The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1)(56)

The line of light grew so viciously bright I wondered if the sun was hiding in that hill, preparing to do battle with the moon. But it faded as it widened, until I could just look at it through my fingers.

The broken hill looked violated, a wrenched-open chest cavity. Black shapes appeared in the space where it split, and became people.

Or something like people.

They moved furtively at first, stepping onto the grass like it might set off an alarm. Then one of them—a beautiful girl wearing pants and a coat that made her look like an aviatrix—somersaulted across the grass. The people with her, a mix of men and women a little younger than my mother, laughed and joined in. They didn’t seem like figures you’d imagine crawling out of a hillside. Most looked like they’d gotten dressed from a Salvation Army donation box.

The aviatrix seemed to be the ringleader. She kept raising her head to sniff the air. There was something wrong with her eyes. The rest crept close to her, drawn in like down-and-outers gathered around a trash can fire.

A girl wearing an empire-waist dress over a hugely pregnant stomach threw a blanket over the grass. Everyone sat down but the aviatrix and a man dressed like Mr. Rochester. They circled each other, bowed, and brought their hands to their waists.

I was watching the start of a swordfight, I realized. Or, no—a knife fight. Their blades were short and blunt, made of a glittering metal. They moved lazily, feinting and jabbing, the rest of their party laughing and applauding impressive dodges.

If I look away, something terrible will happen.

The thought struck me out of nowhere and slid away. I kept watching, but something terrible happened anyway. While the people on the ground drank and talked and clapped, the aviatrix charged forward with a sudden vicious leap, stabbing the man in the neck. Before he could fall, she hopped back and sliced across his chest twice, marking a dark X on his shirtfront.

She stood over him, chin up and eyes down. The clapping began in earnest as the man moved weakly on the ground. Dying then dead.

Finch. The tidal horror of what I’d seen done to him came crashing back in, threatening to suck me under. The moan that rose out of me was for him.

The aviatrix looked up from cleaning her blade.

“Who’s that?” she said, standing.

How had I thought her beautiful, a minute ago? Her eyes were pupil-less and perfectly round, and when she licked her lips her tongue looked sick.

“Who are you?” she asked again. “Come out where I can see you.”

I stepped out from the bushes. “I’m nobody. I’m a visitor.”

“From what side?”

“I … from Earth.”

“Come closer,” the aviatrix said, “so we can take a look at you.”

Closer wasn’t good. Closer meant I could see her face more clearly. The flat shine of her eyes and the sticky red of her mouth. The man on the ground looked less human up close.

“My, what big eyes you have,” the woman said, grinning.

I blinked. Was she making a joke?

“I’m looking for the Hazel Wood.” I devoutly ignored the corpse on the ground. “Do you know which way I should go?” If I pretended everything was normal, maybe it would be. Classic monster-under-the-bed logic.

“You’ve made it as far as the Halfway Wood. You’ll find your way from here. Or perhaps you won’t.”

Her voice was soothing. But not so soothing that I felt good about the way her followers were surrounding me. The pregnant woman closed the circle, rubbing her stomach like she’d just eaten something big.

“I’m leaving now,” I said.

“Leaving? Where would you go?” asked a man with slicked blond hair, wearing a workman’s coat.

“I’m … my name is Alice Proserpine.” Hansa knew who I was—maybe they would, too. Maybe being Althea’s granddaughter meant something here.

They didn’t seem to hear me. Their faces were less human every second. They looked like wild animals walking on hind legs.

A sudden pain in my thigh made me gasp. I jammed my hand into my pocket and pulled out the thing stabbing at my skin.

It was the bone. As I gaped at it, it grew to the size of a sword, throbbing whitely in the moonlight.

Maybe it was a sword—was I supposed to fight with it? I gripped the thing clumsily, praying that wasn’t what this tale needed me to do.

Then the bone began to sing.

My love he wooed me

My love he slew me

My love he buried my bones

His love he married

His love I buried

My love now wanders alone

Its voice was distinctly female, filled with such terrible sweetness I thought my heart would crack. I heard a mournful sound from far overhead, and looked up to see a wave of grief pass over the face of the moon.

The bone sang its song again, louder, and the circle of creatures around me fell back. The pregnant one scampered into the trees on all fours, the rest following behind. The aviatrix looked at me with hatred in her eyes, falling to her knees when the bone sang its song a third time.

Everyone had retreated into the woods but the aviatrix, collapsed at my feet. When the song faded, her eyes ticked to mine, brightening. Her hand went to her knife.

The bone twitched restlessly in my hand; its job wasn’t done. I perched on the brink for an endless moment, then lifted it over my head. The woods shifted around me; the moon watched from her nest of clouds. I saw myself as she did, a distant girl who was a stranger. That girl knew how to fight her way out of a fairy tale. That girl brought the bone down into the aviatrix’s chest.