The Girl Gingerbread in the Woods of Winter White

by Bethany R. Lindell

  I'm getting close, Gingerbread thought as she brushed hoarfrost off her gloves. Dearie had to freeze these trees in more of a hurry, not like the outer wood we've been traveling through. The ice is so smooth it looks polished. She took her time there.

  She climbed up a larger bank, her legs disappearing into the snow up to her thighs. Light crested the top, shining into Gingerbread's eye with the strength of sunlight. She looked up, but the trees were still too thick to let daylight through.

  Gingerbread pulled herself up the snow bank, grabbing the thick stems of frozen bushes to help crest the rise. She paused at the top and shook the snow off her shoulders and leggings as she got her bearings. The light, brilliant and white, strayed past the heavy sides of craggy pine trees. The trees themselves didn't look any different from the others Gingerbread had passed, but Gingerbread felt their age, older than her family name. Older than the kingdom's history. Older than anything she'd ever seen with her two eyes except the unicorn.

  This was the Deepest Wood. The Heart of the Winter Whites.

  "Won't you come a little closer said the witchling to the girl?" She winced when she heard the nursery song. The words just fell out of her mouth.

  Gingerbread stepped closer to the oldest trees. The light pushed back with sudden white flares, and she brought her hand up to shield her face from its sharp probing. Gingerbread didn't know if it softened or if her eyes adjusted to the brightness, but when she blinked there was a clear space inside a ring of trees. Something like a frozen figure stood near its center. The ice did not glow here, but caught the light radiating out like a prism, scattering it throughout the Woods of Winter White and giving the figure a hundred thousand reflections to spy from.

  Gingerbread toed the border of the clearing, her instincts pulling her back from the open space with a sharp tug. Standing here isn't going to help anything, she told herself, but her feet still refused to break the unseen border encircling the clearing.

  She walked along its edge, holding on to tree trunks to keep from falling in on accident. She passed behind the tall figure's back, but still felt her watching. The ice encasing her was clear as water and Gingerbread caught movement twitching and flickering inside its core like oily fish.

  Hello Dearie.

  What remained of the Piping Witch twisted over itself inside its prison of ice, nebulous and dense with black rainbows that skittered through the Halloween mist of her.

  Gingerbread watched her from the trees, standing so still. Of course the witch didn't come for her. "The unicorn trapped her here a decade ago, perhaps longer. Why should she escape now?"

  Because she's close. Gingerbread eyed the clear crystal of the ice. Very close.

  She stepped past the Piping Witch and followed the edge of the clearing to the other side. Where's the unicorn? All she could find was a lump of snow huddled against the ground opposite the Piping Witch.

  Gingerbread's breath caught in her chest and stuck like they were filled with briers. The snow clouded the ice beneath it, filled to breaking with the opaque white of hoarfrost. A vague shape lay underneath. She traced the soft curve of closed eyes above a round cheek and a long twisting spire rising above them both.

  "Evergreen . . ." Gingerbread breathed. "What has she done to you?"

  His coat had lost all traces of his shaded green color, leaving him white as the pupils of Gingerbread's eyes. With the white-on-white of the snow and ice clouding him, she kept losing track of where he stopped and where the ice started. If Gingerbread blinked, she lost him, giving her the alarming sensation that he was fading into the ether before her eyes.

  She reached out her hand to anchor him to her, one foot stepping inside the clearing.

  Sound assaulted her with physical force when her foot broke through the snow, and her knees buckled. Gingerbread sank down without her breath and for the first time since entering the Winter Whites, she felt the cold bite into her skin.

  Gingerbread shivered as the maelstrom died as suddenly as it overtook her, and the shriek of the wind resolved into an old familiar chuckle. Not a cackle like Nikolas told his audiences, but a low secret laughter made for her own private amusement.

  Gingerbread lifted her eyes and found the Piping Witch standing free of her ice, no longer a nebulous cloud filled with lightless sparks, but a recreation of her living self with her pale skin and brown hair and high-collared dress. She had a mole on her neck and old burn scars marred her hands and Gingerbread could count the stitches mending a tear in one mauve sleeve. She could smell the ash of her, feel the heat of her eyes that had been missing when Gingerbread had fought the Piping Witch before. Gingerbread didn't fully understand how.

