Breadcrumbs (11 page)

There were kids at the park, building snowmen, having snowball fights, barreling down Suicide Hill. Hazel walked as far around them as she could. She had a reason to be apart from them now. She climbed up the hill at the other side of the park, feeling the effort in her legs. The trees stood in front of her like sentries, and she could not tell whether they intended to welcome her or keep her out.

She stood looking at the line of trees that demarcated the woods as clearly as any doorway. Uncle Martin was right. She knew it at that moment. There were secrets, and there were witches in white, and somewhere there was Jack.

She wished he were with her now.

Hazel had read enough books to know that a line like this one is the line down which your life breaks in two. And you have to think very carefully about whether you want to cross it, because once you do it’s very hard to get back to the world you left behind. And sometimes you break a barrier that no one knew existed, and then everything you knew before crossing the line is gone.

But sometimes you have a friend to rescue. And so you take a deep breath and then step over the line and into the darkness ahead.

O
nce upon a time, a demonlike creature with a forty-seven-syllable name made an enchanted mirror. The mirror shattered in the sky. The splinters took to the wind and scattered for hundreds of miles. When they fell to the earth, things began to change.

You might be swimming in a lake and come upon a spot that is cold and murky, and it feels like you have swum through a ghost. You might be walking in a grassy field and find a hard bit of dirt where nothing grows. You might be in a forest and find yourself in a patch of silence, as if no birds dare sing there. This is where the splinters fell.

Some went into the sand, and that sand became glass again, and that glass became all kinds of things, creating mischief beyond what even Mal could have imagined.

A woman got a new pair of eyeglasses. She left her husband the next day. She told him that she just needed to find herself, but it was a lie. “It was like I was seeing him through new eyes,” she told a friend.

The president of a small corporation had a bathroom with a mirror installed just off his office. Within a week, he confessed to dumping chemicals in a nearby river. Within two weeks, he’d resigned and spent the rest of his days in a small cabin writing confessional poetry.

An astronomer looked through his new telescope into the stars one morning and then refused to ever look to the heavens again. When questioned, he said, “Some things we are better off not knowing.”

No one who tried on clothes in the third dressing room to the right of a certain department store ever bought anything. One observant employee suggested the room might be haunted. She was fired.

Every person who bought a particular model of television came to believe that TV shows had become particularly mean-spirited of late, and they all canceled their cable and took to other hobbies.

A certain shiny new subdivision featured windows made of the most state-of-the-art material. The neighbors peek out the window through closed curtains and keep to themselves.

Most of the splinters that fell were as tiny as dust. But there were a few larger pieces as well. The biggest one was about the size of your hand. It fell near the woods and a woman picked it up and carried it in with her. She dropped it when the wolves scared her, and it was picked up several days later by a girl who lived nearby. This girl did not need an enchanted mirror to show her that the world could be an ugly place, so to her it spoke the truth. She kept the mirror in her apron pocket, where it could be secret and safe.

A boy got a splinter in his eye, and his heart turned cold. Only two people noticed. One was a witch, and she took him for her own. The other was his best friend. And she went after him in ill-considered shoes, brave and completely unprepared.

H
azel stepped into the woods gingerly, expecting to land in a thick cushion of snow. So she stumbled when her foot went all the way to solid ground. It was not winter in the woods—at least in these woods.

She stood, rooted to the spot like the mammoth trees that surrounded her. Dark trunks traveled up into the distant sky, connecting this world to the one above. The distant roof was a tangle of budding branches. Decaying leaves clung fiercely to the floor among tiny green sprouts that aspired toward the world above. A cloud of mist hung in the sky like the aftereffects of a spell. The air was a tangible thing, rushing into Hazel’s lungs as she breathed, touching her skin like a curious ghost. It carried with it the smell of old leaves and wide open sky. She was in the wood at the end of the world, or perhaps at the beginning.

She looked behind her, to remind herself of the place she came from, but it was gone. The wood stretched out in every direction. It was as if she had sprouted there.

She had stepped into the woods in the park and landed in an entirely different place. She knew this might happen. She’d been to Narnia, Wonderland, Hogwarts, Diction-
opolis. She had tessered, fallen through the rabbit hole, crossed the ice bridge into the unknown world beyond. Hazel knew this world. And it should have made this easier.

But it did not.

Hazel shuddered. She couldn’t get out even if she wanted to. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to get out, not now anyway. She had a job to do.

Hazel took a deep breath and was about step forward when some primal instinct made her turn her head to the left. And when she did she desperately wished she had a place to run to. For about ten yards away, next to one of the trees, was a large gray wolf.

Hazel froze. The wolf sat, erect and still, like a statue. His copper eyes gazed at her. She instinctively took a step backward and still he stared. Panic fused the circuits of her brain. Her breath stopped. She’d read once that if you ran into a bear in the woods you should avoid eye contact and you shouldn’t run away, but all she knew about wolves was that you should never tell them how to find your grandmother’s house.

