The Girl Gingerbread in the Woods of Winter White

by Bethany R. Lindell

  The wagons rolled along, and Gingerbread watched it from her half-dreaming state. The presence didn't come closer, and it didn't fall behind. It stayed just at her shoulder, hidden by the creaking wagon.

  It knows I can sense it, the certainty came to her without words, like the presence had come without warning. The witch knows I can see her.

  Her danger sense roused enough to study the unseen thing . . . and then laid down like an old hunting dog before the fire. She would know the witch anywhere, had sniffed out her presence in hovels and fine houses. This presence didn't belong to her.

  I do know you, Gingerbread dreamed the words as her head swayed with a sudden lurch of the wagon. We've met before. You watched me from the trees in my dream, and I think . . . I watched you die.

  The unicorn, if it was him, did not break stride. Perhaps he couldn't hear her like she assumed, or perhaps Gingerbread only dreamed after all. It's not like I've never had a lucid dream before. Everyone has.

  A different possibility soaked into the back of her mind, staining her sleep with grief. What if this was just another phantom? She had seen the unicorn fall, and it had felt impossibly real, no matter what Clatch said or how fast her mind failed her. If it had happened. If the Piping Witch really had killed a unicorn and not just tricked her with some kind of illusion . . .

  Don't be dead, Gingerbread thought. Her eyes and throat stung. I'd rather imagine you than find out you're dead. I'd rather you weren't real at all then dead!

  Gingerbread thrashed inside her own skin, trying to break free of her dream, but exhaustion weighed her down and kept her still. She focused on the grind of the axles, the squeak of the wheels as they turned. Nikolas hummed an old song to himself, the sound deep enough to rattle Gingerbread's molars, but nothing broke the dream spell holding her in place.

  The shining of the unicorn stayed with her. Tears burned the corners of her eyes. She wanted to throw her arms around the beautiful neck and bury her face in his shoulder, but what if she couldn't touch him? What if the unicorn only echoed the last movements he had made in life, like all her other phantoms?

  Please don't be dead . . .

  Gingerbread cried in her sleep, and the salt burned where her tears coursed over the scars dotting her cheeks. She thought Nikolas spoke to her, but his words disintegrated into bass rumblings. His hand appeared on her shoulder, and he gave her a gentle shake, but not enough to wake her. Burnt sugar flavored the air and crept into her nostrils, infiltrating her dream. The unicorn shining. The unicorn falling . . .

  Why? Why do you have to keep dying and Dearie keep winning? Why do I have to go and lose to her again? Why can't you and I just win once?

  The ache building in Gingerbread's chest overwhelmed her half awake mind. Blackened sugar curdled in her nose, the stink of it sweet and overpowering. Gingerbread twisted, trying to find fresh air, and found the sharp scent of broken pine needles. It stung her nose, and she breathed in deep in surprise.

  The pines drove back the panic of her nightmare and Gingerbread breathed it deep into her lungs, clearing away the consuming ache. She felt herself floating, stretching out of her reflexive curl, and resettled into the expanse of her skin.

  Her fingers twitched, then her nose. Then she sneezed and banged her elbow against the bench.

  Gingerbread growled out curses between clenched teeth and leaned forward as she clutched at her arm.

  "Careful," Nikolas said next to her.

  Gingerbread glowered up at him, her eyes in her lap as she rubbed at her aching elbow. "Thanks for the warning." She twisted her arm around, reflexively looking for any bruises, but her sleeve was still intact. "How long was I asleep?" she asked.

  Nikolas shrugged. "Not long I think, but the trees make it hard to say. Every hour is as formless as twilight."

  Gingerbread grunted her agreement as she twisted over the side of the wagon. The trees continued to creep past them, but no unicorns walked beside them in stately procession. Her spirit fell into her stomach. She shook her head.

  What did you expect from a dream? At least he's not a phantom.

  She sat back again and leaned her arm against the bench's side, wincing when she pressed her new bruise.

  "They made it difficult to sleep, but it was the scent that actually woke me. All that pine." She swept her hand through the air. "I started dreaming of it."

