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  Praise for Michael Cadnum

  “Not since the debut of Robert Cormier has such a major talent emerged in adolescent literature.” —The Horn Book

  “A writer who just gets better with every book.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Cadnum is a master.” —Kirkus Reviews

  Blood Gold

  “A gripping adventure set during the 1849 California gold rush. Complementing the historical insight is an expertly crafted, fast-paced, engrossing adventure story full of fascinating characters. This is historical fiction that boys in particular will find irresistible.” —Booklist, starred review

  “This novel is fast paced.… The well-realized settings, which range from remote wildernesses to sprawling cities, create colorful backdrops for Willie’s adventure. An enticing read.” —School Library Journal

  “The prose is lively.… A spirited introduction to the gold rush for older readers.” —Kirkus Reviews

  Breaking the Fall

  Edgar Award Nominee

  “Tension hums beneath the surface.… Riveting.” —Booklist

  “Eerie, suspense-laden prose powerfully depicts the frustrating, overwhelming and often painful process of traveling from youth toward adulthood.” —Publishers Weekly

  Calling Home

  An Edgar Award Nominee

  “An exquisitely crafted work … of devastating impact.” —The Horn Book

  “Probably the truest portrait of a teenaged alcoholic we’ve had in young adult fiction.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

  “Readers … will never forget the experience.” —Wilson Library Bulletin

  “[Readers] will relate to the teen problems that lead to Peter’s substance abuse and the death of his best friend.” —Children’s Book Review Service

  “Through the prism of descriptive poetic images, Peter reveals the dark details of his sleepwalking life.… An intriguing novel.” —School Library Journal

  Daughter of the Wind

  “Readers will enjoy the sensation of being swept to another time and place in this thrill-a-minute historical drama.” —Publishers Weekly

  Edge

  “Mesmerizing … This haunting, life-affirming novel further burnishes Cadnum’s reputation as an outstanding novelist.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “A thought-provoking story full of rich, well-developed characters.” —School Library Journal

  “Devastating.” —Booklist

  “A psychologically intense tale of inner struggle in the face of tragedy.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

  Forbidden Forest

  “Cadnum succeeds admirably in capturing the squalor and casual brutality of the times.” —Kirkus Reviews

  Heat

  “In this gripping look at family relationships Cadnum finds painful shades of gray for Bonnie to face for the first time; in her will to grasp the manner and timing of her healing is evidence that she is one of Cadnum’s most complex and enigmatic characters.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Compelling. Adopting the laconic style that gives so much of his writing its tough edge and adult flavor, Cadnum challenges readers with hard questions about the nature of fear and of betrayal.” —Publishers Weekly

  In a Dark Wood

  Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist

  “A beautiful evocation of a dangerous age … Readers who lose themselves in medieval Sherwood Forest with Cadnum will have found a treasure.” —San Francisco Chronicle

  “In a Dark Wood is a stunning tour de force, beautifully written, in which Michael Cadnum turns the legend of Robin Hood inside out. Cadnum’s shimmering prose is poetry with muscle, capturing both the beauty and brutality of life in Nottinghamshire. In a Dark Wood may well become that rare thing—an enduring piece of literature.” —Robert Cormier, author of The Chocolate War

  “[T]his imaginative reexamination of the Robin Hood legend from the point of view of the Sheriff of Nottingham is not only beautifully written but is also thematically rich and peopled with memorable multidimensional characters.” —Booklist

  “Cadnum’s blend of dry humor, human conflict and historical details proves a winning combination in this refreshing twist on the Robin Hood tale.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “A complex, many-layered novel that does not shirk in its description of [the period], and offers an unusually subtle character study and a plot full of surprises.” —The Horn Book

  The King’s Arrow

  “The King’s Arrow is an adventure story full of color and romance, as resonant as a fable, told in clear, clean, swift prose. A wonderful read.” —Dean Koontz

