by Anne Ursu
“You poor girl,” said Nina, reaching out to rub Hazel’s head. “You take your time with that. You’ll feel better soon.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nina move back to the stove, her hand lingering on her husband’s arm for a moment as she turned. Hazel felt the gentle touch as if it had happened to her.
Hazel remembered this. Two parents at a table. The way one would touch the other casually, a hand on the shoulder, a brush against the cheek. These unconscious gestures, like their bodies were speaking to each other—Yes, you are here and I am here. It had been a long time since she’d seen that.
Hazel remembered her father. He had strong arms. He used to like her stories. He took her to the Renaissance Festival two summers ago. They’d sat on bleachers in the sun, roasting like mutton, watching a jousting match. I’m going to be a knight, Hazel had said, feeling the lance in her hands. No, he’d replied, you let others do that for you. You are a princess.
Hazel remembered Jack. They mounted their scooters and took plastic swords and jousted on the driveway. Jack had knocked Hazel off first and she’d skinned her knee on the concrete, bright red like a berry. Jack had said it was a battle wound and smeared a cherry popsicle on himself for fake blood.
And she wondered, now, if she was trying to rescue the wrong Jack, if instead of trying to find the white witch she should look for one of her old Jacks, before any of this had happened, before he lost interest in her.
“Any better?”
Hazel nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Nina said. “We’re happy to help. And you’re not the first girl we’ve rescued from the likes of him. Girls come into these woods thinking they can make it on their own, but . . .” Her eyes traveled to the table.
“We like to keep our eyes out,” said Lucas. Nina put a hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“We had a girl once,” she said. “We lost her.”
“Oh,” said Hazel. She looked up at them, searching their eyes for some sign of recognition. She wanted to ask questions, but how do you ask people things like that? When did you lose her, how did you lose her, did you give a baby girl up for adoption, and, do you remember, what was her name?
“We keep trying to find her, but—” Nina shook her head. “So we try to help out other girls. Keep them safe. You can stay here as long as you need.”
Hazel looked back out at the garden. She could hear the sadness in their voices, feel it hanging in the air like fog.
She’d wondered about her birth parents and if they ever wished for her, if they knew what had happened to her, if they knew she was half a world away. Or was she only a missing piece to them, a hole at the center of things, an ache that had no name?
She could not think. Her mind was too soft and thick, and not suited for things like thinking anymore.
“I think I’d like to go to sleep now,” she said.
“Don’t you want to see the garden?” Lucas asked.
“She can see it tomorrow,” Nina said. “She should sleep. It’s better.” She helped Hazel out of her chair, handed her her backpack, and led her out of the kitchen. The birdsong wafted out of the main room. Hazel stopped. It sounded familiar somehow.
“Is there a bird in here?”
“Let me show you,” Nina said.
She led her to the front room. There was a fire in the fireplace, shelves upon shelves of books, and two side-by-side reading chairs. And across the room on a little silver perch was a mechanical bird.
Hazel took a step closer. The bird looked like it was made out of the same colors as the flowers in front, with a rich purple body, a yellow mask, and a bright red belly. It looked like a robin that had rolled around in jewel-tinged paint. Its head moved jerkily around, and it lifted its wings and then dropped them again in a steady rhythm.
“Wow,” Hazel said. “Did someone make that?”
“Lucas is a bit of an inventor,” Nina said.
It sang again, lifting its head to the ceiling.
“It sounds so real.”
“We had a real one once, but . . .” She shook her head. “It got away. This one is much more reliable.”
“It reminds me of a bird I saw,” Hazel said. She didn’t realize it until the words were out of her mouth, but the song reminded her of Ben’s bird sister a little.
“Really?” asked Nina. “Where?”
Hazel opened her mouth, but somewhere in the fog of her mind she remembered her promise to Ben. “Oh, you know. Wisconsin.”
“Oh,” Nina said. “Well, this one is marvelous. You can take it apart and see how it works. And it’s never going to go away.”
Hazel nodded. Yes. It was pretty. But she was very tired. And the song of the bird made her sad, somehow. So Nina led her into a small back room.
“I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess,” she said.
It was. It was a small workroom. There were shelves lined with small, inscrutable tools and pieces of clockwork. On the table was scattered a number of small animal figurines made of pieces of brass. They were in various states of completion. Hazel’s eyes fell on a figure with the shape of a cat. The face was off, revealing innards made of gears.
A small mattress and a thick white comforter lay in the corner of the room. They called to Hazel and she answered.
Hazel put her backpack down and crawled in, and the bed embraced her. Nina lifted the white comforter over her and gave her a smile.
“What happened to your face?” she asked gently.
“Oh. There was a witch. She scratched me.”
“I’m sorry. That’s the sort of thing that happens here. I think I can fix it. Tomorrow.”
“That would be nice,” Hazel said. What a wonderful thing to be able to take away a scar, just like that. “Are you from here?”
Nina smiled. “No one here is from here, not to begin with,” she said. “Are you going to be all right?”
Her eyes were full of such tenderness, as if they had all the time in the world for her.
