Breadcrumbs

by Anne Ursu

  A gust of wind picked up in the woods, and the snow in front of it began to stir. It was like a small tornado had settled at the tree line, and snow began to whirl around faster and faster. Jack took a step back as the spinning column got bigger, and part of him wanted to run, but it was only a small part. For he understood he was seeing magic.

  And indeed he was. For the snow was not snow anymore, but a woman—tall and lithe like a sketch, in a white fur cape and a white shimmering gown that looked so thin it would melt if you touched it. Hair like spun crystal framed cream-colored skin. The woman stepped closer, revealing eyes as bright as the sun reflecting off snow. But they were cold things, and it was like looking for solace in frost.

  Jack could not move as she walked toward him. It did not seem possible that she would be coming for him, but she was. Her eyes did not leave him, and in her cold gaze he found his breath again. The air welcomed him back.

  “Are you real?” he asked, though it was a stupid thing to ask.

  “I am,” she said, her voice twinkling and melodic.

  “How do you do that?” He motioned to the snow out of which she had come.

  She was in front of him now, and Jack felt his chest expand and then freeze, an inhalation with no companion.

  “Doesn’t that take the fun out of it?” she said. She spoke slowly, and her voice was like a chain that pulled you gently closer. “To know how it is done?”

  “No. I want to know. I want to understand things. I want to understand everything.” He sounded so desperate to his own ears.

  “I see. And what will you do when you understand everything? Will you share your knowledge to better the world?” Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

  Her eyes sparkled, for him. Jack felt a smile on his face. “Maybe.”

  She leaned in, bringing coldness with her. “Or,” she murmured, “will you keep it all for yourself?”

  “You never know,” Jack said. His heart filled. He could play this game, he understood it like he understood the numbers. Everything made sense. He was pleased with himself for keeping up with this woman made of ice.

  “What if I told you that there was a place where there are extraordinary things, things with great power, things that could give you your heart’s desire, things much bigger than this small, small world?”

  Jack’s heart sped up, and he knew he was not playing a game anymore. “Is there?” he demanded.

  “There is. What you saw from me is only the beginning.”

  “You want to take me there?”

  “I do. I could tell looking at you that you are destined to do great things.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes, my young friend. I can make you live on forever.” She motioned to the wood and he saw there a gleaming white sleigh attached to winged white horses. And he understood how small this world really was.

  He took a step forward, but something stopped him, something his heart was whispering.

  “Wait,” he said, looking up at the white witch. “Will I be gone for long?”

  She smiled. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “They won’t miss you at all.”

  “Okay!” He climbed into the sleigh and the woman appeared next to him. She took hold of the reins and looked down at him with a sly smile.

  “Would you like some Turkish delight?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Just a little joke,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eight

  Reasons

  The next morning, Hazel’s mother bundled her off to Adelaide’s house. She spoke in bright, shiny words, as if that might distract Hazel from all thoughts of Jack.

  It did not work.

  Hazel kept her eyes on Jack’s house as they drove by. There was no sign of life. Maybe Jack was out already, maybe he’d gone sledding with the boys again. It was Saturday, and Saturday was a good day for sledding. At least it used to be.

  On the way, her mom chattered on about Adelaide and the Briggses, as if there were nothing else Hazel could possibly think about. Apparently, when a hand came down and plucked your best friend from the chair next to you, all you had to do was wait for it to drop someone else in there, and then you could just go on. And they said Hazel was the one who thought too much about magic.

  “So, what did you think of Adelaide’s uncle?” her mother asked.

  Hazel shrugged. “He’s funny.”

  “He’s a character, all right. He was just like that in college, too. He just never grew up. Some people don’t have to. They’re lucky.” She cast a glance at Hazel. “Most people do, though.”

  “I like him,” Hazel said. They were driving by the lake now, and a group of brightly plumaged girls were emerging from the warming house carrying skates and chirping to each other. Saturday was also a good day for skating, apparently.

