The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1)(15)

He liked saying names, I noticed. First or last or both at once. Maybe in real life it was meant to be friendly, but names were dangerous in a fairy tale. I’d wondered before if that was why Althea had changed hers to something so outlandish. A Potemkin front so good nobody would want to look behind it.

I blinked away the fairy cobwebs. This wasn’t a book, this was life. I had to tighten my shit up. The elevator doors shushed shut, sealing us inside a tiny, opulent room. There was a low Louis Quinze–looking bench against the wall and a chandelier hanging over our heads. A chandelier. In an elevator. Finch caught me looking at it and laughed before I could.

“My stepmom’s a big believer in ‘you can never be too loaded or too thin or too covered in ugly diamonds.’ That’s a saying, right? If it wasn’t before, then she made it up.” He seemed nervous again. I saw it even through my self-pity and fear, and it made me feel the tiniest bit better about being there.

As did the fact that he didn’t immediately demand to know why I was darkening his vintage elevator door. I’d shown up unannounced enough times in my life—with my mom, her face plastered with a smile, our suitcases tucked benignly behind our legs—to know what it looked like when someone wishes you hadn’t come. Ellery Finch definitely didn’t wish I hadn’t come.

Harold’s place was the nicest I’d ever seen till that point, but Ellery’s was something else entirely. It was like a country manor straight out of a thick English book about pheasant season and eligibility. You almost expected to see Mr. Darcy skulking around a corner looking pissed.

“Nobody’s home but our housekeeper,” Finch said. “My stepmom’s at soul bikes or whatever, and my dad’s pretty much always out. It’s not easy running a sweatshop empire all by yourself, you know?”

I startled at this, but he didn’t even look around when he said it. I followed him across the carpet, studded with pieces of tasteful furniture that would’ve made Harold weep with envy. Finch must’ve been used to showing people around, because he took me straight to the view. It was disorienting to look out the high windows and see not the sweep of a rainy moor, but early evening advancing on Central Park. It made me forget the ugly thing he’d just said.

Finch let me look for a minute, then smiled. The nervous was back. “So. You’re here.”

“I’m here.”

“To … see me. On purpose.”

Oh, god. He was echoing the words he’d said when he asked me out. “No! No, I just…”

“I’m kidding. Sorry, I know I’m bad at it, but I just can’t stop.”

He waited attentively for me to speak, and suddenly I wanted to slow everything down. I had my hand on my phone, ringer turned up, but Harold’s violated apartment felt very far away. Until Ella called back, I had nowhere to go. And the sooner I got what I wanted from Finch, the sooner I’d go right back to being alone. “Can I have a glass of water?” I blurted.

His eyes registered curiosity before melting into that easygoing Finch expression. The one he wore like armor. “Of course. Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” I said, even if it wasn’t quite true. “I’m starving.”

Finch led me into the kitchen. His housekeeper, Anna, looked like a retired Bond girl and sounded like an unretired Bond villain. She was about sixty, and clucked around Finch while making us an endless stream of tiny sugar-powdered pancakes served with tart red jam. We didn’t talk much, and the friendly sounds of sizzling and the funny conversation she kept up with the batter under her breath made it so it didn’t feel weird. When our hands were good and sticky with jam, she brought little finger bowls to the table, which seemed a bit much for an after-school snack. By seven p.m. she had us de-jammed and the kitchen spotless. She kissed Finch’s forehead, grabbed her big Mary Poppins bag, and let herself out.

The apartment yawned around us, humming with appliances and wealth.

“So,” I said. “You’re probably wondering why I came over.”

“Actually, I’m wondering more about the name you gave my doorman. Proserpine.”

“Yeah, well. I’m hoping you can help me with something.”

My voice wobbled and Finch noticed it, going focused and still.

“I really need to read my grandmother’s book, and I’m hoping you have a copy.”

He squinted, looking slightly let down. “Wait. You’ve never read it?”

“Nope. I’ve tried. It’s hard to find.”

“No kidding it’s hard to find. I only got a copy because of … because of some family shit that went down. It was, like, the one thing I asked my dad for that Chanukah. I think he flew an intern to Greece to get it.”

Relief made my eyes sting. “So you’ve got a copy?”

“Had a copy. It was stolen.”

All those tiny pancakes turned to acid in my gut. “What? Like, out of your house?”

“No. Out of my hands. I have this friend who owns a rare book shop, and he’s never seen an actual copy of Hinterland. I’m not an idiot, I know this is an expensive book, so I take a cab to get there instead of the subway.”

Also, you’re too rich to take the subway, I think but don’t say.

“I’ve got the book all tucked away in this acid-free plastic sleeve, and once I’m in the shop, I don’t even let my friend alone with the book—he’s a nice old guy, I met him when I went through my first editions phase, but some things you don’t let out of your sight. So he’s wearing cot ton gloves, turning the pages like we’re in an Indiana Jones movie and they might release a demon or something, freaking out in that quiet way collectors do.