The Darkest Part of the Forest

by Holly Black

Even a girl who carries spiders outside instead of stepping on them, a girl who once fed a tiny fox kit with an eyedropper every two hours until wildlife rescue could come and pick it up—that same girl can kill and be ready to do it again. She can take her dead dog home and bury him and cry over his cooling and stiffening body, making promises as she digs a deep hole in the backyard. She can look at her brother and believe that together they’re a knight and a bard who battle evil, who might someday find and fight even the monster at the heart of the forest. A little girl can find a dead boy and lose her dog and believe that she could make sure no one else was lost.

“Fine,” Jack continued. “Try not to get killed by some handsome, paranoid elf who thinks he’s stuck in a ballad. I’ll try not to flunk out of physics.”

He’d let his mask slip, apparently on purpose, and she felt stupid that she’d only just realized he’d been wearing a mask at all.

Hadn’t she scolded herself for running straight into trouble every chance she got? For leaving no stone unturned, no bad idea unembraced, and no boy unkissed? No scab unpicked? No sorrow unnumbered? No hangnail unbitten and no stupid comment unsaid? Certainly no stupid bargain unmade. Apparently, that was still the case, even if she couldn’t remember it.

The hardest thing about being wanted was the hardest thing about wanting—wanting badly enough that it gave you a stomachache, wanting in the way that was partly about kissing and partly about swallowing whole, the way a snake gulps down a mouse or the Big Bad Wolf gulps down Red Riding Hood—wanting turned someone you felt like you knew into a stranger. Whether that person was your brother’s best friend or a sleeping prince in a glass prison or a girl who kissed you at a party, the moment you wanted more than just touching your mouth to theirs, they became terrifying and you became terrified.

Ben told stories. Hazel became those stories.

Fine, then let me have my human life. Let all the mortals I love die and blow away to dust. Let me have Nia for a mother and Charles for a father and Carter for my brother. Let me be Jack Gordon, and when I am done, when all is dust and ashes, I will return to you and learn how to be your son.” She was quiet. “Let me have this, Mother, because once they are dead, I can never have it again.” In his voice, Hazel heard the eerie agelessness she’d associated with Severin and the Alderking. He was one of them, eternal and inhuman. But he was going to stay in her world a little longer.

And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill, full of night-blooming flowers. 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, embracing a changeling like a brother, and, with a human boy at his side, names a girl his champion.