Breadcrumbs (15 page)

Hazel nodded, eyes on the shoes.

“My daughter was a dancer. She was very good, too.”

“Oh.” Hazel shot him a glance. She did not know whether he was using the past tense because his daughter no longer danced or because he no longer had a daughter, and she feared the answer.

“She gave herself up to it. Sometimes people get so focused on things they don’t see the world around them. That’s what I’m trying to tell people. It isn’t easy.”

Hazel nodded, though she didn’t know what he was talking about. She was very tired. She needed to ask him for advice, that’s why she’d come over.

“Do you like her shoes?” he asked suddenly.

Hazel nodded.

“Everyone does,” he said, sounding a little sad.

Hazel was confused. Didn’t he leave them? She watched the girl dance, bending and stretching and leaping. She noticed that there was sweat on her face and her expression was not of beauty or elation but something like pain.

“She looks tired,” Hazel said. Though maybe she was projecting.

“She’s been dancing a long time,” said the woodsman. “This is what happens.”

Hazel cast another glance at him. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him for help, because he would surely take pity on a young girl who needed it—and take out any wolves she met along the way. But something stopped her.

“Is she okay?” Hazel asked.

“She will be,” he said.

She wasn’t sure she believed him. There was something weird going on. But she was so tired. Her head was fog. She wasn’t thinking clearly, that was all. So she nodded good-bye to the woodsman, and with one last glance at the dancing girl, headed back into the company of the crowd.

A
s soon as she stepped back into the market, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Hazel whirled around to see a slim, slight man in a long black coat with two rows of shiny buttons down the front. He had a swoosh of black hair and a thin, pale face. He looked like he might have been blown in by the wind. His eyes reminded her of the bad guy Jack had showed her that day in the shrieking shack.

“Hello, young lady,” he said in an accent thick with the forest. He motioned to the cart behind him. It was lined with vials of fluid and packets with different color powders, and standing in the center watching over it all was one mean-looking chicken. “May I interest you in a potion?”

What was it with this place and potions? She politely refused, the same way she shrugged off the people trying to sell hair products at the mall. It was not forgetting that she needed.

“Oh,” he said, luring her back with his voice. “I have all kinds of potions. I have the rare ones. I can give you your heart’s desire.” He took a step forward and studied her. “I can tell there is something you want. I know these things.” He leaned over her, eyes penetrating her defenses, and whispered, “What does your heart yearn for?”

The way he asked it was like he was speaking directly to her heart, as if she was not even participating in the conversation. And the answer flew out of her mouth. “I want my friend back.”

A slow grin spread across the man’s face. “I see,” he said. “Now—and please don’t call me presumptuous—may I assume this was no ordinary friend?”

The marketplace bustled in the background, but it seemed to be distant somehow, as if Hazel and this man were the only true things in the world. It was like they were in their own pocket of air.

“No,” Hazel said. “He’s not.”

“You feel like you are nothing without him. He made you feel worthwhile, and then took it away.”

Hazel could not speak.

“That’s what I thought,” the man said. “I understand. I’ve got things that can help you get him back.”

Hazel’s heart sped up. “Like what?”

“I can make you beautiful,” he said. “I can make you womanly. I can make you charming and worldly. I can make you clever.” His face was now inches from hers. “I can make you belong.”

The air was buzzing and Hazel couldn’t seem to think. He didn’t understand, that wasn’t what she meant.

Or was it?

At least with Jack, she had belonged somewhere. With him gone, though, she was a misshapen piece. Was there enough magic in the woods to make her belong?

She opened her mouth to speak and the man gripped her hand. She felt a shock run through her body, and then she swayed a little and the air didn’t seem like it knew how to support her. She thought of the whistle in her pocket and the boy at the other end, but he was so far away. And the man smiled again and it was a very funny kind of smile, and he whispered, “I can give you whatever you want. It won’t cost anything. I’ll just ask one thing in return.”

A voice reached out to her like a lifesaver in the water. “Rose! Rose, what are you doing? Rose!”

A dark-haired man in a blue coat rushed up to Hazel and put his hand firmly on her arm. He sounded out of the breath. “Rose, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“I’m not—” Hazel said. But she was very sleepy now, and something was definitely wrong, and the man was shooting her such a look, such a curious look, and she couldn’t seem to finish what she was saying. Anyway, Rose was a nice name. And she didn’t have one of her own, not really.

But it didn’t really matter what she thought, because he was shooing the black-cloaked man away as if he were a meddlesome bat, and it was a bit funny really and Hazel thought she might laugh if only she could remember how.

“Quickly,” the man said, leading her away from the marketplace. “We don’t have much time.”

There it was:
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Hazel was all fog. “Do I know you?”

