Echo North

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  “Wolf! Wolf, what are you doing?”

  He came toward me, his body low and tight, his ears pinned back, his mouth opened wide. There was blood on his teeth.

  “Wolf, it’s me. It’s Echo.” My back hit a wall. The wolf crouched, ready to spring at me and finish what he’d started. Terror made my vision crawl white. “House! House, my sword.”

  It was in my hand half a breath before he leapt at me in a snarl of teeth and anger; I nicked his side, and blood dripped down his white fur.

  I scrambled to my feet and started moving in the direction I thought the door must be. My hand slipped on the sword hilt and I didn’t want to think about why. I gripped it as tight as I could.

  The wolf recovered himself and stalked after me, snarling, blood leaking down his chest.

  “Wolf, stop. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He crouched again.

  “Wolf, please!” I screamed.

  He jumped at me and I knocked him away with the flat of my blade. I ran three more steps to the door, not even noticing the swaying, shrieking, knife-edged crystals slicing into my skin.

  He leapt again, I knocked him away for a third time. I glanced back and I could see the door.

  One more time the wolf snarled and sprang toward me. He collided with the blade, screaming as it bit into his chest and blood spurted red. The cut looked deep.

  And then I was at the door, through the door, slamming it behind me, asking the house to lock it tight.

  I shuddered and shuddered. I couldn’t stop. I sobbed in the hallway because I thought I might have killed him.

  I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I sat crying outside the obsidian door, but I finally lifted my head, brushed the hair out of my eyes with my blood-streaked hand, and stood shakily to my feet. The sword lay quiet on the floor, the blood on the blade already darkening.

  There was no sound from the bauble room. I opened the door the barest crack and peeked in. The wolf wasn’t there, the only sign of his presence a pool of red. So much blood.

  Too much.

  “House,” I whispered. “Bring me to the wolf.” I grabbed my sword and started down the hall, the pain from my own injuries suddenly asserting itself: my shoulder, my side, my face, my hand. But none of it mattered to me.

  So much blood on the floor in the bauble room.

  I walked faster.

  The house led me down a stair and out into the garden, where the wind bit shockingly cold. There were bloody paw prints in the snow.

  I followed them, panic searing into my bones. Past the dead roses and the white stone paths winding up the steps. Past the lily pool and the hammock hidden in the willow. Through the waterfall to the hidden room beyond, where the wolf lay too still in a pool of widening crimson.

  I dropped down beside him with a cry, shouting instructions at the house almost without thinking: a fire, bandages, clean water. I brushed my fingers tentatively across his fur; I could feel his heartbeat, wavering just beneath his skin. He was still alive.

  The supplies appeared at my elbow even as a fire flared up in the hearth on the back wall of the cave. I dipped a clean cloth into the water and carefully worked to clean the blood away from the wolf’s wounds. He had many smaller cuts on his back and his long white legs, but the wound in his chest was jagged and deep. I hadn’t punctured any vital organs, or he would be dead already, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. I thought of the diagrams in my medical books, the instructions for how to close such a serious wound, and my hands went to the pouch at my hip. The needle was there, but the spool was empty.

  “Bring me thread,” I whispered to the house.

  It appeared in my lap, strong and white. I slipped it into the binding needle, shaking so hard it took too many precious seconds to accomplish. But the moment I put the needle into the wolf’s skin, my hands grew still and certain. I tugged the thread through, pulling the ragged ends of the wound together, just as, not that long ago, the wolf and I had mended the tear in the library. A lamp flared into existence just above me without my asking, the house instinctively knowing what I required.

  I stitched in silence, aware of every beat of the wolf’s heart, every ounce of blood that seeped onto my hands and stained my skirt as I worked.

  And then it was done. I washed more blood away and spread the stitches with an ointment made of yarrow leaves. Then I bandaged it, lifting the wolf’s heavy head as I passed the roll of cloth around his chest and over his shoulder several times. The bandage was thick when I’d finished.

