Tourists were scared.
They had to stay clear of the Folk and carry protections.
Tourists weren’t scared enough.
When Hazel and Ben lived briefly in Philadelphia, no one believed their stories.
Those two years had been bizarre.
They had to learn to hide their strangeness.
But coming back had been difficult, too, because by then they knew how weird Fairfold was compared with places outside it.
And because, by the time they’d returned, Ben had decided to give up his magic—and his music—entirely.
Which meant he could never, ever know the price Hazel had paid for them to go in the first place.
After all, she wasn’t a tourist.
She should have known better.
But sometimes, on nights like the one she’d just had, she wished she could tell someone.
She wished she didn’t always have to be so alone.
That night, after she and Ben went up to bed, after she stripped off her clothes and got into her pajamas, after she brushed her teeth and checked to make sure the scattered bits of salted oatmeal were still under her pillow where they might keep her safe from faerie tricks, then Hazel had nothing left to distract her from remembering the dizzying moment when her mouth had met Jack’s.
Only, as she slid off into dreams, it wasn’t Jack she was kissing anymore, but the horned boy.
His eyes were open.
And when she pulled him closer, he didn’t push her away.
Hazel woke up feeling out of sorts, restless, and melancholy.
She put it down to drinking the night before and swigged back some aspirin with the last dregs of a carton of orange juice.
Her mom had left a note to pick up bread and milk clothespinned to a ten-dollar bill in the giant pottery catchall bowl that sat in the center of the kitchen table.
With a groan, Hazel went back upstairs to put on leggings and a baggy black shirt.
She shoved the green hoops back into her ears.
Music was on in Ben’s room.
Even though he didn’t play anymore, Ben always had a continuous sound track in the background, even as he slept.
If he was up, though, she hoped she could persuade him to run Mom’s errand, so that she could go back to bed.
Hazel knocked on Ben’s door.
“Enter at your own risk,” he called.
Hazel opened it to find him holding a cell phone up to his ear as he hopped his way into a pair of mustard-colored skinny jeans.
“Hey,” she said.
“Can you—” He waved her over, speaking into the phone.
“Yeah, she’s up.
She’s right in front of me.
Sure, we’ll meet you in fifteen minutes.” Hazel groaned.
“What are you agreeing to?” He tossed an easy grin in her direction and said good-bye to the person on the other end of his cell.
The person she was pretty sure was Jack.
Ben and Jack had been friends for years, through Ben coming out and his obsessive relationship with the only other out boy at school, which ended in a huge public fight at the homecoming bonfire.
Through Jack’s bleak depression after being dumped by Amanda Watkins, who’d told him that she was dating him only because she really wanted to date Carter and dating him was like dating Carter’s shadow.
Through both of them liking different music and different books and hanging out with different people at lunch.
Surely, a little thing like her kissing Jack wouldn’t even ripple the waters.
But that didn’t make her eager for the moment Ben found out what she’d done.
And she wasn’t looking forward to Jack’s watching her warily all afternoon as though she might lunge at him or something.
But, despite herself, she was looking forward to seeing him again.
She couldn’t quite believe they’d kissed, even just for a moment.
The memory filled her with an embarrassing jolt of happiness.
It felt like an act of real daring, the first she’d committed in a long time.
It was a horrible mistake, of course.
She could have wrecked things—she hoped she hadn’t wrecked things.
She could never do it again.
At least she couldn’t think of a way it would be possible to do it again.
Hazel wasn’t sure when her crush on Jack had started.
It had been a slow thing, an exaggerated awareness of him, a thrill at his attention, accompanied by a constant stream of nervous chatter when he was around.
But she remembered when her crush had become acute.
She’d walked over to remind Ben he was supposed to be home for a music lesson with one of Dad’s deadbeat friends and found a whole group of boys in the Gordon kitchen, making sandwiches and goofing around.
Jack had made her one with chicken salad and carefully sliced tomato.
When he was turned away to get her some pretzels, she had snatched his partially chewed gum from where it was stuck to a plate and shoved it into her mouth.
It had tasted of strawberry and his spit and had given her the same pure shock of agonized happiness that kissing him had.
That gum was still stuck to her bed frame, a talisman she couldn’t quite give up.
“We’re going to Lucky’s,” Ben offered, as though maybe he should inform her of the place she hadn’t agreed to go.
“We’ll get some coffee.
Listen to records.
See if any new stuff came in.
Come on, Mr.
Schröder probably misses you.
Besides, as you are so fond of pointing out, what else is there to do in this town on a Sunday?” Hazel sighed.
She should tell him no, but instead she seemed to be running toward trouble, leaving no stone unturned, no boy unkissed, no crush abandoned, and no bad idea unembraced.
“I guess I could use some coffee,” she said as her brother picked up a red blazer, apparently matching his outfit to a sunrise.
Lucky’s was in a big, old restored warehouse on the duller end of Main Street, beside the bank, the dentist’s office, and a shop that sold clocks.
The place smelled like the dust of old books, mothballs, and French roast.
Mismatched shelves filled the walls and defined the aisles down the center.
Some of the bookshelves were carved oak, others were nailed together from pallets, and all had been picked up for cheap at garage sales by old Mr.
and Mrs.
Schröder, who ran the place.
Two overstuffed chairs and a record player sat beside big windows that overlooked a wide stream.