  I'm here. Gingerbread's eyes widened. Dearie is fighting the Evergreen Unicorn here and now, and I tumbled in between them!

  "So you can see me too," the Piping Witch spoke the now familiar words, voice soft, eyes blazing.

  "Is that all you have to say?" Gingerbread asked. Her eyebrows twitched in realization, and she grinned cockeyed at the witch. "Oh. It is, isn't it?" She picked herself out of the snow. "You're still stuck in those last moments with the unicorn. You can't say anything else."

  Dearie fixed her Hellfire eyes on her and the shudder passed down Gingerbread's spine before she could ward it off. She's very close though.

  A slow smile pulled at the woman's sunken cheeks. The night of the fire played across Gingerbread's eyes, the woods turning to ash and the sky to smoke, but that smile stayed just the same.

  "My what lovely eyes you have." She recognized Gingerbread despite ten years' growing. "My teacher used to tell me-"

  "That good things come to those who wait, I heard you the first three times. Do me a favor Dearie-" Gingerbread found her nerve beneath the cold freezing her. She met the Piping Witch's eyes and drew her sword with a sharp flick, letting it hang between them. "If you're not going to say anything new, just shut up."

  Her ghastly grin slid away, and she didn't speak again, but her white-pupil eyes crackled like embers in a sudden wind. Gingerbread read them as easily as the witch had recognized her. Won't be long now. You can't stop me.

  "Oh, but I will." Gingerbread held her sword with both hands, steadying the blade as she steadied herself. "Or die trying."

  The Piping Witch shrugged, the motion traveling down her arms and resolving into a flick of her fingers. Suit yourself.

  Hot ash spilled from the witch's hands, left like stains that landed in gray, sullen drops upon the brilliant white of the snow. Gingerbread braced herself against them, hiding her face in the fur of her hood as she ran to her right, avoiding the worst of the stinging smoke.

  The fight's the same as before too. Gingerbread grinned wolf-like into her furs. She can't move any different. She's still bound up in everything she did before like a bad script!

  Ashes turned to embers, but Gingerbread was already clear of them. She dove into a somersault, letting the barrage fly over her head, then planted both her feet and leapt for Dearie's unprotected back with a scream that could shatter bone. The witch filled her sight and Gingerbread aimed her sword for that oh-so-perfect bun at the back of her neck . . .

  Her sword cut through her, down deep into her shoulder, leaving a vee in the witch's back. Gingerbread bared her teeth and barked, "Ha!" before she realized.

  No blood.

  The Piping Witch didn't bleed.

  Gingerbread still held her sword with both hands, her lungs paralyzed in her chest as she tried to understand what was happening. The witch turned her head and met Gingerbread's eyes over her rent shoulder. She smiled.

  Being dead does have its advantages.

  The witch spun, throwing a thin arm into Gingerbread's side with all the force of a steel bar. Gingerbread choked out a sound as the air fled her lungs. She twisted before landing hard on her shoulder. Ground and sky circled each other as she rolled, finally stopping in a jangle of frozen leaves.

  The world kept spinning. Cracks crunched through her ribs and th
e ache of landing traveled down her arm like slow poison until her shoulder hung limp. Yellowed holly leaves pricked at her skin through the sleeves of her dress and snarled her legs. Gingerbread jerked her good arm free, ripping holes into her sleeve, but couldn't stand. The thorns gripped the rest of her tighter.

  My sword . . . The thought twisted beneath the fog in Gingerbread's skull. She lifted her head just as Dearie gripped the hilt and tore the sword from her body. She tossed it in the snow. Can't reach.

  The next moment, Dearie stood over her, eyes crackling over her open mouth. Gingerbread stared up at her, her neck threatening to snap like a twig as her head wobbled. Her hair wasn't even mussed.

  Words finally came. "Wait . . . here."

  She dragged them out from between the lines of her script, but they emerged with precision before the Piping Witch turned away. Gingerbread stared after her, her breathing ragged and wet. You stupid girl, she cursed herself soundly. This isn't the same fight as before. Dearie doesn't want you!

