The Darkest Part of the Forest

by Holly Black

  Over the years, her parents grew up and got more normal, even though they wouldn’t admit it. Hazel wasn’t sure if their memories of those days were as much a blur of people and music and paint and confusion as hers were. She wasn’t sure if they missed the way things had been.

  What she did know was that normal was a lot more tempting when it was out of reach.

  Once normal had been a heavy, smothering blanket she feared being trapped beneath. But now normal felt fragile, as though she could unravel it all just by teasing out a single string.

  When Hazel finally collapsed in her bed, she was so tired that she didn’t even bother to pull her comforter up over her body. She fell asleep like a flame being extinguished.

  That morning, Hazel dreamed that she was dressed in a tunic of cream wool, with chain mail on top of it. She was riding a horse at night, through the woods, fast enough to see only a blur of trees and flashes of hooves pounding ahead of her.

  Then the leaves seemed to part, and by the light of the full moon, she found herself looking down at humans kneeling in the dirt, surrounded by milk-white faerie horses. A man, a woman, and a child. The humans were dressed in modern clothes, flannel, as though they’d been camping. A tent, slashed and sagging, rested beside a dampened fire.

  “Shall they live or shall they die?” one of the Folk asked of his companions. He was speaking carelessly, as though it truly didn’t matter either way. His horse snorted and pawed the ground. “I bet they came out here to glimpse sweet little faeries gathering dewdrops. Surely, that’s enough reason to cut them down, no matter how they cringe and beg.”

  “Let us see what talents they possess,” said another, leaping off his steed, silver hair flying behind him. “We could let the most amusing one go.”

  “What say we give the big one ears like a fox?” shouted a third, a woman with earrings that chimed like the bells on her horse’s bridle. “Give his mate whiskers. Or claws like an owl.”

  “Leave the little one out for the monster,” said a fourth, making a face at the child. “Maybe she’ll play with it for a while before she gobbles it up.”

  “No, they’ve ventured into the Alderking’s woods on a full-moon night and they must have the full measure of his hospitality,” Hazel heard herself as she swung to the ground—was that her voice? She spoke with such authority. And the humans were looking at her with just as much fear as they’d looked at the others, as though she were a faerie, too. Maybe in her dream, she was. “Let us curse them to be rocks until some mortal recognizes their true nature.”

  “That could take a thousand years,” said the first one, the careless one, with a lift of one brow.

  “It could take far longer than that,” she heard herself say. “But think of the tales they’d tell if they ever did win freedom.”

  The human man began to cry, pulling his child to his chest. He looked anguished and betrayed. He must have loved faerie stories to have sought the real thing. He should have read those stories more closely.

  The silver-haired rider laughed. “I should like to see other mortals picnic upon them, all unknowing. Yes, let’s do that. Let’s turn them to stone.”

  One of the humans began to beg, but Hazel looked up at the stars above her and began to count them, instead of listening.

  Hazel woke, covered by a thin sheen of sweat.

  Her alarm played tinny music beside her ear. Turning, she shut off her phone and pushed herself out of bed. She should have been disturbed by her dream, but instead it kindled in her a long-forgotten desire for a blade in her hand and sureness of purpose. She’d barely gotten any sleep; she should have been far more exhausted than she felt. Maybe adrenaline was an even better drug than caffeine.

  After her shower, Hazel got dressed in a loose gray T-shirt and black leggings. She felt stiff and sore. Even the knuckles of her fingers were scraped. As she pulled her hair into a rusty ponytail, memories scattered her thoughts. Flashes of the horned boy—of Severin—kept distracting her. His expressions, the feel of his fingers on her skin, the heat of his mouth. In the bright light of day, it seemed impossible, unreal, but she’d felt the realness of it, all the way down to her traitorous gut. And then her brother, ax held high in shaking hands, face flushed, red hair blowing over his eyes. She hadn’t seen Ben like that in years, brave and mad and anguished. She’d been terrified for him—more scared than she’d been during her own stumbling walk through the forest with the horned boy pulling her along.

