Breadcrumbs: Chapters 14–20

Hazel stepped into the woods gingerly, expecting to land in a thick cushion of snow.

The air was a tangible thing, rushing into Hazel’s lungs as she breathed, touching her skin like a curious ghost.

And maybe the before-mother never gave her an official name, maybe she never even held her, maybe she decided to give the baby up before it became something other than a red squalling it.

She reached the crest of the hill and heard the bubbling of the stream.

Hazel looked around again and then picked up the skin and let it unfurl.

In the real world Hazel was an ordinary thing, a misshapen piece with no purpose.

She would alight just before the edge of the wood and unfurl herself.

Nearly colorless hair hung in deadened strings over her shadowy, gaunt face.

Her face was right up against Hazel’s now, enough so that Hazel could smell the odor of decay that emanated from her.

The first was the entire back wall, which was taken over by book-lined bookshelves, like a very rustic library.

It was the sort of story your mother told you before she tucked you in at night, and you would sigh and think of the steadfast birdkeeper and his bird sister and the marvelous tragedy of it all.

The houses were small, made of white stucco and dark wooden beams and thick thatched roofs.

One sat down on its haunches just a few feet from her.

Hazel looked up at the guard, whose face was rueful and whose body seemed cloaked by more than wool.

There were merchants advertising their wares, people shouting, strains of music competing for attention.

She noticed that there was sweat on her face and her expression was not of beauty or elation but something like pain.

“I see,” he said. “Now—and please don’t call me presumptuous—may I assume this was no ordinary friend?”

“I can make you beautiful,” he said. “I can make you womanly. I can make you charming and worldly. I can make you clever.”

But it didn’t really matter what she thought, because he was shooing the black-cloaked man away as if he were a meddlesome bat, and it was a bit funny really and Hazel thought she might laugh if only she could remember how.

They’d sat on bleachers in the sun, roasting like mutton, watching a jousting match.

There were shelves lined with small, inscrutable tools and pieces of clockwork.

The face was off, revealing innards made of gears.

He demoted the penguin for insubordination.

The wizard had made her suggestible, she knew this.

Jack believed in something—he believed in white witches and sleighs pulled by wolves, and in the world the trees obscured.

The night in the forest would not relent.

She must be bewitched, Hazel thought.

Her skin had been blanched by the night’s cold, and her cheeks looked blue-black.

Hazel could feel her heart lose its solidity and diffuse slowly in her chest.

Her eyes were watering, her skin was chafing, her body was shivering.

It had been just over a week ago, but for Hazel it felt like an epoch away.

Going outside in socks and her pajamas was a game, a lark.

The snow had started to fall, too, in soft flakes that tumbled exuberantly in the wind.

The neighbors were parsimonious with their ice; it was going to take days to fill the pool.

If she fell off the precipice she might tumble through the snow for all eternity.