The School between Winter and Fairyland

by Heather Fawcett

  This time Autumn had let Cai approach the dragon slowly. He started off well, even managing a watery smile at a distance of twenty paces. Things went sideways from there. At fifteen paces, Autumn could see the familiar symptoms setting in—shaking and sweating. At ten paces, Cai had started to sway. Autumn had gone to his side then, arriving just in time to catch him under the arms and lower him onto the heather. The wyvern didn’t see Autumn drag the savior of Eryree from her presence, for she hadn’t even woken up.

  Autumn tried everything she could think of. She got Cai to clean Amfidzel’s stall, hoping that getting used to the smell of dragons might help with the real thing. She brought him bits of shed scale and antler tips, which Sir Emerick said knights used as good luck charms against dragon attacks. She had the boggart dress up as different dragons, which they all thought a successful experiment at first, but it only turned out that the fearful part of Cai was able to recognize the boggart as the boggart, which she should have guessed after their misadventure in the cloud tower. She suggested that Cai shield himself with a protective spell before approaching Amfidzel, and he promptly summoned a sort of strange cocoon for himself made of shiny silver-blue threads. This had no effect at all, other than to cover him in an attractive glitter after he fainted and the spell collapsed on top of him.

  Nothing worked.

  As frustrating as Cai’s lessons were, Autumn couldn’t help being impressed by his determination. How many times would he topple over like a hare conked on the head by Gran’s slingshot before he admitted defeat? A part of Autumn noted that Cai reminded her a little of Choo, who would affably greet the badger in his den every morning despite the growling and hissing this provoked. The rest of her was filled with a sense of dread, which worsened as the days grew shorter and the morning frost lingered into the afternoons.

  How long did Cai have?

  Another frustration was the boggart. Autumn had hoped he would help them dig out the cloud tower, but the boggart refused. He was acting quite unlike himself—he slept, but fitfully, waking when she made enough noise but often refusing to talk to her. Autumn was beginning to worry about him. As the trees put aside their October finery and wrapped themselves in November grays, she took to visiting him each morning before her chores.

  One day, she found him rustling around in the oven like an old dog turning round and round in his bed, muttering dyspeptically to himself. Autumn tossed her shovel aside (she was on mucking-out duty that day) and knelt next to the oven.

  “That’s it,” she announced. “What’s wrong with you, boggart?”

  Nothing.

  “You’re lying. I’ve never seen you like this. Did you hurt yourself in that tower?”

  No.

  Autumn drummed her fingers on her knee. She knew from experience that the boggart was a champion sulker. When he got in a snit, nothing and no one could shake him out of it, and the best thing to do was keep out of his way until he slept it off. But this seemed different. Usually, when the boggart was in a bad mood, he expressed it with a variety of cruel tricks—creeping into the castle at night to put worms in some poor student’s birthday cake, for example.

  I feel strange, the boggart said finally. I wasn’t supposed to rescue you. That was gwyllion territory. I broke the rules.

  Autumn felt a wave of guilt. “I’m sorry, boggart.”

  You should be.

  Autumn blew out a breath. “Well, at least let me look at you.”

  She had no idea how to examine a boggart—after all, they had no bodies. But she was determined to try, and she was going to annoy the boggart until he let her. He seemed to guess as much, and only complained a little before drifting out of the fireplace.

  “Hmm,” Autumn said, poking him. There was little to be gained by poking an insubstantial being, but at least she could tell that he wasn’t any less insubstantial. “Does it hurt anywhere?”

  No. The boggart changed into his boy shape. “I can’t sleep.” Autumn glanced around the decaying hut. The tumbledown stones were furred with frost. The spiders had gone back to wherever spiders went in winter, and their abandoned webs crunched when broken. “Gosh, it’s cold out here,” Autumn said. “Maybe you should come inside.”

  The boggart rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Autumn thought he was probably right. Boggarts didn’t feel cold—still, it was worth a try. “Come on.”

