I take a step closer, barely able to make out the object in his hand.
“What is it?” Rhett asks, moving toward Jasper.
“A belt buckle, I think.” He brushes away the dirt and snow from the thing in his palm. “And there’s more.” He fans his hands across the ground then picks up something else. Suzy and Lin step closer, trying to see what he’s found. “Buttons,” he says. “Made of bone.” He holds one up for us to see, but it’s too tiny. “And some look like silver.”
Lin drops to the ground as well, digging through the snow at the base of a tree, down to the soil. “There’s a spoon over here,” he says.
Rhett wheels around to face me. “This is where she finds all that stuff in her house.” He’s close enough that I can see him raise an eyebrow. “And this is why she didn’t want us coming in here—she thinks it all belongs to her.”
Even Suzy crouches down and starts searching the ground with her outstretched palms.
“You can’t keep any of these things,” I say, meeting Rhett’s gaze, my jaw grinding against my back teeth. “You can’t leave the woods with any of it.”
“Yeah, right.” Rhett says with an upturned smirk—no longer afraid. He doesn’t believe me. And suddenly, none of them seem to care about finding Oliver, about the trees inching closer. They only care about the items scattered across the forest floor.
“If you leave with any of these things tonight, the woods will see. They will know what you’ve stolen.”
“So what?” Rhett says, his eyes swaying away from me and then back, still intoxicated.
“You have a whole house filled with this stuff,” Jasper interjects, sitting forward on his knees. “And nothing’s happened to you.”
“I took those things when it was a full moon,” I say, trying to keep my voice low, trying to make them understand: This isn’t an ordinary forest. “I took them when the forest was asleep.” But none of them are listening. Even Rhett begins to scan the ground too, searching.
Misfortune will follow you.Words from the spellbook scroll across my mind.If you take something from the Wicker Woods when it isn’t a full moon, misery and catastrophe will trail you home.
The trees moan around us, and I turn in a circle, trying to orient myself—to see which direction will lead us back to the entrance of the woods. But none of it’s familiar. The landscape has changed, the woods playing tricks. The path we took from the edge of the forest is no longer there. It’s been wiped away or hidden, or a tree has re-rooted in its place.
If Fin were here, he would know the way out, sense it, his nose to the soil would lead us home. My head begins to thrum and the forest grows darker—any speck of light through the treetops squeezed out.
A low, wailing hiss sails through the lower limbs, like the forest is baring its teeth, snarling.
Suzy hears it too, and she stops scanning the ground. She looks at me, then stands. “What’s happening?” she asks, inching closer to me.
“We have to get out of here,” I say softly. “Or we might not get out at all.”
Lin makes a sudden noise to our left. “Shit!” he says, scrambling toward us, dropping a collection of silver trinkets that hit the groundwith aclank. “Something grabbed me.” He jumps up and down and wipes at his foot, like he’s still trying to shake it off. “A fucking tree root or something.” He moves into the center of the group, twitching, slapping at his legs.
“Maybe we should head back,” Jasper suggests finally—the first smart thing he’s said.
Rhett nods. “We can come back during the day, when we can see. Oliver won’t be able to hide as easily.”
“I told you we should wait until morning,” Suzy mutters, shifting closer to me, the hiss around us growing louder. Trees lumbering near, crowding over us—closer, closer,closer. We’re running out of time. “I don’t like it in here,” Suzy whispers, and she reaches out and takes my hand. Squeezing. A branch brushes against her hair and she swats it away. “We need to go!” she shouts to the boys, to Rhett.
“Lead the way, witch girl,” Rhett says, waving a hand at me.
But I stare back at him blankly.I don’t know the way.
For the first time, I don’t know how to get out of here. “I don’t—” My voice breaks off. “I don’t know where we are,” I admit.
Jasper pushes a handful of found things into his coat pocket. “This place can’t be that big,” he says. “Just pick a direction.” And without waiting for anyone to answer, he starts off into the trees, shoving limbs aside.
“We don’t know if that’s the right way,” Suzy points out, eyebrows sloped down, worry etched into every line of her face.
“You don’t have a choice,” Rhett says, stepping behind Suzy and me, waving a hand forward. “Can’t let you go off to warn Oliver that we’re looking for him. So you’re coming with us.”
Suzy squeezes my hand tighter, and we fall into step behind Lin. Rhett behind us.
“We should stay together, anyway,” Suzy whispers.
