Reckless

Will was still standing by the well. He stumbled with fatigue as he walked toward Clara.



"Don't let him sleep in the room with the oven," Jacob muttered into Clara's ear. "The air there gives bleak dreams. And make sure he doesn't try to follow me."



Will ate the berries without hesitation. The magic that would heal everything. Even as a child he had believed in such things much more readily than Jacob. It was obvious how tired he was, and he didn’t protest when Clara led him toward the gingerbread house. The sun was setting behind the trees, and the red moon hung above the treetops like a bloody fingerprint. When the sun returned, the stone in his brother's skin would be nothing but a bad dream. If the berries worked.



If.



Jacob went to the fence and stared out into the forest.



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.



Nobody could say who or what exactly the Tailor was. The stories about him were just about as old as the HungryForest itself. There was only one thing everybody knew for certain: that the Tailor had earned his name by tailoring his clothes from human skin.



Snip-snap, clip-clip. The trees opened into a clearing. Fox gave Jacob a warning look as a murder of crows fluttered up from the branches of an oak. The snip-snap grew so loud that it drowned out their squawks, and under an oak the beam of Jacob's flashlight found the outline of a man.



The Tailor did not like the probing finger of light. He uttered an angry grunt and swatted at it as if it were an annoying bug. But Jacob let the light explore further, over the bearded, dirt-caked face, the gruesome clothes, which at first sight simply looked like poorly tanned leather, and on to the gross hands with which the Tailor plied his bloody trade. The fingers on his left hand ended in broad blades, each as long as a dagger. The blades on the right were just as long and lethal, though these were slender and pointed, like giant sewing needles. Both hands were missing a finger — obviously other victims had tried to defend their skins — though the Tailor did not seem to miss them much. He let his murderous fingernails slice through the air as if he were cutting a pattern from the shadows of the trees, taking measurements for the clothes he would soon fashion from Jacob's skin.



Fox bared her teeth and retreated with a growl to Jacob's side.



Jacob shooed her behind him. He drew his saber with his left hand and Chanute's knife with his right.



His opponent moved clumsily, like a bear, though his hands cut through the thickets of thistles with terrifying zeal. His eyes were blank, like those of a dead man, but the bearded face was contorted into a mask of bloodlust, and he bared his yellow teeth as if he wanted to peel the skin off Jacob's flesh with them.



At first the Tailor hacked at him with the broad blades. Jacob deflected them with his saber while he slashed at the needle hand with his knife. He'd fought a half dozen drunk soldiers, the guards of enchanted castles, highwaymen, and even a pack of trained wolves, but this was far worse. The Tailor's hacking and stabbing were so relentless, Jacob felt as if he were caught in a threshing machine.



His foe wasn't very tall, and Jacob was more nimble, yet soon he felt the first cuts on his arms and shoulders. Come on, Jacob. Look at his clothes. Do you want to end up like that? He hacked off one of the needle fingers with his knife, used the ensuing howls of rage to catch his breath — and barely managed to yank up his saber before the blades could slash his face. Two of the needles cut his cheek like the claws of a cat. A third neatly pierced his arm. Jacob retreated between the trees, letting the blades cut into the bark and not his skin. But the Tailor freed himself again and again and didn't seem to tire, while Jacob's arms grew ever heavier.

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