  I laid the wolf’s head down and immediately started shaking again.

  I made myself bandage my shoulder and my hand. I made myself get off the floor and sit in one of the armchairs in front of the fire. I asked the house to lay a blanket over the wolf; it settled around him in a soft cascade of blue.

  I think I fell asleep for a while, because when I opened my eyes, the light coming through the waterfall was a deep amber orange.

  The wolf was gone.

  I WENT TO THE LIBRARY. I stepped into five different book-mirrors, looking for Hal. He didn’t come and I wasn’t surprised. Because if Hal was the wolf, he was too injured to come. The thought twisted inside of me, sharp and terrible.

  At last I went to my room and crawled into bed. I blew out the lamp earlier than usual. I curled myself into a tight ball. I’d tried so hard to help him and I’d made everything worse. I’d almost been trapped by the Queen of the Wood.

  And I’d nearly killed the wolf.

  I felt him climb into bed beside me a long while later. My tears were dry by then and I was profoundly glad. I didn’t want him to catch me crying, not after everything he had suffered.

  We lay a long while in the silence and the dark, not speaking. I knew he wasn’t asleep—his breathing was too quick and sharp for that.

  “Echo,” he said at last, his voice tight with pain. “Thank you for saving me.”

  I took a breath. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I attacked you.”

  The image of him lunging at me, eyes wild, teeth dripping red, would haunt me forever. “What would have happened if I had broken the mirror?”

  On his side of the bed, the sheets rustled. “It would have killed me.”

  I cursed myself.

  “Echo do you remember the day you freed me from the trap?”

  My heart seized up. The blur of white. The blinding pain. Looking in the mirror for the first time at my ruined face. “Of course I do.”

  “I have fought the wildness every day for nearly a hundred years. But sometimes—sometimes it seizes me no matter how I resist. Like it did with the trap. Like it did today. And that—that is when I hate myself the most.”

  “Wolf—”

  “When I hurt you.” His words were choked, like he was fighting tears. “I hurt you from the moment I met you. I do not mean to, but I cannot seem to help it. I—I do not want to hurt you anymore. You should leave. Go back to your father’s house. I will see you safely through the wood in the morning.”

  “But I promised you a year. I gave you my word.”

  “There is only one day left. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I will fulfill my promise. I’m not leaving you.”

  I listened to him breathing, three heartbeats, four. “If you are certain.”

  “I’m certain.”

  He said nothing more.

  Sleep stole slowly over me, and as I was slipping into the realm of my dreams I thought I heard the wolf’s quiet voice at my ear, just a breath away. “Forgive me, Echo. For what I have done. For what I will do again.”

  And then, in the last few moments of consciousness, human fingers tangled in my own, and a heartbeat that was not mine beat quick and sharp in my palm.

  When I woke in the morning I was once more alone in the bed, but I knew with absolute conviction that the voice and hand had not been a dream.

  And it was time to prove that to myself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 
I ROSE AND DRESSED, DONNING A FUR cloak against the chill permeating the room, and skipped the breakfast the house had laid out for me. I went straight to the library.

  The magic mirror was still locked in its cupboard in the back room. I took it out, settled down on the floor, and pulled out a hair and pricked my finger.

  “Show me Hal.”

  The surface of the glass rippled and changed.

  I saw the wolf in the room behind the black door, roaring and raging, ripping the glass baubles down from their strings. His cries seemed to shake the room, and his fur and his bandage were streaked with blood. Behind him the spider clock ticked, whispering and whirring, the mechanism winding down.

  The mirror shifted. I saw Hal pacing a shadowy corridor, his body so faded it was nearly translucent. He dropped to his knees before the mirror that contained his memories, bowed his head into his hands. His shoulders shook as he sobbed.

  The image blurred before me.

  There was only one day left, and I didn’t know what to do.

