Page 33 of The Same Backward as Forward

“Hangman?” I repeated.

“That’s the game. But to make it interesting, there’ll be a wager. I have the sense that my people—whoever they are—are very fond of wagers, risky ones in particular.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him exactly who his people were, but Iknew—he didn’t want to know.

His brain wouldn’tlet himknow.

“What’s the bet?” I asked.

“I propose the following terms…” Harry took his damn time spelling it out between bites. “You have three days and unlimited chances to guess my word. Instead of drawing bits and pieces of a stick figure with each wrong guess, I’ll draw the hairs on your head one at a time, if I have to. But if, after the third day, you cannot guess my word, you have to tell me all about the wicked queen.”

My mother.

He must have seen refusal in my expression, because he gave me a second option. “Either that or you can tell me about your lost one.”

“Lost one?” I repeated.

“The person you’re grieving. The one you loved so fiercely.” He caught my gaze again. “No one has eyes like yours, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward, unless they’ve lost.”

Eyes like mine?They were a muddy hazel, unremarkable, guarded. “And what will you give me when I win?” I said.

“When?I admire your confidence, misplaced though it might be.”

“I’ve solved your last two puzzles, haven’t I?” I shot back. I’d also unfolded every single one of his paper creations without ever tearing them. Every challenge he’d set out, I’d met.

“What do you want if you win, liar mine?”

I want…I couldn’t make myself finish that sentence, not even to say,I want you to make it all the way to the lighthouse. Now.“I don’t know.”

“An unspecified boon?” Harry raised both brows. “How very fairy tale of you, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward.”

“Frightened?” I taunted. I preferred this Harry to the one of the last few days.

“Terrified,” he replied with a smile. “You have a deal.”

Chapter 28

We were still out of paper, so Harry drew his puzzle on a napkin.

I eyed the spacing between those letters. “Is that all one word?”

“Why, yes, it is.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. There had to be a catch to the fact that he’d given me unlimited guesses. There were only twenty-six letters in the alphabet. “E,” I said.

Harry helped himself to another napkin. I expected him to draw the typical hangman frame, but all he drew was an oval.

“A.”

A single, arcing line, in the vicinity of what I had to assume would eventually be my eye.

Someonewas feeling overly confident here, and it wasn’t me. Narrowing my eyes, I went through the rest of the vowels, includingY.

That lone eye was starting to take shape, and I realized: Harry coulddraw. This was definitely no stick figure. It was thebeginnings of a very detailed sketch, and I remembered the way he’d said that he would draw my hair one strand at a time if he had to.

“There’s no such thing as a word without vowels,” I told him.

Harry shrugged. “I never promised to spell my word with letters.”