Snip-snap.
Their pursuer was still there.
Fox's eyes followed Jacob anxiously as he walked toward the mare and pulled Chanute's knife from the saddlebag. Bullets were useless against the one who was waiting for him outside. It was said they even made the Tailor stronger.
A thousand shadows filled the forest, and Jacob believed he could see a dark figure standing among the trees. He'll at least help pass the time until sunrise, Jacob. He pushed the knife into his belt and took the flashlight from his knapsack. Fox ran after him as he approached the fence.
"You can't go out there. It's getting dark."
"And?"
"Maybe he'll be gone by morning!"
"Why should he?"
The gate sprang open as soon as Jacob pushed the key into the rusty lock.
So many desperate children must have rattled this gate in vain.
"Stay here, Fox," he said.
But as he closed the gate behind him, she quietly slipped out by his side.
8
Clara
The first room was the one with the oven, but Clara pulled Will along as he looked through the door. The narrow corridor smelled of cakes and roasted almonds, and in the next room a shawl, embroidered with a pattern of black birds, was draped over the back of a tattered armchair. The bed was in the last room. It was barely big enough for both of them, and the blankets were moth-eaten, but Will was already fast asleep by the time Jacob pulled the gate shut outside.
The growing stone traced patterns on Will's neck, just as the dappled sun had in the forest. Clara carefully touched the pale green. So cool and smooth. So beautiful, yet so terrible.
What would happen if the berries didn't work? Will's brother knew the answer, and it frightened him, though he was very good at hiding it.
Jacob. Will had told Clara about him, but he had only ever shown her one photograph, and in it they had both still been children. Even back then Jacob's gaze had been different from his brother's. There was none of Will's gentleness to be found there. None of his stillness.
Clara extricated herself from Will's embrace and covered him with the Witch's blanket. A moth had landed on his shoulder, black, like an imprint of the night. It fluttered away as Clara bent over Will to kiss him. He did not wake up, and she left him alone and stepped outside.
The house covered in cakes, the red moon over the trees — everything she saw seemed so unreal that she felt like a sleepwalker. Everything she knew was gone. Everything she remembered seemed lost. Will was the only familiar thing, but the strangeness was already growing on his skin.
The vixen wasn't there. Of course. She'd gone with Jacob. The key was right next to the gate, just as he had promised. Clara picked it up and ran her fingers over the engraved metal.
The voices of the will-o’-the-wisps filled the air like the hum of bees. A raven cawed somewhere in the trees. But Clara was listening for another sound: the sharp snipping that had darkened Jacob's face with worry that had made him go back into the forest. What was waiting out there, turning even the house of a child-eater into a safe haven?
Snip-snap. There it was again. Like the snapping of metallic teeth. Clara backed away from the fence. Long shadows were growing toward the house, and she felt the same fear she'd felt as a child when she was alone and heard steps in the hallway.
She should have told Will what his brother was planning. He would never forgive her if Jacob didn't come back.
He would come back.
He had to come back.
They'd never find their way home without him.
9
The Tailor
Was he coming after them? Jacob walked slowly, so the hunter he was trying to lure could follow. But all he heard was his own steps, rotting twigs snapping under his boots, leaves rustling as he pushed through the undergrowth. Where was he? Jacob was beginning to fear that their pursuer had forgotten his wariness of the Witch and was sneaking through the gate behind his back, when suddenly he heard the snipping again, coming through the forest to his left. It was just as everybody said: The Tailor loved to play a little cat and mouse with his victims before commencing his bloody work.