The Girl Gingerbread in the Woods of Winter White

by Bethany R. Lindell

  She nearly choked on it when a wall of hair and wool thundered by an inch from her toes. Klingeln, the old nag, all the sheep and Katri's blasted goats. Even Silber ran headlong after Klimpern, his antlers leaving marks in the snow as he swept up the straggling nanny goat and her kids.

  The stampede dwindled as quick as a summer rainstorm, their hooves already a fading pelt against the hard ground.

  "What was that about?" Gingerbread asked after she regained her feet. She stared after Silber's white tuft of a tail before slapping the snow off her skirt. "How'd they get out?"

  Clatch ran forward like he thought he stood a chance of chasing them down. He only made it a few steps before he stopped and shoved his hands in his hair. His cap sat in the snow near Gingerbread's feet. She stooped to pick it up.

  "That was all our animals!" he said. "Even the ducks. Every fur and feather just took off into the wood!"

  Gingerbread brushed snow off the wool knit and glanced into the ice light after the caravan animals. "I noticed," she said as she stood on tiptoes and jammed the hat back over Clatch's snow-crusted head.

  He freed his fingers before pulling it down tight over his ears, but the motion was mechanical. "I told Niko those pens needed replacing. Especially the reindeer's. Klirren jumps that fence like it's a game!"

  Gingerbread frowned. It was hard enough telling the deer apart when they were standing still but . . . "I don't think Klirren was in the pack."

  Clatch didn't listen. He tore off his hat and threw it to the ground, stomping on it and ruining Gingerbread's work to clean it. She rolled her eyes at him. "You're overreacting. You have your horn. They'll hear it and come back."

  "Not the ducks! Not the stupid sheep or the goats. We'll be stuck out here days if we try and find them all, but of course we can't do that because of your cursed witch! We'll be eating nothing but dandelion stems and chicken eggs for the next six months before we can replace them all!"

  Gingerbread pursed her lips and jabbed a finger after the animals. "Don't go blaming me because Jorge didn't put your precious pens up in the right order, or Margo forgot to latch them."

  Clatch shook his head before bending down and picking up his hat again. "What, all of them? At once?" He slapped his hat against his thigh to dislodge the snow, then jammed it back on his head. White still outlined his boot prints on the lower edge. "Even Margo's not that forgetful. Someone must have taken Klimpern out and lost control of him." He coughed out a disgusted noise. "Idiot must have run into the other pens on his way out."

  "Unless some dunderhead let them all out," Gingerbread agreed.

  A horn-like bellow made them turn the way the tinker animals had charged from. Clatch recognized the sound first. "Klirren!"

  He ran toward her trumpeting, and Gingerbread followed him with a glance around the ice light. Her brain still itched.

  Klirren's halter rope had caught up in a thick holly bush not far behind them. White showed all around her eyes, and she bellowed and grunted in total panic as she jerked her head to free herself.

  "Easy Klirren. Easy sweet girl," Clatch said in his soft animal voice. He kept his hands out from his sides. "Hush my good girl, husha . . ."

  Klirren kicked at him, her front legs brought up short by the sharp twist of her head as the halter held her to the bush. "I don't think she wants you closer, Clatch," Gingerbread said, eyeing the reindeer. "Wait for her to calm down before you try."

  "She's not going to calm down on her own," Clatch said, still in his low tone. "She's out of her mind with panic. But . . . If I can just . . ."

  He lunged a gigantic step forward and grabbed her halter. The reindeer screamed, sending Gingerbread back a step. "Clatch!"

  Klirren reared, but Clatch pulled her down hard. His weight kept her down, forcing her hooves against the ground to keep her from striking him. She bucked instead, tossing her head and screaming. Gingerbread's heart jumped into her throat. "What do I do?"

  "Let her kick!" Clatch shouted, jerking his leg to the side to keep Klirren from smashing it with a front hoof. He dragged down harder on her lead rope until her neck bowed to the ground. "Just wait her out."

  Gingerbread paced away from those powerful back legs, watching Clatch try to keep his feet out from under Klirren's. His hands slipped down the rough rope and with a jerk he clutched Klirren's horns to keep hold of her head. The reindeer tried to shake him off, but Clatch didn't give her enough room to get a good shake started.

