Breadcrumbs

by Anne Ursu

  “You turn them into flowers!” Hazel took a step back.

  “That’s the only way,” Nina said. “It’s the only way we can make sure they don’t suffer anymore.”

  “But . . . you didn’t ask them. You just kept them.”

  “Young people don’t always know what’s best. Especially the ones that come in here. They’re lost. They need us.” She looked at the ground and added, “It’s too hard to be human.”

  Hazel could only shake her head.

  Nina tilted her head and her voice softened. “We could keep you. We would take care of you. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. This would be home.”

  She was looking at Hazel lovingly, pleadingly, as if it mattered to her whether or not Hazel stayed.

  Hazel stared at Nina. The wizard had made her suggestible, she knew this. The honeyed tea was no antidote, she knew this, too. Still. It was possible. It was possible that this woman gave up a baby girl once, a girl with only a dream of a name, and then the grief of it drove her into this place. It was possible.

  “I have to go,” Hazel said, taking another step to the gate.

  “To what?” Nina asked. “Back out there to the wolves? The wizards at the marketplace? To the white witch? Back home, to whatever brought you here in the first place? Ro—Hazel, we can keep you safe. We”—her voice softened—“I can take of you.”

  “I have to save my friend,” Hazel said, trying to keep the words from trembling.

  “But”—Nina tilted her head—“he chose something else, don’t you see? He doesn’t want you anymore.”

  Hazel glanced at the ground, and then looked back up at Nina. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Nina gazed at her searchingly. “Doesn’t it?”

  Of course it mattered. The mattering of it filled her up and she threatened to burst with it. But it wasn’t the only thing that mattered.

  Hazel could only shrug.

  “Please,” Nina said, her voice almost a whisper. “Don’t go there. It’s a cruel place. “

  “So is this,” Hazel said quietly. She half believed it. There were worse fates than being a flower. But there were better ones, too. And it was her puff of wool.

  Nina took another step forward, and Hazel could see her eyes now, see all the things in them. She swallowed, turned, and pushed through the gate into the night.

  She’d thought the cottage was in the middle of a small neighborhood—that’s what she’d seen when Lucas led her from the market square. But when she went through the garden gate she found herself in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Of course. That is what Lucas and Nina needed, and the woods let them make it.

  Hazel looked back at the cottage, thought of Nina standing behind the gate, eyes full of pain and longing, a longing she could fill. And then she turned and ran.

  She could not get Poppy’s story out of her head. Her mind flashed to the dancing girl in the marketplace. Hazel had seen that something was wrong. And if she had thought about it, she would have put the pieces together: the woodsman on the path, the sudden appearance of the red shoes. The woodsman had left the shoes for her to find. He lost his daughter, he came into the woods, he made some cursed dancing shoes. The woods does funny things to people, Ben had said.

  But she didn’t think about it. She had been too tired, too focused on herself.

  It had been hours ago, or maybe days. There was nothing Hazel could do, though she felt like stripping off her own skin. She was good for nothing, and should have been left to take root.

  She hated this place. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. She was supposed to be learning things as she went along, gaining strength for her final battle. All she was doing was losing things, one thing at a time.

  She headed into the cold, for that would lead her to Jack. Because he needed rescuing. That was all. She’d lost her friend, and she might never get him back. But at least she could save him. Whoever he is now. Maybe he had chosen to come here, but he could not stay in this place.

  She kept going. She reached a small footpath that stretched itself into the cold night. She joined it, and kept going.

  Jack believed in something—he believed in white witches and sleighs pulled by wolves, and in the world the trees obscured. He believed that there were better things in the woods. He believed in palaces of ice and hearts to match. Hazel had, too. Hazel had believed in woodsmen and magic shoes and swanskins and the easy magic of a compass. She had believed that because someone needing saving they were savable. She had believed in these things, but not anymore. And this is why she had to rescue Jack, even though he might not hear what she had to tell him.

  There were so many Jacks she had known, and he had known so many Hazels. And maybe she wasn’t going to be able to know all the Jacks that there would be. But all the Hazels that ever would be would have Jack in them, somewhere.

  The truth was, he had been getting more and more scratchy and thick lately. And maybe he’d been more and more interested in being with Tyler and the boys on the bus. And maybe he’d hung out with them at recess more and more. Because sometimes when you are scratchy and thick you don’t want to be sitting in a shack with someone pretending it’s a palace, especially someone who can tell you are scratchy and thick, especially someone who tries to remind you who you really are.

  Maybe he didn’t want to know.

  The boys wouldn’t come to save him. Only Hazel would. And maybe that’s why the boys would win.

  She felt the memory of her mother’s hand again. It’s all going to be okay. She would like to hear that now, even if it was a lie. Because some lies are beautiful. Stories do not tell you that.

  And who was telling her mother it was going to be okay? What did her mom think happened to her? She’d be so worried she’d break in two. Hazel didn’t even know how long she’d been gone. How long had her mother been missing Hazel for, worrying about her? Had it been so long that the panic had settled into something dull and unrelenting?

