Breadcrumbs (14 page)

He eyed her. “I know. And that should matter. But it doesn’t.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Follow the cold,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

Follow the cold,
Hazel said to herself. In her mind she was back on the path, heading north, and now she realized there had been something tugging at her, so gently it was barely a whisper. But it was there, and had been there the whole time, beckoning her forward. Follow the cold.

“Do you know how she’d keep him?” she asked. “Do you think he’s locked up somewhere? How do I rescue him?”

He gave her a sad look. “I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done it before. I’m sorry. I wish I could help you.”

“It’s okay,” Hazel said, though she wished he could help her, too.

“But I can tell you this,” he continued. “The white witch doesn’t feel things the way we do, do you understand? She’s all ice. That is her whole point.”

A palace of ice and a heart to match.
“I don’t understand. Why would people go looking for her? Why would they want to go with her?”

Ben sat back. He looked at Hazel searchingly, sadly. His shoulders rose and fell. “Sometimes,” he said slowly, “it seems like it would be easier to give yourself to the ice.”

Hazel’s heart tightened. She got up. “I have to go,” she said, looking as brave as she could.

“She was your age, you know. My sister.” His eyes traveled to the cage, and then back to Hazel. “I wish I could go with you. But I can’t leave her. She doesn’t really know how to be a bird. I’m sorry. Promise me you won’t mention us to anyone.”

“I promise.”

“Don’t trust anyone. Stick to yourself. This place drives people to do strange things.”

“I will.”

“Follow the cold, but don’t lose yourself to it, understand?”

“Okay.”

He gazed at her, and then shook his head. “Look. I’m always here. If you need me . . . if something happens . . . you signal me, okay? If you’re in the woods, I’ll hear you. You can yell, or . . .” He looked around the cabin.

“I have a whistle,” she said.

“Good. You just blow on it. It doesn’t matter how far away you are. As long as you’re in the woods, I’ll hear you and I’ll come for you, okay?”

“Okay,” Hazel said. It didn’t really make sense, but she believed him. This place was seeming less and less like a place every moment.

“And . . . remember. People who come here looking for things . . . they don’t usually find what they want.”

“I have to try to save my friend,” she said.

“I understand,” he said.

“I just want him back. That’s all.”

“I know. I hope it works.”

Ben stepped out of the cabin so she could change, and Hazel got out the extra pair of jeans and the shirt that she’d brought. She folded up her bloody clothes on the wooden chair and let Ben back in. He said he would take her clothes and bury them, somewhere far away.

He refilled her water canteen, pointed her in the direction of the path, and told her again to be careful, eyes full of brotherliness. As Hazel left the small wood cabin, the small white bird began to sing, calling her back.

H
azel walked through the trees toward the path, hearing the birdsong in her head. She wondered if the bird remembered anything of her life before, if she wanted to tell her brother things, if she dreamed of having two legs and running. Or did she just think about birdseed and wonder at that funny boy who read her books?

Ben was just a few years older than Hazel, and he was stuck here. He and his sister were all long gray string now.

A few days ago she would have found this story so beautiful. It was the sort of story your mother told you before she tucked you in at night, and you would sigh and think of the steadfast birdkeeper and his bird sister and the marvelous tragedy of it all. It would have been beautiful, as a story.

Hazel would have gone to sleep confident that if she were a bird, Jack would be her keeper, that they would spend their days in a small cabin tucked in the fairy-tale woods, and no one would ever tell them they needed to face reality. There was a time when this was true, but maybe not anymore. And maybe she wouldn’t want him to anyway. Jack would have a big puff of wool left, and she could learn to be a bird.

Hazel didn’t know what the right thing was. What are you supposed to do when something like that happens? Do you hold on or let go?

It didn’t matter, though. Hazel was here, in this place where people did not mean her well. And she was on her own. No one even knew where she was. And if someone decided to turn her into a bird, there would be no one to look after her. She’d have to figure it out by herself.

Hazel stepped back on the path, but kept to the side. And she walked on.

She found herself reacting to every murmur of the wind—each and every one a potential footfall of someone coming toward her. There were witches in the woods, they stole beauty from swans and then rotted from the inside. There were couples who wanted to turn girls into pretty little birds. The woods does strange things to people.

Hazel was exhausted. Her wounds throbbed. Her muscles felt like warm Play-Doh. She wanted nothing more than to curl up on a pile of leaves and rest, just for a few hours.

And the cold was there, too. It called her forward, whispering promises at her that it would not keep. Hazel’s skin prickled underneath her shirt. She stopped and got out her jacket from her backpack. She saw the whistle at the bottom of the bag and tucked it into her jacket pocket where she could get it quickly if she needed it. At least she wasn’t alone anymore. In some way.

