Breadcrumbs

Hazel endures freezing cold and hunger as she walks toward the witch’s palace. When a white wolf appears, Hazel decides to trust the animal because all of the traditional fairy-tale rules seem reversed in the woods. The wolf leads Hazel toward a girl in tattered clothes staring into the light of a match as though entranced. The emaciated girl explains that she cannot return home until she has sold all of the matches, and she sees visions of her deceased grandmother and delectable feasts in the flames. Realizing that the girl will die unless she receives help, Hazel gives the girl her jacket, hat, mittens, an energy bar, and the whistle, which she uses to call Ben. The deeply grateful girl gives Hazel a box of matches and a piece of a mirror that she claims “shows you the way things really are” (258).

Snow begins to fall as Hazel resumes her solitary journey. After what feels like hours, she reaches an impenetrable wall of snow and falls into despair. The cold whispers to her, mocking her and ordering her to surrender: “There was a threshold and a magical woods, and you thought they might make you a hero.