Breadcrumbs

Hazel travels parallel to the path and reaches an enormous tree where three women are spinning grey string. One of the women asks the girl if her name has always been Hazel, and she feels a pang as she considers how little she knows about her origins and Indian culture. The women suggest that she’s come to this magical world to learn about herself in addition to saving Jack, but she says she only wants to find her friend. She gives the women her flashlight in exchange for information about Jack, but they’re unable to find the thread of his life. When Hazel explains that he was taken by a witch on a sleigh, the three women urge her to go home and refuse to tell her where to look.

Hazel finds a swan’s skin, and she hopes that wearing it will transform her into a beautiful bird like the characters in stories. When this doesn’t happen, she feels useless and miserable and throws the skin into a stream. Suddenly, a gaunt woman seizes Hazel and demands to know what she’s done with her skin. She mocks the girl, “Did you want to be a beautiful swan, you ugly little girl? Did you think you could fly?” (187). The woman claws Hazel’s face and starts to drag her away. Hazel hits the woman with her backpack and flees in terror. A teenage boy perched in a tree tells Hazel to come with him.

The boy leads Hazel to a cabin, and she collapses on the floor, wishing that she were home. The teenage boy stays outside chopping wood, and he tells the wicked woman that he hasn’t seen the girl she’s chasing. The boy enters the cabin to assure Hazel that the coast is clear, introduces himself as Ben, and tends to the wound on her face. Ben explains that the woods don’t behave according to the rules that people expect and that this drives some mad, like the woman with the swanskin. He gently urges Hazel to go home rather than attempt to rescue Jack from the white witch, saying, “She wouldn’t have taken him if he didn’t want to go” (199).

Ben explains that he’s from New Jersey. He and his sister, Alice, ran away from their abusive father and found themselves in the magical forest. A couple welcomed the children into their home. At first, they were kind, but they soon turned Alice into a beautiful white bird. All Ben wants is to protect his sister, so he keeps a gun in case the couple comes back for her. He tells Hazel that she can find the witch’s palace by following the cold, and he warns her not to accept any of the temptations the witch offers her. Hazel still doesn’t understand why anyone would want to go with the witch. Ben says, “[S[ometimes […] it seems like it would be easier to give yourself to the ice” (204). He wishes her luck and promises that he’ll come to her aid if she calls on him in the forest.

As Hazel resumes her journey through the woods, she reflects on the tragic tale of Ben and Alice. She wonders if Jack would watch over her if she were transformed into a bird, but she isn’t sure she wants to escape reality anymore. As night approaches, she feels foolish for giving the Fates her flashlight and for not asking Ben for food and a night’s rest. A pack of wolves emerges from the forest, and Hazel hurries to a village protected by a wall. Hazel asks the woman guarding the gate how she can rescue her friend from the white witch, but the guard tells her, “You can’t defeat her. She’s never going to go away” (212).

A bustling market fills the village square, and people from all over the world throng there. Some of the shoppers and street performers wear modern clothes, and the shopkeepers sell contemporary books as well as mystical wares like potions. Hazel hopes to buy a luck potion, but the vendor only has potions that allow the drinker to forget people and events. Hazel spots the woodsman she saw earlier standing beside a beautiful girl dancing the ballet. The dancer is wearing the red shoes that Hazel saw on the path, and she looks weary and in pain. The woodsman explains that he had a daughter who lost herself to dancing. He observes sadly, “Sometimes people get so focused on things they don’t see the world around them” (218). Exhausted and confused, Hazel walks away.

A wizard asks Hazel what her heart yearns for. When she says that she wants her friend back, he tells her that he can make her charming and clever so that she’ll belong. When he grips her hand, Hazel feels faint. A man in a blue coat rushes over, crying, “Rose, what are you doing?” (222). He shepherds her away from the nefarious wizard and introduces himself as Lucas. Lucas explains that the wizard put something on Hazel’s skin to lessen her judgment so that she would make a bargain with him. Lucas takes her to his cottage so his wife, Nina, can administer an antidote.

Even in her drowsy, bewitched state, Hazel is struck by the resemblance between herself and Nina, and she wonders if her biological parents looked like Lucas and Nina. The couple counsels her not to seek the white witch, because she only takes people who want to go with her, so Jack probably doesn’t want to be rescued. Nina gives Hazel a cup of tea with honey. The couple’s gentleness and obvious affection for one another remind the girl of when her parents were still in love. Nina and Lucas explain that they try to help girls who enter the woods because their own daughter is missing. When Nina tucks Hazel into bed, the girl sees a beautiful mechanical bird that reminds her of Alice. Nina tells her that the mechanical bird is a replacement that Lucas made when their real bird got away. Nina calls Hazel “Rose” and tells her that she’s glad that she found them.

Hazel dreams about the make-believe adventures that she used to have with Jack and the way he’d once called himself the Prince of Eternity. When she awakens, she begins to feel foolish for hoping to rescue Jack when he chose to leave and escape the worry and pain of his mother’s depression. She wonders if she was meant to come to the woods so that she could find Nina and Lucas. Hazel goes out into the garden, and the flowers reveal that they used to be girls. They can’t remember their names, but they tell Hazel their life stories. Each of them faced a personal problem that led them to enter the woods. For example, Daisy had a serious illness, and Violet’s brother returned from the war with post-traumatic stress disorder. Hazel remembers her mother’s love and Ben’s warning about the couple that transformed Alice into a bird. Nina comes outside, pleads with Hazel to stay, and tries to explain why they turned the girls into flowers: “It’s the only way we can make sure they don’t suffer anymore […] It’s too hard to be human” (244). Hazel refuses to give up on Jack or her own future, so she leaves.

Hazel follows the path toward the white witch’s palace. She’s determined to save Jack even if he’s changed and no longer wants to be her friend. She feels terribly guilty for leaving her mother, whom she’s sure is worried about her. Hazel resolves to survive her journey so that her mother won’t be alone.