  Nightsong: The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice

  “Cadnum (Starfall: Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun) once again breathes life into classic mythological figures.… Skillfully creating a complex, multidimensional portrait of Orpheus (as well as of other members of the supporting cast, including Persephone and Sisyphus), Cadnum brings new meaning to an ancient romance.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Another excellent retelling of one of Ovid’s mythical tales. This well-written version is a much fuller retelling than that found either in Mary Pope Osborne’s Favorite Greek Myths or Jacqueline Morley’s Greek Myths. The story is a powerful one, delivered in comprehensible yet elevated language, and is sure to resonate with adolescents and give them fodder for discussion.” —School Library Journal

  Raven of the Waves

  “[A] swashbuckling … adventure set in the eighth century, Cadnum (In a Dark Wood) shows how a clash of cultures profoundly affects two distant enemies: a young Viking warrior and a monk’s apprentice.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Convey[s] a sense of what life might have been like in a world where danger and mystery lurked in the nearest woods; where cruelty was as casual as it was pervasive; where mercy was real but rare; and where the ability to sing, or joke—or even just express a coherent thought—was regarded as a rare and valuable quality … Valuable historical insight, but it’s definitely not for the squeamish.” —Booklist

  “Hard to read because of the gruesome scenes and hard to put down, this book provokes strong emotions and raises many fascinating questions.” —School Library Journal

  Rundown

  “Deep, dark, and moving, this is a model tale of adolescent uneasiness set amid the roiling emotions of modern life.” —Kirkus Review

  “Cadnum demonstrates his usual mastery of mood and characterization in this acutely observed portrait.” —Booklist

  Ship of Fire

  “Brimming with historical detail and ambience, this fact-paced maritime adventure will surely please devotees of the genre.” —School Library Journal

  Starfall: Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun

  “Cadnum (In a Dark Wood) once again displays his expertise as a storyteller as he refashions sections of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into a trilogy of enchanting tales. Readers will feel Phaeton’s trepidation as he journeys to meet his father for the first time, and they will understand the hero’s mixture of excitement and dread as he loses control of the horses. [Cadnum] humanize[es] classical figures and transform[s] lofty language into accessible, lyrical prose; he may well prompt enthusiasts to seek the original source.” —Publishers Weekly

  Taking It

  “Cadnum keeps readers on the edge of their seats.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Cadnum stretches the literary boundaries of the YA problem novel. This one should not be missed.” —Booklist, starred review

  Zero at the Bone

  “Riveting … [an
] intense psychological drama.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Much more frightening than a generic horror tale.” —Booklist, starred review

  “A painful subject, mercilessly explored.” —Kirkus Reviews

  In a Dark Wood

  Michael Cadnum

  FOR SHERINA

  The bay

  the color of the bay

  in the air

  Midway in our life’s journey I found myself in a dark wood, the right road lost.

  —DANTE,

  The Inferno

  1

  The forest was quiet. Everything that was about to happen was far away, through the trees.

  Geoffrey stood still, staring straight ahead, although he could see nothing but trembling patches of sunlight on the fallen leaves. A forest was like night. It was a different world, and everything a man was afraid of lived there, afraid of nothing.

  The boar spear was a long, heavy weapon, and this particular spear had never been used before. Its head was slender and very sharp, and the cross-piece midway down the shaft was gleaming black. Geoffrey found a new grip on the spear, the iron cold where he had not touched it, and the horns of the beaters, and their cries, filtered through the trees, bright curls of sounds, like shavings on a goldsmith’s bench.

  Between them and where he stood was the most dangerous kind of beast. It could feel no pain. Its eyes were fire pricks. It weighed more than three men.

  And it was coming his way. Hugh, the squire beside him, shivered. His crossbow was loaded and cocked and aimed at the empty place before them. The youth’s lips were tight, and he would not meet Geoffrey’s eye. Geoffrey tried to utter reassurance. His tongue was so dry he merely croaked, and he pretended to cough.