  I PACED THROUGH THE WINTRY garden, huddled in furs, my breath a white fog before me. Panic seethed in my mind, festering like an open sore.

  Hal was the wolf, the wolf was Hal, and I had less than a day to save him.

  Snow clung to my eyelashes and the last of the dead roses dropped their petals to the ground like blood. God in heaven, I didn’t know what to do.

  “I have fought the wildness every day for nearly a hundred years,” whispered the wolf’s voice in my head.

  I blinked and saw the clock, the gears winding down. Maybe all I had to do was wait, see the year through to the very last day without lighting the lamp. Maybe when the time was up the wolf would transform into Hal in front of my eyes and be free forever. The Queen of the Wood had said the truth was always simple.

  But what if I was wrong?

  Ice stung my cheeks and I pulled my hood tighter. A mouse scurried beneath a tangle of dead ivy, scrabbling for seeds in the snow. My boots crunched and the wind bit sharper, but I didn’t turn back to the house.

  I couldn’t stop seeing him, tearing the baubles down from their strings, howling in rage. Kneeling in the shadowy corridor, weeping.

  In the fairy stories, there was always a thing to do. A kiss to give. An object to retrieve or destroy. A magical sword. A magical mirror.

  Or a lamp, perhaps?

  “There is one thing you must not do,” the wood queen had told me, “one rule you must not break. You must break it. That will nullify the enchantment. That will free him.”

  But Hal had said: “She always lies.”

  I trusted Hal, certainly more than I trusted the queen—but what if his enchantment forced him to say that? What if lighting the lamp was the way to break the curse?

  I’d promised to live with the wolf for a year. I’d promised to never look at his face in the night.

  Hal’s face.

  What if I lit the lamp and broke his curse?

  What if I lit the lamp and imprisoned him further?

  It was impossible to know, but I needed to know it.

  What was I supposed to do?

  The clock behind the black door was ticking.

  Time was almost up.

  I WENT BACK TO THE library, shrugging out of my cloak and slinging it across one of the couches. I was desperate to speak with Hal and stepped into a book-mirror at random, hoping he would come to me.

  I found myself hurtled along on a sea voyage to find a lost kingdom and a mythical prince. I let the story carry me, leaning over the ship’s railing and drinking in the salty air, listening to the haunting cries of the sea-wisps—strange creatures that appeared to be a cross between fire and mist. They swirled about in the sky above the ship, sparking orange or blue or rose-blush pink.

  Hal didn’t come.

  I waited for several book-days, through raging storms and an attack by an opalescent sea-dragon. The ship landed on an island in the eye of another storm, and as the crew and I and a brave red-headed farmer’s daughter stepped onto the shore, the East and West and South Winds came and drew the whole island up into the sky. They seemed younger than before, fierce and full of anger, and they didn’t seem to know me.

  Still no Hal. I climbed the mountain in the center of the island with the farmer’s daughter, up to a crumbling old castle where the mythical prince had been imprisoned for centuries.

  I half expected the prince to turn out to be Hal, but he was a wizened old man with white hair and sapphires studded into his skin. The farmer’s daughter turned him young with a kiss.

  I walked away from them to the edge of the island, peering down, down, down through the clouds at the sea far below.

  What was I supposed to do?

  Should I light the lamp?

  Should I not light the lamp?

  “Echo! I was hoping to see you again before your year was up.”

  I blinked and saw Mokosh coming toward me, riding on one of the sea-wisps, which she’d harnessed with ice and moonbeams. The wisp was the same violet color as Mokosh’s eyes and had curls of fiery hair.

  “Have you found out how to free him?” she asked, reining in the sea-wisp so it hovered mere inches from where I stood. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

  I thought of the clock, winding down behind the obsidian door. I thought of the lamp on the bedside table, of human fingers, tangled with mine in the dark. “I don’t want to get it wrong.”

  The sea-wisp hummed with energy and music, and Mokosh regarded me with pity. “So you will do nothing? What about the lamp?”