  She kicked until her sides turned sleek with sweat. "No wonder you prize their endurance," Gingerbread said when Klirren stood there huffing white clouds from her nose several minutes later. "I hate to think how long Silber would have lasted."

  Clatch's sides heaved almost as hard as the reindeer's, but he grinned at Gingerbread where he still hung to her antlers. "You mean how long I would have lasted with Silber. He's much wilier than Klirren here." He dared to unwrapped one hand enough to run it over the reindeer's nose. She jerked her head, but didn't buck.

  Gingerbread shook her head, eyes fixed on Klirren. "You really are a crazy fool, Clatch."

  "Yes," Clatch said as he got one shaking leg under him, than the other. He braced one hand against his knee. "But a crazy fool with one reindeer. I've got more than any of the other tinkers. Oof . . ."

  He bent over double, one hand holding tight to Klirren's halter as he caught his breath. Gingerbread looked him over, but Clatch was only mussed. "Do you need help getting her untangled?" She took a step forward.

  "Don't!" Clatch's muscles bunched to keep Klirren in place as her eyes roved wild over Gingerbread.

  The girl stopped still in the snow before backing up in a flurry. Klirren eyed her, but her ears focused on Clatch's soft voice as he spoke to Gingerbread. "I got her, I got her." He stroked Klirren's neck with care. "I got you."

  Gingerbread stayed well back as he began to untangle the long rope from the holly bush using slow, careful movements. She frowned, trying to remember the other reindeer running past her and Clatch with the other animals.

  "None of the others had their halters on," Gingerbread said. "You only put those on when you bring them out of their fence, yes?"

  "Yes," he answered in a low murmur.

  "They must have been in their pen then, the others anyway." Gingerbread leaned back against one of the icy trees. She tilted her head back, taking in the branches above her. "Maybe she did let them out somehow," she thought out loud.

  "Who?" Clatch asked.

  "Dearie. The Piping Witch," she corrected herself. "If you stay in the Winter Whites looking for them, then she gets more chances to pick you off. First the search parties, then whoever goes looking for them, until the end when all the children are alone and undefended, so she-"

  The vague memory clicked into place, scratching the itch at the back of her brain. Alone? Undefended.

  Clatch stopped unwinding Klirren's halter. "Ginge?"

  Gingerbread glanced at him, then the stampede's footprints littered in the snow. "Back to camp." She gathered her strength to run and realized it would take her hours. "Get Klirren out of there! We need to get back to the caravan before Dearie cuts all the tinkers down!"

  Klirren started to stamp and grumble again. Clatch's eyes showed as much white as the reindeer's. "You said the witch couldn't cross Numina's line."

  "She couldn't, but we carried her in."

  Clatch's face turned white. "Katri!"

  Gingerbread nodded, her face grim. "Katri."

  CAMP WAS NOT IN SHAMBLES when they returned. The fire had not jumped its logs and found the wooden wagons. No wolves, or worse, prowled around the wheels, sticking their snouts up near the chicken cages hung beside the colorful doors. Nothing moved but Klirren's uneasy steps, leaving the wagons quiet. Far too quiet for this time of morning.

  "The girls should have started breakfast by now," Clatch said as he guided Klirren out of the last of the thick tree growth. He pulled her to a stop and their shaggy steed tossed her head, rumbling deep
in her chest as she pawed at the ground. Clatch swung off her back and held Klirren still by her harness, telling her again in soothing tones that she was all right.

  "She might be," Gingerbread said as she slid off Klirren's back and winced as her feet met the ground harder than Clatch's. "But what about the tinkers?"

  She didn't wait for an answer and Clatch didn't give one as Gingerbread drew her sword with a quiet snick.

  They walked between the wagons into camp and did not find it empty. Tinkers lay on the ground, stretched out in the snow where they'd fallen as they carried out their morning tasks. The young women around the fire. Mrs. Jorgens on her bench, slumped against the Holden's wagon. Mothers dozed over sewing baskets. Fathers lay in crumpled heaps near the animal pens, buckets of grain or bristle brushes spilled around them. The chickens sat puffed up in their hanging cages, and all the corral fences hung open.

