“I just want to be able to shift back,” I yell at the tower. “I won’t hunt you. Please help me. Please?”
Nothing.
Defeated, I hurry back to the hive so no one will worry. I’m not supposed to wander so far. But every few steps, I turn and look over my shoulder, scanning the sky for a golden eagle. The sky remains a piercing, clear blue, without a bird in sight.
*
A few days later, as we’re sitting along the log at dinner, huddled close together against the bitter wind, I wait for a lull in the conversation.
“So what’s up with that lighthouse?” I ask. “We’re pretty landlocked to need a lighthouse.”
“You don’t know about the lighthouse?” Xela asks, turning to me with wide, excited eyes.
“No,” I say through gritted teeth. I hate how everyone knows everything, and I’m always in the dark.
“They say the sorceress brought it,” Haven says in a hushed tone. “When she came here from the sea.”
“The sorceress?”
“Yes,” Haven says. “She lives with the witches, but she’s not really a witch. She says she was gifted the magic of a Winslow Witch, so now she’s one of them. But people say she stole the magic.”
“You can steal magic?”
“Some people can,” she says with a nod. “But it’s obviously a major crime for a witch to steal another’s magic. She’s not a natural witch, because she didn’t have elemental powers. She has other powers.”
“Like what?” I ask, remembering the girl who knocked me back into human form.
“Lots of things,” Haven says. “No one knows for sure everything she can do. But witches are usually content to just do their magic and keep to themselves. They self-govern. She’s obsessed with power, and beauty, and all the things true witches don’t care about.”
“What does she look like?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. I see that stack of auburn hair, the glowing skin, the vague sense of familiarity. Definitely beautiful.
“Who knows?” Haven says with a shrug. “She wears many faces. That’s what they say.”
I remember the revulsion the wolves felt for me, because I am an identical twin, as if that meant I was a mirror, their name for a person who steals another person’s body. Maybe a person who wears many faces does the same. Or maybe she does illusion spells.
“Have you ever seen her?” I ask. “Does she live in that tower?”
“No one can live there,” Kale says. “There’s no door. You can’t get in or out.”
I remember the bird flying in the window high above the ground. Someone can get in and out.
I chase a tiny yam around my bowl with one of the wooden spoons I made before I ask the next question. “Is she also a shifter?”
“Not that I know of,” Haven says. “But who really knows for sure? I’ve heard she can take the form of an animal, but she kills it in the process.”
My heart thumps hard in my chest. “Projecting?”
Haven shudders and nods, and Xela looks at her bowl like she’s just lost her appetite. Even Yorn scrunches down on the log with a gloomy expression on his face. Now would probably not be a good time to tell them I’m supposedly able to do this, too.
I have to force the next words out. “Do you think she’s the one who…did this to me?”
Haven tilts her head and squints at me. “I thought you said she was a shifter?”
“She definitely shifted,” I say, remembering the way she shifted in mid-stride, in a burst of flapping wings and dust.
“Then it’s not the sorceress,” Kale says with a reassuring smile.
“As far as we know,” Haven adds.
“Could a witch block me from turning back into a tiger? That’s not elemental, right?”
“Anyone can bind magic,” Haven says. “Well, any witch.”
I sigh and stand to collect the bowls. I’m no closer to finding out who she was than before I asked. As Haven and I walk to the stream to wash up, I find more questions spinning through my mind. “You’re sure no one lives in that lighthouse?” I ask. “Why else would the sorceress bring it here?”
“I’m not really up to speed on all the witchy history,” she admits, holding out her palm and making a tiny glowing fireball to light our way through the darkness. “But I know you can’t get into the lighthouse. It’s not like witches really fly on broomsticks. If you were going up there, you’d need a really tall ladder, that’s for sure.”
But she’s thinking like a witch, and the others think like what they are. I’m a shifter, so I’m thinking like a shifter. And any shifter who could turn into a bird could fly up there, no broomstick required.
“So no one knows what this sorceress looks like or where she lives?” I ask as we crunch through the frost-edged leaves underfoot.
“She lives in the First Valley,” Haven says, crouching beside the stream. The light blinks out when she plunges her hands into the icy water. “She’s even a part of the coven.”
I think I know the answer to the next question before I ask, but I have to know. My stomach knots, but I swallow the sour taste in my mouth and force the words out. “What’s her name?”
“Yvonne.”
I thought I was prepared for the answer, but it still makes my guts twist. Yvonne, my childhood neighbor and babysitter, the mouse who kept me company and probably saved my sanity during my time in the attic. How can I tell these people I’m friends with someone they see as a dangerous, dark sorceress?
I decide to keep my mouth shut for now. She’s no threat to them, and she’s not out to get me. As far as I can tell, she’s just another person with a magic they don’t understand, so they call her dangerous. The same way the wolves did to me, because I was an outsider, an other. Even more frustrating, I still don’t know who the girl in the lighthouse is, why she blocked my ability to shift, and how I can get it back.
Chapter 11
For the next week, I sneak away to the lighthouse every day. I walk around it, exploring the curved walls with their layers of white paint as thick as a dime. I approach through the field grown up with weeds, but when I circle the entire building, I see that one side is right at the edge of the slope of the mountain. From the top, you could probably see out for miles, over the entire valley—maybe all three valleys of supernaturals.
