Winterling

by Sarah Prineas

  Winterling

  Sarah Prineas

  Dedication

  To Jenn Reese.

  For you, and for the girl you once were.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  The dog fled. He raced down a shadowy forest trail lit by the full moon. Hearing the howl of the wolves that pursued him, he left the path for the darker forest, struggling through brambly bushes, dodging trees that grabbed after him with long, twiggy fingers.

  A stream, or running water to throw the wolves off his scent—that’s what he needed.

  On he ran, panting with the effort.

  The Mór demanded loyalty from all her creatures. He was bound against his will to serve her, but unlike the others who served her, he could see what she truly was. When she had ordered the hunt of one of her own people, he’d refused. He’d been stupid—stupid—and now he was the one they hunted.

  The wolves howled again, closer.

  They were going to catch him. And when they did, they would kill him, if that was what the Mór willed.

  He was stumbling now, nearing exhaustion. Then he heard the rush of water over stones, smelled the fresh scent of water—a stream. He made for it, gasping for breath, his tongue lolling.

  The water felt cool on his scratched paw pads. He stumbled up the stream until it got too deep, then scrambled out and found the path that ran alongside it. From behind he heard the yip of one wolf calling to another, and then they were there, rushing like gray shadows from the dark forest, surrounding him.

  Snarling, he ducked away, and a wolf lunged and raked its fangs across his shoulder. He ran, feeling the burn of the wound, and they pursued. One wolf bounded alongside him and slashed at his foreleg, then fell back.

  Despairing, he limped along the narrow path, seeing light ahead, an opening in the forest where the stream flowed into a perfectly round pool that reflected the full moon overhead. With a last, desperate bound, he leaped for the pool, the wolves surrounding him, snarling, biting, their teeth bitterly sharp.

  He expected water, and then a bloody death.

  Instead, he fell through the pool into darkness deeper than any night he had ever known.

  Chapter One

  The girl named Fer edged up to the kitchen door. Overhead, the night sky was spangled with stars, except for a brighter patch where a crescent moon, just as thin as a fingernail paring, hung over the bare branches of the oak trees along the driveway. The kitchen windows shed their light over the wiry brown grass of the backyard. At the edge of the yard, Grand-Jane’s white-painted beehives were lined up, the bees inside them asleep and quiet.

  Winter had ended. Fer could feel spring coming in the smell of rich dirt, in the cold, knobbled nubs at the tips of tree twigs. Soon the oak trees would have mouse-ear-sized leaves budding out, and the bees would be stirring. Spring tingled just under her skin, waiting to burst out. But now everything was waiting. It was just this chilly in-between time. Mud time.

  Fer shivered and put her hands into the pockets of her patchwork jacket. In the left pocket, she had two twigs and a smooth stone she’d found in a creek that afternoon. In the right pocket, a little cloth bag of herbs, loosestrife and lavender, mugwort and harewort, a protective spell that her grandma made her carry with her always. Protection against what, she didn’t know, and she didn’t bother asking anymore. Grand-Jane’s answer was always the same—a dark, silencing look.

  Fer sniffed the air. The crisp smell of toasted noodles and onions; Grand-Jane had cooked a tofu casserole for dinner.

  Mmm, dinner. Fer’s stomach growled. She huddled into her patchwork jacket and shivered. She was awfully late. It would be even worse if the principal had called. Fer didn’t mean to get into fights at school, but sometimes they just happened and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

  When she went in the door, Grand-Jane was going to have a conniption. A really hairy one.

  Oh well, might as well get it over with. Fer went up the steps and into the kitchen.

  At the sound of the door closing, her grandma, at the stove, turned and glared. Carefully she set down a covered casserole dish. “What time is it.”

  It wasn’t a question. Grand-Jane knew what time it was. Fer glanced at the clock that hung on the wall beside the fridge. “Seven thirty-five?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Grand-Jane muttered. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Fer hunched her shoulders, ready for the shouting.

  Grand-Jane released her breath and opened her eyes. “We have been through this, Jennifer,” she said sharply. “It is not safe for you to be outside alone. You must come home immediately after school.”

  “I can’t,” Fer said, staying by the door.

  “Yes, you can,” Grand-Jane said.

  No, she couldn’t, not after being cooped up all winter. House, bus, school, bus, house. The same thing every single day, except on the weekends when it was just house, house, house, because she and her grandma never went anywhere. She had to get out under the sky or she got so twitchy, she felt like she might twitch out of her own skin.

  Grand-Jane looked her over with sharp blue eyes. “And your school’s principal called. Apparently you had a run-in with that Torvald boy again.”

  Not just Jimmy Torvald, but his brother Richie and their stupid friend Emily Bradley. Jenny Fur-head they called her. What was she supposed to do? Let them call her that? Her hair did come out of its braid and it did get messy, and sometimes it did get twigs tangled in it, but that was no reason for them to be so mean all the time.