So Hazel lowered her eyes and took another step back, her skin crawling and her heart buzzing with fright. The wolf blinked, and in all the stillness it was as if he had leapt toward her. But he hadn’t—he just stayed, regarding her, and his gaze was the world.

“Hi,” she croaked.

Nothing.

“I’m just looking for my friend. I don’t mean any harm.”

Stare.

“Um, maybe you’ve seen him. His name’s Jack. He’s got freckles and a blue coat. He was with a woman on a sleigh, a witch or an elf? Dressed all in white . . .”

Blink.

“Well . . . I should be going, then.” Hazel took one step back, then another, then, moving as slowly as possible, she turned around and began to walk away from the wolf.

It was all she could do not to take off and run as fast as she could. Her every muscle begged to be sprung. She wondered whether she would hear him as he approached, or if the next thing she knew would be his jaws on her neck, and then searing pain, and then nothing. But neither thing happened, and she carefully stole a look behind her to see the wolf still at his post, and still watching her.

She crept on for an eternity, one foot in front of the other, grateful for each and every breath. Finally, when she was well out of his sight, she leaned up against one of the trees and let out a great, shaking exhale.

The feeling of his eyes on her had not left her. It seemed like it would never go away, that she would spend the rest of her life feeling that predatory gaze.

She closed her eyes and gathered herself.
Find Jack.
That was all.

She looked around for some direction, some guidance, some place. There was a clearing up ahead, and it was, at least, a destination. Hazel moved softly toward it, conscious of advertising her presence with every step to all the watchful wolves of the woods. Not that everything was silent—the wind carried whisperings with it, a current of noise just underneath the airy quiet.

She listened, her ears learning how to work in this new world, and she could hear the sounds of birds chirping and trilling, and this was somehow comforting. Normal. There were birds in the woods, and they had things to sing of.

There was another noise in the wind, too, something that did not seem normal—at least not here. As Hazel continued to walk forward the sound clarified and she had to stop to take in what she was hearing.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Hazel shook her head slightly at the strangeness of it, this once-ordinary sound that in the mist-filled forest felt like a mechanical menace. She moved toward the sound, the ticks marking out her steps, and she realized it was coming from the clearing. And then she saw why.

The clearing was about the size of the first floor of Hazel’s house, and at the very center of it was a clock. It was a tall standing clock with a gold-trimmed face at the top like a head, supported by two steel beams. Three cylindrical weights hung down from behind the face, and a long pendulum swung back and forth over the ground. Behind the face you could see gears and cranks. It looked like a grandfather clock that had been skinned.

The clock was only about a foot taller than she was, and she stared up into its face as if to have a conversation. In the woods the sun was rising in the sky, but the iron hands pronounced the time as 5:43—probably about the time it was back in the real world. And that seemed the weirdest thing of all.

There was a squawking from above, followed by an odd croaking, and then some sort of throaty trilling, and Hazel looked up to see two big black birds perched on a branch behind her chattering to each other. The birds were the size of eagles and pitch-black, with long, hooked black beaks. They looked like crows, but puffier and shinier and much, much bigger.

Ravens.
The word popped into Hazel’s head. The bigger one turned its head toward her and looked back at her with beady black eyes, taking her in. Hazel shifted under its gaze, and it turned to its partner and croaked something. They chattered back and forth and Hazel understood that they were talking about her.

She took a deep breath. “I’m Hazel,” she said. “I lost my friend. Do you know of a woman who looks like she’s made out of snow?”

She felt like Alice, questioning caterpillars and grinning cats.
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The birds both turned their heads to look at her, and she stood in the middle of the clearing surrounded by tree giants while two dog-size maybe-ravens eyeballed her and a naked clock ticked on behind her like fate, and she felt quite small and quite real, and wondered what she thought she was doing and what she was going to do now.

And then one of the birds lifted its head slightly, focusing on a point somewhere beyond Hazel. She turned to follow its gaze and saw, leading out of the clearing, a small path.

She looked back at the birds. The smaller one croaked something at her and flicked its head toward the path again, and then they turned back to each other. They were done with her.

Now, Hazel was not stupid. She knew that just because you see a piece of cake and a sign that says
EAT ME
doesn’t mean you should actually do it. And just because two giant ravens point you in the direction of a path doesn’t mean you should take it. But it was the only path she had.

Hazel crossed the clearing and stood in front of the path. It didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary—just trodden dirt weaving around the trees. She took off her hat, mittens, scarf, and green jacket and put them in her backpack, then took out her compass, because it seemed like the thing to do. Her mom would be pleased. Hazel might have plunged into a mysterious fantasy woods after an evil witch with a pack of wolves at her disposal, but at least she’d brought a compass.

Hazel watched the face of the compass as the needle wavered slightly, as if afraid to make too firm a commitment. But it was pointing roughly the way she was heading. Hazel was going north. Her heart lifted a little. This might be a magic woods, but there was still a north here. It was a place, like any other. The compass would guide her to Jack, and then guide her home. Who needed breadcrumbs?