  The Piping Witch made her slow way across the clearing toward the unicorn. Her feet jerked up from the snow, kicking the hem of her dress so that it swung with the weight of an iron curtain before her pointed toes. She hasn't done this before and even if she is strong enough to leave her script, it takes effort. Time. She took another step.

  Gingerbread tore herself free of the spiny leaves enough to fall to her side, biting her tongue when she jarred her ribs. She reached for her sword. The yellow holly leaves crawled up her arm to strangle her movement, but they couldn't keep Gingerbread from grasping the hilt. She cut her legs free with a cry and scrambled up out of the snow. The holly branches withered into black stumps.

  Dearie flicked something at her, a hailstone the size of a child's fist. Gingerbread glimpsed the red heart burning inside of it before the hail burst apart into shards of needle sharp ice. Gingerbread flipped her hood up in time to protect her head, the ice catching on the scarlet patterns hiding on the velvet hood, but the needles found her hand and slipped into her skin like she was made of butter.

  Her cry pierced the air. Gingerbread clenched her fingers, gritting her teeth, and tried to pull the needles free only to find them melting down her hand, watering down the red of her blood. The deep cold pierced her through, freezing over her nerves.

  More hailstones flew at her, their ember-hearts pulsing out a countdown inside the ice. Gingerbread ran, clutching her numb hand to her chest and keeping her sword out behind her. Now what genius? She kept her eyes on the witch. You can't hurt her, can't kill her! You gonna run in circles until she falls down dizzy?

  A handful of icy embers sailed in front of her, cutting off even that sorry excuse for a plan as they burst apart. Gingerbread threw herself back and slipped. She lost her sword as she fell, landing with a hard wrench in the snow. Most of the ice needles sailed over her by sheer luck, but her left thigh throbbed bright with cold and then went numb.

  Gingerbread lay there groaning. She could still feel her foot and lower leg, but they floated, detached from her body. No more running . . .

  The wind whistled in her ears, dragging at her hair as it rose to a shrieking fury. Dearie stood at the center of the windstorm, sharpening her icicles into stakes. They flashed past Gingerbread's head, and she caught glimpses of Dearie's invisible hands as they honed them, chipped their ends into piercing points.

  So many of them . . . Gingerbread groaned and turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut. Too many of them. What had she said to Nikolas when they stood looking down on the Winter Whites? Something about dying only takes a moment?

  Don't give up, a small voice whispered inside her.

  Gingerbread sobbed. The sound tore out of her without any kind of permission. Mother? Why not? You did. You fought your whole life and still gave up to be rid of Dearie. Tell me another way free of her and I'll do it. She bit her cheek hard waiting for an answer. But there isn't one, is there?

  The voice didn't change but whispered more. Don't give up to her.

  To her?

  The words reverberated inside her until Gingerbread vibrated like a struck bell. Tremors traveled down her legs, shaking her bones. The ice coating them chipped, cracked, running down deep through muscle and bone. Gingerbread writhed, mouth open, but the pain overwhelmed her screaming. The vibrating kept shaking her until the toes of her floating leg quivered. It pulsed beneath her skin, smearing her thigh, staining her femur. Every nerve in her leg lit up in time to the unearthly magenta splotches painted under Gingerbread's eyelids.

  A mad laugh escaped her. Her foot no longer floated apart from her. She could feel every inch of her leg, although it burned like Dearie's embers had burrowed down to her marrow.

  Dearie? Where? She turned her head, white snow filling half her vision. Dearie was only a few leaden steps away from the unicorn. She flung out a hand, her eyes hungry, starving for his magic. Almost. Her eyes flashed. Almost!

  My sword! It hadn't fallen far. Gingerbread threw herself on her stomach, reaching until her shoulder popped to grasp it. Her fingers grazed the side of the hilt, but she couldn't latch on. Almost. Almost!

  Not enough. The Piping Witch's fingers brushed the lump of ice. Light flared from the unicorn's horn. Gingerbread laid her hands on the only thing close enough to throw.

  "Hey!"

  Snow struck the Piping Witch's side and scattered with a soft spaf. The witch's eyes flicked to Gingerbread.

  "I'm still here Dearie. And I'm not done with you yet."

