“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 ground with a clank. “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.
But I’m not sure that will help. We’re louder as a group—the boys crash through the forest, snapping limbs beneath their feet, easily tracked. The forest doesn’t want us here. And the boys make it impossible to pass through unnoticed.
We might be forging deeper into the dark woods: a place I’ve never been, farther than I’ve ever trekked. Or maybe we will get lucky and find our way back out, emerging at the entrance. But luck doesn’t live inside these woods.
Whichever path we take, the forest knows we’re here.
Claws open wide, ready to pull us in.
* * *
“We’re lost,” Rhett barks at Jasper.
“I never said I knew the way out,” Jasper bemoans, swiveling to face Rhett.
We stop where a shallow channel carves through the terrain, a creek bed long ago dried up. There is hardly any snow here, the woods too dense.
“We never should have come in here,” Lin says, his voice sounding far off, as if the words came from the trees themselves, not his throat.
Suzy leans in close to me. Suddenly she wants nothing to do with Rhett. He led us out here, and now we’re deeper into the Wicker Woods than I’ve ever been, surrounded by land I’ve never seen, trees so wide they are like the swaying pillars of a catacomb. The Wicker Woods cultivate fear, the spellbook warns. They are architects of misfortune and mischief.
And now we’re moving deeper into the belly of the woods, a place we won’t return from. This is how people vanish. How five teenagers slip into a forest at night and are never seen again.
“Maybe we should stop here and wait until morning,” Jasper suggests, resting his shoulder against the broad trunk of a tree. “Then we’ll be able to see.”
“It’s too cold,” Suzy answers, voice breaking like she might cry. “We won’t make it that long.”
I should know the way out, I should sense the path that will lead us to the edge of the woods. But I can’t tell north from south or light from dark, the stars and the sky smeared out by the trees. If I was as clever as my grandmother, as sharp as most of the Walkers in my family, I could squeeze my eyes closed and feel the direction of the wind, the hiss of the river in the distance. But instead I feel dull and muted. The forest is hiding the way free, shifting around us—it doesn’t want us to leave.
Lin starts pacing along the old creek bed, his shadow bent at the shoulders. “We never should have come in here,” he repeats. “It was a dumb idea.”
“If Oliver was really hiding in here, we had to find him,” Rhett reminds the others. “We had to be sure.” I can tell they’ve all sobered up. Whatever stupid plan they made back at camp when they were drinking, whatever they thought they’d find by trekking into the Wicker Woods, is all starting to fall apart.
“She probably never found Oliver in these woods anyway,” Jasper says. “She made it all up.”
I shoot Jasper a look but he doesn’t notice. “I didn’t make it up.”
“Did you ever see him?” Rhett asks, peering at Suzy.
But Suzy shakes her head. “No.”
I turn to her, standing only a foot away from me, and I feel the corners of my mouth turn down. “When you came back to my house, drunk, after the bonfire, he was there in the living room with me.”
She lifts one shoulder. “I don’t really remember that night,” she admits. “I don’t remember coming back to your house, just waking up on the couch.”
I shake my head at her. I didn’t make him up! I want to scream.
“Walkers can’t be trusted,” Jasper points out. “You’re all liars.”
I lift my gaze to him and take a step closer. I’m going to wrap my hands around his throat. I’m going to push all the air from his lungs to make him shut up. I can’t stand the sound of his voice. I can’t stand any of them.
But Suzy touches my arm, and when I look at her, she shakes her head. “Leave it,” she whispers.
I pull my arm away from her. She’s lying about Oliver—about not seeing him. To protect herself maybe. But I don’t know why.
Lin has stopped pacing, but he knits his hands together nervously, his skin gone pale. “We’re going to die out here.”
Rhett barks at Lin. “Don’t be an idiot. We’re not going to die.”
Lin says something back, but I’ve stopped listening. I’m walking away from them, toward the trees, where I can see movement in the shadows—limbs writhing, coiling. Something isn’t right.
“We have to get out of here,” I say aloud. But no one is listening.
Rhett and Jasper and Lin are arguing. About the woods, about being lost, about whose idea it was to come in here in the first place.
“I’m not going to fucking die in here!” Jasper shouts.
“Maybe if you weren’t so wasted, you wouldn’t have led us deeper into this screwed-up forest,” Rhett says.
“It was your idea to come looking for Oliver,” Jasper barks back, shoving Rhett in the chest.
“Stop it!” Suzy yells.