“Do you get those often?”
“Only once before.”
“Did you black out then, too?”
“Non,” he admits, “but this is a most unusual circumstance.”
“Of course.” I gesture toward the threshold. “Go on, before someone worries about you.”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Merci.” His voice echoes through the trees even after he’s disappeared.
X
I’m less than a quarter mile from my threshold—the kitchen lights wink at me through the trees, blotches of yellow that dapple and move across the bark—when I hear the footsteps. They’re too quiet this time, like someone’s trying to sneak through my wood, and I know there’s only one person it can be.
I take a deep breath. There is almost no light left in the wood. The sun is just the edge of a fingernail on the horizon, where a splotch of Easter-egg pink sky fades into dark purple clouds. The path slithers under my feet, flecks of dirt skating forward like miniature tumbleweeds. The wind has returned, howling through the spaces in the trees, blowing thin wisps of curling mist onto the path.
I don’t have time for this.
The footsteps are closer, coming up the path to my right. I edge forward on my toes, careful not to make any noise. The wind flows in and out like the tide, and I can hear Brightonshire breathing through the quiet pauses.
Dad would tell me to leave him. If he’s stupid enough to travel the wood at night, he isn’t worth saving.
I would say that’s cruel. We don’t get to play God here.
Dad would say we have no idea what goes on in the wood after dark. We don’t know if the thresholds close or stay open. How many people stumble their way past the thresholds, only to never make it back out—a steady stream of travelers feeding the monster the wood becomes at night. That doesn’t mean we stay and become the next course on the menu.
That was why, in his darkest moments, Dad didn’t think our job actually meant anything. Why he thought we were just wasting time, protecting something that can protect itself.
But I have to believe what we do has a purpose, and I have to believe that everyone in this wood is worth saving because if I don’t, if I let myself think the way Dad used to, then his sudden disappearance from our lives would have been for nothing.
And I couldn’t handle that.
The boy rounds the bend, and again I grab him before his eyes even register I’m there. I hook my arm around his neck and drop him to the ground. All around us, the wood creaks and groans. Darkness seeps in like spilled ink across paper.
“We have to go,” I say, dispensing with the formalities. I grab his arm and wrench him up.
“I will not leave.” He tries to twist out of my grip, but fear has made me stronger than he is.
I fist my hands in his shirt and tug him forward, so he can see the whites of my eyes. “If you don’t come with me now, we’re both dead.”
“Then let me pass so that I might find shelter.”
There’s a crack next to us, like lightning. The trees are morphing in the darkness, branches reaching out with knobby fingers.
“Not happening, Brightonshire.” I have to yell to be heard over the wind. “Way I see it, you have two options. You do what I say or I leave you here to die. Which is it?”
His hand locks around my wrist. “If what you say is true, we do not have time to return to my threshold. We must go through yours.”
“Nice try, but I have one thing you don’t.”
“And what, pray tell, is that?”
“Friends.” I push off him, grab the coin, and signal the fireflies. They surround him as he gets to his feet, a buzzing fire-blue mob. “Take him to the Brightonshire threshold, quickly.”
They push him forward, singeing his clothes, his hair, until he finally gets the message and jogs down the path toward his threshold.
“And don’t come back at night,” I yell after him, when really I should have yelled, Don’t come back at all.
Thirty seconds to sundown.
I sprint for my threshold. I don’t know if the fireflies will still be on my side come full night. They could just as easily turn on him, burn him to nothing, but he’s no longer my concern. I did everything I could with the time he gave me. If he survives it, maybe he’ll be more cooperative next time.
Because I know, if he survives, there will be a next time. There’s something he wants desperately, and desperate people do crazy things. I’ve come across my fair share of them in my time here, but none of them, not one, have been desperate to pass through the wood into another time. They’ve all just wanted to go home.
So what’s Brightonshire’s endgame?
My feet stick to the path as I draw closer to my threshold, like running through tar. A figure moves across our back-porch light, and then Mom is standing there, her hands wrapped around the porch railing as she stares into the wood, bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet. I try to call out to her, to let her know I’m here, I’m coming, but she can’t hear me. She only hears and sees what anyone else who isn’t a direct guardian descendant would: a thick patch of trees that has yet to be torn down by a developer or some millionaire looking to build another mansion along the Olentangy.
I pump my legs harder, until my feet are barely touching the ground. The path morphs into quicksand, sucking me down with every step. Unnatural shadows swim past me on either side. A vine lashes out from the darkness, curling around my calf and pulling me to the ground. I grab the knife from my back pocket, flick it open, and cut the vine. It slithers back into the trees.
I push myself out of the muck and crawl forward. Ten feet away, five. The path pulls my ankles under, followed by my shins, my knees. I’m half swimming, half dragging my body to the break in the trees.
This is it. Full night.
I’m not going to make it.
Mom senses it, too, even though she can’t see me. She runs for the entrance to the wood, her hair swinging behind her.
The quicksand pulls me under with incredible ease, folding around my body, enveloping me in its womb. My knees are gone, my thighs. I dig my fingernails into the silt, stretching for the solid land that is just inches from my reach. The path bubbles over my hips, my back, rushing up my shoulder blades.
Mom stares at me from the edge of the threshold, her daughter dying right in front of her, but all she sees is the path, looking as solid as it always has.
My heart squeezes. I can’t leave her all alone in this world. She won’t survive it.
I kick my legs out behind me and reachreachreach for the threshold, my fingertips inching just outside the tree line as a wave of silt crashes over my head, pulling me under.
Winter, a voice whispers in my ear. I’ve missed you.