Breadcrumbs

The narrative returns to Hazel. On Saturday morning, her mother brings her to Adelaide’s house. Adelaide wants to perform and write ballets when she grows up, and she teaches Hazel some dance moves. Hazel asks Uncle Martin why someone might experience a sudden and complete personality change, and he lists a number of supernatural explanations, such as possessions, enchantments, and lycanthropy. He also advises her how to save the person undergoing the change: “You show them love. That works a surprising amount of the time. And if that doesn’t save them, they’re not worth saving” (106).

During the drive home, Hazel asks her mother if she can take ballet lessons. Her mother reluctantly explains that they cannot afford them and offers to ask Hazel’s father for help. Hazel’s conversation with Uncle Martin gives her hope that she might be able to do something to help Jack change back, but her mother doesn’t think anything can be done, and Hazel feels like “such a baby” for wishing that things were otherwise (108).

The narrative moves to Jack. The white witch’s sleigh travels through the woods, which look dark and forbidding. He had thought winged horses were pulling the sleigh, but now there are enormous wolves in the horses’ place. He tries to impress the witch with his knowledge of baseball statistics and other numbers, but the contrast between himself and her power and majesty makes him feel “small like the world” (111). He asks her if his mother and his friends will be all right, and she reassures him that they will. Jack shivers, and the witch bundles him in her furs. Although her garments are as cold as ice, the maternal affection of the gesture warms him because his own mother hasn’t looked after him in a long time. The witch gives Jack two kisses, which cause him to feel a deathlike chill and then complete calm. Emotions and sensations become increasingly distant to him until his old life seems “like a joke with a forgotten punch line” (112). The sleigh flies through the night sky to the witch’s palace.

The narrative returns to Hazel. She dreads going to school on Monday because she doesn’t want to see Jack. Her mother’s attempts to encourage her only make her feel worse about the situation. As she waits for the bus, she imagines that a wraith pierces her heart, leaving her with “a cloud of venomous coldness where her heart used to be” (116). Shielded by her new detachment toward her emotions, she ignores her bullies and pays attention in class. At lunch, a girl named Mikaela sits with Hazel and tells her not to listen to her bullies’ insults, but Hazel is distant and tells Mikaela to sit with some other girls in their class. The art teacher, Ms. Blum, asks the students to draw a setting of their own invention: “Think of an emotion or an idea and make a place that evokes that idea” (122). Although Hazel would have loved the assignment mere days ago, she can’t think of any imaginary places and instead uses Jack’s idea about the palatial fort where someone can hide forever. Jack is absent that day, and she wonders if he’s fallen seriously ill. On her way home, she talks to Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, who inform her that Jack has gone to stay with his elderly aunt Bernice.

Hazel recounts the Campbells’ words to her mother, who also finds them strange. The next morning, Hazel’s mother tells her that her father can’t pay for ballet lessons at present because he’s saving for his upcoming wedding. She tries to reassure Hazel that her father still loves her even though he isn’t talking to her.

Hazel has an appointment with Mr. Lewis, the school counselor, during recess on Tuesday. He asks her questions about her problems with regulating her mood and paying attention, and he wants to schedule a meeting with Hazel’s mother. With every note that the counselor makes in her file, Hazel feels hollower. When she gets off the bus, she goes to the shrieking shack, but she doesn’t enter, because she hears intoxicated adults inside.

When Hazel arrives home to an empty house, her father calls. He asks Hazel if she’ll come to his wedding and promises to come visit her afterward. On Friday morning, Hazel and her mother meet with Mr. Lewis, who talks to them about “referrals and evaluations and partnerships and time-outs” (141). After the meeting, Hazel notices her daughter’s poor mood and tells her that there isn’t anything wrong with her. Mrs. Jacobs also notices the changes in Hazel’s behavior and is concerned.

During the bus ride home, Tyler tells Hazel that he saw a witch drive off into the woods with Jack. Tyler looks sincerely shaken, but part of Hazel wonders if this is a prank. She goes to her room and resolves to investigate the woods because, if Tyler’s story is true, then she must try to save her best friend. She packs clothes, a compass, a canteen, a whistle, a flashlight, some food, and the Joe Mauer baseball Jack gave her. Hazel tells her mother that she’s going to Mikaela’s house to work on a group project. The girl hesitates before leaving her house and again before entering the woods near the sledding hill because she realizes that this is one of the moments when “your life breaks in two” (151). Taking a deep breath, she steps forward into the dark forest.

The narrator steps back from Hazel’s story and explains what happened to the other pieces of Mal’s enchanted mirror. Some of the scattered pieces ended up in glass objects and resulted in various negative changes in people’s lives, including a divorce, a subdivision full of people afraid to talk to their neighbors, and an astronomer giving up his dream job after seeing something harrowing through a telescope.