“No,” the man said, looking at her with friendly green eyes. “I’m Lucas.”

“Who’s Rose?” she asked.

“You’re Rose. Rather, you just seem like a Rose. I had to call you something so he’d think you were mine.”

“I do?” No one had ever said she seemed like a Rose before. “You can call me Rose if you want.”

“All right. Rose it is.”

“Where are we going?”

“You need an antidote. He pressed something into your skin. It lessens your judgment. He’s a wizard. Did you agree to anything?”

“I don’t think so. . . .” Weren’t wizards good? Dumbledore’s a wizard.

“He was trying to force you into a bargain. He’d give you your heart’s desire, but you would be bound to him forever. And I can tell you that’s not a good proposition.”

“I don’t understand this place.” She had said this before, but it seemed to bear repeating.

“It’s all right. I do. Now, come on, we should get you home.”

Nothing made sense to Hazel, and she was so sleepy, like there was a weight pulling down on her brain. But the man had his arm around her now and was guiding her forward. This arm had the weight and comfort of the one belonging to her father.

“My wife is an herbalist,” the man named Lucas said. “We try to have antidotes around. There are all manner of things that can happen to you in the woods.”

“I would like to go to sleep now,” Hazel proclaimed.

The arm tightened around her shoulder. “I know. But stay with me. You can sleep soon.”

He kept talking to her as he led her through the village to a small cottage just a five-minute walk from the market square. A large, full fairy-tale moon hung in the sky now—though Hazel could have sworn it wasn’t there earlier—showing a cottage that looked like something from a movie. The thatched roof nestled over the small square house like a mushroom cap. Bright yellow curtains hung in the windows. A strip of bright flowers lay in front of the house, blooming against the cold.

“It’s so pretty,” said Hazel.

“Wait till you see the garden,” Lucas said.

Soon Hazel was inside the kitchen of the tiny cottage, slumped in a hard wood chair, while Lucas spoke in a low voice to his wife.

Lucas’s wife introduced herself as Nina. Hazel blinked up at her. She looked Indian, like Hazel, and when she smiled down at Hazel it was like something familiar but forgotten. Hazel smiled back, or at least tried to. The woman turned to the stove and began throwing things in a pot, while Lucas sat down next to Hazel and forbade her from putting her head on the table.

“So, Rose,” he asked, “what’s a girl like you doing in the woods like this?”

He meant to keep her talking, that was clear. He was trying to take care of her. Hazel’s sleepy heart panged.

“I lost my friend,” she said. She kept saying this, again and again. She’d lost her friend. That’s what she was doing here.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas said. “I’m very sorry.”

“The white witch took him.”

“Oh,” said Lucas. He and his wife exchanged a glance.

“I came here to rescue him. But I need to sleep first. I’m very, very tired.”

“I know,” he said gently. “In a little bit.”

“Then I’ll go in the morning.”

“Go where?” Nina asked slowly. “To the white witch?”

“Yes.” Yes.

“No. You shouldn’t go,” she said. “It’s not safe.”

Hazel’s heart twisted. “She has my friend.”

“So you’re just going to go after him? Just like that?”

“. . . Yes.”

“Nina . . .” Lucas motioned to his wife, then eyed Hazel. “I don’t know how to ask this,” he said. “But your friend, are you sure he wants to be rescued?”

“Of course he does!” She was getting tired of people asking this.

“It’s just . . .” he began. “The white witch only takes people who want to go.” Out of the corner of her eye, Hazel saw Nina flinch.

“No,” Hazel said. “Not this time.” From somewhere she heard the sound of a bird singing. Her eyes traveled out the kitchen window. It was dark, and the moon hung in the sky. She could just see the edges of the garden.

“She’ll promise you things,” Lucas said. “These are not things the people who come here know how to turn down.”

“I need to defeat her,” Hazel insisted. “Do you know how?” She looked from Lucas to Nina. They did not look at her, or at each other.

“Some things you just can’t fight,” Nina said quietly, after a time.

“We should talk about this in the morning,” Lucas said. “Ready, Nina?”

“Here you go.” Nina stood in front of her, holding out a steaming cup. It struck Hazel, suddenly, looking at the pair of them, that this could have been what her before-parents looked like. She stared up at them, the man and the woman looking down at her, full of concern and care. And she wanted to ask them things big and small, but she did not have the words.

She sipped the tea—it was thick with honey. Hazel remembered the candy her father would bring home from his trips. It was hard candy on the outside but the inside was a warm burst of actual honey, like you’d stuck your spoon into the jar when no one was looking. When she was little, she’d bite into the hard candy right away to get to the honey center. But when she got older, she learned to wait and let the filling slowly work its way out.

“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.