  “Well, good. You think you can have fun today?”

  “Sure,” Hazel said.

  “Try for me, okay?”

  “Okay.” Soon they arrived at the Briggses’. Today the house shone so brightly it hurt Hazel’s eyes, and she wondered if it would even allow her in. If Jack thought she was a baby, what was Adelaide going to think?

  Adelaide opened the door, smiling. Hazel hesitated. She wanted to keep this moment when Adelaide thought she was someone she would like to welcome in.

  But there was nothing to do but enter the house, and Hazel found herself in the vast living room with Adelaide and her little brother, Jeremy, who was sitting at a desk poking around at a computer with a screen bigger than Hazel’s TV.

  “Mom wants us to watch him,” Adelaide explained. “Sometimes he breaks things.”

  Hazel did not know how to respond to that. She didn’t know anything about little brothers, except from books. She would have liked a brother or a little sister, but her parents had already traveled to another planet to get her. It’s hard to do that twice.

  “I break things, too,” she said finally. And then flushed. This was the part where you were supposed to say something fascinating, if you were the sort of person that had fascinating things to say. This was not the part where you say I break things, too. “Um,” she said, shifting. “I liked the story you were working on. With your uncle.”

  There. That was something. People liked compliments.

  “Yeah!” Adelaide’s eyes sparkled underneath her glasses. “That was cool. I want to be a writer, too. And a ballet dancer. I’m going to write stories and make ballets about them.”

  “Really?” Hazel didn’t know that that was something you could do.

  “Wanna do one now?”

  “A . . . ballet?”

  “Yeah! We could make one about the Snow Queen!”

  “Um.” Hazel bit her lip. “I . . . don’t know how to dance.”

  “I’ll teach you! Come on!”

  In a few minutes Hazel was wearing one of Adelaide’s leotards and ballet slippers, and was holding onto the back of a chair while Adelaide moved her feet around in various positions—first, second, third, fourth, fifth. Hazel’s feet responded slowly, warily, unused to the attention. Then Adelaide stood in front of Hazel, positioned her own feet, stuck her arm in the air in an arc like a swan’s neck, and bent her legs so she slowly dropped toward the ground.

  “Wow,” said Hazel.

  “It’s a plié. You do it on all the positions. It’s very good for dramatic moments. Do you want to learn leaps?”

  She did. They pushed all the furniture out of the way, and soon the girls were leaping around the room. Hazel’s feet in the soft pink ballet slippers felt borrowed, like she would have to give them back. But she leapt anyway, and while the lamps shook and the decorative furniture quavered, she did not break a thing.

  Hazel had feathers, she had wings, she had beautiful borrowed feet. If she could steal beauty from swans, even for a moment, maybe there was some kind of hope.

  And then there was a mournful noise, and a clunking sound, and Adelaide’s little brother’s head was burie
d in his arms on the desk. He lifted it up, sighed dramatically, then clunked it down again.

  Adelaide stopped. “Jer, what is it?”

  He lifted his head enough to say, “Adie, you were gonna help me with my homework!”

  The girls came to earth. “All right,” Adelaide said. “What’s your homework?”

  “I’m supposed to write a bi-o-graph-y. It has to be a scientist, I can’t make anything up, and I can’t do Spider-man.” He threw up his hands in despair.

  “A scientist?” Adelaide screwed her face up in thought. “Um . . . Albert Einstein?”

  “Everyone’s going to do him! I want to be special!”

  “Um . . . ”Adelaide turned to Hazel. “Can you think of anyone?”

  Hazel’s heart stirred. Here was her chance. She might not be fascinating, her feet might be wary and slow, but maybe she could at least be useful. That would be something.

  And then something whispered in one distant corner of her brain, and a picture of Mrs. Jacobs at the overhead flashed behind her eyes. “I know!” she said, jumping from first to third position. “There’s a guy. Snowflake Something. He was a scientist who took pictures of—”

  “No!” came a voice from the kitchen. “No, no, no!”

