43 pages • 1 hour read
Colin MeloyWildwood
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary: “Into the City of the Ancients”
The combined North Wood and bandit armies continue their march into the City of the Ancients. Curtis and Prue learn that this area was once inhabited by a cultured race later overthrown by barbarians. As the armies march toward the Ancients’ Grove, blackberry brambles as far as the eye can see block their path. The army is running out of time to intercept the Governess. Brendan orders his troops to chop through the brambles, but their progress is too slow. Prue gets the idea of having Iphigenia talk to the plants. The Elder Mystic meditates and asks them to move out of the way. To everyone’s amazement, the plants open a wide swath for the army to march through.
When they get to the other side, they see Alexandra’s army ahead of them moving toward the old basilica in the center of Ancients’ Grove. In the middle of the ruin is the Plinth of the Ancients, where the Governess intends to sacrifice Mac. Brendan gives the order to attack. As the armies join in battle, Prue carries messages from Brendan to his commanders in the field. Meloy writes:
Prue and Curtis shared a quiet glance before the soldiers on the hillside, with a great collective holler, leapt up from their positions and stormed the crest of the ridge. Good luck, Prue mouthed as Curtis was carried by the wave of soldiers over the ridge and into the battle below (482).
Chapter 26 Summary: “The Wildwood Irregulars; A Name to Conjure With”
The coyote army is attacked on all sides by their opponents but manages to get the better of them. The situation looks grim for the children’s allies. Prue sees Brendan felled by a pistol shot, and she crawls through the melee to help him. He has a shoulder wound which Prue tries to staunch before moving him to safety. At that moment, the shadow of the Governess looms over both of them:
Her sword was drawn, and she held it above her head, the blade wet with blood. The baby in her saddlebag wailed. ‘Your time is over, Bandit King,’ she said. ‘A new era in Wildwood has begun.’ Without a further word, she spurred the flanks of her horse and vaulted over the two of them, Prue and Brendan, in a single leap, galloping toward the unguarded marble stairs that led to the ruined basilica’s upper tier (500).
Chapter 27 Summary: “The Ivy and the Plinth”
The battle rages on with the coyote army demanding their foes’ surrender. Curtis and his comrades are facing certain defeat when the avians join the fight. A flight of eagles arrives to airlift coyote soldiers and hurl them to their deaths.
A bandit dresses Brendan’s wound while Prue races off to confront Alexandra. The Governess has now dismounted and hauled Mac to the plinth. Prue is about to scream when Iphigenia intervenes, warning Alexandra of the dire consequences of empowering the ivy. “It will consume you when it’s finished tearing down every tree in the forest,” she says. “[D]on’t think you’re immune’” (505).
The Governess retorts that she will command the ivy to go dormant long before it can attack her. Prue rushes at Alexandra but is shoved away and tied down by the ivy. Alexandra begins her ritual. Prue looks at the trees surrounding the plinth. Responding to Prue’s thoughts, the trees unexpectedly bend their limbs and lift Mac out of Alexandra’s clutches. As the Dowager looks upward, trying to grab the baby, Brendan shoots an arrow between her shoulder blades.
Once Alexandra is shot, the ivy consumes her. Iphigenia tells Brendan, “Bandit King, you’ve fed the ivy! They’ve feasted on the Governess herself […] The plant is in your thrall. You must command it to sleep” (514). Brendan complies, and the ivy instantly goes dormant. The trees holding Mac return him gently to his sister’s arms.
After Alexandra’s army surrenders, Iphigenia asks to be taken to South Wood. She says, “I’ve a mind to set some things right. We do have an army at our disposal, after all” (515).
Chapter 28 Summary: “Wildwood Rising”
Curtis, Prue, and Mac arrive at the gates of South Wood and demand to be admitted, telling the guards that they have arrived “to free Owl Rex and the citizens of the Avian Principality from the South Wood Prison … and to remove Lars Svik and his cronies from power’” (523). The guards resist until they see the army marching up behind the children. This event comes to be known as the “Bicycle Coup.”
Once order is restored, the various factions begin the task of setting up a fair government for all of the Wood. Prue plans to return home to Portland with Mac, though Iphigenia hints that the girl will return again someday.
Curtis decides to stay behind. He doesn’t want to go back to his family, telling Prue:
I made an oath, Prue. I’m a bandit now. A real Wildwood bandit. I just can’t go back on that. That moment on the Long Road, before you came up, I had the chance to leave. But I’m needed here, Prue. I belong here (531).
Curtis remarks that if he ever needs Prue again someday, he’ll come and find her because they’re partners. She agrees and the two say goodbye.
Back in Portland sometime later, Prue encounter’s Curtis’s family at the farmer’s market but doesn’t reveal her friend’s true whereabouts. Instead, she tells them that wherever their son may be, she believes he’s happy. Now contentedly settled back into her family routine, Prue tells Mac a bedtime story about their adventure.
Chapters 25-28 Analysis
The idea of the Wood as a single living organism asserts itself in the final chapters. Even though plants may be viewed as passive bystanders to the armies battling in their midst, this proves not to be the case. Rather than having the bandit army hack its way through the blackberry brambles, Iphigenia simply asks the plants to move to the side, which they do. Alexandra converses with the ivy, promising to feed the plants with Mac’s blood. When Brendan shoots Alexandra and her blood feeds the ivy instead, the plants transfer their allegiance to him and obey his command to go dormant. In desperation, Prue calls on the trees surrounding her brother to lift him out of harm’s way. They also can understand and comply with her wishes. The text suggests that nature must be viewed as a sentient entity, and each of its elements needs to be respected. Although Outsiders have long ago rejected this notion, the plants, animals, and people of the Wood all demonstrate their essential connectedness.
Curtis forges his own personal connections to the Wood and its inhabitants. When Prue asks him to return to Portland, he refuses. The bond he’s formed with the bandits has fulfilled some deep need in his psyche, so he chooses to remain. He also hints that he will retain his partnership with Prue and may invite her help at some point in the future.
Curtis’s personal connections are amplified by the newfound political connections among the various regions of the Wood. The short-sighted, regional self-interest that has plagued South Wood, North Wood, Wildwood, and the Avian Principality appears to be dissolving by the final pages of the book. After the Bicycle Coup, Owl Rex expresses the optimistic hope that all the Wood’s citizens are committed to creating the kind of government that will work for the common good.
