Ivo’s room wasn’t as much a room as it was a small, rough hollow carved out of the wall, like a person-sized shelf. Tucked inside was a mattress stuffed with hay, a pillow, and a little shelf holding a comb, a pair of socks, and a dented tin box.
Ivo reached for the tin box and opened it with a look of pride.
“I wanted to show you this, then. My favorite thing.” He held out the box. “My most beautiful thing.”
The girls stared silently at the object in the tin box.
At the handle made of ivory carved with a delicate bird.
At the bright polished silver.
At their father’s knife.
Ivo hung it on his belt next to the pouch of gold coins. He looked at the girls, smiling and expectant. “It’s nice, then, isn’t it? Almost as nice as the things at your house.”
Rose felt sick all over again. She struggled to get her words out while the weight of everything unknown pressed down.
“What’s the matter?” Ivo asked. “Only a knife.”
Snow’s voice was cold and low. “How did you get that?”
Ivo’s smile fell. “I—I found it.” His soft voice took on a sharp edge.
“When?” Rose asked. “And where? Where did you find it?”
“What business is it of yours where I found it?” Ivo said. The tips of his ears were red.
“It belonged to—” Rose began.
“It belongs to our father!” Snow shouted.
“What do you mean? I found it on the ground. Just lying there.” Ivo’s eyebrows were furrowed as he backed away. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re thinking!”
Snow scowled at Ivo. Rose stared at the knife.
“On the ground?” Snow said, eyeing him suspiciously.
Ivo nodded.
“What else did you find?”
“Nothing,” Ivo said.
“Well, what else do you know?” Rose asked, hopeful. “Anything could help. Anything.”
“I swear,” Ivo said, his voice losing its edge, “I only know what you told me.” He looked Rose in the eyes before turning to Snow and doing the same. “Your father took the path and never come back.”
Snow’s dark scowl began to lift.
“I’m sorry,” Ivo said.
There was a long silence before Snow said, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Rose took a few steps toward him and wrapped her arms around his narrow shoulders, and Ivo hugged back.
“If it belonged to him, then”—Ivo took the knife off his belt—“it belongs to you.” Hesitation flickered across his face, but he placed the knife firmly in Rose’s hand.
The girls looked at each other, uncertain they were ready for the answer to the question they needed to ask. “Will you show us where you found it?” Snow said.
“Of course.” Ivo nodded and straightened his shoulders. “Of course I will.” He led them back out of the tunnel, all three walking with purpose.
There was only one way in and out of Ivo’s house, so they had to pass through the party to get aboveground. They wove their way back to the dining room quietly. The grown-ups had gathered near the fire, where Ivo’s mother played the accordion. Afternoon sun fell from the windows in narrow gold beams around her.
Snow and Rose found their mother and pulled her aside, letting her know they would walk home with Ivo, who was trying his best to sneak away unnoticed.
They finally reached the stairs, when Ivo’s great- uncle Vincent wandered up.
“Do you see them?” he asked, his white hair glowing in the firelight, like dandelion fluff.
“See what?” Snow asked, inching away.
“Up there,” the man said, pointing at one of the round windows set into the ceiling. “Outside.”
The children looked up to the stream of light that filtered through the window.
“Is it snowing?” Ivo asked. The window framed the bare branches sketched across the pale sky, nothing more or less. Ivo waved silently to his uncle as they crept quietly up the stairs and opened the front door. “Sometimes he sees things that aren’t there,” Ivo whispered.
Aboveground, no snowflakes drifted in the air. Ivo hurried out in front of the girls, looking for the place he’d found the knife.
Snow turned to Rose, whispering as they walked. “Did you see them?”
“What do you mean?” Rose said. “Snowflakes?”
Snow frowned. “No.” She looked at her sister. “I think they were fairies.”
Rose sighed. The importance of their expedition, of what they might find, was all she could think of.
“Rose.” Snow caught her sister’s sleeve. “I think the woods might—” She paused, looking around. “I think the woods might be enchanted.”
“You sound like Ivo,” Rose whispered, walking faster. She felt for the knife in her pocket. “Keep up.”
“But what about everything that’s happened?” Snow said, lagging a few paces behind.
“Ivo’s family doesn’t read,” Rose went on, ignoring Snow’s question. “People who don’t read books believe in superstition.”
Snow quickened her steps, crossing in front of Rose with a loud, trailing whisper. “Superstitions have to come from somewhere.”
The sun was sinking low between the trees as Ivo led them to the place. It was a place they’d been before, where they’d picked blackberries that first day they left the path. When they didn’t know the woods, any of it. Ivo showed them where he’d found the knife, on the ground beside the green brambles, now a maze of brown thorns.
“Are you sure this is the right spot?” Rose asked, her eyes searching the bramble patch for anything that might be a clue.
“Right here,” Ivo said, pointing to an ordinary spot of forest floor.
“Did you see anything else?” Rose asked, hunting and sifting through brittle leaves and branches. Snow waded halfway into a tangled hedge, not caring when the dried thorns caught her cape or scratched her hands. Ivo knelt nearby, looking into the scraggly underbrush.
He fidgeted with the socks on his hands, remembering the bloodstains he’d cleaned off the knife. He wouldn’t tell them about that. He would never tell them about that.
“Let’s look carefully,” said Rose. “Just in case there’s anything, no matter how small.”
So they spread out. They stooped low and climbed up and peered under fallen trees. Once the girls both gave a little shout, when they thought they had the beginnings of some clue, but there was never anything except the forest floor. They circled each other as they searched the thicket, but it was cold, and the light was fading quickly.
It was nearly dark when they came back together, empty-handed. “We can look again when it’s light,” Ivo offered.
Rose took the knife from her pocket and looked at it.
“I’m sorry,” Ivo said again.
Ivo walked with them until the cottage was in sight, and with defeated, tired goodbyes, they parted ways. The girls could hear the coins in his pouch jingling as he walked away, leaving the path and starting through the trees. Rose worried about him setting off alone. Then she reminded herself that he had done this the night of Snow’s party, and he’d made it home.
Ivo knew the way between the cottage and his own house. He tried not to worry that the sky was growing dark and the shadows were growing long.
One shadow in particular watched Ivo. It moved on legs that bent backward, flickering behind the boy as he walked quickly through the skinny birches and the big, winding oaks. A scattering of real snowflakes began to fall, and though the snow was silent, Ivo stopped and stood and listened, as if he heard something. Then he shivered and quickened his pace.
The shadow followed. It waited and it watched. But it was too late to run. The shadow found Ivo, and Ivo never found his way home.