  No hounds today, he had laughed. No, let the dogs stay penned. Today he would take one man to man. Approving laughter. The chief huntsman leaping into his saddle with a fart. An excellent day for it. Geoffrey would provide them with enough proof of his own courage to last a year. Unless the spear slipped, as he had seen it slip in the past.

  Horns on three sides now. Birds struggled through the air, magpies flashing black and crisp white, and a crow like fresh iron falling from one branch to another, not even calling, working itself north.

  He would not have said this to Hugh, but he could admit it to himself. Sometimes, in the full feast of a day’s events, he experienced a twinge of cowardice.

  The forest was too quiet. Even the sparrows hushed. A tree ahead of them shook itself, like a man just come in from great cold. A bush swayed, and a twig snapped, one of those common twigs, bare of leaves, that crook like a finger of dancing death as he leaps into the road before the traveler.

  Geoffrey wanted to protect Hugh from any harm. At times it was hard to know what words to use with the fourteen-year-old. Sometimes Geoffrey felt that Hugh was like a son, but he couldn’t think of a way to put the feeling into speech.

  The hunt fences, hidden barriers in the woods, would prevent the beast from any course but this. Geoffrey gazed upwards at the cross-span, then planted the spear at his instep and placed his left foot forwards. He crouched, his fingers finding dry places on the cold iron. A horn again, a smear of sound, like snot on wool, and then it happened.

  Too quickly. Two huge nostrils, black and snorting. Eyes too small—how could they be so small? One tusk curved out more than the other, like moustaches knocked awry. A leap, and four legs that were too slender for such a huge head were in midair, the small eyes growing not larger as they approached, but smaller, recognizing who he was and what was wrong with him.

  The animal didn’t even see the spear. It met him between the tusks, and the jolt bent the iron shaft just perceptibly, and then the spear straightened as the boar fought his way up the shaft, snarling like a demon struggling against flood. A spume of pink flung itself from one nostril, and then both nostrils closed like eyes and opened again as the monster reached the cross-beam and wrenched the spear out of Geoffrey’s hands.

  Geoffrey fought for the iron, but the spear knocked him off his feet, whipped and knocked him again, and this time he held it, but too close to the cross-bar, and the bristles seared him, and twin spouts of pink foam blinded him as he struggled to have enough breath to call, “Now!”

  The crossbow quarrel kicked the beast off its front feet, and the spear shaft wrestled with Geoffrey as he found a span that was not hot with blood and fat and stood to put his weight into it. At that moment, as he stood, too weak to do more than he was doing, hanging on to a length of iron like a drowning man to a rope, the two tiny eyes of the monster pulled themselves back, leaving empty black holes, and the creature was dead.

  The dead beast was on Geoffrey in an instant, the hard wires of its belly stinging his cheek, just as the chief huntsman called, “Hoy!” A hard foreleg crushed out all the air he had ever breathed, hooves grinding him into the earth. The monster ran the butt of the spear into a tree and fell sideways, shuddering.

  The chief huntsman held his sword into the sunlight that streaked down through the trees and knelt to his work. “He’s dead enough now,” he said, pronouncing the word “deed,” the way everyone here pronounced it, in the dialect that seemed invented to be used by hunters, crisp, with gutturals and short, rough words, like the crackling of leaves.

  The head stared from its stake and then looked up at the sky as men forced the stake into the ground. The tusks were whiter now, and the eyes had regained their glint. Death was only a pause.

  “Good work, my lord,” said the chief huntsman, and Geoffrey knew Ralf well enough to know that compliments were not wasted. Ralf split the carcass along the spine and emptied the gray bowels on the mulch. “Pity to waste the parts the hounds love best,” said the huntsman, thinking always of his dogs or his horses, of any animal at all, rather than waste thoughts on humans. “Mixed with bread, as always, they love it. Makes them feel God’s strength.” He would have built a fire and braised the innards on coals to the hounds’ great pleasure.

