Page 49 of The Queen's Box

“Or a rusted nail or a piece of bent siding. This isn’t Atlanta, Willow. Dogs out here have teeth.”

She rolled her eyes.Dogs out here have teeth.What a dumb thing to say. Dogs everywhere had teeth. And everywhere, dogs came in all shapes and sizes. What would he think if she told him about Mr. Chapman?

She wouldn’t because once she did, she’d never be able to take it back, and forever afterward he’d look at her differently.

But if she did. Would he want to hunt Mr. Chapman down and punch him? Sic a dog on him, a dog with teeth?

The trail widened into a crude path where scavenged boards formed a kind of walkway. Most were slick or splintered. One held the rusted remains of a mousetrap, still set. Willow sidestepped it and pressed on. Her thighs ached from yesterday’s long hike. Her borrowed boots were a size too small. Cole was being moody and dark, all scowls and hunched eyebrows, but even so—Willow felt alive. Her skin prickled with it, that breathless feeling just before a story got to the really good part.

Her life was starting here. Now. That’s how it felt.

Not in Atlanta. Not in a classroom with Mr. Chapman pretending not to stare. Not in her mother’s voice, brittle with cheer, or Ash’s scorn when she’d dropped out of Emory.

Here, in Lost Souls, the trees kept secrets. Here, the path—oh, please—led to answers and no more dead ends.

They rounded a bend, and Willow stopped, shocked by what lay in front of her. The settlement sat in a low bowl of land surrounded by hills steep as prayer hands. She counted seven structures total, all crooked in different ways. Sheet metal roofing. Cinder blocks stacked for steps. A sofa with its stuffing spilling out sat propped against a tree trunk, and on the roof of one tilted house, a line of metal folding chairs pretended to be tin soldiers.

Cole turned and held out his hand. “Stay close.”

She hesitated, then clasped his palm. It was warm, strong, and real.

A girl of about ten watched them from a porch rail, her feet swinging back and forth. She held a string leashed around the neck of a goat. Willow gave her a tentative wave. The girl didn’t blink.

“This place gives me the creeps,” she said to Cole, pitching her voice low. “Does that make me a bad person?”

Cole squeezed her hand. “If this place didn’t give you the creeps? That’d make you a dead person sooner rather than later. You’re fine. We’re fine. And we’re almost there, regardless.”

They passed a row of blackened stumps where candles had once been burned to waxy nubs. Beyond that slumped a cabin that looked like it had been constructed entirely out of furniture bits. It was like a Lincoln Logs house, only made from drawers rather than logs.

A little boy darted out from behind one of the drawers. He was maybe six or seven, with an uneven buzz cut highlighting the boniness of his skull. He was skinny and dirty and had trails of snot beneath each nostril. He sucked them in. They oozed back out.

“Lady?” he called. “Hey, lady! You got anything for me?” He stuck out a filthy hand.

“Oh!” said Willow. Feeling wrong-footed, she felt for her wallet, which she’d shoved deep into her right front pocket.

Careful with her fingers, she reached within and pulled free a twenty dollar bill. “You know what? I do.”

The kid saw green paper, and his eyes went huge.

Cole saw green paper and swatted Willow’s hand down. “What are you doing? Are you nuts?”

“Please, lady? Please?” begged the little boy. He was barefoot, but still he was hopping up and down among all these thorns and roots and tetanus opportunities just waiting to pounce.

“Hold on, tiger,” Cole told the kid. He grabbed Willow and pulled her away. “Willow, put your money away.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll be wasting it. He’ll run and tell everyone in the holler, and they’ll all be out here with cupped hands and pleading eyes.”

“I won’t!” the kid cried, circling around and trying to edge up close. “I won’t tell no one, I swear!”

Cole gave the kid a look. The kid froze where he stood. To Willow, he growled, “It’s sweet that you care, but you can’t save everyone.”

“Ohhh,” Willow said. “Okay, Cole, thanks for explaining. Only guess what?”

“What?”

“This isone kid, and I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that twenty dollars would mean a lot to him. And no, this isn’t me playing princess among the peasants. I’m not here to be anyone’s savior.”

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