in the creeptacular forest.
Kit climbed over some high roots. She looked at her hand, then around the woods. “Helloooo?” Kit called. “Are there any mythical beasts out there who would like to show their face right about now?”
Nothing.
Then again . . . after seeing Marina, Ember, and Hailey’s harrowing journeys to bond with their familiars, Kit didn’t think it’d be that easy.
It was hard to believe it had been eight weeks since Pairing Day. In some ways, it seemed like time was moving at a glacial pace, since Kit still didn’t have a Mythie.
On the other hand, so much had happened since Pairing Day. Marina found Kraken and water powers. Ember found her phoenix, Ashley, and fire powers. Hailey found her dragon, Sherbet, and wind powers.
And, as a group, they’d found Golden Jumpsuit, who had a power of her own. Something that caused Hailey and Sherbet to lose all their energy—something Kit thought was physically impossible.
They’d lost track of Golden Jumpsuit after the snowy battle on Mount Verglas three weeks ago. And they hadn’t heard a peep from her since.
But certainly, Golden Jumpsuit would turn up again. Kit was sure of that.
An owl let out a startling WHO! and Marina shrieked.
“Sorry, sorry!” Marina said. “I just wasn’t expecting that!”
“We’re expecting a monster!” Kit said. “An owl should be a hoot by comparison.”
Marina flashed a watery smile.
“What monster are we expecting in the woods?” Ember asked.
Kit shrugged. She’d had weeks to think about what her familiar would be, and she still hadn’t come up with an answer. She sighed whenever she thought about it. Kit tried to keep her cynical, bad thoughts at bay, but sometimes they just crept in.
But she had tools to cope. Like a very sharp tongue. With humor, she could laugh, even when she felt like the opposite. Humor made everything feel better, especially when things were tense, sad, or scary.
Like now.
“I feel like I’m playing hide-and-go-seek,” Kit said. She followed her arrow around a shrine of stones on the ground . . . Best not to disturb that. Her grandparents had warned her plenty about forest spirits. “Okay, I give up! Olly olly oxen free!”
Her voice echoed through the forest. Before the silence snapped back.
“Is Woodside Timbers always so quiet?” Pippa whispered.
“It isn’t, actually,” Kit said. “The forest is usually full of noises.”
Marina squeaked. “Something must be scaring the other animals away.”
“It’s actually better this way,” Kit said. “If you think the silence is spooky, you should be here when twigs snap and leaves rustle all around you.”
Even though Kit had grown up here, if she could make a list of the top ten spookiest places in Terrafamiliar, the forest would be number one on the list. (Though a close second would be Bernadette and Darius’s musty home-lair in Splashside Falls.)
Kit’s earliest memory was getting lost in Woodside Timbers. She’d gone in at sunset to forage mushrooms to surprise her grandfather. But then she couldn’t find her way out. Little Kit had scurried around the forest, frantically calling for help. But no one came. Not for hours.
Eventually, her grandmother found her—with scraped knees and a tearstained face.
And as they walked home, Kit trembled as she tightly held Grandma’s hand. Her grandmother tried to make the forest friendly again, but Kit couldn’t be protected anymore. She knew the truth: the world was not such a safe place, and sometimes you were on your own, dealing with the worst of it.
“I found something!” Hailey shouted from several trees away. “Come look!”
Kit, Marina, Ember, and Pippa scrambled over roots. Hailey was proudly holding open a bush.
“Um . . . Hailey?” Marina said. “Did you check for poison ivy before you touched the leaves?”
“Nope!” Hailey said. “Gotta risk it for the biscuit!”
“What did you find?” Ember asked.
“Look down!”
Ember held her firelight closer to the ground. There was a long log of—
“Scat!” Kit said. “You just found scat. That’s not anything.”
“It’s a clue!” Hailey insisted.
“No, it’s a poo,” Kit said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, let’s—” She stopped short. “Ember! Hold the light up!”
Ember raised her hand high.