She had a compass. She had a direction. She had a path. She knew where north was. So Hazel stepped on the path and headed forward.

Last year her class had taken a field trip through the woods in some state park or other. There was a guide who’d taught them how to spot poison ivy and look for water and find shelter, and Hazel had been too busy dreaming of centaurs to pay attention. The only thing she remembered was the guide passing out whistles and showing everyone how to blow three times for an emergency signal. The whole class practiced, again and again, while the guide whipped them up into a whistling frenzy. Hazel had been afraid they would scare off the centaurs.

She had the wilderness kit whistle in her backpack, and now could not imagine why. Because whatever the emergency was that might cause her to blow the whistle, there was no saying that whatever answered it wouldn’t be far worse. It could be just the thing that allowed the Snow Queen’s flying monkeys to find her.

Flying snow monkeys, probably.

The path led Hazel up an incline, and now she was moving along a ridge above the ravine. From somewhere down below she could hear a stream running. In another world she was on a field trip surrounded by all her old classmates, the guide was yammering on about potentially useful information while Hazel dreamt of magic.

It was then that she realized that the
tick tock
sound of the clock had never quieted—it was as if she was still standing next to it. She stopped for a moment and looked around, as if maybe she hadn’t moved at all. But she had. And yet there was the sound:
Tick tock. Tick tock.

Hazel stiffened. It made no sense—when she’d entered the woods she hadn’t heard it at all, and it had gotten louder as she approached it. This is the way things worked. Now that it was in her ears, though, it seemed it would never go away.

She took a deep breath and moved on, her feet walking in rhythm with the clock. After some time, she came upon a fork in the path. Hazel looked from one side to the other and bit her lip, then consulted the compass. One was heading north and one eastward. Hazel was looking for a witch made of snow with a sleigh pulled by wolves. She would go north.

She walked on, consulting the compass when she needed to, always heading the direction it pointed. She was just thinking how odd it was that there was no one else in the woods when she felt a shaking on the ground and heard hoofbeats in the distance. They were coming toward her. Hazel stopped and looked behind her, but could see nothing.

She did not know these woods. She did not know the rules. She did not know what manner of man patrolled the paths. All she knew was her job, and that was to get Jack and get out.

Clutching the precious compass, Hazel left the path and scurried into the trees to hide. She ducked behind a particularly wide one, and slowly peeked around to see who else was in the woods.

The hoofbeats approached and the ground beneath Hazel vibrated in response. Hazel moved her head out as far as she dared.

A man was on the path, riding a sturdy chestnut horse. The man was wearing a flannel shirt and a cloth hat. On one side of the horse hung a saddle bag and a long, old-fashioned ax.

Hazel understood. He was a woodsman. In a woods full of wolves there were woodsmen, too. Her heart eased.

The horse made a noise and stopped suddenly, pawing at the ground with its hoof. The woodsman whispered something to it and patted its flank. He reached into his saddlebag and began rummaging inside it. Something seemed to catch his attention then, and he looked around, eyes searching the trees. Hazel darted back, then wondered if she needed to. Maybe he could help her.

She peeked out again and the woodsman’s posture had changed. He was erect, watchful. One hand held taut the reins of the horse, who was stomping agitatedly, and another clutched the handle of the ax.

Hazel felt the expectant hush in the air, like the trees were waiting for something. If she took a breath, the sound would shatter the silence. And then the horse let out a noise and the woodsman relaxed his grip on the ax and lifted the reins.

Her heart pounded. She’d asked a wolf and two ravens about the woman in white. It might be time to ask an actual person.

She gathered herself and stepped out from the tree. There, standing between her and the path, where a moment before had been nothing, was another wolf.

This one was bigger than the first, with a thick brown and black coat and creepy blue eyes. Hazel froze. She heard the sound of the horse stirring. The wolf was in the shadows, too far behind the man for him to see. And the creature had no interest in him at all—all its energy was fixed on her.

Hazel could scream. There was a wolf and a woodcutter with an ax. This was the way the story went. She did not know how long it took a woodcutter to hear a yell, understand what it meant, unhook his ax, and swing—and how that compared to the time it took a wolf to cross the distance between desire and prey. The scream came out as a strangled, whispered thing, the sort that could barely bother the air.

She tried again. The word mustered inside her, air swirled around in her lungs, her vocal cords vibrated, her lips readied. “Wolf,” Hazel said.

But the sound was no more than a breath.

And then some change on the wolf’s face. A darkening. Its blue eyes flashed, and though he was some distance from her, she saw it like lightning. He lifted his lips and his face contorted into a snarl, revealing yellowing fangs. He growled, and only she heard it.

Hazel was nothing, nothing at all. She would disappear here in the woods and no one would even know she’d come.

The horse whinnied. The rider clucked. The hoofbeats started and began to travel off down the path. The wolf did not move, did not release her, did not ease his fangs. The horse and rider disappeared into the distance and still Hazel stood.