Hazel nodded. It was strange to wander into the fairy-tale woods and come upon a place that felt so real. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Go to sleep, Rose. We’ll talk in the morning. I’m so glad you’ve come.”
“Me, too,” said Hazel.
Chapter Nineteen
Rose
Honey coursed through Hazel’s body as she slept, running through her veins and into her heart. Her dreams were thick with it. Jack was there, climbing onto the counter and taking the jar off the top shelf where his mother thought it could not be reached. Hazel liked to use a spoon but Jack just stuck his finger in, because he was a boy.
Once Hazel skinned her knee jousting on scooters, and Jack’s mom cleaned it up, wincing the whole way. Hazel was young and had the taste of stolen honey in her mouth, but she still wanted to tell Mrs. Campbell that it was going to be okay.
They used to do things like jousting. And pirates. They had the grandest adventures. Jack liked things like superheroes and aliens and spies. Hazel liked long, elaborate quests. They were a fellowship, come together to save the world. Her father said she was a princess. He did not see that she was a brave knight. Jack did. They saved the kingdom, again and again, and let the king have all the honor. It was the knight’s job, after all.
Once Hazel started to pretend that Jack had been taken by a dragon and she was going to rescue him. Jack wouldn’t play. He insisted that this would never happen, he would never get taken by a dragon, and he most certainly did not need rescuing, for he was Jack, Prince of Eternity.
Hazel jolted awake in her little bed, blanket heavy on top of her, the small room just as heavy with night. Moonlight streamed through the window and she could see the odd shapes of the half-finished clockwork animals scattered around the room.
What if Jack didn’t want her to come?
She came in thinking she would rescue him, like some sort of story, like a little kid pretending to be a brave knig
ht. He needed saving; therefore, she would save him. This was the way it used to work. It used to always be so simple, it was just the two of them and they could make shacks into palaces. But things change.
Jack went off on the sleigh with the white witch, without warning or word. She could come all this way, she could break him out of his snow globe, and he would scoff and roll his eyes and say, “Hazel, stop being such a baby.”
Ben had said it. And Lucas, too. The white witch would not have taken him if he didn’t want to go. He wanted to leave his mom and her unseeing eyes. He was the invisible boy looking for the place where no one could find him, where he did not have to feel invisible anymore.
Why would they want to stay?
Hazel always saw him, always. But it wasn’t enough for him. She wasn’t enough. She could be such a baby sometimes.
Maybe rescuing him was not the point at all. Maybe Hazel was supposed to come here and find this couple in their cottage who only had a sad mechanical bird to keep them company. They had a missing piece, a hole at the center, an ache with no name. Maybe Hazel was just the misshapen piece for them.
Maybe she was Rose, after all—maybe that had been her real name. Maybe she had come into the woods and slipped into the life she was supposed to have had, if no one had wanted to give her up. Maybe the woods are where people found each other. This is what happens on journeys—the things you find are not necessarily the things you had gone looking for.
Maybe she didn’t belong anywhere else because she belonged here.
Hazel got up and looked out the window. The moon shone on the garden like it had been hung in the sky for that purpose alone. The garden beckoned to her. She’d slept in her clothes, and they were damp and uncomfortable. She opened her backpack and then remembered that she didn’t have a change of clothes anymore. Hazel pulled the comforter up on the bed so it was nice and neat, and then grabbed her backpack, stuffed the jacket in it, and tiptoed through the dark cottage. The mechanical bird chirped at her as she passed.
She could still taste her dreams distantly in her mind. And the memory of Nina’s tea lingered in her body. There was something about it. Everything around her looked sharp, almost unnaturally so, like she could see the truth of things. Like if she looked at a box she would know what was inside.
She stepped outside, and then stopped and stared. The small garden was just a slip of earth on the side of the house, but it seemed like its own universe. The sweet, sharp scent of hundreds of flowers greeted her. Even in the night their colors sang. It was a thick, lush blanket of color—luxurious purple and electric blue and sunshine yellow and cheery red. It was like a movie version of an enchanted garden, gorgeous, vivid, and too beautiful to be real. She could dive into the purple of the violets and live there.
She felt suddenly that she wanted for nothing in the world. The flowers called to her, like they had secrets to tell—Rose, come on. Hazel found herself lying down on the cushioned white bench that sat among them, and their fragrance reached up to welcome her.
Sleep pulled her back immediately, wrapping her in the sort of haze that presses down on you and you’re not sure it will ever let you go but you’re not sure that you ever want to leave. It was so peaceful there in the fog. She wanted for nothing.
And then the flowers began to whisper to her. The noise did not belong. It pulled at her brain like longing, and Hazel wanted it to go away.
They did not stop whispering. The flowers had secrets. They had names, too, though the couple in the cottage called them Daisy, Lily, Hyacinth, Violet, Dahlia, Jasmine, Poppy, and they did not remember the ones they had before. They told Hazel that she must listen.