  “Well, Miss Sullen, tomorrow’s Saturday,” Grand-Jane said. “You’ll spend it with me cleaning the stillroom.” She turned to the stove, put her oven mitts back on, and carried the casserole dish to the red-painted kitchen table. “Take off your coat,” she said, her back to Fer. “And come eat your dinner.”

  Fer started to unbutton her patchwork jacket, then paused. All day tomorrow cleaning the stillroom? That meant dusting shelves, sweeping out spider webs, sorting through hundreds of tincture jars and bags of crumbling herbs, and more lessons on herbology and healing spells. And Grand-Jane’s sharp eyes watching her the whole time, as if Fer were about to burst into flames and her grandma had to be there, just in case, to dump cold water on her.

  Grand-Jane’s warm, red-and-yellow kitchen closed around her. Fer felt like a bird bashing itself against the walls of a box.

  Quick as thought, before Grand-Jane could turn around, Fer opened the door and flung herself back out into the night.

  She’d never been out this late before. The world felt different under the sliver-silver moon. The fields were more empty. The shadows were deep and mysterious. As Fer ran along the edge of the long driveway that led away from her grandma’s house, her footsteps
sounded loud, crunch-crunch-crunch-ing on the gravel. The chilly night air went into her lungs and made her feel lighter, almost like she could fly. She ran past the twin rows of oak trees lining the driveway. Then down the road a long way until she got to a stream that cut through a muddy field, slowing down now because the footing was tricky along here. Across another road and through a patch of scrubby forest.

  This wasn’t wild forest, it was just a strip of trees and bushes between two fields that, in the summer, would be rustling with head-high corn or dark green soybeans. In the distance, Fer saw the dark outline of a couple of silos and outbuildings, and the porch light of a farmhouse. Far away a dog howled, a lonesome moan that made the night feel darker, wilder.

  Fer cut through the scrub, then picked up the stream again, panting now, and brushing hair out of her eyes.

  The forest grew thicker. She’d gone this far before, but never at night. The trees were stalking shadows that reached for her with twiggy fingers, snagging her patchwork jacket. She stumbled through long, damp grass and, as the forest grew even thicker, rotting logs and drifts of dead leaves. She ducked around another tree, and the ground disappeared from under her feet.

  Down she fell, tumbling through brambles and leafless bushes, bumping her knee on a tree root, grabbing for branches to stop herself, finally coming to land half in a stream.

  Catching her breath, Fer climbed out of the water. Her pant leg was wet, and one arm of her jacket. She shivered and looked around. Where was she? The crescent moon had climbed higher in the sky and stood directly overhead. Fer had good night vision; the moon’s thin light was enough to see by. She was in a deep ravine, one crowded with bare trees and bushes, the air cold and damp, as if all the chill from above had gathered here in this low spot.

  Might as well see where the stream led. Water squishing in one of her sneakers, Fer followed the stream through the ravine, picking her way over slippery stones. The stream slowed, flowed smoothly over a shelf of rock, and then widened to form a pool in the middle of a clearing.

  Stepping lightly, Fer walked around the pool. It was perfectly round, and springy moss grew right up to its edge. She stilled her breath, listening. Something in the air felt strange. Tingly, or twitchy, like a rope stretched too far and about to break. She knew what Grand-Jane would say, in her scoldingest voice: Come home right now, Jennifer! It’s not safe! Fer felt in her pocket for the spell-bag of herbs and gripped it, the seam in the fabric rough under her fingers.

  She gazed at the still, black surface of the pool. The moon was reflected there, not as the pale crescent in the sky above her head, but as a fat, full, yellow moon. How could that be? She knelt on the moss and leaned over the pool to touch it. The water felt cool and slick.

  At her touch, the water grew mirror-still, and a slow tingle started in her fingertips. She held her breath, feeling a sudden, strange power fizzing under her skin. The tingle turned to an electric shock that sizzled up her fingers and through her body. She jumped to her feet. The fat water-moon shattered. Shadows surged from the pool, flinging drops of water that sparkled in the moonlight.

  Fer stumbled back, tripping over a dead branch, and fell into a clump of brambles; their sharp thorns gripped her like clawed fingers and wouldn’t let go. She heard snarling, then another sound that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Howling, like animals on the hunt.

  Fer tore herself from the thorns and scrambled to her feet. On the other side of the shimmering pool, wolves, their gray fur silvered by the moonlight, circled a lump of shadow on the ground. The shadow snarled—it looked like a black dog—as one of the wolves darted in, its jaws snapping. The other wolves, two of them, swarmed around, and another plunged at the black dog. Fer heard a yelp of pain. The wolf leaped back, smiling with bloody fangs.

  Three against one—not fair!

  Without taking her eyes from the wolves, Fer groped on the ground for the thing she’d tripped over. There. A branch as long as her arm, with a jagged, broken-off end. Gripping her club, Fer raced around the edge of the pool, her feet slipping on the moss.

