Holly Black - The Darkest Part of the Forest

But she was taller and stronger and determined to handle things on her own—determined to show her brother that she didn’t need him, determined to show herself she still could be a knight. She knew the trick to hunting the Folk was to keep your wits about you, to remember they were tricksy, to remember that the grass under your feet might move sideways, that you might be led in a circle. Hazel had turned her socks inside out before she set off, and her pockets were full of oatmeal, just as her grandmother had shown her and Ben when they were little kids. She was ready. She had to go back out there. She had to find the monsters. She had to fight the monsters, all of them, until she got to the monster at the heart of the forest and ended the corruption forever so that everyone could be safe always.

Sometimes, if she thought too much about that, her heart would race and panic would set in. Her quest was impossible, and she didn’t know how much time she had left.

Panic was what she had to guard against, because it was easy to panic whenever she remembered she’d pledged seven years of her life to the faeries. And after panic came despair—and once despair set in, it was harder and harder to shake it off again. The trick was not to let herself think about it too much. Anything that stopped her from thinking would do. Anything that kept her from pressing her hand against her chest to feel the thudding of her own heart and know that each beat was another moment lost.

It took her three long days to find the missing girl, a tall and skinny teenager named Natalie. When Hazel did find her, the girl was still alive but unconscious, hanging from the branches of a thorn tree. A thin drizzle of her blood dripped from one of her arms into a wooden bowl. Two short faerie men with long reddened noses and pale eyes busied themselves adjusting the ropes, making the girl spin, making the blood drip faster.

Hazel had never found a tourist alive before.

She knew what the creatures with the girl were from stories, although she’d never seen one. They were redcaps, terrifying monsters who delighted in butchery and dyed their garments in blood.

For a moment Hazel looked at them and wondered what the hell she was doing. She’d gotten used to living in the city. She’d gotten used to a world without monsters. She’d gotten soft and scared. The pommel of the black-painted sword wobbled in her sweaty hands.

I am a knight. I am a knight. I am a knight. She repeated the words, lips moving soundlessly over them, but she wasn’t sure that she entirely knew what they meant anymore. What she did know was that if she didn’t get herself together, a girl was going to die.

Hazel burst from the brush, slashing downward. The first redcap cried out and then slumped over, entirely silent. Her stomach lurched, but she whirled on the second, ready to counter his attack, ready to slice him in half. She might have won, too. She was strong and fast, holding a glorious golden sword, and she’d taken the two redcaps by surprise. But there was a third she hadn’t seen, and he knocked her to the ground with a single sharp blow.

They cut Natalie’s throat. She had such little blood left anyway, they said, and the new one was much fresher. A rope went around Hazel’s ankles, and they were preparing to haul her up like the girl. She felt dizzy and sick and more scared than she’d ever felt in her life. She wanted to call for Ben, but there was no Ben to call for. She had only herself, and she’d failed. She hadn’t saved anyone.

She hung upside down from the tree for hours, blood rushing to her head, before the redcaps departed for more firewood. Steeling herself, she swung over to where Natalie hung. The horror of the dead flesh under her hands was awful, but she climbed the girl’s body until she could pull herself up onto a branch and undo the rope at her ankles. Tears wetted her cheeks, although she didn’t remember crying.

She found her sword, stacked with an assortment of other stolen things, and went home, shaking so hard she was afraid she was going to shake apart.

That night, she’d discovered that thirteen-year-old ferocity was no match for ancient monsters, not alone. She had to admit that her knighthood was lost, along with Ben’s music. When she finally made it home, she stood outside Ben’s door for a long time, palm pressed against the painted wood. But she didn’t knock.

Hazel had told him that she was sorry, that she had never meant for Kerem to kiss her, had never wanted it, had told him a thousand times. But in her heart of hearts she knew that wasn’t entirely true. She’d flirted with Kerem at the apartment, because he was a cute guy and Ben had everything. She hadn’t wanted the kiss when it happened, but she had thought about it before. And she’d let it happen, when maybe if she hadn’t, Ben wouldn’t have lost his music. Maybe he wouldn’t have given up their quest, either. Maybe Natalie would still be alive.

She’d told Ben that the kiss meant nothing. And she wanted it to mean nothing.

She wanted to prove it meant nothing.

But no matter how many other boys she kissed, she couldn’t bring Ben’s music back.

CHAPTER 8

The night the prince went missing from his coffin, Mom made spaghetti with jarred sauce for dinner, along with shake cheese from the green can, and frozen peas. It was a typical deadline dinner, so familiar that Hazel craved it when she was sick the way other kids craved chicken soup. Dad was already gone and was going to stay in New York through the week for meetings. Mom tried to get them to talk about their day, but Ben and Hazel just stared at their food and answered stiltedly, too distracted by everything that had happened to make much of an effort at conversation. According to their mother, the mayor had already reached out to a local sculptor—a friend of hers—to inquire whether it might be possible to create a fake version of the prince, so his absence wouldn’t affect tourism. The official story was that vandals had stolen him.

“When I was a girl, we all adored him,” Mom said. “I remember there was this one—oh, you know her, Leonie’s mom—anyway, she went out to that casket every Saturday with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex it to keep the glass shiny. That’s how obsessed she was.”

Ben rolled his eyes.

Mom looked pleased with the reminiscence. “And Diana Collins—Diana Rojas now—tried to wake him up by reenacting that Whitesnake video, rolling around on his casket like it was the hood of a Trans Am, wearing only a string bikini and baby oil. Ah, the eighties, right?” Absently, she rose and crossed the room to pull out an old, beat-up sketchbook from the bottom-most bookshelf. “You want to see something?”

“Sure,” Hazel said, a little confused. The image of Megan’s mother and baby oil was stuck in her head.

Mom flipped through the pages, only slightly yellowed by time. There, rendered in No. 2 pencil, in BIC pen, in colored markers, was the prince, asleep. The drawings were okay, not great, and it took Hazel a moment to realize what she was looking at.

“You drew these,” she said, her voice coming out slightly accusatory.

Mom laughed. “Oh, I sure did. I used to go out to the woods after school, pretending that I was going to sketch trees and whatnot, but I always wound up drawing him. I did a big painting of him, too, in oils. It was one of the pieces that got me into college.”

“What happened to it?” Hazel asked.

Mom shrugged. “Someone bought it off me for a couple of bucks when I was living in Philly. Hung it up in a coffeehouse for a while, but I don’t know where it is now. Maybe I’ll paint another, since he’s gone. I’d hate to forget him.”