Page 5 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
My heart does a strange thing in my chest as I walk by, looking in their direction to offer a nod. Five or six folks are gathered on the browning lawn around a small bonfire. They’re wrapped in scarves and blankets, steaming mugs in their hands. Little lights strung along the side of the building dip across the narrow garden, creating a web of illumination.
Despite myself, my steps slow as I pass the garden gate, rusted and just barely hanging onto its hinges. A wild, genuine laugh bursts out of one woman’s mouth, and I like the sound of it, like the look of her well-worn plaid jacket with elbow patches. Woodsmoke curls up from their bonfire, tickling my nose. Theowner of the house—Tomas, I think it is—turns and looks my way.
“Oh, hey, there you are!” he calls, raising his mug. “Come on in, the gate’s open.”
I hesitate, a warmth I haven’t felt in a very long time—not since those early days back on the farm—flooding my entire body. My shoulders relax, and suddenly the autumnal wind doesn’t feel so biting anymore. I move toward the gate.
Maybe I can scale back my plans. Blackbird Hollow might not need to be more than a weekend trip, a brief investigation. Maybe I don’t need my program’s limited stipend to stay. Maybe there’s jobs at those sterile coffee shops or downtown diners.
Maybe there is still something for me here.
“I hope you have a cider ready for me!” comes a voice over my shoulder. I freeze as a tall, sturdy person in painter’s overalls and a giant sweatshirt breezes past me, slipping through the gate.
The group in the garden closes like a door, their backs to me now. I realize Tomas had never been speaking to me—ofcoursehe hadn’t been speaking to me. Why would I even think something like that? We’ve said, what, ten words to each other in the time I’ve lived here?
The warmth seeps out of me, leaving me colder than before as I trudge the rest of the way to my building. The hallways are empty as I make my way to my apartment, tearing down the new notice on my door when I arrive.
“Can’t evict me if I’m already leaving,” I mutter as I slip inside. I should make something for dinner, sit down for a second, but there’s a horrible kind of sadness building in me. It’s been building for a long time, I know, and if I give it an opening right now, I’m afraid it’ll tear me apart.
So, instead, I set my jaw and flick the lights on, beginning to search the tiny space for my belongings. Ten minutes later,and it’s kind of depressing how little is actuallymine—or, at least, how little I really care about. There’s my small collection of secondhand books, my limited wardrobe, the framed photo of my parents, my undergrad degree, and the stuffed rabbit I’ve had since I was a baby. And yeah, I’m a fully grown woman, but I absolutely still sleep with him every night.
“Your entire life fits in a backpack and an overnighter, Alice,” I mutter to myself, beginning to pace the worn carpet. I stride from my door to the window, and then back again, and again, and then again. I pause, pulling my stuffed animal from my bag. His once-white fur is a worn-in cream these days.
“Mr. Rabbit,” I say, addressing the plush by his full name, because this is serious. “Are we doing this?” I stare into his black button eyes as if he might actually give me an answer.
What I find there makes my stomach bottom out, sheer horror sweeping through me. No—I’m wrong. I’m seeing things. I’ve cracked under the pressure. I’m as crazy as Angelica Wallingford says I am.
My breath coming in short gasps, I stagger to the kitchenette and turn the big overhead light on. It flickers unpleasantly, humming all the while, as I lay Mr. Rabbit down on the counter like he’s a specimen I’m dissecting. I dig through my drawer with trembling hands, grabbing a fork.
And then I lean low over the stuffed animal, using the prong of the utensil to pry at a tiny black bead in the middle of his left eye. It looks like it’s been glued on, or maybe even fused, to the original button. I scrape at it again, but I can’t get any traction.
I swallow hard and grab a pair of scissors. I hesitate, which I know is so stupid, but the last thing I want to do is maim the little plush. Mr. Rabbit might be my only friend, if I’m honest.
I let out a long breath and, with gritted teeth, force myself to snip the thread. The button comes loose, clattering onto the counter. I snatch it up and examine the small black dome, myheart beginning to race as I understand there’s absolutely no mistaking what I’m looking at.
Sector bugged me.Sector fucking bugged me. This shit isn’t supposed to happen anymore—not after the Reformation, not after everything we did to get society back on track. Entire cities drowned and half the countryside went up in flames and pandemics swept through unchecked and somehow we’re still back to bugging civilians again.
All I want is to go home. Back to the farm before everything went to shit, with its creaky floorboards and chipped sink and the old, sunken-in sofa and the smell of my mom baking bread on the weekends. I want to come around the corner into the kitchen and see her on the landline, the thick, curly cord wrapped around her fingers as she exchanges hushed sentences, not wanting me to overhear. Things were worse then, objectively. And yet I wish for it all back so fervently that it makes me lightheaded.
But it’s all gone. My parents are eating tapas next to the sea thousands of miles away. Some developer probably tore out all the wood trim in the farmhouse, or at the very least painted it white. That pink landline phone is surely rotting in a landfill somewhere. And my grandparents?—
“Nope,” I whisper so quietly I can barely hear my own words, squeezing my eyes shut. “We’re not going there. Not right now. Get it together, Alice.”
I shake my arms out, turning in a tight circle, trying to make my brain work. When I can finally manage a few thoughts, I nudge the button into the center of the counter—so if anyone checks up on me again, they’ll know I found them out. That I’m so much smarter than they realize.
I snatch Mr. Rabbit off the counter, purposefully not looking at his poor little one-eyed face. I can be sad about a stuffed animal when I’m safely away from here. Gently tucking the plushback into my bag, I do another loop around the space, checking drawers and peering under the bed. But that’s everything. That’s really everything I have to my name that I can’t bear to leave behind.
I welcome the numbness that settles over me as I slip my backpack on. There is no longer any doubt in my mind that I’m going straight to the bus station and buying a one-way ticket to the Upper Lakes Transportation Center. And then I’ll figure out how to travel the final eight miles to Blackbird Hollow. Because the random little town that just got back on the map might hold the key to everything.
And it certainly doesn’t hurt that Sector will have a much,muchharder time finding me out there in the wild expanse of mist-damp hills and old-growth forests where faeries might just roam.
Chapter 4
Wyatt
There’s this part of me that wants to yell at Fallon for whatever she did to get hit in the face. But my stomach growls, and that part goes quiet, like it always does. Fallon is a force of nature. Not something I can scold into better behavior. She’s in charge, but sometimes it’s hard to tell which of us is the elder sibling.
Without so much as a sigh, I reply, “Sure, an omelet sounds good.”