  She wondered if that was how Ben had felt all those years ago, when it had been Hazel out in front, blade clutched tight, facing down faeries.

  Mom was making smoothies in the kitchen when Hazel came downstairs. Kale and ginger, kefir and honey were all lined up on the counter. Mom had on one of Dad’s ratty, checkered bathrobes, her short brownish hair sticking up at odd angles, paint still under her fingernails. On the radio, an old song about shiny boots of leather was playing.

  Ben was sitting on the counter, dressed in rumpled green corduroy pants and a baggy sweater, rubbing his eyes, yawning, and drinking his smoothie out of a quart jar. A tiny square of kale was stuck to his upper lip.

  “Morning,” he said, sounding as though he was still half-asleep. He raised his mason jar in salutation.

  Hazel grinned. Her mother handed over a mug of coffee. “Ben and I were just talking about the Watkins girl. She got hurt last night, a couple of blocks from here. Something about it was just on the radio—along with a warning to stay inside after dark.”

  Hazel imagined what the emergency services people had seen—Amanda’s body, arms folded over her chest, eyes closed, dirt in her mouth, hair spread out like a cape.

  “What were they saying about her?” Hazel asked, dully.

  “She’s in a coma. There’s something wrong with her blood. With tonight being a full moon, you both better get home early. Call if you have to be somewhere, okay? I’m going to let your father know, too, in case he decides to drive home sooner than he planned.”

  Ben pushed off the counter. With his long legs, it was barely any drop at all to the floor. “We’ll be careful,” he said, answering what Mom hadn’t asked.

  Mom poured a glass of greenish liquid from the blender and handed it to Hazel. “Don’t forget to wear your socks inside out, too. Just in case. And put some iron in your pockets. There’s a bucket of old nails in the shed. You can grab one from there.”

  Hazel gulped down her breakfast. It was a little gritty, as though the kale hadn’t been quite pulverized enough.

  “Okay, Mom.” Ben rolled his eyes. “We know.”

  Hazel hadn’t done any of that stuff, but she appreciated Ben acting as if she had. They went out to the car together. On the drive to school, he looked over at her sleepily. “Later today you’re going to tell me all the parts of last night that I don’t know, right?”

  Hazel sighed. She should have been grateful he was at least giving her some time to figure out how to answer him, but all she felt was dread.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Reaching into his pocket, he fished out a necklace with a chip of rowan wood drilled through so that it hung from a chain. “Wear this for me, okay? Mom’s not wrong.”

  Rowan wood. Protection from faeries. All the kids in their school had made them in kindergarten, along with four-leaf-clover pins, and most had hung on to the pendants—or made new ones—to wear every May Eve. Hazel stroked her thumb over it, touched that he’d give her a necklace she was sure he’d made more than a decade before. She lifted her hair and hung it around her throat. “Thanks.”

  He didn’t say anything else, but he glanced over at her several times, as though he was trying to learn something from her expression, as though he hoped to discover something he hadn’t ever thought to look for before.

  School was strange. Hushed and a little deserted, as though more than a few kids had been kept home by parents. People whispering in the halls instead of shouting, standing around in knots of close friends. Hazel noticed
that lots of them had charms tied around their wrists or hanging around their throats. Red berries, dried and strung on silver cord. A gold coin. Herbal oils wafted up off their skin, making the hallway smell not unpleasantly like a head shop. When Hazel began to unpack her bag into her locker, a walnut rolled out, bouncing twice on the linoleum floor.

  Leaning down to pick it up, she saw that it was tied with rough string.

  With shaking fingers, she opened it. Another rolled-up piece of paper was inside. She unfurled that to read a new message in the same scratchy hand: FULL MOON OVERHEAD; BETTER GO STRAIGHT TO BED.

  No way. She wasn’t taking orders from some mysterious faerie. Not anymore. Not if she could help it. Crumpling up the note, she tossed it back into her bag.

