The Hazel Wood

Alice takes Harold’s keys to go to the building’s garage to see if her mother’s car is still there, and it is. The only thing she can think to do is try to read the story, suspecting that the ripped page is some message or invitation; “[a]nd there was only one place I could think of where I might find a copy of Tales from the Hinterland” (60). She runs the eight blocks to Finch’s wealthy apartment building and gives the name “Alice Proserpine” to the desk woman (not “Crewe”). Finch rides the elevator down to greet her, curious. They go back to his apartment. He waits for Alice to explain, but she needs time and is still hopeful that Ella might call. They eat food that the housekeeper, Anna, makes for them. When Anna goes home, Alice explains she needs a copy of the book and wondered if Finch had one. He says he used to but it was stolen by a young boy when Finch was showing it to a rare book dealer in his shop.

Finch discusses how it’s impossible to find a copy of the book anywhere, and the stories are not findable online either, not even scanned images. Alice knows this because in her younger teens she searched for the book online and found instead that the Hinterland book had a sizeable fan following; she began following message boards and blogs to learn about the stories and Althea. One night in Iowa, she discovered a snippet of a page of a story called “The Sea Cellar,” but when she enlarged it to read it, the laptop camera turned on of its own accord. She shut the laptop quickly and later placed tape over the camera. A week after the camera incident, she fell asleep over a fan page, and Ella discovered it when she arrived home. After an argument, Alice agreed with Ella that Althea must not want them in her life and that she and Ella were their own best advocates. Alice decided she would no longer follow any fans: “I gave Althea up like a drug, and I didn’t let her back in till the day my kidnapper showed up at the café with her book in his hands” (69).

Finch mentions how there are no copies of the movies made from the stories either. He did not make photocopies of the printed pages. He says, however, that he recalls them well, including the titles. Alice asks him to tell her about “Alice-Three-Times.” First Finch shows her a photo he found of Althea in 1972 in a French actor’s memoir. He says that photo intrigued him and made him want the book. Alice asks if the book is good. Finch comments on the dark themes in the stories and how he loved them “’cause that’s where my head was at” (75). Finally, Alice explains the condition in which she found her apartment after school and shows the title page left on her bed. Finch tries to calm her about her missing mother and suggests calling Althea. Alice tells Finch she is dead, and Finch’s unbelieving reaction aggravates Alice to the point where she briefly rejects Finch’s help. He quickly talks her back into letting him accompany her to her apartment.

There is still no doorman. When the elevator opens, Harold rounds the corner with a gun pointed at Alice. He angrily accuses Alice without making sense: “And now you bring this into my life. My daughter could’ve been killed” (81). He ignores Alice’s repeated questions about Ella. Audrey arrives with a duffel bag and tells Harold to lower the gun. She tells Alice that the Hinterland took Ella; they took Harold and her, too, but let them go. She says she and Harold are leaving and tells Alice not to look for them. Harold refuses to answer anything else and makes them leave.

Once out on the street, Alice experiences a mild panic attack. She will not allow Finch to call the police. She wonders why he insists on sticking with her and helping her. He poses the theory that perhaps one of the fan theories is true: that Althea actually disappeared to some unknown, mystic wilderness and collected the stories that inspired her written collection: “That the Hinterland is a code name for the boonies in some northern country” (86). Alice scoffs at this idea initially but has to agree with Finch that fan theories are her next best step. They go to a diner, where Finch tells Alice what he recalls of “Alice-Three-Times.”

This chapter reads like the short story itself, though it represents the oral retelling Finch shares with Alice in the diner. Once a baby girl with black eyes is born to a king and queen. The baby is very small and silent. Assuming she will die, the queen does not name her—nor will she love her. For the longest time, the baby never grows, until one night the baby grows to the size of a seven-year-old girl. She grows in two more sudden, overnight bouts several years apart, once to a 12-year-old and then to 17. The queen decides it’s time for the girl to be married when the king begins to look at the girl with “an acquisitive eye” and give her gifts (91). The girl says she will marry the suitor who brings her ice from a distant cavern. Those who fail or try to trick her die. Finally two brothers from the north, “their skin nearly as pale as the ice they carried” (91), bring ice in sawdust and chop it up outside the castle. One brother says they don’t really want a wife but a housemaid to cook, clean, and bear their children. The girl swallows the ice, turns blue, and freezes. The parents send the solid frozen ice girl off with the two brothers; the queen feels relieved to be done with her.

The younger brother wakes after the first night of their journey home to find his brother frozen to death. He ties the frozen girl’s hands and feet and leaves her behind with the dead brother. That night his horse freezes to death. He tries to keep going on foot without sleeping but eventually becomes too exhausted to stay awake. The princess freezes him as well by touching his eyes and putting her mouth over his. Then she turns toward home: “The black-eyed girl felt her parents’ distant castle like the pulsing heartbeat of an animal she wanted to kill (93).”

Finch stops telling the story, whispering that he thought he saw something behind Alice in the diner, but he does not tell what. He sums up the end of the tale as “Bloody revenge, obviously” (96), and Alice comments that telling it aloud seemed to make him “nervous.” They discuss Finch’s stepmother, who wants to distance Finch from his father, and Ella, who used to allow Alice to jump and play in fountains. Finch is telling her how his mother once punched his stepmother in the stomach when Alice notices the young man from the cab in the diner. He winks at her, and she tells Finch they must leave immediately. Near Finch’s apartment, they see a woman whom Finch calls “Twice-Killed Katherine.” She is pale and has a long scar on her face. They hide behind a low wall that separates Central Park from the street. As they watch, the woman lets a bird out of a birdcage she is carrying, and the bird attacks a man’s neck. The color in Katherine’s face increases. When the bird is done, it returns to the cage, and Katherine walks away. The man gets up and walks, but he looks lost and staggering. Alice and Finch run to a park bench. Finch says, “That was the Hinterland” (103). He reassures Alice that Katherine would not hurt Ella as Katherine targets only men.