Above their heads, a tree was severed in two. Half the tree was leaning to the left. The other half was bending to the right. Kit’s palm burned suddenly, and she grabbed her hand. But her arrow wasn’t spinning around in a circle—like everyone else’s had when they found their Mythies. Instead, Kit’s arrow was swinging back and forth like a pendulum between the left and the right sides of the splintered tree.
“What’s going on?” Ember asked, staring closely at Kit’s hand. “What’s happening?”
Kit walked up to the tree. There was a stone shrine beneath the tree, and someone had hidden a scroll inside the hollow. She usually wouldn’t dare disturb a shrine. Messing with forest spirits was bad news. But Kit had a strange feeling. She knew this message was waiting for her.
The wax stamp on the scroll had a fancy design: an arrow in a palm.
That sealed it! Or more accurately unsealed it, she thought as she opened the scroll. This was definitely Mythics related.
Kit read the handwritten letter:
Something strange about the bark
Of a broken tree once strong
Follow to the next landmark
The opposite of wrong
“Oh no,” Kit said. Realization hit her like a bolt of lightning. She felt sick. “No, no, no.”
“What’s wrong?” Pippa asked. “Is it your Mythie, Kit?”
“Nope, and my arrow’s completely useless. It’s just swinging back and forth.”
Hailey scratched her head. “I don’t get it.”
“I think . . . it’s telling me to figure out the next direction on my own.” Kit groaned. “Don’t you see? It’s a riddle.”
2
Follow to the Next Landmark
Marina snatched the scroll out of Kit’s hands. “A riddle?” She read the message hungrily. Then she passed it to Pippa.
“Oh, come on!” Kit complained. “Why do I have to use my brain to find my Mythie when no one else did?”
Ember smiled. “Sounds like your Mythie has a good sense of humor. Just like you.”
“Well, she’s the only one who’s laughing,” Kit grumbled.
“Something strange about the bark,” Hailey said. She examined the tree, touching every inch of the trunk she could reach. “OUCH! A splinter!”
As Sherbet tried to bite the splinter out of Hailey’s hand, Pippa read the riddle aloud again.
Something strange about the bark
Of a broken tree once strong
Follow to the next landmark
The opposite of wrong
“The opposite of wrong?” Ember said. “What does that mean?”
Marina and Kit shared a look.
“Well,” Marina said, “according to the tree and your arrow, there are only two options. Right or left. So what’s the opposite of wrong?”
Kit groaned softly. “I get it. The opposite of wrong is right.”
“Oh!” Pippa said. “That’s clever!”
“Let’s goooo!” Hailey said as Sherbet finally plucked the splinter out and blew it away with a gust of wind.
Kit led the trek through the forest. Over roots, under branches. They were looking for “the next landmark,” whatever that meant.
The trees were becoming denser now. Woodside Timbers was big, and Kit was sure they were in the thick of it. Ember’s light illuminated shadows that made Kit feel like they were being watched.
And maybe they were . . .
After all, Golden Jumpsuit had a habit of intercepting their Mythies.
“Look! Over there!” Hailey said, pointing straight ahead of them. “Another shrine!”
Hailey rushed forward, plucked the scroll out of its resting place, and ran it back to Kit.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Kit said with a frown. “It’s not a riddle—it’s a whole treasure hunt.”
Marina smiled shyly. “I’m actually enjoying it. Kraken, why couldn’t you have done this for me?”
In response, Kraken burped a bubble.
Kit, meanwhile, opened the next scroll. Do your worst, she thought.
You may find me a little stark
For I have might times nine
Follow to the next landmark
Up, up the tallest pine
They all looked up.
“How are we supposed to tell which pine is the tallest?” Pippa said. “They all look pretty tall from down here.”
“Time to climb!” Hailey said, running over to a tree. She shimmied up the trunk about two feet off the ground before Sherbet started biting her ear. “Sherbet, stop! Sherbet, no!”
Ashley squawked and nodded upward.
“That’s it!” Ember said. “Hailey and I can investigate from above. We’ll find the tallest tree in no time. And if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll see your Mythie, and we can skip this whole treasure hunt.”