  The big tinker chuckled. "I think you're dreaming of it still, Girl Gingerbread."

  Fear struck her like a match. Did I only dream myself awake? Gingerbread pinched herself beneath her capelet.

  She scowled at Nikolas as she rubbed her new red spot. "What are you talking about now, Nikolas?" she demanded, annoyance sharpening her tongue.

  The tinker leaned back in mock fear of her temper, the horse tossing her head as he pulled her reins. Nikolas laughed and called soothing words to her. "Just that I've no more smelled these pines than I've seen their needles fall. You'll have to watch yourself, Girl Gingerbread. The wood is creeping inside you."

  He wiggled his thick fingers at her and chuckled, but Gingerbread stared at the road. The trees were frozen over. How had she forgotten?

  She took an experimental sniff, but the astringent scent, wherever it came from, had gone. All she smelled was cold.

  "Niko." Clatch's quiet voice kept her from asking questions. Gingerbread turned her head and found him jogging next to the wagon. His eyes flicked to her before returning to his step-father. But this time there was alarm in his blue eyes.

  Gingerbread straightened up as Nikolas asked, "What is it? Did the deer run off?"

  Clatch swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in his neck. "No, not Klingeln. Two of the ewes. They were making wolf noise and when Marta and Katri went to calm them down, they all ran. Two bolted into the wood before they could catch them, but we managed to keep the rest."

  Nikolas frowned in understanding, but Gingerbread turned from father to son. "Wolf noise? Are your sheep howling at the moon now?"

  Clatch frowned at her, his mouth thinning at her joke. "No, no. It is the noise they make when they smell wolves or other predators nearby. We keep them at the back to give us some warning that way."

  Well at least their sheep still bleat. "Oh. I thought you did that so wolves would take your strays rather than your children."

  Nikolas shrugged, his mind on Clatch's news. "That too. But what were they frightened by?" he asked Clatch.

  "I don't know. Marcus and I stood guard as the girls gathered up the sheep, but we didn't see anything. No tracks or signs."

  Nikolas pursed his lips beneath his beard. "Sounds like my department then," Gingerbread said. She picked up her sword where it leaned against the bench and stood with care, one hand holding to the wagon's overhang to keep from falling off before she meant to. "I'll hang back and watch behind us. Keep as close to the wood's edge as you can, Nikolas. The deep wood will be impassible."

  "Because of witches?" He raised his caterpillar eyebrows and grinned at her.

  Gingerbread eyed him hard, sword held in her hand. "For many reasons," she told him before leaping to the ground.

  She waited there to regain her equilibrium, still rocking with the sway of the wagon pulling ahead of her. Her eyes skimmed the trees, but they were empty.

  The tinkers in the wagon behind her stared openly and Gingerbread flushed. "Get that dream out of your head," she told herself as she started making her way to the rear of the caravan. With four wagons and all their noise between them, Gingerbread still heard the sheep bleating and crying.

  Wolf noise. From the looks the tinkers gave each other, they all knew what it meant. The grandparents called the children back inside the wagons for stories while their mothers took the reins from their fathers, their hands now occupied by hatchets and crossbows where they walked beside the wagons.

  Gingerbread took her place behind the last wagon trailing its many sheep and goats like fluffy fish on their tether lines. They bumped into each other, crying
as their eyes roved over the snow. Gingerbread scanned the path behind them and found nothing but their own tracks.

  "Whatever's following us now is no unicorn."

  WHATEVER PATH NIKOLAS had followed faded as quietly as moon set, but the wagons trundled on. The wood itself stood quiet, watching, but the quieter the Winter Whites grew the more noise the sheep made, winding everyone's nerves tight. The children walked around with their hands over their ears while the elders sucked on their teeth and mumbled curses.

  Gingerbread frowned back at the animals huddled to one side of their pen and shook her head. "Bleating wool balls. She doesn't want you so quit your whining."

  The entire flock jerked away from her raised voice, but then the lamb bleated, and they all started off again, drowning out Nikolas's attempt at a story.

