Holly Black - The Darkest Part of the Forest

He liked her. He liked her—or he had liked her daytime self. He liked her and she loved him. She loved him so much that it already hurt. It already felt like he’d broken her heart.

Anyone who offers up their heart on a silver platter deserves what they get.

Jack Gordon was a good boy, going to a good school far away from here. Going to have his normal human life before he started his other, grander, immortal one.

“Hazel,” he said, jogging up to her after last period. They hadn’t spoken for three days, and she didn’t want him to know how glad she was to hear his voice. He looked different from the way he had before the defeat of the Alderking—his ears a bit more pointy, his face a bit thinner, his hair full of greenish shadows—but his smile was that same old smile, the one that twisted up her insides, the one that had never belonged to Carter, the one that was Jack’s and Jack’s alone. “Hey, wait up. I want to talk to you. I was wondering if you might like—”

Just talking made her want to smile. A jolt of happiness washed over her so intense that it was almost pain.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Hazel blurted out.

“Do what?” He looked puzzled.

She kept on going, not sure what to say next, but determined. “I’m not okay. As a person. I guess I am just starting to realize how not okay I am, you know? I keep remembering things I’ve done—and stuff that happened to me—and it all adds up to the fact that I am not someone that any normal person should have a relationship with.”

“Good thing I’m not exactly normal,” Jack said.

“I’m going to mess this up,” she told him. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I don’t usually do dates, no less second dates. I’m kind of a coward about love,” she continued. “I said I wished boys would show me some secret side of themselves, but you did and now all I want to do is run away.”

He reached out a hand and she took it, threading her fingers through his. She sucked in a breath, looking down at their twined fingers.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked.

“You,” she said. “Me.”

He nodded, as though that made perfect sense. Then, finally, he said. “I don’t want anyone normal. I don’t want anyone safe. I want you. I have loved you from almost the first moment I saw you, wild and fierce and brave, running through the woods, your lips stained purple from blackberry juice. I figured that just made me like everyone else loving you, but that didn’t keep me from doing it.”

A flush warmed her cheeks. “What about Amanda? You say you loved me from when you first saw me, but I thought she was the one you loved.”

Jack grinned, but then the smile left his face. “I’m a changeling, not quite one thing and not quite another, not fitting in anywhere. Amanda fits this world. I thought if she liked me, if she could like me, then it would mean something about where I fit. But she was afraid of me. People are, sometimes.”

“I’m not,” Hazel said, indignant. “I’m not afraid of that .”

“I know,” Jack said. “And I’m not afraid of your trying to figure out what it means to be your whole self, night and day together. I’m not afraid of things getting messy or messed up, because it’s us. There don’t have to be first dates and second dates. We’re not normal. We can do this any way you want. A relationship can be whatever you want it to be. We get to make this part up. We get to tell our own story.”

“How do we start?” Hazel said.

He looked down at her, lashes dusting his cheek when he blinked. “Any way you like. We could hang out after school. We could write each other long letters. You could send me on some kind of quest to win your favor.”

“Oh no,” she said, smiling at last, because he was her friend Jack, who had ridiculous cheekbones and ridiculous ideas. “If anyone is going on a quest, it’s going to be me.”

Jack grinned. “Well fine, then. I could send you out to win my favor. Possibly on a quest involving bringing a large mug of coffee and a doughnut. Or the wholesale slaughter of all my enemies. I haven’t decided which.”

“That doesn’t scare me. Not even a little. You know what else I’m not scared of?”

He shook his head.

“Come here,” she said, leaning back against the wall and pulling him with her, pressing her lips to his. He made a soft sound of surprise and then a sound that wasn’t surprise at all.

When she opened her locker to toss in her books before she headed for home, a walnut rolled out, bouncing twice on the floor. A walnut tied in silver string. She bent down to open it and found a scroll inside, made of thin and waxy paper. When she unrolled that, she found a message in her brother’s handwriting: FULL MOON IS IN THREE DAYS TIME. COME TO THE REVEL. NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO RHYME.

She smiled as her fist closed over the words.

EPILOGUE

Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, is a glass coffin. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps an elf with a golden circlet on his head and ears as pointed as knives.

The townsfolk know there was once a different boy resting there. One with horns and brown curls, one whom they adored and whom they have begun to forget. What matters is that they have a new faerie, one who won’t wake up during the long summers when girls and boys stretch out the full length of the coffin, staring down through the panes and fogging them up with their breath. Who won’t wake when tourists come and gape or debunkers insist he isn’t real, but want to take photographs with him anyway. Who won’t open his poison green eyes on autumn weekends while girls dance right on top of him, lifting bottles high over their heads, as if they’re saluting the whole haunted forest.

And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill. There, a pale boy plays a fiddle with newly mended fingers while his sister dances with his best friend. There, a monster whirls about, branches waving in time with the music. There, a prince of the Folk takes up the mantle of king and embraces a changeling like a brother; with a human boy by his side, he names a girl his champion.