Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [65]
“I have to go,” Hazel said, taking another step to the gate.
“To what?” Nina asked. “Back out there to the wolves? The wizards at the marketplace? To the white witch? Back home, to whatever brought you here in the first place? Ro—Hazel, we can keep you safe. We”—her voice softened—“I can take of you.”
“I have to save my friend,” Hazel said, trying to keep the words from trembling.
“But”—Nina tilted her head—“he chose something else, don’t you see? He doesn’t want you anymore.”
Hazel glanced at the ground, and then looked back up at Nina. “It doesn’t matter.”
Nina gazed at her searchingly. “Doesn’t it?”
Of course it mattered. The mattering of it filled her up and she threatened to burst with it. But it wasn’t the only thing that mattered.
Hazel could only shrug.
“Please,” Nina said, her voice almost a whisper. “Don’t go there. It’s a cruel place. “
“So is this,” Hazel said quietly. She half believed it. There were worse fates than being a flower. But there were better ones, too. And it was her puff of wool.
Nina took another step forward, and Hazel could see her eyes now, see all the things in them. She swallowed, turned, and pushed through the gate into the night.
She’d thought the cottage was in the middle of a small neighborhood—that’s what she’d seen when Lucas led her from the market square. But when she went through the garden gate she found herself in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Of course. That is what Lucas and Nina needed, and the woods let them make it.
Hazel looked back at the cottage, thought of Nina standing behind the gate, eyes full of pain and longing, a longing she could fill. And then she turned and ran.
She could not get Poppy’s story out of her head. Her mind flashed to the dancing girl in the marketplace. Hazel had seen that something was wrong. And if she had thought about it, she would have put the pieces together: the woodsman on the path, the sudden appearance of the red shoes. The woodsman had left the shoes for her to find. He lost his daughter, he came into the woods, he made some cursed dancing shoes. The woods does funny things to people, Ben had said.
But she didn’t think about it. She had been too tired, too focused on herself.
It had been hours ago, or maybe days. There was nothing Hazel could do, though she felt like stripping off her own skin. She was good for nothing, and should have been left to take root.
She hated this place. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. She was supposed to be learning things as she went along, gaining strength for her final battle. All she was doing was losing things, one thing at a time.
She headed into the cold, for that would lead her to Jack. Because he needed rescuing. That was all. She’d lost her friend, and she might never get him back. But at least she could save him. Whoever he is now. Maybe he had chosen to come here, but he could not stay in this place.
She kept going. She reached a small footpath that stretched itself into the cold night. She joined it, and kept going.
Jack believed in something—he believed in white witches and sleighs pulled by wolves, and in the world the trees obscured. He believed that there were better things in the woods. He believed in palaces of ice and hearts to match. Hazel had, too. Hazel had believed in woodsmen and magic shoes and swanskins and the easy magic of a compass. She had believed that because someone needing saving they were savable. She had believed in these things, but not anymore. And this is why she had to rescue Jack, even though he might not hear what she had to tell him.
There were so many Jacks she had known, and he had known so many Hazels. And maybe she wasn’t going to be able to know all the Jacks that there would be. But all the Hazels that ever would be would have Jack in them,