  If Gingerbread had doubted her sanity before, here was the final argument. She was crazy. Officially mad. She couldn't stand and her balance was gone. The world spun on a slanted axis.

  Gingerbread locked her eyes on the snow-shrouded figure in front of Dearie. I must stand. I will stand.

  The thought didn't give her strength, but it pulled her to her knees. "You stole everything I thought I couldn't lose. All the things other people don't even realize they have because they've never gone without them." The words left her in pieces, chopped up by the fist-sized mob of pain gripping her ribs as she forced her legs to stiffen. One of her legs held. What felt like a nail punctured her side and Gingerbread whined and pressed a hand hard against it to stop it pulsing. "Not just Mother or my eyes, but my own mind." Her hands were fists, her nails digging past the leather into her palms as she rose. They shook. All of her shook. "Did you really think I would sit here and wait while you inflicted that half-life on someone else?"

  Dearie raised her eyebrows.

  "I know you know all that, but I had to say it. Don't worry." Gingerbread's mouth twisted into a sly grin. "I haven't lost enough of my senses to expect you to be sorry for any of it."

  The spindly eyebrows retreated to their proper place and the Piping Witch swept her other arm up and clutched her fingers into a fist. Pointed nails speared out of the snow around her feet, then rose into a brier of blackened holly thorns to surround her. She returned her hungry focus to the unicorn.

  Gingerbread's eyes sparked in fury. "You dare to use his own forest against him?" she shouted, toddling forward and nearly falling nose first in the snow. Dearie stood only four feet away but how could she reach her?

  Dearie's finger touched his horn.

  His light flickered.

  "No," Gingerbread tried to shout and her voice gargled out of her. She toddled faster, lurching and falling only to force herself back up again. "I won't let you have him!"

  Dearie pretended not to hear her. The light beneath the ice dimmed to blue, and then slate gray old as mountain stone. The frost crept up lace-like over the ice, thickening the Evergreen Unicorn's shroud.

  Gingerbread fell near enough her sword to grab it. She stabbed it into the ground, leaning her weight on it to help drag herself through the snow. Dearie's shadow fell across her like the new moon, thick and opaque. Her body was almost solid now.

  "I said-" Gingerbread wobbled as she raised her sword. "Leave him alo-ha-"

  Her breath fled her. D
earie held her free arm back, fingers held away like bony flower petals. Gingerbread stared at the ember burning at the hailstone's center in her palm.

  Move- she had time to think before it blossomed into needle shards.

  Ice sharp as teeth sunk into Gingerbread's chest. The pain choked her and sent something wet and warm out her mouth. The freezing cold chased her body heat out through her fingers and toes, scalding her with cold before mercifully smothering her ability to feel anything. Gingerbread leaned into the nothing. She tasted copper pennies on her tongue.

  Told you it would be quick, she thought to no one.

  Gingerbread opened her eyes—when had she closed them? Probably when she fell into the snow without noticing. Dearie looked taller from down here, her arm stretched inhumanly long to reach the unicorn. Red scattered across her nearest sleeve, trailing down the back of her dress, now solid enough to catch the bloody spatter. Gingerbread's eyes traced the trail to the unicorn, across the base of his horn and down the arch of his neck.

  Mine? Gingerbread closed her eyes and somehow managed to open them again just partway. Makes sense. She got me good. Still . . . Her eyes followed the crimson spots down the unicorn's flank. Gingerbread huffed out a small breath and pulled in a shallower one. At least I won't die mad.

  Relief filled her up, watered down by her regret as she watched the unicorn's sleeping eye. You should have picked someone else to help you. I knew you should have. Tears welled up in her eyes only to evaporate against their heat. I wanted to be wrong though . . .

  The crisp lines in her vision faded into gray, turning fuzzy until they were thick as caterpillars. The caterpillars spread wings the color of rag water and the world faded into gray mist. Gingerbread waited for the final moment when even the mist would sweep away into nothing, and it did come with slow clarity.

  Only the mist wasn't empty. A new world stepped out of the old one, one strange and terrifying, but not unfamiliar. Gingerbread's breath hung suspended in her chest, her eyes held open as she drank in the world beyond the world.