  The boggart grudgingly followed her into the cottage—Gran and her brothers were already about their duties—and let her tuck him into Winter’s bed. There he immediately fell into a deep sleep. He wouldn’t wake even when Autumn prodded him.

  The boggart slept all day and night and woke in much better spirits. He followed Autumn around as she fed the monsters, alternating between his cat shape and his boy shape. Autumn was relieved to see him acting like himself again, until she happened to glance down.

  “Boggart,” Autumn said slowly, “you’re touching the ground.”

  “Am not.”

  Autumn grabbed his arm. “Look!”

  The boggart looked. His eyes widened. It was as Autumn had said: his feet were deep in the frosty grass. Behind them were two sets of footprints, and while the boggart’s were much fainter than Autumn’s, they were distinctly there.

  “Are you—” She stared at him. “Are you human now?”

  “Human?” The boggart said it in the tone Autumn used to describe Gran’s cure-all. “No. But …” He looked puzzled—and, for the first time since Autumn had known him, afraid. “Maybe a little bit of me is.”

  “A bit of you? How can you be a bit human?” Autumn froze. “Do you mean that if you break any more monster laws, it’ll make you all-the-way human? Is that how it works?”

  “I don’t know.” The boggart’s voice was small. “I’ve never broken a law before. It felt strange, like—like misplacing part of me, like a hand or something.” He looked down at his clawed human hands.

  Autumn didn’t know what to say. It frightened her to see the boggart frightened. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything—he was the boggart, the thing everything else was afraid of. Autumn threw her arms around him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Autumn didn’t like the way he said your. “It’s not Cai’s fault, either.”

  The boggart didn’t reply, but his face was dark. Autumn thought about telling Cai to bring the boggart another present. Somehow, though, she didn’t think that was going to work this time.

  For that reason, Autumn left the boggart sleeping in Winter’s bed two nights later when she snuck out to meet Cai for another one of his lessons. Instead she took Choo, waking him from his contented doze by the fire. The dog yipped in delight when he realized there was adventure afoot, and there came a brief pause in Gran’s snores. Autumn froze, her hand on Choo’s snout. Slowly but surely, Gran’s snores sputtered back to life, and Autumn let out her breath.

  Cai was waiting for her at the edge of the forest, gazing into the waving boughs. He knelt to greet Choo, who vibrated with joy before letting out a tremendous sneeze.

  “Did you find the third tower?” she asked. Cai had unearthed another sheaf of old Inglenook maps in the skybrary the day before, tucked inside a boring book about sheep spells.

  “Maybe,” Cai said. “The maps are original plans, so they’ll have all three towers on them, likely as not. But they’re so old they need stitching back together with magic before I can read them. Gawain’s working on it now—he’s good at magical repairs.”

  “Gawain?”

  Cai noticed her expression. “He’s a good person. When it occurs to him. And he’s a good friend—he’d help me with anything.”

  Autumn kept her mouth shut. Cai’s friends, Gawain in particular, reminded her a little of Ceredwen. She supposed they liked him, but how much of that liking was for the hero of Eryree, and how much for the actual boy?

  “Gawain thinks we can have it finished in a few days,” Cai
said.

  “A few days,” she repeated dully. She had that feeling again, the one that had started in the cloud tower, that Winter was moving farther away from her, or she from him.

  It’s taking too long. She knew it with a certainty that went down to her bones, though she couldn’t have explained why.

  She swallowed her sadness, which lately had been following her around like a cloud of midges, never leaving her in peace. They were going to find Winter—they were. They’d worked out where he was, thereabouts at least, and that couldn’t have been for nothing. She wouldn’t let it be for nothing. And besides, Cai had his own problem to solve, and she owed him her help.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Cai shook out the bundle under his arm. It was an Inglenook cloak, a little worn but otherwise shipshape. “You can have this. It’s one of mine—it will make it easier for you to hide. There’s a good camouflage spell worked into the overlay.”

  Autumn had to stop herself from snatching the cloak from his hand. It was a little big when she slung it over her shoulders, but it was wonderfully warm and heavy, probably from the weight of all the spells.