Ahead of her, somewhere, was the white witch, who had a palace of ice with a heart to match. The Fates were afraid of her. Ben tried to warn her away. Hazel was supposed to defeat her, somehow—though she could not even function in the real world. What was she against a witch? She couldn’t even deal with fifth-grade boys. All Hazel could do was try not to think about what lay ahead, to numb herself a little bit.

She ate another energy bar, and she no longer cared what it tasted like. She had two left. She should have asked Ben for some food. She should have rested there for the night. She should have thought.

The sky was darkening. It was going to be night soon, and Hazel realized that a wood-night is nothing like a city-night, that the darkness would have nothing to temper it, that unchecked by any light source anywhere it would swirl around her and squeeze her. And she had no flashlight. She had given it up because it was a shiny thing and she was hoping there were answers in a piece of string.

It had been evening when she crossed into the woods from the park. It would have been impenetrably dark within hours. What had she been thinking?

She put her hand on the whistle in her pocket. Ben would come. She could go back to his cabin and rest for the night. That would be the smart thing to do.

But she did not want to go backward. She was supposed to get Jack. That was all.

She could just walk a little more.

And so she did. She walked onward for another hour into the cold and dusk.
Tick tock. Tick tock.

And then she felt a presence, something in the shadows, something all too familiar. She was not alone. She crept onward, her muscles tense, looking carefully around for her company.

And there. In the dark shadows a few yards off the path, two wolves. These were small and lean, and they paced back and forth in the trees, watching her carefully. Hazel gulped and kept moving forward, conscious of the eyes that stayed on her.

Her hand went to the whistle in her pocket. Ben. She could use it, she could call him and he would come. But would he be fast enough?

Then she saw a glow touching the sky up ahead, and Hazel relaxed her hand and quickened her steps. She rounded a bend in the path and saw her salvation. There was a valley, just below, and in it a little village. It straddled a small, swift-moving river spanned by a little stone bridge. The houses were small, made of white stucco and dark wooden beams and thick thatched roofs. She could see people in cloaks riding horses and milling around the stone streets.

And then, on the other side of the path, two more wolves appeared. One sat down on its haunches just a few feet from her. The other walked parallel to her—a feral shadow.

Hazel looked at the ground and hurried her steps, trying to pretend she was not about to burst apart with fear. Her hand flew to the whistle again, as if that itself could protect her. When she looked up she saw that one more wolf had joined the group to her right. And that up ahead of her was a great wooden fence.

There was a gate in the fence, and Hazel rushed to it and knocked. A moment passed while her heart threatened to explode. And then the gate opened a crack.

A tall, dark woman in a cloak peered through the crack, and when she saw Hazel her face changed. “Come in,” she said. “Hurry.”

The woman motioned her in. Hazel stepped forward, shooting a glance behind her as she went. Nine wolves were on the path behind her, all pacing restlessly, all watching her as she crossed through the gate. Hazel stared at them as the gate closed behind her.

“What are you doing out there at night?” the guard asked.

“I was looking for a place to rest,” she said.

“Well, you found it. Good thing, too. The wolves are gathering. Don’t worry, the fence keeps them out of here.”

Hazel exhaled. “Good,” she said. Her eyes traveled up to the guard, who was looking at her face with a curious expression. Hazel’s hand flew up to her gashed cheek. The wound was thick and long and warm. She could only imagine how she must look.

“That looks pretty nasty,” the guard said. “Something got you?”

Hazel nodded.

“Well, the market’s on,” she said. “As always. You can find whatever you’re looking for there.”

“Oh, I’m not . . . I lost my friend. I’m looking for him.”

Her brow darkened. “What does she look like? Is she blond?”

“He,” Hazel corrected. “He has brown hair.”

“He? Oh.” Something passed over the woman’s face. “The princess is saving the knight, eh?”

Hazel shifted. “I guess.”

“I hope the knight doesn’t mind.” She let out a laugh that sounded like it could cut something.

“Um,” said Hazel. “Do you know the white witch?” She might as well ask.

The guard stiffened, and looked around. “You’re new here, huh?” she asked, her voice lowered.

“Yes,” Hazel said. Something began to gnaw on her heart.

“And you’re . . . looking for her?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” The guard glanced at the ground. “Most people don’t admit that, they just go.”

Hazel’s heart sped up. “What do you know about her? How do I defeat her?”

“Defeat her? That’s what you want?”

Hazel did her best to look very brave. “Yes! She has my friend.”

“I see. Look, kid. You can’t defeat her. She’s never going to go away.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s always waiting there, at the end of this place. All you can do is pretend she’s not there. That’s what most people here do.”

Hazel looked up at the guard, whose face was rueful and whose body seemed cloaked by more than wool. She was too tired to make sense of this senselessness. So she thanked her and walked past her, into the village.

Hazel walked down the hill to the marketplace. She didn’t know what she was looking for, exactly—some available shelter she could crawl into, some Hobbit inn that took energy bars as payment. It did not matter, as long as there was a place to sleep.