  How long did it take for her to figure out Hazel wasn’t coming back from Mikaela’s, had never gone to Mikaela’s, that there was no school project at all? She’d know Hazel had lied to her, betrayed her, that her little girl had crossed a line.

  Hazel should have done something—left a note, pretended she was going to go visit Jack’s aunt Bernice. Something. She was so busy thinking about the one she needed to rescue she didn’t think at all about the one she was leaving behind. She was supposed to take care of her mother, too. She was not supposed to be sipping honey tea with people who are just like the parents you think you are supposed to have. Her mother was what she had.

  The woods were dark, but she could still see the path, feel the cold. There was nothing for Hazel to do but keep going. But as much as she had to keep going, she had to come back, too. She had to survive this. She could not leave her mom alone.

  She walked on. The trees were thinner now, less like the trees of giants. She saw signs of another village in the distance—she smelled smoke and saw the faint glow of something like civilization. But there was nothing for her there. She had to go get Jack now, and anyway, she was safer out here with the wolves.

  Chapter Twenty

  Matchlight

  The footpath led Hazel to a bigger path, the sort that might accommodate carts. Hazel eyed the open path warily and then moved over to the side, creeping along the trees like a stalking wolf. She could stick her hand up in the air and feel where the cold was pulling her forward. Somewhere in the distance was the lair of the white witch, cold radiating out from it like heat from a fire.

  She let it pull her in.

  After a time, she found that there was a thin layer of frost on the ground, sparkling in the moonlight. Slowly she became conscious that she was shivering, that the cold had worked its way through her skin into her blood and bone. Her breath came out of her mouth in puffs. Her chest felt tight and her lungs ached. She stopped and shuddered. She ran her hands along her arms, and t
hen got down her backpack and took out her jacket and her mittens and hat and put them on. She would even have worn the third-grade ones.

  The green jacket did its best to warm her. It was a hard job. The cold had snuck up on her so stealthily she didn’t even notice it had invaded her until was too late. Hazel breathed away the trembling and thought warm thoughts. And then she went on.

  The night in the forest would not relent. It seemed like it had been hours since she’d left the cottage, that the sun should be coming up now. But she didn’t know for sure—maybe she was done with the sun now, maybe night was all that the woods would give her.

  Eventually she realized she was hungry, and that she had been hungry for a long time. She stopped and opened her backpack. She had two energy bars left to get her through.

  She sighed and took one out. She would only eat half of it. She could make this last. Then she would eat half of the next half, and on and on. She could go for a while that way, anyway, getting slowly used to less and less food until one bite of energy bar felt like a feast.

  Hazel was just about to unwrap the bar when she noticed a flash of light up ahead. It burned for a few moments, and then died out. Then again—another flash, a slowly dimming glow, and then darkness. Then, from close by, a voice said: “Oh!”

  Hazel had had enough of people. With every one she met, the woods became worse. She tucked the bar back in her backpack and started to sneak in the opposite direction.

  She did not walk for long, for an enormous white wolf appeared a few paces in front of her. It sat on its haunches and stared at her, in the way the wolves did, its perfect coat glimmering in the moonlight. And though her heart sped up and her stomach clenched, Hazel found herself staring back at the wolf. She was done running from them. Hazel and the wolf eyed each other as the wind danced around them. And then the wolf got up and walked several paces to the right, and then turned its head toward her and fixed its gaze on her again.

  “What?” Hazel said.

  It went back to the place it had started from, and then did the same thing again.

  “You want me to follow you?” Hazel said.

  The wolf gazed at her, walked a few paces back, and then forward again. It looked at her. And she stepped forward.

  In woods where the woodsmen told lies, maybe it was the wolves who told the truth.

  The wolf turned and walked back the way Hazel had come. Hazel followed behind, trying to move as stealthily as the creature. Up ahead there was another flash of light, just as before. The wolf moved a few steps toward it, then stopped. It looked at Hazel, and then looked ahead.

  “You want me to go there?”

  The wolf gazed at her another moment, then disappeared into the night.

  Hazel crept on ahead. She had decided to throw her lot in with the wolves, and there was no going back now. She followed the dimming light into a clearing and back onto the path.

  There was a girl a few years older than Hazel sitting on a tree stump next to the big path. She did not belong out here on this cold night. All she wore was a patched-up thin brown dress, a little shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and slippers. She was visibly shivering.

  The girl did not notice her. She had in her hands a lit match and was staring into the flame as if it held wonders.

  She must be bewitched, Hazel thought. Someone had caused her to be so confused she’d wandered half-naked into the middle of the woods. She was hypnotized by the light and didn’t know the danger she was in. Someone had done this to her, and Hazel was not going to leave this one behind. The wolves would not let her.

  She approached the girl carefully. “Are you all right?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  The girl looked up at Hazel with dull eyes. She had dead-looking blond hair and a too-thin shadowy face. Her skin had been blanched by the night’s cold, and her cheeks looked blue-black. Her body trembled against the air as if the sky scared her. She looked like a blotchy, fading ghost.

  “Hey,” Hazel said, keeping her voice soft. “Are you okay? Did someone do something to you?”

  The girl blinked at Hazel. “I’m fine,” she said. “Where am I?”