  Leonie sauntered up to Hazel’s locker, smelling of cigarette smoke. She had on a long, ratty flannel shirt over her white T-shirt, with a gold chain around her neck. She’d strung it with a key ring, and—in addition to her house keys—it had half a dozen charms hanging from it. Her dark curly hair was pulled up into two buns on top of her head. They were wet, like she’d put them up right after a shower. “So,” she said. “I guess you heard, right?”

  “About Amanda? Yeah.” Hazel nodded.

  “Last person to see her was Carter. Everybody’s saying one of the Gordon boys had something to do with what happened.” Leonie shrugged, to show she wasn’t necessarily agreeing, but since she was spreading the rumor, she probably didn’t consider them entirely innocent.

  “I thought whatever happened to her was magical.” A shudder went through Hazel, remembering the dirt in Amanda’s mouth and the vines.

  “Well, that’s only one of the Gordon boys, then. And that’s the one most people are blaming.”

  “Jack had nothing to do with this!” Thinking of the night before made her recall the shock of Severin’s mouth against hers. Just two days after she’d kissed Jack, as though the universe was conspiring to give her everything she’d ever wanted and punishing her at the same time.

  When her thoughts returned to Amanda, lying in the ditch, she felt even worse about the kisses.

  “Well, it’s all just a rumor,” Leonie said airily. “It’s not like I believe it or anything.”

  “Well, it’s crazy. And you shouldn’t be repeating it.”

  “This shit is crazy,” Leonie said. “This is not normal Fairfold weird. Not tourist weird. It’s actually fucked-up-and-not-okay weird. Amanda’s family’s always lived here; she’s supposed to be protected. People are freaking out. And I’m repeating the rumor because I thought you’d want to know. I’m not broadcasting it all over school.”

  Hazel took a few calming breaths. Snapping at Leonie wasn’t helping anything. “Sorry. It’s just that none of the stuff that goes on in the woods is okay, not the tourist stuff, not any of it. And I don’t see what Amanda’s being unconscious has to do with Jack at all.”

  “Well, I think comes from two facts: firstly, Jack’s one of them. And secondly, Amanda broke Jack’s heart, which is tragic because it means that even a supernatural hottie has the same generic taste as every other idiot in this school. I think he liked her even more than he used to like you, and that’s saying something. But it does give him a motive.”

  Hazel rolled her eyes. “Me? You must be thinking of someone else. Jack Gordon was never into me.”

  Leonie shook her head. “Whatever, the point is, he’s not human and people know it. Remember when he broke Matt’s nose?”

  “I guess,” Hazel said, slamming her locker shut. She was having difficulty with the whole staying calm thing. “Matt is supernaturally annoying, if that’s your point.”

  The bell rang and they both started down the hallway in the direction of their first-period classes. They had about five minutes before the second bell. Hazel wondered if Jack or Carter knew about the rumors. If they did, she hoped they stayed home from school until all this blew over. Everyone was just scared, that was all, and Jack made a convenient target. No one would ever believe Carter had anything to do with this, not for long. And they’d get over thinking it was Jack, too, just as soon as they thought things through.

  At least Hazel hoped they would.

  “I was there,” Leonie said. “The fight with Matt got weird. The kind of weird that people remember.”

  Matt Yosco was about three years older than Hazel and Leonie, handsome, with jet-black hair and a constant sneer. Matt had been Leonie’s worst habit, worse than cigarettes or weed, worse than any wastrel any of the rest of them had ever dated. He’d been the kind of cruel that insinuated itself into your head, making you doubt yourself, and Hazel had hated him. He was one of the few cute boys in town she’d never even considered kissing. Despite being so awful, when he moved away for college, Leonie had cried for a week straight.

  “Weird how?” Hazel asked. They were standing in front of her American History room, but she wasn’t ready to go inside. Her heart was racing. It felt as though Severin’s being released from his casket had been the first domino to fall, but she still didn’t know the pattern its falling produced. And if Severin wasn’t the first domino, then she knew even less.

