The Night Country (The Hazel Wood #2)(51)

Her room was next to his, a similarly medieval bolt-hole of rough walls, picturesquely lumpy bed, and washstand and basin. Her bed was undisturbed, her bag propped carefully against its foot. Before he could lose his nerve, Finch crouched down and opened it.

Inside, impressively rolled, was an all-black rainbow of clothes. An offbrand Walkman and a handful of unmarked tapes. Toiletries, an array of currencies in a leather pouch, four packs of Silver Siren brand cigarettes. Canteen, hairbrush, needle and thread. And below all that, wrapped in a pair of long johns, the things he figured he was looking for. The things she thought worth hiding: a book, a photo, and a little metal rabbit.

The rabbit looked like a game piece. It was heavy, its fur filigreed and its eyes inset with minuscule pink stones. He put it gently aside and inspected the photo. It was different from photos on Earth. More intense. It looked less like paper than a dark and bright window onto a breezy day when a younger Iolanthe had grinned, squinting, into the camera, snugged up against a slender, dark-haired man who looked like Rimbaud. His face held the kind of temporal beauty generally reserved for those who die young.

He stared at the photo awhile before placing it carefully back into her bag. Then he turned to the book. It was a children’s picture book. The Night Country, it was called, with illustrations the saturated colors of candied fruit.

This is not a fairy tale, it began. This is a true story.

Finch paged through the book. It was a tale sparely told, of a mischievous little girl, the daughter of a court magician. When her kingdom is descended upon by a plague of golden locusts, the little girl and her best friend, the king’s youngest son, steal her father’s books to try to discover a way to save it. First, they accidentally enchant every mirror in the castle to say true and embarrassing things to anyone who looks into them. Then they summon a lazy demoness who tries to lead them astray. Fi nally, they find a spell that could save them: a spell that conjures a door into another world. That world is called the Night Country, and in its fertile air the children rebuild their kingdom as they please, simply by dreaming it up.

They create a world without vegetables or tutors or bedtime. Full of rainbow-flanked ponies and candy fountains and an underclass of hardworking gnomes who build them stained-glass cakes and clockwork wonders, like a beautiful pantomime princess to read to them and an old wizard who sends them flying around the room. In the end, they don’t let anyone else into their Night Country. They shut the door, leaving their parents and siblings and everyone else to the plague of the golden locusts.

Finch closed the book, feeling uneasy.

Then he reopened it. Just to see the illustrations one more time. There wasn’t much to the story, but it gave him a feeling he couldn’t place. He’d just reached the bit where the king finds the first golden locust inside his royal egg cup when the door swung open.

Iolanthe hung in the doorway, her posture dangerous. He crouched in place, her open bag beside him. For a long time they just looked at each other.

“Did you read it?” she asked brusquely.

Finch nodded.

“Good.” She stayed, lightly swaying, in the doorway. “It’s a true story, you know.”

Finch wasn’t sure whether he should stand or remain seated. He settled for rising up on one knee. The pieces of what he knew about Iolanthe were stirring together like alphabet soup: The missing book in the library that she came out of. The picture book in his hands, and the pocket watch in hers. Her sail across the Hinterland’s storied sea, and her journey through its underworld. The photo of the beautiful young man tucked away like a secret.

“Who are you?” he asked her. Not for the first time. He should’ve demanded a better answer before walking through a door traced in her blood.

“I’m like you,” she said. “One of the lost. A wanderer, worldless.”

“How do you know I’m worldless?”

“Same way I knew you’d seen a door into Death, and walked through it.” She knelt beside him and put a fingertip to the line over his throat, pressing closer to keep it there when he recoiled. “Same way I knew this would work, you and me.”

He spoke around the permanent gravel in his throat. “What do you mean, work?”

“You’re a searcher. We both are. Trying to get back something we lost—a home that no longer exists.”

She said it like she was a seer. But Finch was used to people telling him stories about who and what he was. It had been happening all his life.

“Actually I’m thinking about getting back to a girl,” he said. “So I guess you don’t know me too well.”

That broke the spell. Iolanthe fell back, her laughter short and surprised. “So let me get to know you.” She held his gaze, still so near he could smell the liquor on her breath. For an awkward moment he worried she was hitting on him. Then she grabbed the book.

“True story,” she said again, pointing to its cover.

“What part of it is true?”

“Maybe all of it. But the part that matters, the Night Country, that is true. I meant for you to read it. It’s what we’re waiting for. It’s what we’re seeking.”

“We? We’re not seeking anything. I don’t even understand what that means.”

“A world made to order, full of everything you’d like. That’s what a night country is. Doesn’t that sound pretty? Doesn’t that sound nice?”