Joel’s mouth fell open. As his grip loosened on the door, Emeline grabbed the handle and slammed it shut. He withdrew his fingers just in time.
“Imbécile,” muttered the cabbie, putting on his blinker and pulling into the street. In the side-view mirror, Emeline glanced from Joel to the Nymph’s marquee boasting her name in bold black letters, watching it until it disappeared completely and all that was left was the beat of her heart, thudding in time with the wipers.
IT WAS FULL DARKwhen Emeline arrived back in Edgewood. The change was disorienting at first, stepping out of the stale air of her cramped apartment and into the crisp, cool breeze on Pa’s front lawn. She’d been thinking of Hawthorne when she put on the ring and therefore expected to find herself in the King’s City. But maybe the ring could only take you placesbeyondthe woods.
She opened the door to Pa’s house, intending to cut through it.
Inside, a fire crackled in the woodstove, warming the room. Pa stood at the kitchen window in blue flannel pajamas and slippers. Maisie stood beside him. The two of them stared eerily towards the dark forest, mugs of cocoa cupped in their hands.
“Emeline,” said Maisie, her voice hushed. “Come and see.”
She stepped up next to them, looking where they did.
The sight set her heart to pounding.
Her tree.
The one Pa planted on the day she was born.
Illuminated by the house lights, she saw its knotted bark and twisting branches. Bloodred berries grew in clusters beneath its dark green leaves. It was rooted in place at the edge of the woods, right where it had always been.
“Your hawthorn,” said Pa.
Her stomach clenched like a fist.
That can’t be.
But there it was: her hawthorn.
The curse turns everything back to its true form.
Emeline didn’t realize she was moving, running, tearing out of the house and down towards the woods, until she stepped across the tree line, avoiding the hawthorn like a horrifying truth she didn’t want to face.
The second she stepped inside the forest, she felt the wrongness of it. The trees near the edge, which had always been healthy and strong, were rotting. The moonlight coming through the canopy was soupy and gray.
It no longer smelled like a forest; it smelled like decay.
The Stain had spread all the way here, to the tree line. If it spread this far …
Emeline ran. She ran until her lungs burned and her breath was loud and ragged in her ears, and then she kept running.
Emeline,the blighted trees rattled, reaching for her.You came back …
Bog guarded the closest entry point into the city, so she went to it first. But when she arrived at its swamp, the stagnant water remained still.
“Bog!”
No muddy head rose up from its depths.
“Bog!”
Only the heavy silence of the Stain answered her.
If Bog had succumbed to the curse, was the entry point gone? Emeline searched for the boardwalk normally hidden beneath the water. But if it was there, it was entirely submerged. And without the entry point, it was a three-day walk to the gate.
From behind her, somethingcrackedsoftly. Like a branch breaking beneath a footstep.
Emeline’s spine straightened. A cold sweat broke out over her skin. The knife Sable forged her was taken by the Vile. If this was a shadow skin, she had nothing to defend herself with.
