Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [29]
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,