  Swinging the branch like a baseball bat, Fer connected with the hindquarters of one wolf, which whirled and snapped at her; the other two wolves snarled and left the dark thing crouched in the shadows.

  The three wolves advanced silently, their heads low, their fangs bared.

  Fer held her ground and gripped her branch tightly. “Go away!” she shouted, and with her free hand felt in her jacket pocket for her bag of spelled herbs. She pulled it out and kept it clenched in her hand. One wolf lunged toward her and Fer stepped up to meet it, bashing her club across its muzzle. Fer swung the branch back and caught another wolf in the ribs, then jabbed the jagged end of the branch into the face of the third wolf. Still holding the spell-bag, she shouted, “Go away!” again, then a third time, and the wolves flinched back as if her words had more power than the club she swung, watching her from the corners of their eyes, fading back into the shadows.

  Panting, Fer turned to the thing they’d been attacking. It had fallen beneath the branches of a bush; she saw its dark shape huddled there. Carefully, gripping her club in case it tried to bite, she pushed aside the branches, letting the moon’s light in. Fer blinked and set down the club.

  It wasn’t a dog at all. It was a boy.

  Chapter Two

  A figure swirling with power leaned over Rook, a Lady with wild, honey-colored hair waving around her head, and blazing eyes, holding a blunt stick for a sword. Rook flinched away, the shifter-tooth that he’d used to turn himself into a dog clutched tight in his hand. Then the Lady took her hand out of her pocket, dropped the stick, and suddenly she was just a girl wearing a patch-ragged jacket.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, going to her knees.

  Rook growled and edged away from her. Through the sharp pain of the wolf bites, he felt something else, something different. He wasn’t in his own land. The moonlit pool, the fall through the darkness—the girl had opened the Way that went from his world to hers. That shouldn’t have happened. What was she?

  She reached out with a pale hand and touched his arm, right where it hurt most. Her fingers went away black with blood. “You’re not okay,” she muttered.

  “Yes, I am,” Rook spat out. The wolf-guards were wildlings—more like wild beasts than people. They were coming unbound from their oaths and rules when they were in their wolf form, but the girl’s magic had sent them away. He could get back now, and maybe escape the hunt. “Leave me alone.”

  She pulled away from him, wiping her bloody hand on the moss. “I just saved you from those wolves, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Yes, he’d noticed. Curse her, anyway. And curse the wildling wolves, too, them and their howling and their teeth sharp as daggers.

  “They bit you,” the girl said. She leaned closer, examining him. “There’s blood all over,” she said to herself. Then she nodded, deciding something. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

  She was smaller than he was, but she was strong. She dragged him from the bushes to the moss that surrounded the Way.

  “Did you see the—?” she started, then looked up at the sky.

  Clouds had settled over the crescent moon; the pool in the middle of the clearing glimmered pearly white.

  “Never mind,” the girl said.

  The Way was still open, though, and Rook knew it’d stay open until she closed it. The girl had done it, brought him through to this other place where the air tasted strange and the ground felt wrong under his feet.

  Climbing to his feet, Rook felt the gashes in his arms and the slashes over his ribs. His knees wobbled. Quickly he shoved the shifter-tooth into his pocket to join the shifter-bone hidden there.

  “Here,” the girl said, and took his arm over her shoulder.

  He let her do it. His feet felt very far away, his head filled with shadows.

  “Come on,” the girl said. “I’ll take you home.”

  The boy was still bleeding.
His shaggy, black head hung down, and his steps wobbled. He leaned more of his weight against her.

  Fer braced herself. She couldn’t drag him up the steep side of the ravine, but if they followed the stream far enough they should come to a place where they could walk out.

  With the moon hidden, the night grew deeper. The clouds lowered and a damp drizzle began to fall. Fer kept them to the edge of the stream. It was a shimmering darkness running between the flatter darkness of the trees and bushes alongside it. The stream rustled as it flowed, and a breeze made the naked tree branches click-click-click like dead bones.

  “Keep going,” Fer whispered.

  They stumbled over rotting logs and thrashed their way through tangled bushes. As they were edging around a clump of wet brambles, the boy slipped on a patch of decaying leaves and gasped in pain.

  Fer steadied him and looked around. There should be a path along here somewhere. She shifted the boy onto his own feet. “Stay here for a minute,” she said.

  “Do I look like I’m going anywhere?” the boy answered, his voice rough.

  No, he looked as if he could barely stay on his feet. After steadying him with a hand on his shoulder, Fer pushed through the bushes, heading up the bank, away from the stream. After a few steps she found the path, a narrow deer trail fringed with dead grass. She knew where she was now. This part of the ravine ran through the Carsons’ hay field. If they kept going, they’d hit a gravel road.

  Fer slid back down the bank to where the boy stood leaning against a tree, his head lowered. “It’s not far,” she said, wiping damp hair out of her face. “Just up here.”