The woods seemed to close in on him. The trails got tighter. More branches, too many branches, reached for him as he passed. They cut into his parka sleeves and drew blood from his arms.

One even cut the pocket at his chest and Wayne caught the key without looking as it fell.

The key to the city.

The spirit of Goblin.

Wayne was in deep.

23

You’re like a den mother, Margot told herself. You’re leading a bunch of Girl Scouts on a nature walk through a very interesting wood.

She knew the story of the North Woods. Every kid in Goblin did. She knew about the whispering witch who could make your heart explode. She knew about the indigenous chief driven mad. And yet the thing she was most afraid of was with her already.

You told them you could find him, she told herself calmly. So…pretend to find him.

She couldn’t bring herself to turn around, to look at the Goblin Police in the North Woods. Instead she led silently.

They need you, she reminded herself. But for how long?

She made decisions quickly, giving the appearance that she knew where she was going. And the pride of solving The Hedges carried her.

But the North Woods had no finish line. No stationary key behind glass. Wayne Sherman must have been moving, too.

She thought of him, Wayne, as he was when she bought her ticket.

How scared he must be.

There was no denying the fact that this was all her fault. She’d started the whole thing. She’d—

A hand planted itself on her shoulder. She jumped in the darkness.

“How…close…are…we…?”

Margot didn’t turn around. Couldn’t bear seeing those cartoonish, unblinking eyes.

“We’re close,” she said. “I can smell the grass on him.”

Could they tell? Could they tell she was lying?

24

If Wayne hadn’t been driven by losing the police, his body would have collapsed. It would have been difficult to walk this far without a worry in the world. The sounds of somebody following him continued.

“Molly,” he huffed, “remember how we both dreamed of each other the night we first saw each other?”

He started to laugh.

The whole thing, The Hedges, running from the Goblin Police, real love…it was all so…funny to him then.

Snap!

Someone behind him still.

Snap! Snap!

“Remember how—”

Snap! Snap!

Wayne stopped. Whatever it was, wasn’t going away.

He turned to face it.

Blackness.

Wayne squinted, searching for movement. He knelt, needing the rest.

“Molly,” he said. “What do you think it is? The police? Or…”

It was closer now; the sound of branches pulled aside, the crackle of sticks and dead leaves.

Wayne rose again.

Memories of Molly circled through his mind like a wheel of fortune on fire.

He breathed deep.

Then whatever was trailing him stopped.