  Adelaide and Hazel exchanged a glance. “Uncle Martin,” Adelaide mouthed.

  Her uncle burst into the room, emphatically waving a pen. “Snowflake Bentley was not a scientist. Who said that?”

  “I did,” Hazel said in a small voice.

  He smiled brightly. “Oh, hi, Hazel, it’s nice to see you.”

  “Uncle Martin,” Adelaide said, “I’m supposed to tell you when you’re being weird.”

  “But this is a bridge too far! She’s spreading lies!” He pointed dramatically at Hazel, and then shot her a wink.

  “Wait,” Hazel protested, “my teacher said—”

  “Your teacher is wrong. Snowflake Bentley was not a scientist. He was a farmer. He looked at snowflakes under a microscope and realized that they were each unique. ‘Miracles of beauty,’ he called them. And he thought it was a tragedy that these tiny miracles would disappear. So he figured out how to take pictures of them. He wanted them to live forever.” Martin turned dramatically to Jeremy. “Snowflake Bentley. Look him up on your precious Internet. Now!”

  The boy turned and started to type, his finger hunting out each letter. Martin went over to him and leaned over his shoulder. “Here! ‘When a snowflake melted,’ he said, ‘that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone.’ He was no scientist. He was a poet! How’s that for your biography, Jeremy?”

  The boy slumped in his chair. “I’d rather have Spider-man.”

  Martin flung his hands in the air. “Fine. I’ll go where I’m appreciated. Nice to see you, Hazel.” He turned toward the kitchen.

  “Wait!” Hazel said. Uncle Martin turned, and Adelaide looked at Hazel in surprise. Hazel had surprised herself, too.

  “Can I ask you something?” The words stuck in her throat.

  Uncle Martin was the sort of person who understood things. He knew about the things that lived just beyond the boundary of what you could see. Hazel’s wings twitched.

  “Of course you may.”

  “Um . . .” Hazel shot a glance at Adelaide, who was giving her a curious look. She took a deep breath. “. . . Can you think of any reasons someone would . . . change overnight?”

  He tilted his head. “Change how?”

  “I mean,” she said, as her heart jumped up in her throat and settled there, “they just don’t act like themselves anymore? That they were nice and then suddenly they aren’t anymore?”

  Martin nodded slowly. “So, you mean a complete personality change.”

  “Yes.”

  “And might I guess that you are looking for reasons that aren’t . . . natural?”

  She exhaled. She wouldn’t have said it out loud. “That’s right.”

  “Well”—he rubbed his hands together—“let’s see. There are a few options here. Possession is one. Maybe not by a demon, but by something a little more harmless, like a goblin or imp.”

  “Or a troll!” Jeremy exclaimed.

  “Trolls don’t possess people,” Adelaide said, rolling her eyes at her brother.

  “Or an evil corporate disembodied brain thing,” Martin continued. “Or there could be some sort of enchantment. By a witch or wizard. Or by a magical item, something that was given to them, or something they acquired, maybe by accident. Or something that’s infected them that causes them to see the world in a skewed way.”

  “A poison apple,” said Adelaide.

  “A magic potion,” said Hazel.

  “Yes. Precisely. Or someone could have some kind of magical hold on this person, like spiritual blackmail. Or maybe they’re in the process of transforming into something else.”

  “A turtle!” said Jeremy.

  “He means a werewolf,” said Adelaide.

  “Either way. Does that help?” Martin asked.

  Hazel nodded, heart pounding. She took a deep breath, looking from Jeremy to Adelaide to Uncle Martin. “Do you . . .” she said to the man, her voice quiet, “do you believe that these things can happen?”