  “Are you sure?” She fingered the Inglenook crest wonderingly.

  “Of course. It suits you.” He smiled, though it faded before it reached his eyes. “Better than it does me, when you think about it.”

  Autumn spun around slowly, watching the cloak glitter. It was the best present she’d ever received, and she didn’t know what to say.

  “So what are we doing here?” Cai said as he gazed into the forest, politely letting her have a moment to herself. “What about our lesson?”

  “It starts now.” Autumn handed him a lantern. “We’re going into the Gentlewood.”

  A frown tugged at Cai’s mouth. His eyes had a shimmer of green in them tonight, and Autumn wondered whether it was because of the nearness of the forest. “Why?”

  “I don’t believe you’re a coward,” she said. “After all, you were plenty brave up in that cloud tower. I think maybe it’s hard for you to be brave around Amfidzel and the rest because you don’t need to be—they’re not going to hurt you. I bet your fear will have a hard time getting the better of you when you’re truly in danger.”

  “What about the humming dragons?”

  “I thought about that. You didn’t know how much danger you were in when you fainted—neither did I. Once you realized it was life or death, you got ahold of yourself and cast a spell.” Autumn folded her arms, pleased with her faultless logic.

  Cai didn’t look as impressed as she’d imagined he’d be. “So we’re going to go looking for a life-or-death situation?”

  “Not exactly. But we’re not going to play it safe anymore. There’s a folded dragon who lives in the forest near the Briar Path where it crosses the stream. Gran knows him. She says he’s old and cranky and just wants to be left alone, so they’ve agreed that as long as he stays put and doesn’t roast anyone, she won’t tell the headmaster there’s a dragon living so close to the school.”

  Cai’s eyes rounded. “A folded dragon? But they’re enormous! How have the magicians never stumbled across him?”

  Autumn snorted. “Size doesn’t enter into it. You think a dragon can’t hide from a few magicians when they come crashing through the underbrush, glittering away and yammering enchantments?”

  “So what are we going to do? Knock on the dragon’s door and ask if he’ll have us in for tea?”

  “We won’t let him see us at all,” Autumn said. “He’ll be asleep. We’ll get as close as we can, close enough for you to get a good look at him, then we’ll run for it.”

  Cai looked queasy. His fear seemed to fade, though, as he gazed at the Gentlewood.

  “Also,” Autumn said, “the forest may help me figure out what sort of monster you are. You feel more yourself when you’re in there, right?”

  Cai nodded silently.

  “Good. Maybe you’ll feel so much like yourself that you’ll turn back into whatever you really are.”

  “And if I turn into something that likes having children for dinner?”

  “Then I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to make a run for it while you’re apologizing.”

  “No offense, Autumn,” Cai said, “but your plan seems to have a lot of holes.”

  “Holes or not, we don’t have time to wait for a better one to come along. Do we?”

  She wished she could call back the words as soon as they left her mouth. She and Cai usually avoided talking about the prophecy. Or the slow retreat of fall as it gave way to a sullen wet that never left the air, threaded with an ominous chill.

  “You’re right,” Cai said quietly. “We should try everything. Just—be careful.”

  So Autumn led them into the forest. The boughs closed over their heads like a second layer of night. Autumn surreptitiously motioned for Choo to walk next to Cai, remembering how much he missed his cat.

  “Is it safe for him to come with us?” Cai said as he rubbed Choo’s head. The dog leaped up to lick his face, and he laughed.

  “We’re taking Choo because he’ll know the way home if we get lost,” Autumn said. “He’s never fooled when the paths move. Dogs’ noses are stronger than magic.”

  The path curved around a boggy patch of low-lying ground, then wandered past one of the moss-covered trolls. So far the scenery was familiar—the path hadn’t changed course as it sometimes did.

  “That’s right,” she muttered, stamping a few times. “You mind your manners tonight and stay put.”

  Cai looked bemused. “What?”