  For the men it was a rich moment. Their chief, their master, their employer and purpose, had done well. He had shown strength, and now a rich bounty was theirs. Pride, and a feast. They were true men to serve as the arms and legs of such a man. They, who were at home here in the night-dark woods, hoisted the halves of the carcass and carried it quickly in the wake of the head.

  2

  Hugh followed the sheriff on a palfrey, a horse bred for ease and beauty, not for war. I didn’t disgrace myself, thought Hugh. The forest shadows, the coughing boar, the flying blood—it was the stuff of a nightmare. But the sheriff did not notice how I trembled.

  Hugh lived for a word of praise from the sheriff, and while such praise was very rare, Hugh believed that if he learned to be strong, someday he would be the sheriff’s sword arm, a better fighter than Henry. And someday—Hugh let himself think such a high thought—someday he would sit at the sheriff’s side at the council table and the sheriff would turn to him and say, “Hugh, what do you think?” Or, “Hugh, what shall we do?”

  The boar’s head gaped across the field, rising and falling with the steady pace of the huntsmen. It turned on its stick to survey the field and turned back again to look up the road towards Geoffrey.

  “A fine sight,” breathed Hugh.

  And then he silenced himself. It was not likely that the sheriff was interested in Hugh’s opinion or how proud Hugh himself felt at being present at such a hunt.

  Why, thought Geoffrey, can’t I tell Hugh how bravely he behaved, despite his obvious—understandable—alarm at the sight of the boar? Some awkwardness, a clumsy silence, fell upon the sheriff whenever he began to express affection.

  The field was cluttered with birds. A scarecrow on a stick held a bow and arrow, like half a man miraculously endowed with the power to fight or at least kill magpies. A horse dragged a wooden frame weighted with a stone, the comblike teeth of the frame breaking the earth into perfect lines. The borders of the field were ragged with green. Tr
ees with thick, stumpy trunks raised branches in shocks. A peasant with a white cap stretched down over his ears sat astride the horse, flourishing a small whip. The horse was stocky and shaggy. It shat, and the teeth of the wooden frame combed the golden manure into the field.

  Geoffrey knew that at night, in May, when the full moon rose like a petal on black water, such a man led his wife into the plow-ridged fields. He laid her down on the dirt, lifted her smock, and grunted like a bull under the glittering sky so that the earth would rouse from her sleep and remember her duty. The farm folk often recalled such ancient rites.

  “Lady Eleanor goes fowling this afternoon,” said Hugh. This was not conversation. This was a report, and Geoffrey turned in his saddle to see a gown cascade from the side of a horse and wings flutter from wrists.

  Geoffrey looked back towards the forest. The grinning head approached, bobbing at the end of its stick.

  He wrapped the reins round his hand so tightly it hurt, and ground his teeth. He was trapped between the devil’s face in one direction and the devil’s work in the other. He glanced at Hugh and forced a smile. “It will be our good fortune to wish them success.”

  “It’s already proven a perfect afternoon for the kill,” said Hugh, and if he understood anything at all, his expression did not show it.

  “Only the stars are perfect,” said Geoffrey.

  A quick contradiction was the signal that his lord wanted silence, and Hugh looked away, studying a flock of blackbirds.

  The falconer dragged a long stick, a graceful arc of wood, and two falcons gripped his gloved hand. He wore one red stocking and one black, and his sleeves were rolled up, baring two brown arms. Two small wire-haired dogs danced and sniffed the dirt. Lady Eleanor’s reins were decorated with red fringes and gleaming buttons, and the horse fought the bit with its tongue.

  She rode side-saddle, her head protected by a white wimple, its shadow falling over her shoulders. Her black dress flowed with the prancing of the horse, but her red silk sleeves were tight. Her gloves were tight, too, so close-fitting she had struggled to force each finger into each even more slender sheath. A falcon turned its head at the sound of her voice, the gray cloth of its hood like the cowl of a monk.