  Martin nodded thoughtfully. “I believe that the world isn’t always what we can see,” he said. “I believe there are secrets in the woods. And I believe that goodness wins out.” He gave Hazel a serious look. “So, if someone’s changed overnight—by witch curse or poison apple or were-turtle—you have to show them what’s good. You show them love. That works a surprising amount of the time. And if that doesn’t save them, they’re not worth saving.”

  Hazel nodded slowly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Adelaide nod, too, as if this information might be useful to her some day.

  “Did you have fun?” Hazel’s mother asked in the car on the way home.

  “Yes,” Hazel said.

  “Good. Me, too.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Um”—under her seat she moved her left foot forward so the heel touched on the arch of the right—“can I take ballet lessons?”

  Her mom glanced at her. “Ballet?” she repeated.

  “Adelaide takes ballet.”

  “Oh.” Her mother’s eyes fell closed for a moment. “Hazel, baby,” she began, and Hazel never would have asked if she’d known how sad her mom would look. “I’d love to give you ballet lessons. But . . . they cost money, and . . .” She shook her head. “Maybe someday? When things are a little better?”

  Hazel gulped and nodded, looking carefully at a spot on the dashboard.

  “I suppose . . .” Her mom hesitated. “I suppose I could ask your father.”

  Hazel looked up. “Really?”

  “I can ask,” she repeated.

  Hazel nodded, moving her feet into first position. In her mind she executed a grand plié.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think I should do something? About Jack, I mean?” Hazel didn’t know what that something might be—a letter, a present, convincing Joe Mauer to show up on his doorstep? Something. Something that was good.

  Her mother’s eyes flicked over her. She seemed to start to say something, and then stopped. “Oh, honey,” she said finally. “Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do.”

  Hazel’s eyes darted to the window. Her heart plummeted, and her feathers fell away.

  She could be such a baby sometimes.

  Chapter Nine

  Sleigh Ride

  Jack and the white witch took off in the sleigh, and in the blink of an eye they were in the woods behind the sledding hill. Jack had been in these woods many times, but they had never been like this. These woods seemed as if they must have been there since the beginning of time. Trees stretched up into the darkening sky like yearning giants, their thick branches contorted and mean from reaching out for something they could never grasp. Snow lay heavily on the branches like shrouds. The bloated
moon lurked above the tangled mass of branches.

  The wind sang softly to him, like a whispered lullaby. He thought he heard it carrying his name from somewhere in the far distance, as if an echo from a memory. And then it was gone.

  The witch held the reins, steering the sled surely through the trees as if they were no obstacle at all, as if they were not even there. And Jack saw that the creatures pulling the sleigh were not winged horses at all, but a pack of horse-size white wolves with fur that glimmered in the moonlight. They bolted ahead, sleek and sure, and their energy made the sleigh feel alive. Jack could hear the steady panting of the wolves as their breath echoed in their chests. It was the only sound that accompanied the distant lullaby of the wind, and it made it seem as if the whole forest was breathing.

  The witch looked ahead. He wanted to say something to her, to tell her something so she would know she had made a good choice in him.

  “I can do numbers in my head,” he said.

  “Can you, now?”

  “Even fractions.”

  “My,” she said.

  “I know the stats for all the batting title winners. I know the populations of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I can convert centimeters into inches. I can do word problems—ask me anything.”

  His words sounded foolish to his own ears. He was not impressive. He was small like the world.

  “I feel like I’m forgetting something,” he said. “Do you think my mom is worried?”

  The witch looked down at him and smiled, and he knew he would do anything to earn that smile. “No. You don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

  “And my friends?”

  “They will be fine without you,” she said.

  “I think I’m cold.”

  “My poor boy,” she said. “Come here.” In a swift motion she tucked him into her furs, and it was like being wrapped in snow. He could not tell if he was warmer or if he just didn’t notice the cold as much, but it did not matter. She was taking care of him, even though he was nothing. And she was happy, too—she laughed and kissed his forehead like his mother used to do when she tucked him in at night. It had been a long time since she had done that.