  "Niko!" Clatch dropped Klirren's halter and ran to his step-father's wagon, hopping and sidestepping over fallen bodies. Gingerbread crouched down next to the boy Felis, who nattered at the sheep every morning while he fed them bits of apple. She pulled off one glove and touched her fingers to his neck. Still alive.

  She sighed out cold relief. Fitting her hand back into her glove, she rolled the boy over. Apple peel stuck to his cheek and snow clung to his clothes, dusting his dark hair white. His eyes were closed, but Gingerbread saw them moving back and forth beneath his lids.

  "Are you dreaming, boy?" she asked as she laid her hand along his cheek, dislodging russet-colored peelings. She caught a strong whiff of molasses and almond syrup before it dissipated. "About what?"

  Felis whined, his mouth dropping open as his breath came harder. His legs twitched like a sleeping dog.

  Gingerbread nodded. "Running." She searched the trees ringing the wagon train. "I bet I know from what, too."

  A wooden clack drew her head around. Clatch braced himself against the door frame of Nikolas's wagon. Gingerbread's eyes narrowed, and she knew what he had found before he told her.

  "Niko's asleep." Clatch gestured with half a wave behind him. "Snoring and talking nonsense like he always does, but I can't wake him."

  "You can't wake any of them," Gingerbread said as she stood. "The Piping Witch used one of her sleeping spells." Felis kicked her in the calf. She scowled down at the boy as he twisted around in the snow. "Although you wouldn't know it from some of them."

  Clatch pounded down the wagon steps. "How do we break it?"

  The lines between Gingerbread's eyebrows deepened. Her eyelids scratched against her eyes whenever she blinked, and she rubbed them clear. "I'm not sure we can," she admitted. "We have to figure out how she spelled them first. Then maybe-" She held up a hand, not wanting to get Clatch's hopes up. "Maybe we can wake them."

  Clatch's dull eyes said he didn't entertain much hope at the moment. He looked around at the green and brown mounds huddled in the snow, his mouth slightly open. "Johann doesn't even have his rifle. What could lay out everyone so fast?"

  "Come." Gingerbread patted his arm with a rough jerk, deciding not to answer. "You get blankets from the wagons. That should help until we have time to get them out of the snow. I'll keep looking for Katri. She probably knows where the spell started."

  Clatch groaned, the sound morphing into a slow yawn that pried his mouth all the way open. "Easy for you to say," he said around it as he pressed his thumbs against his eyes. "You actually slept last night."

  Gingerbread huffed through her nose. The base of her skull pounded out an irregular rhythm. "Sure doesn't feel like it. Now go on." She tapped Clatch's arm and he jerked upright. "Blankets. Katri."

  They searched the camp, rolling over sleeping tinkers and brushing snow off their tight faces. Clatch pulled quilts off every bed and covered the tinkers to keep them warm while Gingerbread searched beneath the wagons for the girl.

  "Not here," she called across the fire to Clatch. He nodded, his eyes still dull from exhaustion, before pulling another blanket from his collection and laying it over Johann and his sister.

  Gingerbread scanned the inner ring of the wagons. Where are you hiding, girl?

  One of the girls on breakfast duty groaned and rolled over, her hand falling up above her head into the edge of the fire. Gingerbread strangled out a gasp and hopped around the stone to yank Annelie's hand away from the burning embers. A bright red blister stood out on the girl's pale skin, but the fire was only embers now.

  "Good thing too or you would have lost your hand," Gingerbread said as she laid it on the girl's stomach before getting her hands under Annelie's shoulders to heave her farther from the fire. Heat glowed off the embers, warming Gingerbread's face. Molasses wound its way into her nose again, warm and sticky. It gummed up her thoughts, slowed her steps as she dragged Annelie nearer the benches. She recognized the flavor of the magic underneath.

  "Found you, you stinking syrup. Oh . . ." Gingerbread wavered on her feet when she straightened up. The wagons tilted at impossible angles as her head spun. She closed her eyes to let the dizziness fade and couldn't open them again. Her body started to fall, and she couldn't lift her hands enough to catch herself.

  Beyond the wagons to her right, the snap of a stick broke in her ears. Even half asleep she started, her fingers twitching with sudden adrenaline. It kept the sleeping curse from dragging her down. She was still falling, and her palms landed hard on one of the rocks in the fire circle and the sting of its hot side against her skin woke Gingerbread further.