  "Why does he bother?" she asked herself.

  "It keeps their minds off the sheep."

  Gingerbread glanced down at Clatch sitting on his front step. A fringe of reddish-orange hair frayed out from beneath his cap, sticking out over the nape of his neck where he bent over the gears and rods in his lap.

  Gingerbread swallowed and looked back at Nikolas. "He must be a miracle worker than," she said, not wanting to let the hope of a conversation go.

  Clatch snorted, his head bobbing with his almost-laughter. "Did you see anything today?" he asked. It was the most he'd said directly to her since they had returned with Katri.

  Gingerbread shook her head. "No. Not today. Not yesterday. But I doubt wolves are tracking us, if that's what you're worried about."

  He grunted and then relapsed back into silence. Gingerbread tried to think of something else to say, but Clatch's silence held her back.

  The lamb bleated again in its shrill voice and Gingerbread pushed herself off the wagon. "I'm going to keep watch. Tell Robert and Johann to do the same."

  Clatch only grunted again.

  Gingerbread stood in the shadow of one of the wagons and watched the wood that night, and the wood watched her back. The feeling of its spying eyes found her with her shoulders hunched around her ears, and followed her further into camp when Robert came to take her place after midnight. They stayed on the back of her neck, until Gingerbread had the absurd notion that they wanted to grab her by it and shake her around like a rat in a terrier's mouth.

  She tossed her hood up and bundled herself into her bedroll. "You'll have to try harder than that, Dearie," she said, and then fell into a fitful sleep.

  When she rose from her bed before dawn, there stood the unicorn.

  Her breath stuck in her throat at his presence, even though she was not surprised to find him waiting for her. By looks alone, there wasn't much to separate him from the tinkers' brown nag. He had the same solid build, the same arched neck and tapered head. His hair coated his body in shades of white and his equine ears expressed more than his eyes.

  Such blasphemy though, Gingerbread shied away from the thought. It was more than the horn spiraling up from his forehead or the brilliant whiteness of his silken hair. It was his eyes. They were deeper than any pool. Brilliant in their darkness. She frowned and finally remembered to breathe. That sounded almost as wrong as comparing him to the old nag. Yes, his eyes were dark, but it was the dark of a long and peaceful night where sleep came easy and wiped away your weariness. The kind Gingerbread had missed since entering the Winter Whites.

  She wanted to fall headlong into those eyes and wrap herself in his rest. And she wanted to run in the opposite direction fast as her legs would go. There is no time for rest, and there won't be as long as the Piping Witch possesses this wood. Besides, what have you done to deserve it?

  Gingerbread forced herself still, focusing on the cold consuming her feet. She followed the unicorn by the soft glow of his horn, his mane and tail switching in the hushed air. He stared back with those eyes that Gingerbread loved and feared. Finally, she realized he was waiting on her.

  "Well why didn't you just say so instead of following me from tree shadow for the last two days?" she asked in a loud voice. She stuck her fist against her hip and hoped the folds of her skirt hid her shaking fingers. "So what do you want with me?" She stiffened, remembering who she was being rude to and added a belated, "sir."

  One of the unicorn's ears flicked and Gingerbread read his amusement, clearer than any of her phantoms. There were no echoes here, she realized, because he was here, present, before her. With her.

  Just like the boy that pointed us back to Katri.

  She didn't pretend to understand how or why this was happening, or what the two had in common. Trying to find reason in it made her eyes ache, and she made herself stop as she rubbed her temples with her fingertips.

  "Why are you doing this to me? What do you want?" Gingerbread asked and then realized what she really wanted to know was, "Why me?"

  The unicorn blinked, and Gingerbread missed the depths of his eyes. He turned around, the light of his horn revealing diamonds in the snow. He wanted her to follow him.

  Gingerbread hesitated. "Forgive me," she said, only somewhat sarcastic, "but you've hardly been a bearer of good tidings."

  The unicorn shook his head, his mane making the air ripple with silver.

  Follow.

  "What?" Gingerbread started to laugh before she realized he was serious. "Do I look like an eight-year-old girl who chases after unicorns because they say so?"