But when she arrived at the market, she forgot her fatigue and simply stared at the scene before her. The marketplace was a cobblestone square about half a block wide surrounded by little shops, all cast aglow with torches. Even at night the square was thrumming with people. Hazel felt something unknot in her as she moved toward all of them. There was solace in company. At least right now. Hazel was tired of being alone.

She would have expected to stand out in the crowd here, with her backpack and jeans and shiny green jacket—not to mention her dark skin and hair. And there were plenty of people who looked like they’d dressed up for the Renaissance Festival, with wool cloaks and tall leather boots. But she saw a man in all black leather, another in a trench coat and fedora, a woman in jeans and a bright-red peacoat. And they weren’t all white and European looking either—she saw African faces, Asian, Hispanic. It seemed like people had come from everywhere. For once, Hazel fit right in.

The noise of the market felt odd in Hazel’s ears after all that quiet. There were merchants advertising their wares, people shouting, strains of music competing for attention. And there was a general hum of activity and humanity. The air carried with it the smell of smoke, cooking meat, and horse poop.

Near her, a skinny man in old jeans and a battered army jacket was playing the saxophone. A large yellow dog was curled up next to his legs, and next to it was an open instrument case. The man looked like someone you’d see on the street downtown, except instead of bills and coins in the instrument case, people had dropped little vials of colored powders and liquids.

There were other performers, too. Hazel saw a juggler off in one corner. There was a crowd around a woman who stood on a barrel—she seemed to be telling a story or giving a speech. And off in one corner there was a girl a few years older than Hazel, dancing.

Hazel moved into the crowd, checking out the merchants and their carts. There were things you might expect—produce and meats, tools, bolts of cloth, handmade jewelry. But there were odd carts, too. Hazel approached one that was covered in identical tiny glass jars. She stared into them, at the little odd blotches inside, until she realized each had a tiny clump of different kinds of human hair. There was a cart of books, as clean and modern as the ones on Ben’s shelves. There was one that had dozens of little brass clockwork animals.

“I can make that scar go away,” one of the merchants called to Hazel. She was two carts away, but Hazel’s wound was apparently that noticeable.

Something flickered in Hazel’s heart, and she tried to ignore it. This was not the time to be dealing with her scars. She turned and walked away, pretending like she wasn’t interested at all.

She found herself at the edge of the row, in front of a small cart filled with vials of different-colored liquid. Behind it was a small white-haired woman in a flowered housedress. The woman smiled when she saw Hazel, and leaned toward her. “I have potions for you,” she whispered.

The woman’s eyes twinkled like a grandmother who’d announced she’d made cookies. Hazel could not help but look. Maybe there would be something she could use—something to put the white witch to sleep, or maybe a luck potion. Something. She had no payment, of course—unless the old woman was a Joe Mauer fan.

“What do you have?” Hazel asked.

“Mine are the best, you can ask anyone. I specialize, see? This row is for people, over here is events, and this row is for time. I can brew these for you if you’re looking for something particular, but that’s extra.”

Hazel blinked. “A potion for . . . events or time?”

“For forgetting,” the woman said, as if this was obvious.

“Oh,” said Hazel. “I was looking for, like, a luck potion?”

“Oh,” said the woman, like she had specially made chocolate chip and Hazel asked for oatmeal. “You won’t find anything like that here.”

“I guess I’m okay then.”

“Are you sure?” The woman looked at her appraisingly.

“Yes,” Hazel said, moving away.

What was she doing? She had no business looking for magic potions. She needed to sleep, and then she needed to find Jack. She was so tired that she was ready to curl up, right there in the marketplace, and let all the potion-seekers step over her. Her eyes traveled around the marketplace, looking for some idea of where to go. And then she saw someone who looked familiar.

Hazel walked over to where the performers were, past the saxophonist and the orator. At the very edge of the square was the dancing girl, and standing a few feet away was the woodsman Hazel had seen earlier that day.

Hazel went over to join the small group watching the dancer. Just then, a woman broke away from the group, shaking her head. The woodsman turned his head to watch her go. His eyes fell on Hazel.

“Some people just don’t like ballet,” he said, smiling.

His brown eyes were kind, just like a woodsman’s should be. He looked a little like Jack’s dad—he even had the same lines under his eyes—and the thought softened Hazel’s heart. She gave him a little smile.

Her eyes went to the dancing girl. She was beautiful, with blond hair and big green eyes. She moved like the most elegant ballerina, like she could fly if she set her mind to it. There was no music, but it didn’t seem to matter. The way she moved, Hazel heard the yearning of strings.

And then Hazel gasped. On the girl’s feet were the red shoes.

She couldn’t believe it. Someone had left them in the road and the girl had found them. They were magic. Hazel knew that when she saw them. And if she had picked up the shoes, she could dance like that.

“She’s very good, isn’t she?” the woodsman asked.