  “Jack didn’t punch Matt.” Leonie glanced to one side, as if she was afraid of being overheard. “Matt was being his usual awful self, then Jack—well, Jack smiled this really weird smile, leaned over, and whispered in his ear. The next thing we knew, Matt was hitting himself. Like, really going to town, slamming his fist into his own face, until his lip was cut and blood was streaming from his nose.”

  Hazel had no idea what to say to that. “How come you never—”

  “Said anything? I don’t know. Later, Matt seemed to remember it like it was a fistfight, so I just went along with that. It seemed easier. Other people were there, though, and even if they didn’t say anything before, they’re going to talk now. And that can’t be the only time Jack slipped up. There’s stuff about him that he’s not exactly forthcoming about, I guess is all I’m saying. He has secrets. He can do things.”

  The bell went off, making Hazel jolt.

  “I should have told you before,” Leonie said softly.

  “Ms. Evans,” Mr. DeCampo, her balding teacher, called. “Standing directly outside my door and gossiping with your friend is not the same as being in class, so I suggest that you get to your desk immediately. Ms. Wallace, you are beyond late. I suggest that you run.”

  “You’re a good friend,” Hazel told Leonie.

  “I know,” Leonie said, making a face in Mr. DeCampo’s direction. “See you at lunch.”

  At her desk, Hazel opened a notebook. But instead of taking notes on the major domestic issues of the Federalist Era, Hazel began to list what she knew. She liked lists. They were comfortingly straightforward, even when they were full of crazy stuff, like:

  WARNINGS:

  SEVEN YEARS TO PAY YOUR DEBTS. MUCH TOO LATE FOR REGRETS.

  AINSEL→ name of faerie enchanting me?

  The weird story about the farmer tricking the boggart.

  MOON OVERHEAD; BETTER GO STRAIGHT TO BED.

  OTHER INFO:

  Jack has magic he’s hiding.

  Severin is loose and super scary.

  I’m the one who freed him.

  Even scarier monster is hunting for Severin and maybe put Amanda into an enchanted sleep.

  Severin knows all the stuff we said in front of him.

  Someone (the Alderking? because of bargain?) is making me do stuff I don’t remember after I go to sleep. (Or did at least once.)

  Severin needs a magic sword called Heart-something for unknown and possibly sinister reasons. (To kill the thing that put Amanda to sleep? To fight back against the Alderking? To kill us all?)

  My old sword is gone→ same sword???

  Then she stopped. The idea that the sword she’d found all those years ago was the one he’d been looking for had occurred to her before, but she hadn’t really let herself dwell on it. If so, either someone took the sword or she’d hande
d it over to someone. Maybe to the person who’d left her the notes. Maybe the mysterious Ainsel?

  Had she made a second bargain with the Folk? One that she could no longer recall? Was her forgetting part of the condition of the bargain? She pressed her pen against the page so hard that the shaft started to bend.

  She needed answers. To do that, she needed to find someone with more information, which, unfortunately, meant one of the Folk. She thought of her dream from the night before and of the full moon that was going to rise that night, which meant a revel. Maybe Jack, with all his secrets, would know the way there. And then all she had to do was survive the revel, get the information, make a plan, and then survive the plan.

  No problem.

  She shifted on the hard plastic chair of her desk, figuring out what she could say to Jack to convince him to tell her about the revel. After class, she waited at his locker, but he didn’t show; and when she went by his next-period class, he wasn’t there. She was too distracted to take a single note; and when she was called on in Language Arts, she gave the answer to a trigonometry question from the period before, making everyone laugh.

  It took Hazel until just before lunch to find him.

  Jack was walking down the hall with Carter. She wasn’t close enough to hear much of what he was saying, but Carter sounded angry. She caught the words with me last and suspect. Jack was hunched over, looking exhausted. There was a purpling bruise coming up along his cheekbone. She wondered how much today had already sucked for him.