Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [52]
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