  I looked at her sharply, a sudden horrible suspicion darting into my mind. “Are you the Queen of the Wood?”

  She shook her head. “I am not. But I know her.”

  “Hal says she always lies.”

  “He is wrong. She speaks only the truth.” The wind teased a strand of Mokosh’s silver hair out of its braid. It blew about her face like a tendril of spider silk. “What did she tell you to do?”

  “The one thing I can’t do.”

  “Then you have your answer. Light the lamp. Set him free.”

  The violet sea-wisp opened its strange mouth and started singing. I felt the light print of rain on my shoulders.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  Mokosh stroked the sea-wisp’s neck, and her hand sunk through it. I didn’t understand how she was sitting on the wisp at all. “One who cares for Hal as you do. One who would see him free.”

  I tried to ignore my wrench of jealousy, and failed.

  “I will speak plainly to you, Echo. You are the only one who can help him. To succeed or to fail—it is in your hands. But if you fail, know this—you will regret it forever. And this time there will be no going back.”

  Tears pressed hard against my throat. “I can’t lose him.”

  “Then you know what to do.”

  “But I can’t.”

  “Echo.” Mokosh put her hands on my shoulders, and somehow the weight gave me comfort. “Don’t fail him. Don’t fail yourself. Only you can do this. I have faith in you.”

  The sea-wisp sang one last keening note.

  “Do what you know you must,” said Mokosh. “Farewell.” And then she tugged on the sea-wisp’s reins and they both swirled away into the sky.

  I told the library to take me home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I DON’T KNOW QUITE WHEN I decided. Maybe watching the wolf who was Hal destroy the room behind the obsidian door. Maybe listening to Mokosh’s words to me on the floating island. Maybe even the day before, stitching up the wound in the wolf’s chest I had made with my own sword.

  There is one thing you must not do, one rule you must not break.

  I scrubbed the tears from my face and swept out of the library. I went back to my bedroom, shut and latched the door behind me.

  You must break it.

  “Matches, if you please, House.” They appeared on the nightstand. I curled my fingers around the packet, and shoved
it deep in my pocket.

  That will nullify the enchantment.

  I had to force my next request past the lump in my throat: “And oil for the lamp.”

  The lamp filled with oil.

  That will free him.

  That will free him.

  My whole body was trembling when I left the room.

  I SEARCHED FOR HAL ALL day, stepping into one book-mirror after another. He didn’t come and didn’t come and didn’t come. But I kept looking. I couldn’t do what I was about to do without seeing him one last time. It would steady me. Assure me I wasn’t about to make a horrible mistake.

  At last, when the time for dinner had slipped away and there were only a handful of hours left before midnight, he came.

  He met me on a high hill overlooking a valley that danced in the light of two setting suns. He looked solemn and fair, and stepped up to me without a word. He folded my hand into his, and I felt suddenly stronger.

  A faun with flowers in her hair and a silver bear wearing a rose-thorn crown held onto the cords tethering a huge hot air balloon to the earth. It was shaped like a painted egg and decorated like one, too, beautiful designs swirling blue and gold across the violet material. A basket was attached to the balloon and fire roared hot just beneath the fabric envelope.

  “One last adventure, my lord Hal?”

  He gave me a quick sharp smile and helped me climb into the balloon, then scrambled in after me. I looped my arm around his waist, holding him close.

  The faun and the bear untied their cords and the balloon rose into the air, chasing the wind and the falling suns. The valley grew small beneath us. The sky grew large.

  I wanted to say “I love you, stranger I met in a book—my white wolf. Tonight, I will free you.” The words echoed in my brain and I could almost taste them. But I didn’t speak, didn’t let them out. I just shut my eyes and listened to the sound of Hal’s breathing, warm and close at my ear.

  I love you, stranger I met in a book.

  We didn’t speak until the suns were gone and the stars were out, globes of radiant color that spun and flashed through the darkness.