The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1)(26)

But I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe it wasn’t the first glimpse. All my life I thought we’d been stalked by bad luck, in the form of weather and disasters and acts of God and strange human viciousness. Maybe all this time, we were being stalked by the Hinterland.

“What she did to that man,” I asked. “Does she do it in the story?”

He breathed through his open mouth a few times and fell back against the bench. “It’s not how I pictured it, but yeah. It keeps her young. Or alive, maybe. It’s also her revenge.”

“On the people who killed her.”

“And worse. Yeah.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I should call my dad. Make sure he’s at home, or talk him into staying away if he isn’t.” But he didn’t make a move toward his phone.

“Finch,” I said. “Do you think…”

“Katherine wouldn’t hurt your mom.” His eyes flicked to mine. “She doesn’t target women. What we need is a place to stay, get some sleep. Then we figure out what’s next.”

His expression mirrored what I felt—the black-hole suck of exhaustion that strikes after a trauma. When everything has changed and your messed-up brain is flying around the stars—then your body and all its needs imposes itself, cutting you off from madness.

My situation hit me hard. Homeless. Without my mom. Being stalked, by something I couldn’t see the breadth of or understand. I was wrung out, and without Finch I’d be totally alone. “Thank you” was too small, “I’m sorry” so inadequate it made me cringe.

“Okay,” I said. “Lead the way.”





11


Few problems were unsolvable when you had boatloads of cash and a lifetime’s worth of rich friends. Finch made some calls, and an hour after leaving the park we were ringing the bell at a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights. The boy who answered had lank indie-rocker hair that fell to his chin. I could tell he was high even before I smelled the hot-box stink surrounding him.

“Ellery Finch!” he said, but with way more syllables.

“Hey, David.” Finch ducked his head, glanced at me. I’m not a smile-at-strangers type by nature, but life on the road had driven home the importance of being a gracious houseguest.

“Nice to meet you, David. I’m Alice. Thanks for putting us up.”

He grinned at me for a while, then nodded. I was pretty sure he’d meant to say something, but forgot he hadn’t.

David’s family had the whole building to themselves. It was a converted church, exposed brick and salvaged stained-glass windows everywhere you looked. I swore I could smell candle wax and old incense breathing out of the walls.

“Glad you could take us in, D,” said Finch. “Your parents are in Europe?”

“France, man. My little sister’s getting in trouble in boarding school over there. She’s like a crime kingpin in a uniform, man.” We’d interrupted him in the middle of eating a plate of greasy microwave nachos. I found it kind of endearing, even though the cheese was probably small-batch Normandy cheddar. He offered me a bite, and I turned him down.

“The guestroom is stripped. No sheets. You and your girlfriend can have Courtney’s room. Second door on the right, but you have to not mind Doctor Who and shit.”

Finch didn’t correct him on the girlfriend thing, just nodded. “Cool, man. Thanks a lot. We really appreciate it.”

David made a motion like he was balling up the thanks and jump-shotting it into a trash can. “Glad to see you, glad you could come. Want a nacho?”

We declined again. The two of them shot the shit for a while, discussing people they’d gone to junior high with, before David’s parents moved him to Brooklyn. I kept my eyes on the corners where shadows gathered, on the windows where the shades weren’t drawn. Waiting to see a girl with a birdcage, a boy in a cap. My hand was loosely cupped around my phone, set to vibrate. Every minute that passed without word from Ella made the chasm beneath my feet yawn wider.

I could sense Finch’s fatigue, and could barely hide my own. As soon as it was even a little bit polite, he did a yawn and stretch. “Cool if we turn in? We have to get out of here really early tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah? You leaving town?”

Finch flicked his eyes my way. “Not … uh, maybe. We’ll see.”

“Heading upstate, probably,” I said impulsively, then flushed. It was an idea from an alternate world, one in which my mom was still at Harold’s, and Finch and I were really together.

“Ahh, for the leaves and shit! Apple picking, man. Hayrides. Pumpkin carving. Scarecrows. Wax vampire teeth, dude!”

Before he could free-associate his way toward seasonal lattes and fisherman sweaters, Finch stood up. They did a chest bump thing, I gave David a half-hug, and we showed ourselves upstairs.

I checked out the darkened master bedroom as we passed. A wide window overlooked the East River, pinpricks of lighted windows winking at me from across the water. A fug of weed and socks and strawberry room spray announced which room was David’s, but his sister’s smelled pleasant and unpersonalized, like an expensive hotel. When Finch fumbled on the light, we gaped at the walls, then looked at each other and cracked up.

Before she was a boarding-school thug, Courtney was a fangirl. Her room was papered with magazine photos, Harry Potter posters, photos of her and her friends hanging out in diner booths. Broadway ticket stubs marched around the sides of the mirror attached to her spindly antique vanity, and a matching bookcase was filled half with colorful paperbacks, half with DVD boxed sets. Firefly sat next to Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. Supernatural shared a shelf with Akata Witch. I scanned the case for Tales from the Hinterland, but it wasn’t there.