Daisy grew up in a house with a stream in back, and behind it were some woods. She and her friends Isabelle and Amelia played in them all the time when they were little kids, even though they weren’t supposed to. Daisy’s mother liked to keep her eye on them, and the trees blocked her view. And then Daisy got sick and could not play anymore. Her friends stood by her bed telling her of the things they did, but after a while they stopped coming. Daisy snuck out of the house one morning, dragging her muscles and bones with her, and crept into the woods. She came upon a wizard who lured her in with healing whispers but did not mean her well. She ran, and a kindly couple took her in.
She was a flower now. She missed her friends and the games they’d play in the woods. They were princesses once, charged with saving the kingdom from a dragon, and whoever could defeat it would be queen. Daisy used strength, Amelia wits, and Isabelle fell in love with the dragon, because that’s the sort of girl she was. She rid the kingdom of the dragon, and then made it its king.
Violet had a brother who was eight years older, and he always treated her like a doll. One day, one of the neighbor boys put a snake in her shoe and taunted her for crying. The next day her brother paid him a visit and he never bothered her again. There was a war, and her brother decided to go. He was gone two years, and when he came back he was a shell.
In the woods she fell in love with a shadow who tricked her into believing he was a man. A kindly couple took her in. They’d had a girl once, but lost her.
She was a flower now. Her brother used to pretend to be a general. He gave her stuffed animal ranks and put them through basic training. He demoted the penguin for insubordination.
Lily was in love with a boy who promised her things. He did not keep his promises, and the heartbreak sent her into tar-thick blackness. She started taking long walks and wondered what would happen if she just kept walking. She went into the woods one day, and there the blackness was real. The cold began to tug at her, it whispered promises in her ear. A kindly couple took her in. They’d had a girl once, but lost her. She meant to leave, every day she meant to leave, but they were like the parents you think you should have, and everything tasted like honey.
She was a flower now. She could think of the boy without bringing the blackness on. In the summer they would sneak out at night and meet in the park, and now the smell of the evening air always reminded her of him. He’d push her on the swing just to make her fly. The mosquitoes ate her arms and the grass tickled her legs. When he laughed, his ears turned bright red.
Poppy had lived here ever since she could remember. She was on her own, but she got by. There were wolves in the woods, and sometimes they watched her cabin. She huddled in it until they left. There was a woodsman who came by sometimes, he had kindly eyes and an ax, and that kept the wolves away.
One day she found something near her little hut. Someone had left red ballet slippers. She could not resist them; she had never had anything like them. She danced, and she remembered the mother and the father she had had, and it was like they were there, applauding her.
But she could not stop dancing. The shoes would not let her stop. She was going to dance herself to death. The woodsman found her. He said the shoes must be cursed. He said he could save her life, but she would have to lose her feet. This is the price we pay. She ran away, and Lucas and Nina rescued her and took her in. They were like the parents you think you should have, and everything tasted like honey. And then one day she took root.
She remembered her real parents, now. They’d died when she was three, but she had them again, and even though she was a flower she knew what it was like to have them shining with pride when she danced. She held on to them, and the memory of them kept her, and tended to them all.
Hazel remembered, too. She remembered her mother—not her before-mother, but the one she had always known. Hazel was in bed pretending not to cry, and her mother was stroking her forehead, whispering to her gently. She told Hazel that everything was going to be okay. She told her that she would just work twice as hard for Hazel. She told her that they were going to take care of each other. It was just the two of them now, but they had each other. It was going to be okay.
And then she told Hazel that it was time to wake up. That she needed to wake up. Hazel, baby, you must wake up now.
Hazel woke up. Th
e flowers watched her with open faces. She sat up and looked at them. They seemed to expect something of her. She could feel the weight of her mother’s hand on her forehead, the caress of her whisper in her ear.
Her hand flew to the backpack where the whistle was. She needed help now. And then her hand retracted. Flashes of conversation played in her head. Ben said:
This couple found us and they brought us to their cottage and they took care of us.
They were like real parents, you know?
They wanted to keep her, I guess.
There was a reason the birdsong was the same. Lucas and Nina must have moved on to flowers, to things that couldn’t fly away.
Hazel could have stayed. She could have taken root. She wanted to be a Rose, somebody’s Rose, their Rose—and she would have been company for the flowers. She had new memories to give them, new people to tell them of, people who would help tend to them and keep them. But they warned her. They saved her.
Hazel was nobody’s Rose. For better or for worse.
You have to go, the flowers told her.
She took the canteen out of her backpack and drizzled them with the water Ben had given her the day before. It was all she had to give them.
And then a light turned on in the house behind her. Hazel dropped the canteen, slung her backpack over her shoulders, and rushed to the gate.
She was not fast enough. The back door creaked open. Hazel whirled around. Nina appeared on the step in a bathrobe.
“Rose, what are you doing?” Nina said, coming toward her. “You should be in bed.”
“My name isn’t Rose. It’s Hazel. And I’m leaving.” There, that sounded brave. Hazel took a step toward the gate.
“What? Why?” Hazel could not see Nina’s face in the dark, but her voice was full of concern.
“Why?” Hazel motioned around at all the flowers. It was the only answer she could give.
“Oh.” Nina came toward Hazel, her hands out. “I know. It’s hard to understand. But they needed us. These girls came into the woods because they were lost. We took them in. We take care of them. We tend to them. We give them what they need.”