Whichwood(27)

It was true that Oliver Newbanks was fond of Laylee. Indeed, he liked her as well as any person could like someone they didn’t know. There was something about her—something he couldn’t quite explain—that kept him coming back to her. It was this same something that convinced him beyond anything else that Laylee had no business dying—not now and not ever—and especially not before she’d had a chance to see him as more than just a stranger. Because while it was impossible to identify the chemical magic that fused one heart to another, Oliver Newbanks could not deny that something had happened to him when he first set eyes on Laylee Layla Fenjoon. He had been marked by a magic he could not see, and it was impossible for him to extricate himself from his emotions.

And here is the strange thing about feeling:

Sometimes it builds slowly, one brick carefully stacked on another over years of dedicated hard labor; once constructed, these foundations become unshakable. But other times it’s built recklessly, all at once, on top of you, stacking bricks on your heart and lungs, burying you alive in the process if necessary.

Oliver had only ever known gentle affection.

He had built, bit by bit, every ounce of his fondness for Alice. She was exhausting and frustrating and lovely and wise—she was his best friend in the world. But though Alice had touched his heart, she had never possessed it, and it was this—his racing pulse, his shaking hands, the exciting and disturbing twist in his stomach that felt like sickness—that wrecked and reconstructed him all at once.

Oliver was not simply upset by the revelation that Laylee was going to die; he was deeply and profoundly horrified.

And he knew he could never allow it to happen.




Dear reader: Forgive me. I keep forgetting that you may not have read (or simply might not remember) Alice and Oliver’s adventures in Furthermore, and I continue to assume you know things you might not. Allow me to explain how Oliver came to know Laylee’s secret:

Oliver Newbanks had a very peculiar magical ability.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, he was a boy generally known for his gift of persuasion. But his talent was layered; in his exploits shaping the minds of others, he’d long ago discovered he was also able to unlock the one thing they kept most confined: their most precious secret of all.

When Oliver first met Laylee, her greatest secret was impossible to decipher. The problem was, Laylee was electric with secrets—her wants and fears were all so equally tangled in secrecy that Oliver had not been able to properly navigate her mind. And though he caught a glimpse of something very wrong when she abruptly collapsed in her yard, it wasn’t until she looked him deeply and directly in the eye at the train station that Oliver finally saw her with clarity. Something had changed in Laylee, you see, because she now prized one secret—one fear—above all else, and Oliver was so struck by her unwitting confession he’d run to Alice with the news at once.

They’d shared the information with Benyamin straightaway—as they’d not found a single good reason why this awful news should be kept a secret—and Benyamin, who’d suspected as much after seeing Laylee’s graying eyes, quickly shared his own theories. This was what they were discussing when Laylee happened upon them in the train station: The three of them were hatching a plan to help her.




Laylee, meanwhile, had been to war and back, watching the world whirl past her window as she grasped desperately for the anger that kept her safe from difficult and necessary conversations. But this time, the anger would not come. She’d once found protection behind plaster masks of indifference, but she now felt too much and too weak to carry the extra armor. A violent impotence had finally crushed her spirit, and she felt the strength of her resolve dissolve all at once inside her.

Secretly, she was grateful.

The truth was, there was a part of Laylee that was relieved to be found out—to be finally forced to speak of her suffering. She didn’t want to die alone, and now perhaps she wouldn’t have to.

So she finally turned to face Oliver.

She’d made up her mind to speak as firmly as possible, to emote nothing, and to betray none of the weakness she felt, but he was so visibly shaken—nervous, even—as he looked up to meet her eyes, that Laylee faltered. She’d not expected such sincerity in his gentle, careful gestures, and despite her best efforts to be unmoved, she could not calm her heart. She formed a word and it cracked on her lips. Another, and the sounds fractured into silence. Once more, and her voice feathered into nonsense.

Oliver moved as if to say something, but Laylee shook her head, determined to get the words out on her own.

Finally, her eyes filling fast with tears, she tried to smile.

“I’ll be dead by the end of the week,” she said. “How on earth did you know?”





It takes exactly ninety minutes by train to get from Laylee’s drafty castle to the center of town, and in that time, two separate and important conversations took place in two glass coaches between two sets of persons, hundreds of insects, and one spare skeleton. You already know a bit about one of these conversations; as to the other, I will tell you only this:

Alice, who was not afraid of confrontation, took full advantage of her private time with Benyamin to tell him exactly how she felt about all his staring at her. She made it abundantly clear that she had no interest in being gawked at, and if he had any problems with her, he should sort them out this minute, on account of she wasn’t going anywhere and, furthermore, would not apologize for who she was or what she looked like. And then she crossed her arms and looked away, determined to never smile at him again.