Breadcrumbs

by Anne Ursu

  “I have more,” Hazel said quietly, nodding to her backpack.

  “Good,” he said. “You don’t want to walk around here with blood on you.”

  Hazel’s stomach tightened. It didn’t sound like it was just a laundry issue. “The wolves?” she asked.

  He gave a grim smile. “It’s not the wolves you have to worry about.”

  That was easy for him to say. “I don’t understand this place,” she said in a low voice.

  He blew out air. “Then you’re far ahead of everyone else.”

  She looked at him.

  “You can’t understand it. People think there should be rules, or order. And sometimes when they can’t find it they . . .” He waved a hand in the air. “Well, you met one of them.”

  Hazel looked down.

  “I knew her, before,” he added, settling himself into the wooden chair. “She was really beautiful once.”

  “Oh.” That must have been a long time ago. “What happened?”

  “She . . . wanted something she shouldn’t want. There are costs for that kind of thing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You can’t just kill a swan and wrap yourself in its skin, you know. It takes something from you. In her case it took the thing that she wanted most.”

  Hazel leaned forward. “What was that?”

  “Beauty.”

  Hazel’s hand traveled up to her face. She touched her wound lightly, tracing it from her cheekbone all the way down to her jaw. It throbbed at the barest touch. This was not supposed to happen.

  “Um . . .” Ben clasped his hands together and leaned toward her. “May I ask what you’re doing here?”

  Hazel looked at the floor. It didn’t seem like she was doing anything but spinning wool into gray thread.

  “You should get out,” he continued gently. “This woods is no place for girls.”

  “I can’t,” Hazel whispered.

  He sighed. “I know. It feels that way. You lost someone.”

  Hazel eyed him and nodded. “I lost my friend. How did you know?”

  “Well . . . you’re here, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t understand. “Does everybody come here after somebody else?”

  He looked at her a moment. “Oh,” he said finally. “Oh, I see. You literally lost your friend? Here?”

  “Yes. What did you mean?”

  He shook his head. “Never mind. What happened to your friend?”

  Hazel sat up. “He was taken. By a woman in a white sled. She wears white furs and doesn’t look human. Do you know who she is?”

  He sat back. “You mean the white witch,” he said slowly.

  A chill ran through her body. “The white witch?” she breathed. “Like Narnia?”

  “No,” he said, his voice quiet. “Narnia is like her.”

  Hazel’s heart sped up. “Well, she took my friend,” she said. “What does she want with him? Will she hurt him?”

  Ben gazed at her for a moment. He seemed about to say something, and then stopped. “I don’t think you should go after him,” he said finally.

  Hazel straightened. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you should go home.”

  “No! I have to save him! She took him!”

  “Look,” he said, his voice gentle. “It might be that he doesn’t want saving.”

  “Of course he does!”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . the white witch . . . She wouldn’t have taken him if he didn’t want to go.”

  Hazel gaped. “What? Why would he want to go with her?”

  “Look . . . I don’t know. But you shouldn’t go. People who go looking for her don’t come back.”

  “I have to go!” Tears filled her eyes again. “I have to try to save him.” Her voice was a trapped bird.

  Ben looked at her and sighed. “Okay. Okay. I understand.”

  Silence settled in between them. Hazel blinked away her tears and tried to calm the thing inside her. She could feel Ben’s eyes on her, and she tried to still herself, to seem very much like a girl who was not afraid.

  “So, um,” she said, trying to fill the air with something else. “Are you . . . from here?”

  He let out a little laugh. “I’m from New Jersey. My sister and I . . . we ran away. Our father . . . ” He shrugged. “I needed to get her out of there. There was a woods about a mile away from our house, and we were going to hide there for a night and then get a bus.”

  “Oh,” Hazel said, looking down. There was no sign here of a sister.

  “And of course the woods we entered weren’t the ones we ended up in. We wandered around for a while, but, you know, I was just so happy to be somewhere else . . . I thought it would be better.” He paused. “Well, Alice—that’s my sister—she ate something she shouldn’t have. At least that’s what they told us. She got really sick. And this couple found us and they brought us to their cottage and took care of us. They were like real parents, you know? The kind you think you should have? And they sent me out to get some medicine, and when I came back . . . ”

  “What?” Hazel whispered.

  “They said she’d run away. But I saw the bird and I knew. . . .” He glanced at the gold cage behind him. “It’s just like her. And you always know your sister.”

  Hazel stared. “That’s Alice?” she whispered.

  He nodded.

  She looked at the white bird in the back of the room. It didn’t belong here. It didn’t belong anywhere. But it was the most beautiful bird she’d ever seen.

  “They tried to get rid of me,” he continued. “Told me to go after her. But I came back at night and got her.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hazel said, her voice squeezed. “Why would anyone do that?”

  He shrugged. “They wanted to keep her, I guess. The woods does funny things to people.” He let out a small bitter laugh. “Anyway, I got what I wanted, right? No one will ever find us in here. And she”—he looked over at the bird—“no one’s hurt her.”

  Hazel could not quite read his voice. He sounded half bitter, half serious. Her mind flashed to the Snow Queen, to the fairy tale she and Adelaide had told. That witch put kids into snow globes. Why would they want to stay? Adelaide had wondered.

  “Can’t you go anywhere? Other family or friends or . . . ”

  He shook his head. “There’s no one. Not anymore. And, anyway, she’s not from that world anymore. She’s a creation of this place. I’m not sure she could . . . you know . . . be outside of these woods.”

  “Oh.” Hazel hugged her knees and looked at the ground.

  “I swore I’d protect her. And that’s what I’m going to do. They’ll come back, looking for her. That’s what that’s for.” He nodded to the gun on the wall.

  Hazel could not look at him.

  “We’re okay,” he said, reading her face. “I read to her. She likes it. It’s not hard to get things here. We don’t usually have visitors, though.” He allowed himself a half smile, but then his face turned dark again. “I understand why you have to go. Just . . . be careful. The witch is seductive. She will offer you things that seem good. You go, you find your friend, and get out of there. And get out of the woods as fast as you can. The woods do not mean you well.”

  “But I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just trying to rescue Jack. That’s good.”

  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.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Marketplace

  Hazel 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.