Page 3 of The Queen's Box

Ash didn’t think so.

“Your little adventure kit,” she’d called Willow’s go bag when she’d found it, sifting through the carefully folded clothes. “You love the idea of running away, but we both know you never will.” She’d clicked her tongue. “You wouldn’t last a week.”

Willow had zipped the bag shut and shoved it back into the closet, furious. Later, lying in bed, Ash’s words had needled at her. Was Ash right? Was this just a fantasy Willow clung to, the comfort of a make-believe escape hatch? Sometimes it felt as if she lived in two worlds at once: her real life—drab and cheerless—and her other life, the one that was meant to be. The one with Serrin.

She couldn’t reach him on a thousand dollars, nor on a million. You couldn’t buy your way to another world.

But staying in Atlanta, staying stuck, wasn’t getting her anywhere, either.

Sick of the relentless party cheer, Willow sighed and shifted positions, making the bells on her skirt jingle merrily.Great.And yet the sound called out to her, a thread pulling taut. She’d always been drawn to bells, to their clarity and their power to summon.

She touched one of the small bells and allowed the memory to stir: the chime of a tarnished silver baby rattle she’d heard more than a decade ago. That one chime rewrote the fabric of her life, proving that the worldwasstitched with unseen magic—and that she, Willow, was meant for something more.

It had happened when she’d been seven. It’d been summer break, and she’d been bored, with nothing better to do than wander aimlessly around the house, opening cabinets andlooking beneath beds, peering into the shadows where spiders and old socks hid.

She’d found the silver rattle stuffed in the back of a drawer. When her fingers had closed around it, the air had been sucked right out of her. Then it’d rushed back, thick and cloying, while at the same time, the walls of the house had thinned and grown transparent. She was pretty sure she’d gasped. She must have gasped. What other response was there to such a revelation?

But, strangely, she didn’t remember being frightened. The whole recollection had a hazy feeling to it, as if sprinkled through with golden motes of dust, but through the gold-filtered mist, she’d seen a woman standing at the edge of a forest. Her dress had been dark, her hair long and wild.

The woman had met Willow’s gaze, and her eyes had widened. She’d opened her mouth as if to speak, and then—

And then four-year-old Ash had tugged on Willow’s arm and called her name. Willow had blinked at Ash, confused. Then she’d turned back toward the forest, but the forest—and the wild-haired woman—were gone.

“I said your nameso many times,” Ash had complained, “but you didn’t listen. And your face looked funny. I didn’t like it.”

Willow hadn’t told Ash what she’d seen, not for a whole ten seconds. Then it had tumbled out of her—all of it—wild and bright, like a secret too big for one girl to hold.

At four, Ash had idolized her big sister. And at four, she’d still allowed herself to believe in impossible things.

“But who was she?” she’d asked with huge eyes. “The lady?” She’d looked around. “And the forest—where did it go?”

“I don’t know,” Willow had answered breathlessly. “Back to where it came from? Ash, this is very important, and I need you to listen. Okay?”

Ash had nodded.

“I think it was fae magic,” Willow had told her.

“Faemagic? What’s that?”

“Faeries,” Willow had whispered, and Ash’s eyes had widened much like those of the lady in the forest when she’d spotted Willow and Willow had spotted her back.

“Can I try?” Ash had asked.

Willow had frowned, an uncomfortable itch of selfishness making her heart squeeze small.

“You’re not old enough,” she’d said.

“Am so!” Ash had said.

She’d begged for the silver rattle, then stomped her foot and demanded Willow share it “or else.”

“Ash, no,” Willow had said, though she’d swallowed the words that tried to come next:It’s mine. She’d held the rattle above her head and out of Ash’s reach, prompting Ash to burst into great loud noisy sobs.

The ruckus had brought their mother, and when she spotted the rattle, all the blood had rushed from her face.

“Give it to me,” their mother had snapped, and Willow, startled by the fear in her mother’s voice, had handed it over. Whether her mother had hid it or thrown it away ormeltedit, even (the thought had crossed Willow’s mind), Willow never learned. No matter how long and hard she looked, she never found it again.

Over the years, Ash had rewritten the incident and turned it into a joke.

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