Breadcrumbs: Chapters 5–13

He is seven feet tall and warty, has terrible breath, and a penchant for hanging out under bridges.

There was nothing ordinary about that mirror. And if you were the perceptive sort—which of course you are—you would have known it immediately. But if you weren’t, you might look in the mirror and think, I did not know that mole was so enormous or Why is my face festering?

And something happened.
Something unexpected.
Something fateful.

Soon Hazel was dressed in her third-grade jacket. It went down to her mid-waist, and her wrists stuck out. She looked like a puffy purple pauper.

As soon as she crossed through the front door, she shed herself of the accoutrements of her absurdity, and had to fight the urge to dump them behind a wastebasket.

She wondered if people could hear the pounding of her heart, if the monstrous thrumming caused the kindergartners in their classroom to look around wide-eyed with fear as she passed, if the before-school-care kids in the music room unwittingly began to shake their maracas in time with it, if soon the very walls of the building would shake with it.

“Good morning, Hazel,” she said, carefully articulating each word.

Here on the bus the raucous voices of the boys in back slapped against her like an angry sea.

The stop sign inched its way back, the bus trembled, then plodded down a block or two to do it all again.

He was the Snow Man, and he could be either hero or villain, Indomitable or Abominable.

Down, down the hill he went, buffered by the cool breeze.

For the snow was not snow anymore, but a woman—tall and lithe like a sketch, in a white fur cape and a white shimmering gown that looked so thin it would melt if you touched it.

The woman stepped closer, revealing eyes as bright as the sun reflecting off snow. But they were cold things, and it was like looking for solace in frost.

They were driving by the lake now, and a group of brightly plumaged girls were emerging from the warming house carrying skates and chirping to each other.

Her uncle burst into the room, emphatically waving a pen.

“Or an evil corporate disembodied brain thing,” Martin continued.

“Or there could be some sort of enchantment. By a witch or wizard. Or by a magical item, something that was given to them, or something they acquired, maybe by accident. Or something that’s infected them that causes them to see the world in a skewed way.”

Snow lay heavily on the branches like shrouds.

It would just be like she was a leper, and leprosy really wasn’t so bad once you made it part of your routine.

A wraith struck her with its death-touched blade and the poison caused her heart to go cold.

Bobby was smirking at her, she noted, and she deduced that it was a smirk of victory.

The clock ticked on dispassionately.

It was an empty, inhospitable thing.

Hazel drew a tiny fort in the middle of the page—an austere palace framed by four tall turrets.

“I talked to your father,” her mom continued, and Hazel’s eyes snapped to the long gouge she’d made in the table when she was seven and wanted to play Excalibur.

“He went to stay with his elderly aunt Bernice,” Hazel responded primly.

Then it was time for recess, and Hazel girded herself.

It held a yellow couch that some long-dead cat had scratched up, a TV perched on a small cart, her mom’s desk with a computer and all kinds of papers, and a row of shelves teeming with books.

The trees stood in front of her like sentries, and she could not tell whether they intended to welcome her or keep her out.

She stood looking at the line of trees that demarcated the woods as clearly as any doorway.