Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [81]
It was a strange thing to stand there on the other end of the clearing where she’d stood at the beginning of all of this. The clock was still there, but it looked smaller now, and less odd—like every woods would have a skinned grandfather clock in it.
Her ravens were still there, whispering to each other. One of them croaked and nodded at her from across the field, and then at the clock face.
Hazel went up to look at the clock. It read 10:30. Judging by the height of the sun in the sky, that was in no way the time in the woods. The other raven trilled at her, and she got the distinct impression it was telling her she was an idiot. Hazel chewed on her lip, and then reached up and moved the clock’s arms so it read 7:00, and switched the picture of the sun to the moon. Maybe it would work.
“We’re almost there,” she told Jack, guiding him out of the clearing.
Jack saw the wolf before she did, and he gasped and froze, pointing ahead. The wolf was just where she’d left him, standing sentry by a tree, watching out for intruders in the woods.
“What do we do?” Jack breathed. It was the first thing he’d said since losing the baseball.
“It’s okay,” Hazel said to Jack.
The wolf did not move, only blinked and sniffed the air. She nodded at it as they passed.
And then they were at the tree line, and Hazel exhaled. Jack looked at her, his brown hair as messy as always. Some things would never change.
“This is it,” she said, because something needed to be said.
“That’s home?” Jack asked, his voice soft.
“Yeah,” Hazel said.
Jack looked at her, and then back at the woods. His shoulders fell. “I don’t know,” he said quietly.
“What? You don’t know what?”
“I . . . don’t know.” His body twitched back toward the woods.
Hazel sucked in a breath. “You can’t go back!”
“I know, I know. But”—he looked toward the world beyond the trees—“I don’t know if I can do that, either.” He shifted in his place.
“You can’t stay here!” she said.
He gazed at her, his pale face serious and searching. “Why not?”
Hazel blinked. Because I need you. Because you’re my best friend. Because I have to go out there, too.
“Because it’s worse in here,” she said.
Jack looked down. The green of the spring grass reached up to him. He took his hand and rubbed his chest, just where his heart was. He shifted again.
“I was mean to you,” he said quietly.
“I know,” Hazel said. It was on the tip of her tongue to say It’s okay, except it wasn’t, and he knew it.
“I don’t know how to do things right sometimes.”
Hazel glanced to the ground. “I don’t either,” she said.
“And Mom . . .” he said, and then looked away.
Hazel was supposed to say something comforting now, something that would let him know it was going to be okay, except she knew nothing of the kind. But that was still better than this.
“Come on,” she said, and she tucked her hand through his arm. “We should go home.”
Jack exhaled, and Hazel took that as agreement and pulled him through the trees. Hazel’s foot landed in the snow and she muttered, “Oh, great.” She was sick of winter.
It was dark out, and the air was filled with the squeals of sledding kids. It was the same scene that she’d left. A great fatigue slammed into Hazel, and with terrible dread she thought of the blocks they had to walk.
They crossed the street to the sidewalk. They’d made this walk hundreds of times in their lives together. It was as familiar as air.
There was so much she wanted to tell him. There had been wolves and weird psychics, swanskins and bird girls. There had been a marketplace that sold potions for forgetting, a wizard who could pull truths from your heart. There had been a cottage, a couple, a garden. There had been a match girl. There had been a journey. There was a witch who wanted nothing. And at the end of it all there was Jack, and maybe the witch was right, maybe things wouldn’t be the same, but Hazel would still do everything she could to remind him what he was made