  She blinked her eyes wide open and tried to hold her breath, but so close to the fire the warm sticky cloud curled inside her nose as she fumbled with the snap holding one of her belt pouches closed. It finally released and Gingerbread pulled out a handful of green leaves, too many, and crushed them beneath her nose.

  Mint cut through the fog filling her head and Gingerbread gasped, breathing in more. The clear cold scent burned her nose, but it held the molasses at bay.

  She threw the cast iron lid over the pot simmering on the embers and straightened up, leaves still held near her nose. "Clatch?" she called, splitting her handful of leaves into two. He didn't answer, so Gingerbread called louder, hoping to shock him out of the magic before it could drag him under with the rest of the tinkers. "Where are you?"

  "Here." His voice was nearly lost in another yawn, but he was still awake enough to answer. "I found Katri."

  Gingerbread followed his voice to the other side of the wagons. Clatch stood ankle deep in snow, staring up at the roof of a wagon. Heavy bags dragged down beneath his eyes, and he swayed on his feet like a weather vane.

  Gingerbread shoved one of her hands beneath his nose. "Breathe deep," she told him. "This'll clear your head of her syrup. The spell is one of her special brews and, somehow, it made it into the porridge pot."

  Clatch tried to push her hand away, but the mint had already widened his eyes. "What?" He coughed when the spice reached his throat and burned bright and cold.

  "Are you this slow every morning? Katri put it in obviously," Gingerbread said, then frowned. "Unless you meant the brew. In that case, it's almond syrup and one of her favorites, spiked molasses."

  Clatch coughed and held his throat to warm it. He frowned at her. "No, what is that?"

  He tapped a finger against the back of Gingerbread's hand, still holding the leaves under his nose.

  Gingerbread blinked, feeling red pinch her cheeks. "Oh." She ignored her mistake and mashed both handfuls of leaves into one, then gabbed Clatch's wrist with her empty hand and turned it palm up.

  "They're peppermint leaves," she told him as she slapped half of the leaves into his waiting hand. "The molasses spells you, so the mint will keep her fog out. I found them when we came off the mountain and thought they might prove useful." She shrugged. "They did. Keep them close. "

  Clatch nodded. He eyed the leaves, but took a careful breath of the peppermint. His eyes watered.

  "They'll clear out my sinuses as well as my head." He c
oughed again, but kept the peppermint near his nose.

  Gingerbread looked around. The geraniums sleeping in the window box . . . "This is Katri's family wagon," she realized. The woman asleep on the back step with her head resting against the door was the girl's mother. "Where is she?"

  Clatch's eyes flicked up before he pointed. Gingerbread lifted her head.

  Katri stood on top of her parents' wagon, her hands cupped in front of one eye in a child's telescope. She used it to scan the spaces between trees, her round face screwed up with impatience.

  "She doesn't look possessed . . ." Clatch spoke just as soft to Gingerbread.

  Not one bit, Gingerbread privately agreed. But then . . .

  "Why is she sucking on a peppermint stick?"

  Gingerbread stepped forward, fingers flexing beneath the basket hilt of her sword. Clatch sucked in air just before his hand landed on her shoulder. "She's just a little girl!" he pulled Gingerbread close enough to hiss in her ear.

  I'm not going to kill her! Gingerbread bit her cheek. If the Piping Witch had complete control over Katri and knew that, she could use the girl as her living shield, leaving Gingerbread with no way to get at her without hurting Katri too. She might still do that, but I'm not about to give the woman any ideas.

  She shook Clatch's hand off and glared at him to keep his mouth shut. He pulled away from Gingerbread's eyes and called out, "Katri! Katri come down from there!"

  Katri swung her make believe telescope down to them and her mouth dropped open. The peppermint stick dropped from her mouth and rolled against the wagon roof, then bounced down the rain gutter, tonking against the tin as it went.

  "No!" the girl wailed and stomped her foot. "You're not s'pposed to be awake Clatch. You're going to ruin everything!"

  Gingerbread jerked her elbow into Clatch's side. "Yeah, Clatch. So much for getting her down quietly."

  He scowled at her and held his side. "Well if you had said instead of getting a better grip on your sword. What was I supposed to think?"