The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1)(31)

It took a moment to understand what I was seeing. The photo was of us.

Me and Finch, lying side by side in Courtney’s room—me on the bed, him on the floor. Judging by the angle and the thin, spangled light, it had been taken early that morning by someone standing at our feet. We were both asleep, Ellery’s arms thrown loosely over his head and mine pillowed beneath my cheek.

My blood turned to ice water. Someone had been in that room with us, watching while we slept.

Finch got his voice back first. “Sir, we have no idea how that…”

“I don’t think so. What is this shit? You have your friend sell me this book, then you come back to buy it? Smells like day-old fish to me.” Perks picked it up roughly. “Is this even a real Proserpine?”

“Please,” I said, my voice unnatural in my ears. “I’ve never seen that photo in my life, I swear, but please just sell us the book.”

Perks shook his head, spastically. “This is too fuckin’ weird. Either you and the seller are in cahoots, or something else is going on, but either way you can march yourselves right outta my place.”

“Look, we want to give you money.” Finch pulled out his wallet, opened it. “What you told me on the phone, plus an extra grand on top. I’ve got a blank check, we’ll wait while you cash it.”

The old bookseller’s face flushed a dangerous red. “I never should’ve bought that book in the first place, not from that shady kid. I was glad to be getting rid of it so quick, but now I don’t care. You know the copy I saw, that first time?” He thrust a finger in my face. “Torched. And my buddy’s car along with it. Maybe by people like you.”

“But sir,” Finch said. “We’re trying to buy it.”

“I’d rather take it as a loss.” Perks shoved the Polaroid at Finch and jammed the book into its bag. “Get out, and don’t even think about trying to come back to steal this. It’ll be out of my shop in an hour. Someone else can deal with the cursed thing.”

“You think it’s cursed?” I said, and Perks looked at me with something close to pity.

“You seem like a nice girl,” he said, shaking his head. “Why do nice girls hang around with scummy boys like this? I’ll never understand it.”

He wasn’t that tall, and for one mad moment I thought of pushing him aside and taking the book by force. But he ushered us out onto his stoop before I got up the nerve.

“Dammit,” Finch said when the door had slammed behind us. “Why didn’t I grab it?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Someone was in the room with us last night.

“Who the hell took this photo?” Finch stared at the crumpled Polaroid in his hand.

“No chance it was David, right?” Someone stood over us while we slept.

“Guy can barely put on pants. He’s not up to planning this level of mindfuckery.”

We were walking fast down the street, both of us looking every which way and not trying to hide it.

“They broke in, took our photo, put it into the book, then sold it to this guy … so he could sell it to us. Why? Why not just…”

“Just face you?” Finch’s hair seemed to have gained another inch in the last few minutes. Clearly it expanded with stress.

“Take me. Like they did my mom. Why not just take me?”

“Maybe…” He put his palms together like Sherlock, breathed out loudly. “Maybe it’s a fairy-tale thing.”

“How so?”

“Maybe they can’t touch you. Because you’re Althea’s granddaughter!” He was getting excited. “Maybe, like, since her blood runs in your veins…”

“I’m not a fan theory, Finch! And they took Ella. They touched Ella. She’s more Althea’s than I am.”

I turned my head sharply. I couldn’t look at him anymore. The day was overbright, thrumming with menace. I blinked at a girl across the street, wearing a long peasant skirt and walking a pot-bellied pig on a braided leash. On the other side, moving toward us, a man in a baseball cap carried a bouquet of white roses. As he got closer, I could see how they glistened with fake raindrops. An old woman watched us through the second-floor window of the nearest building, her underbite telling us to get off her lawn. The flower man had a camera in one hand. The girl looked at me as she unhitched her pig from its lead. The man lifted the camera to his eye.

They were the Hinterland. They were all, all the Hinterland.

A migraine exploded like a bottle rocket inside my skull. My knees went woozy and my teeth and knuckles ached. I smelled the dusty perfume of the book again and my vision went green, before a black crow’s wing obscured my sight.





13


It scared me, sometimes, how little I could remember. When I looked back over my life, it melted together into one long, soft-focus shot of rain through the windshield. Focus my eyes one way, I saw drops on glass. Focus them another, and I saw the wet highway stretching out ahead. The things that stuck with me were the in-between places, not the places we landed—highways, dirt roads, truck stops. Motels with puddle-warm swimming pools clogged with leaves. An orchard we stopped at once on our way to Indianapolis, to pick apples that tasted like bananas and candy and flowers.