  Autumn shrugged. “Gran talks to the paths sometimes. Can’t hurt, can it?”

  They came to the place where the Briar Path met the stream, then forked into two separate paths, the Green Path and the Mushroom Path (all the paths had been named by Gran, who had no use for fancy titles or for imagination in general). The Green Path was usually all right, but the Mushroom Path was a real scoundrel—sometimes it led toward the Twyllaghast Mountains, other times it ran south; still other times it rambled into a boggy area and then disappeared just when you decided to turn around. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, they wouldn’t be using either path tonight.

  “Ready?” Autumn said.

  Cai nodded, gripping his staff tight, and they plunged into the forest.

  At first the going was rough, for the forest pressed up against the paths in a dense tangle, saplings and ivies fighting to the death for the narrow sunbeams that fell through the breaks in the trees. But eventually the trees thickened and the underbrush cleared. Wisps hovered in midair, flickering softly. From a distance, they looked like lanterns held aloft by friendly fellow travelers, or the hearth-lit windows of a distant cottage. Bluebells glazed with ice carpeted the forest floor, heedless of the November cold burrowing into the soil.

  “Don’t pick any flowers,” Autumn warned. “They’re worse than wisps, they are. You’ll gather up an armful, and then when you look up you’ll see another patch deeper in the forest, too pretty not to pick. You can guess the rest. Before you know it, you’ll have the nicest bouquet you ever saw, and you’ll also be good and lost and on somebody’s dinner menu.”

  Cai nodded. “I’ve never left the paths before. How do you know which way to go?”

  “Gran told me,” Autumn said blithely. In truth, she had only a fuzzy idea of where to find the folded dragon—she knew the spot Gran had described, because it was just past the swamp, but she’d never ventured that far herself. She wasn’t worried—she went into the Gentlewood all the time. Besides, she had Cai with her.

  She began to doubt her assurance, though, the deeper into the woods they went. The shadows were so thick you could almost feel them against your skin, smooth and clammy, and a cloak of silence shrouded the trees. It reminded Autumn of the hours after a snowfall, when the whole world seemed taken aback by the arrival of winter. Where were the owls, the mice, the foxes? The sounds of the nightly wars and toil that were part of
every forest?

  Something was watching them. Or listening, or sensing their footfalls on the soft needles—Autumn didn’t know which, but it made little difference. She’d never felt that sort of awareness from the Gentlewood before. She swallowed, remembering what Gran had said about the forest soaking in the Hollow Dragon’s anger. Did it know Cai was there?

  Cai seemed unbothered. He brushed his hands over mush-roomy tree stumps and caught hold of pine boughs, letting them run through his fingers in a spill of needles. He touched the trunks of trees as he passed, as if they were old friends. After a while, his silence became too much. She filled the quiet with small talk, pointing out unusual flowers or misshapen trees. Cai murmured replies, but only after a pause, as if Autumn’s voice had crossed a great distance to reach him.

  “What?” she said finally. “You’re not about to run off, are you?”

  He scrunched up his eyes. “I’m not sure,” he said finally.

  “Oh, great,” Autumn muttered.

  “Here.” Cai plucked a scrap of starlight off his staff, blew on it, and handed it to Autumn. “Use that if we get separated. It’s a trick me and Gawain use whenever we go into the forest.”

  Autumn took it hesitantly. It looked like the wool left behind by sheep when they rubbed against a fence post, but it felt like nothing but cool air. She tucked it into her pocket.

  Choo ran helter-skelter through the forest, scrounging around in this animal burrow or that, rolling in leaves or mud or—on one deeply unfortunate occasion—slug. Autumn had to wrestle several mushrooms and unidentifiable bones away from him—the dog would eat anything and seemed to have a special fondness for things that made him sick. To distract Choo from his self-destructive tendencies, Autumn played fetch with him as they walked, which lightened her mood. It was difficult to witness the pure delight the dog took in a moldy old stick and not feel easier about her own worries. The forest took on an almost sulky quality, as if it knew its ominous charms were being underappreciated.