Marina pouted. “Aw, but this is fun.”
“Yeah,” Hailey agreed. “You can’t just skip adventure!”
Ember and Ashley bonded together to create their massive phoenix form. Then Hailey and Sherbet did the same to make their giant dragon. Pippa, Marina, and Kit watched as they disappeared into the leaves.
While they were waiting, Marina looked at the clue again. “Do you think,” she said nervously, “that these scrolls are giving you hints about your Mythie?”
“‘I have might times nine,’” Pippa said. “What could that possibly be?”
Kit sat down on a big rock. “I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. The poet just needed something to rhyme with pine. Nine, pine.”
“I wonder why they didn’t use three and tree?” Pippa pondered. “I have might times three? Up, up the tallest tree?”
“Because Golden Jumpsuit doesn’t seem like the best poet.”
Pippa and Marina looked at her.
“You, um, think it’s Golden Jumpsuit, Kit?”
Pippa sat down on the rock beside her. “What makes you think that?”
“Who else?! We haven’t seen her for three weeks, and we know she has some sort of power that’s special. What if she can see the future, knew where my Mythie was going to be, and . . .”
“And is luring you toward her?” Marina said. “That seems unlikely. She wants to keep us away from our Mythies, remember?”
“Maybe she’s sending us in circles,” Kit said. “For all we know, she’s leading us right into a trap.”
Marina twisted her hair. “Um . . . what about your arrow, then? It was swinging back and forth. Golden Jumpsuit couldn’t do that, right?”
“Who knows what Golden Jumpsuit can do? She can probably do anything.”
Pippa hummed. “You have so much confidence in Golden Jumpsuit . . . but what if you choose to believe in your Mythie instead?”
Kit shook her head. “Pippa, you can’t just choose to believe things. You either do or you don’t.”
“I’m not so sure,” Pippa said. “I think our attitude plays a huge part in our outlook—and our experience. I think the energy you give is the energy you get back.”
“Then next time I see Golden Jumpsuit, I’m going to give her a piece of my energy,” Kit said.
Marina chuckled.
They sat in silence for a bit. Marina began to mutter under her breath about Golden Jumpsuit—and Kit felt almost sorry to ruin the fun of the treasure hunt for her.
Meanwhile, Kit could not stop thinking about what Pippa had said—that the energy you give is the energy you get back. Was that true? Because Kit put a lot of pessimistic energy into the universe, so did that mean she was destined to have bad things happen to her? What kind of broken philosophy was that?!
Kit’s thoughts were abuzz—or at least she thought they were until Pippa said, “Lots of bees today. I wonder if we could swipe some honey before we leave the forest.”
“Anything but more wild berries and mushrooms,” Kit said. “And I’m forever thankful we ran out of sardines.”
Suddenly the leaves began to rustle from above their heads. “What’s that?” Marina whimpered.
The sound got louder, and the shaking grew more violent until—
Snap!
The branches cracked in half. Hailey and Ember were crashing out of the sky.
3
Trust
What was going on? Why were the dragon and the phoenix falling?
The dragon smacked into a tree trunk and unbonded. Hailey laughed as she was caught upside down in a branch. The teeny dragon circled beneath her head.
Meanwhile, the phoenix dropped like an anchor and cratered into the ground.
“Are you okay?” Pippa cried.
Hailey looked at Ember and giggled. “Ember accidentally burned a bunch of leaves, but don’t worry. I—a noble and valiant hero of Terrafamiliar—stopped the flames with my ice breath!”
“But why were you crashing?!” Kit said.
“I tucked my wings in to keep my fire contained, but”—Ember shuffled her feet, embarrassed— “I couldn’t fly like that. I dropped hard.”
Hailey grinned. “And I raced her to the ground. She beat me good.”
“But,” Kit said, “did you find the tallest tree?”
“Sure did! Follow me!” Hailey bonded with Sherbet again and raced away.
Kit ran through the forest, chasing after Hailey’s scaly tail. The stillness around them rang in her ears, and the darkness was thick.
This was starting to seem like a never-ending goose chase.
