The black-eyed girl stretches, twisting her body one way, then the next. She rolls her neck.
“What can we bring you?” asks Lucy, worrying her fingers, taking a step forward and then falling back as it becomes clear that the black-eyed girl won’t answer. “What comes next? What do we have to do in order to escape?”
The black-eyed girl raises an eyebrow.
“You can speak,” Lucy says. “Can’t you?”
But the black-eyed girl chooses not to speak to Lucy. Instead she cocks an ear, listening to the world outside the forest. She brings a finger to her lips and sucks, lubricating the knuckle, using her teeth to remove the dirty emerald ring long pressed upon it, which she spits to the ground.
Lucy falls to her knees to retrieve the ring, then scrambles to gather the rest of the jewelry—the iron brooch, the plain gold band, the promise ring—that trails the black-eyed girl as she walks slowly from the clearing. The silver chain torn from the neck. The wire bracelet unwoven. The fallen Blakely crest, pressed facedown in dirt.