  The unicorn stared at her, waiting for her to do just that.

  Gingerbread frowned, annoyed with the creature. She threw out an arm toward the tinkers sleeping safe enclosed by Numina's arms. "You followed us for the past two days and that's the only explanation you could come up with? Follow." She snorted. "Well forget it. You want my help? I'm going to need more than your insistence that I should get up and go with you."

  She crossed her arms beneath her cape and planted her boots. The unicorn kept his steady eyes on her, unafraid of her white pupils. She expected him to look indignant at her defiance, or at least bewildered, but he only waited.

  You must follow, she read in his eyes.

  "Well if I must follow that's completely different." Gingerbread rolled her eyes, but it was getting harder to keep her feet where she put them. She wanted to follow the unicorn into the wood. Into the dark if he led her there.

  Absurd. She tried to shake some common sense back into her head.

  The unicorn still watched her with the deep comfort of his eyes, and a new awareness slowly stepped into Gingerbread's mind. Her stiff arms loosened and her eyebrows slid closer together as she angled her head, trying to read it clearer.

  "If you weren't immortal and beyond such things . . ." she said slowly, trying to understand what she felt. "I would think . . . you're tired, sir."

  Gingerbread took a step forward before she realized she meant to. "Is that why you find it so hard to speak?" she asked him. "I can feel that it is, but is that why?"

  The unicorn flicked his tail and his ears cocked back in frustration. With his own slowness, Gingerbread hoped, and not with her. He swung his head back to the deep wood.

  You must follow, she read in him again. Gingerbread frowned and opened her mouth only to be cut off by a certain, You must see.

  Gingerbread jerked back, kicking snow down her boots when she stumbled. Fear grabbed hold of her and she threw it off with her anger.

  "Forget it!" she snarled. "I have seen enough of your world. The goblins and imps and all those traps they set for humans and their stupid phantoms that no one else ever sees! And that was before I stepped foot in this wood and saw things that aren't even happening! Can't you at least let me lose my mind in peace?"

  Her voice echoed through the empty space before the icicles dripping down the pine needles caught and silenced them. The unicorn stood before her and waited, his eyes soft with understanding. He knew she didn't want this, had done nothing to deserve her curse, and he knew how little more she could take before she followed her mother. But he also knew more, something beyon
d the scope of even her vision.

  You must see.

  It was hard to argue with such certainty. Gingerbread tried to think of a way, holding her anger close, but it bled off into the cold of the snow. She deflated, shoulders falling as she gave in.

  "Why does it have to be me?" she whispered.

  The unicorn's eyes held hers and told Gingerbread he had an answer, even a reason, that it must be her to follow him. Weariness pressed down on him from all sides, and he didn't have enough strength to say it. He turned and walked away.

  Gingerbread followed him with dull eyes and briefly thought of letting him go. But what if he regained enough strength to speak again?

  "You know," she sighed out as she picked her way after the unicorn, "for all those stories about your kind, not one of them says how willfully stubborn you are."

  His tail switched, flicking a flurry of snowflakes into the air. Gingerbread brushed one off her nose as she followed the unicorn deeper into the Winter Whites. "Oh sure, laugh it up."

  THE UNICORN LED HER through the glowing trees, the wan ice light tossing Gingerbread's shadow out behind her as a two-headed chimera that followed at her back. One head faded as the light changed until the wood they walked through was not the Winter Whites Gingerbread had traveled these last few days.

  Everything was green. The firs, the pines. They shed their icy coats and their needles shone dark and glossy where they grew in prickly profusions from spreading branches. Their heady scent added spice to the air, brushing away the last few days. Snow still covered the ground and wrapped the trees in soft blankets, but it glistened and glittered, vibrant beneath the daylight sifting down between the treetops. The trees rested beneath it, and sighed as the unicorn passed beneath them.

  Gingerbread followed in his wake. It was hard to remember she was asleep and dreaming, everything felt so real. "Is this how it was before?" she asked the unicorn and blinked at the full sound of her voice. Had she been whispering all this time?