The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1)(25)

“Finch,” I said quietly, “we’re going. Now.” He looked at my face and nodded, dug out a few bills to throw on the table. The boy in the cap was getting his coffee refilled when we slid from the booth and back out onto Seventy-Ninth Street.

“I think there’s a guy in there who’s following me,” I said, giving up on the idea of not sounding insane. We’d turned a sharp corner and were careening down the street, dodging clumps of tourists. For once I was glad they were there, to offer cover.

“What’s he look like?”

“College age, but kinda old-timey. Like a … I don’t know. A good-looking cabbie during Prohibition.”

“Good-looking?”

His stupid question hung in the air. I was looking back over my shoulder so often, it took me a minute to realize we were weaving toward his place. Where I would, what? Spend the night? I felt a pang of self-loathing. Freeloading again, off a boy I barely knew. A boy whose eyes were the alert, shiny color of sunlight through Coke, with a kinetic energy that made him seem like he never slept.

By the time we reached his block I was seriously considering heading to Lana’s. Or Salty Dog—I had a key. I could lie across two tables to sleep, sneak out before it opened the next morning.

“Look, Finch. You don’t have to take me back to your—”

“Stop.” His voice was so harsh that I did. But he wasn’t looking at me. He grabbed the back of my jacket in his fist and pulled me toward the low wall surrounding Central Park, across and a couple of doors down from his place.

“Get down,” he hissed. He was staring hard at a figure standing just beyond the spill of light beneath his awning.

At first I just saw a girl in black—black dress, black boots, a brief stretch of pale leg between them. My eyes adjusted, and I started picking out details. Her hair was a sweep of piled-up dark, with a white comic-book stripe blazing down the center. Her eyes were so light I could actually see them from where we crouched—they cast a glow. They ticked back and forth, watching the sidewalk. My skin crawled when I considered the possibility of them landing on me. When she shifted a bit in the shadows, I saw the messy scar that ran down her right temple and cupped her chin like a palm.

“Over the wall,” Finch said in a rough whisper, tugging me backward toward the park. We crouched in the shadows of a juniper bush. The air was resinous on my tongue.

“Do you see that girl?” Finch asked. His eyes were glittery and weird. “That’s Twice-Killed Katherine.”

It took me a minute to place his words. It was the title of one of the stories in Tales from the Hinterland. “You mean she looks like her?”

“Is her. That girl is Twice-Killed Katherine.” He looked at me with a face like a subway preacher, lit and fierce.

“What, like you’ve seen her before? This is New York. She looks like a million fashiony girls.”

“You’re just saying that because you haven’t read it. Look at her scar. And her hair. And—oh, my god. Do you see what she’s holding?”

I squinted at the thing she held to her chest but couldn’t make it out.

“It’s a birdcage. It’s what Twice-Killed Katherine carries. This is it,” he hissed. “This is the Hinterland!”

I started to respond, but the girl did something so strange and terrifying it shut both of us up for a long time.

A man in a heavy gray overcoat was walking down the street toward her, smoking a cigarette and talking into his cell phone. As he passed her, he did a subtle double-take, maybe noticing her scarred face. Before he could get too far, she opened the birdcage.

The thing that came out of it was canary-shaped, but it wasn’t a canary. It was small and darting and looked like it had been hole-punched out of shadow. It unfurled its wings wider and wider, till it was the size of a hawk.

It went for the man. As Finch and I gripped hands and knelt like cowards in the park, the thing latched onto his neck. He went down noiselessly, and the creature dropped heavily onto his chest. It stretched its wings so we couldn’t see exactly what it was doing. I looked back at the girl. Swallowed a scream, squeezed Finch’s hand harder.

Her black-and-white hair shivered with red. Her skin turned from pale to peach, her lips curled, even her scar plumped up into unmarked skin. But the expression on her face was worse than anything. It was a kind of … selfish ecstasy.

The bird lifted off the man, folded itself back into a tiny wedge of nightmare, and winged toward its cage. The girl clasped the door shut and backed deeper into the shadows between streetlights.

“Is he dead?” I whispered. My voice was a skeleton leaf.

The man on the ground rose shakily to his feet. He was swimming in his coat and had the air of a person who had forgotten something. His hair was ash white. He staggered over the sidewalk like a zombie.

“Run,” said Finch, and we did. We pounded through the park, pools of lamplight strobing over us and dead leaves clutching at our ankles. The air smelled silvery, with a hint of mulch, and the cold wind made my eyes stream. Sweat had pooled on my back by the time we dropped onto a bench.

“That was … that was not possible,” I said hoarsely.

Finch’s pupils were blasted wide. He looked strung out. “That was the Hinterland. Fuck.”

I couldn’t respond. It was my first true glimpse of the Hinterland—my first solid proof that there was something terribly real behind Althea’s messed-up tales. I should’ve been reeling.