Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [74]
Then she blinked and straightened and shrugged the furs off. What was she doing? “No, wait. You took him. I came to take him back.”
“Oh!” said the witch, her head slowly tilting to the side. “I see! That’s very interesting. No one’s ever done that before.”
“I came to take him back,” Hazel repeated. “Where is he?” Her voice was shaking. That was the point where she was supposed to sound tough, like she was someone to be reckoned with, like she was the sort of person witches should listen to. Was this really her plan? She sounded like a child.
“Why,” said the witch, “he’s right out there.” She extended an arm toward the window behind her.
“What?” Hazel looked from the witch to the window, then pushed herself off the chair.
She hurried to the window and opened the curtain. In back of the palace was a giant lake. Patches of ice floated gently on top of dark water. And in the distance Hazel could see a small, dark form crouched on one of them, perfectly framed by the window, like a piece of three-dimensional art. He was moving, she could see that much. But that’s all she could tell.
Jack.
“You see?” said the witch, her voice in Hazel’s ear.
Hazel whirled around. The witch was standing right next to her.
“What’s he doing there? Is he okay?”
“He’s safe,” said the witch. “You don’t have to worry.”
“But . . . he’ll freeze out there.”
The witch’s brow furrowed. “But he’s already frozen.” She said this as if it should be comforting.
“He’s . . . what?”
“Well, it’s just his heart that’s frozen, really.”
Hazel stared up at the witch.
“Something landed in his eye,” the witch said, clasping her hands together. “Something . . . harmful. It went to his heart, you see. And so I froze it. It was for his own good.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are a very small girl,” said the witch.
Hazel opened her mouth but had nothing to say. She could see Jack out of the corner of her eye. He seemed to be moving something around with one hand. He was totally focused on whatever was in front of him, like he was when he was drawing. And suddenly all her Jacks came rushing back. “I want him back now. He’s my friend. I miss him and I want him back.” Hazel’s voice cracked. How she hated the weakness of her human heart.
“I see,” said the witch. She turned her full gaze on Hazel. “You feel quite empty without him, don’t you?”
The eyes pried at her, and Hazel could only nod.
The witch leaned in, her voice soft. “He was the thing that made you belong, after all. He made all the pieces fit together. And without him . . .” The witch moved her hands in the air.
Hazel’s gaze snapped to the floor, lest she see herself in the witch’s eyes.
“It’s funny. You came through the woods for him, and he never even mentioned you.”
Hazel’s heart twisted. She would give anything not to feel this way.
“I don’t think you know how to get by without him, do you? That’s why you came. You can’t survive out there.” She motioned vaguely out the window. Whether she meant in the storm or in the real world, Hazel did not know, but it didn’t matter. The witch rested a long finger on her cheek and shook her head. “You could stay,” she said. “You could be with him forever. It would be better for you.”
Hazel could not resist, she looked up at the witch’s eyes and searched them, desperately. She could search them forever if she thought one day there might be something there for her.
But there wasn’t and there never would be.
“No,” Hazel said. “I have to go home, and I have to take Jack with me.”
“Ah,” said the witch. “You are a very small girl.” She turned her eyes from Hazel, and Hazel wanted to go out and give herself to the storm.
“If you wish to live your life out there, that is your choice,” the witch continued. “But as for your friend, you do not know what’s best. Look at him.” She motioned out the window. “He wants for nothing. Would you really take that from him?”
“Yes,” Hazel said.
“You know you’ll never get him back,” she said. “Not really. Even if you take him, it won’t be the same.