Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [13]
“Because it doesn’t matter that he’s invisible, you know? There’s no one to look at him, and no one will ever come.”
“Okay,” Hazel said. “So, show me your bad guy.”
Jack nodded and flipped back a couple of pages. The drawing was of what seemed to be an ordinary man, with a swath of thick black hair. Jack’s heroes were usually muscular, but this one was tall and very thin and wearing an actual suit and tie, like someone you might run into downtown. It was his face where you could see there was something off—the shadows in his cheeks, like he lived on something other than food. And his eyes. Jack had spent a lot of time on his eyes. Hazel could see the life in them, she could see the intelligence behind them, and she knew if you found yourself gazing at these eyes very bad things were going to happen.
“Creepy,” she said.
“I know!” Jack said. “He takes people’s souls. Like a Dementor. But he’s not just a monster, he’s a supervillain. He’s a genius.”
“What does he want?” asked Hazel, thinking of Uncle Martin.
“Nothing.” Jack said. “He’s just bad for the sake of being bad. That’s the scariest kind of villain, you know?”
Hazel nodded.
“And no one can fight against him,” Jack continued. “Because what do you do against the guy who takes your soul? There’s no superpower for that.”
“But,” said Hazel, feeling all of a sudden the dampness around her. “There’s got to be something.”
Jack studied his drawing carefully. “But what if there’s not? What if no one can fight him?”
Hazel shrugged. She didn’t know the answer. But there had to be a way. There was always a way.
Hazel and Jack spent the rest of the day sitting in the second floor of their house talking about supervillains and the secrets in their villain-y hearts. Jack had brought little packages of sandwich crackers and fruit snacks. This was the sort of thing he usually had now that his dad did all the shopping. Then it got to be time to go home, and the two trudged carefully back through the field. They were about to head up the hill that would take them back into the neighborhood, back into the ordinary world, when Hazel stopped.
“What is it?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know,” said Hazel. She turned back and regarded the decaying shell of the house for a moment. “I just wanted to look at it again.” Then she shrugged and turned around to head back home.
When Hazel walked into her house, she found herself feeling scratchy and thick. As she wiped her feet in the vestibule, she heard her mom on the phone. Her voice sounded like it had no air in it, so Hazel knew who she was talking to. Hazel quietly got her boots and jacket off as she heard her mother’s voice say, “. . . she just got in. Do you want to—” and then, a few moments later, her good-bye. Hazel lined up her boots against the wall and tucked her mittens and hat into her jacket.
“Did you have fun sledding?” her mom asked as she came in.
“Yeah,” said Hazel, hanging her jacket in the front closet.
“Hey, listen. Elizabeth Briggs called. Adelaide was hoping you might come over on Saturday morning.”
“I have plans,” Hazel said.
Her mother leaned back in her chair and looked at Hazel. “I already accepted,” she said. “Hazel, honey, it’s not wrong to make other friends. You’d still be a wonderful friend to Jack.”
Hazel rubbed the floor with her stockinged foot. “Whatever,” she muttered, and went into her room and closed the door to go read for the rest of the night. Some things you just couldn’t fight against.
When Hazel woke up the next morning, she found the scratchy feeling had not gone away. It didn’t help when she looked out of her window to find her street had been plowed perfectly. There was no snow day today.
Her mom was cranky at breakfast and gave Hazel a talking-to about snow shoveling and maturity and accepting responsibility. And Hazel could not explain that she had forgotten, that there was Jack and soul-sucking villains,