  “You’re . . . you’re in the woods. How did you get out here?”

  “Oh,” said the girl, her voice thin and vague. “I live back near the village.”

  She nodded to a place somewhere beyond them.

  “Come on, we have to get you home.”

  “I can’t,” said the girl, her eyes on the fading match. “I can’t go home until I’ve sold all the matches.” She nodded to a bunch of long matches in her dress pocket. “I was selling all night, but— Oh!”

  The match in her hand had gone out. She dropped it, and in one motion grabbed another one from her dress and struck it against a small tinderbox. A flame burst from it into the night, and the girl stared into it and exhaled.

  Hazel grabbed her arm. It was shaking. “It’s freezing. I’m sure they didn’t mean—”

  “Oh, he meant it,” the girl said, still staring into the flame, and in the match light Hazel noticed that her arm was covered in bruises.

  No one is from here, Nina had said. Once upon a time this girl lived in the real world, and she came into the woods looking for something. And what she found was this.

  “I’ll buy them!” Hazel said. “How much do you need?” She began to shrug off her backpack.

  “Fifty kroner,” the girl said.

  “Oh.”

  “It’s all right,” said the girl. “The matches are magic.”

  “They are?” Hazel asked warily.

  “Yes. I never knew. But look!” She stared back into the flame.

  Hazel followed her eyes. She saw nothing but dancing fire against a blue girl. “What are you looking at?”

  “That’s my grandmother,” the girl said, voice hushed, eyes glued to the flame. “She’s made dinner. She makes the most wonderful turkey, do you smell it?” The girl was staring into the fading flame as if inside it was the secret truth of the world. But they were ordinary matches, and her visions were the deluded comfort of a dying mind.

  Hazel could feel her heart lose its solidity and diffuse slowly in her chest. She had a strong urge to grab a chunk of her own hair and pull it as hard she could. “Don’t you see it?” asked the girl, voice suddenly wavering.

  Hazel wanted to tell her no, to tell her to stop wondering at phantoms, because she was freezing to death and maybe starving, and they needed to find someone who could help her. But . . .

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I see it. It’s beautiful. Where does your grandmother live?”

  “Up there.” The girl pointed to the sky.

  “Oh,” Hazel said again.

  She looked at the girl and the matches. They had been real, useful things once.

  And then Hazel knew what she had to do.

  “Stay still,” she whispered.

  She removed her green jacket, then gently took the smoking match out of the girl’s hand. She dressed the girl in the jacket, one arm at a time, and zipped it up. She pulled off her hat and mittens, then placed the hat on the girl’s head and the mittens on her hands.

  The girl hugged the jacket around herself. Her eyes widened and she stared at Hazel.

  “It’s warm, right?” Hazel said, trying to control her voice. “It’s a nice jacket.”

  The girl nodded slowly. “Aren’t you cold?” she whispered.

  Yes. “No,” she said. “I don’t have much farther to go.”

  “Why are you doing this?” The girl looked so bewildered, like kindness was unfathomable to her, and that broke Hazel’s heart more than anything.

  “Here,” Hazel said, handing her one of the energy bars. “I have one more. You need to eat it.”

  The air had no trouble working its way through Hazel’s shirt, and she felt the bite of cold on her bare hands. She blinked it away.

  “There’s one more thing.”

  Hazel reached over to the jacket and put her
hand on the zipped-up pocket, feeling the familiar outline of the whistle. She unzipped the pocket and gave the whistle an almost invisible caress with her thumb. Then she blew into it three times, just as she learned to at school, and presented it to the girl.

  “Blow on this,” she said. “Three times, every few minutes. A boy will come. His name is Ben, and he’ll help you. You tell him what happened. You tell him I gave you this. He’ll take care of you. You can trust him.”

  Those were all the real things Hazel had left, other than the baseball—which was just a fantasy, really.

  The girl blinked at her, and then thrust the bunch of matches into her hand. “Take these,” she said. “It’s the only payment I have.”

  “No, you have to sell them.”

  “Please,” she said. “Take them. Please take them.”

  “Okay,” Hazel said, if only to quiet her. “Okay.”

  The girl handed her the matches and the tinderbox. The wind stirred, and Hazel felt the cold tugging at her, trying to pull her to it. She belonged to it now.

  Hazel opened her mouth to find some way to say good-bye, when the girl’s hand flew to the apron pockets that hung down below Hazel’s jacket. “I have something else!” she said.

  “I don’t—”

  “Take it,” she said, pulling a shiny something out of her pocket. “It shows you things, like the matches. But this shows you the truth. It shows you the way things really are.” It was a shard of mirror, about the size of Hazel’s hand. Hazel just nodded and put it in her backpack.

  “Thank you,” the girl said, voice soft. Her eyes had lost their vagueness now and looked at Hazel with piercing clarity. Hazel could only nod again and then turn away into the cold.

  As Hazel walked on through the night, the feeling of the air biting into her took all her attention. At least it kept her from thinking about the match girl. And if she thought too hard about her, Hazel would just stop right there in the woods and wait for herself to take root. This is what it is to live in the world. You have to give yourself over to the cold, at least a little bit.