Turning back to the wall, I tap on it with my knuckles. It’s solid as stone. I continue around the side and find a tangle of vines growing up the bottom part of the wall, broken midway up so they fall back in defeat, creating a giant mess to climb over. Since making friends with the trees so quickly, I’m not as wary of the vines in the forest, but I’m not sure about these. What if the sorceress grew them, and they are full of malice? But then I shake my head at the thought. The sorceress is Mrs. Nguyen—cat lady, mint-eater, daytime television watcher.
I begin to climb over the tangle of vines. Some snap under my weight, but none grab me. As I pass a thick cord of vines at the base of the lighthouse, I see why. They’ve been cut across the base, killing the vines. I make it across and scramble up the slope to the field again, brushing off bits of bark from the vines that stick to my misshapen sweater and patchwork pants. When I see a figure in the field, I freeze.
For a second, she doesn’t see me, and my mind races through possibilities. Mrs. Nguyen? The auburn-haired girl? But no, she’s too big and solid to be that waif of a shifter. She’s crouched low, as if digging in the ground, with her back to me. After a minute, she stands, and I suck in a breath.
“What are you doing here?” I demand, as if this mountain belongs to me.
My mother startles, then fumbles to keep from dropping the basket that hangs over her arm. “Stella,” she says, then forces a high, false laugh. “I hardly recognized you. You scared me.”
“I should,” I say, stepping towards her. “You’re way out of your valley, Mother. And you’re not a true Alpha, so you can’t communicate with your pack, can you?”
“You wouldn’t hurt me,�
�� she says, but her voice sounds less sure than usual, almost tremulous.
Power surges through my chest. “Of course not,” I say, stalking closer. “Just like you’d never hurt me, right? Since you’re my mother and all.”
“That’s right,” she says, squaring her shoulders. Instead of her usual drab flannels, she’s wearing a long-sleeved tee with a velvet capelet and black skinny jeans.
But I don’t have time to analyze how the fight for dominance has improved her fashion sense, because she’s seen through my bluff. She knows I’m no match for her in my human form. If I threaten her, and she shifts, then she’ll know I can’t shift. What little power I have here will evaporate in a second, and I’ll be at her mercy. I’ve spent way too much time there, and it’s not an experience I want to repeat.
“Shouldn’t you have a protection squad if you’re going to cross into witch territory?”
“Thank you for your concern.”
I ball my fists and fight my rising frustration at the way she always, always evades my questions. “So what are you really doing here? I thought you just came to warn me last time, and you weren’t coming back.”
“Warn you? Oh, yes. Of course.” She taps her fingertips against her throat, looking almost…nervous. Did I catch her stealing some witch herbs or something?
I pounce on the slight advantage. “You know how these bargains work, Mother. You tell me what you’re doing up here, or I’ll tell the witches and you can explain it to them.”
Mother doesn’t correct me, doesn’t tell me that the bargains were always an information swap before. She looks at me a long moment, as if seeing me for the first time. Then she sighs and fiddles with her basket handle. “If you must know, I was hoping to run into you.” She peers up at me from under her lashes, looking almost shy, and again I am reminded that she’s really not very old. A pang of sympathy goes through me—she took a chance on my father, choosing a mate who wasn’t a wolf, and now she’ll spend the rest of her life alone. Maybe I shouldn’t be so rude to her.
But I know better than to let her manipulate me. I crush the thought and glare at her. “Why?”
“I thought… I know we haven’t always gotten along, but we can put all that behind us now, can’t we?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Why would we do that?”
“I am still your mother,” she says, but she doesn’t say it in her usual harsh way, like I’m required to respect and obey her because she decided to run off with her high school sweetheart and be a teen mom.
“Yeah, and last time I heard, you were trying to kill me.”
She laughs, a high, fake laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous, Stella. Why would I do that?”
“Oh, let’s see, there are so many reasons to choose from. I kind of stopped counting after the first few times you tried to kill me.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” she scolds, waving her hand as if to dismiss all of those petty concerns. “I have no reason to hurt you. I could have brought along a pack of wolves to destroy you if I wanted. But why would I? You’re gone from our valley. You’re no longer hunting our prey, and I’m acting Alpha.”
“A position you stole,” I remind her.
“A position I always deserved,” she counters. “I was the Alpha’s daughter. It made more sense than choosing a random male.”
“A dominant male. I thought you wolves put everything on custom.”
“Customs can change,” she says. “When they’re outdated, they should. There used to be a custom for only men to vote. For humans to own each other as slaves. This custom needs to change. And I’m changing it.”
“By telling everyone that your daughter is a witch, and anyone who could love her must be under a spell?”
“Many in our pack wanted you gone,” she says. “I’m not heartless, Stella. You know that. It wasn’t all bad, when you lived with me, was it?”
I stare at her in disbelief. Has she lost her mind? Harmon warned me she was cracking under the pressure of leading the wolves and keeping him from taking over.
“Oh yeah, in between you trying to murder me, and being your slave, it was a riot,” I say at last.
“That’s all in the past,” she says. “Now that you’re not living with the wolves, and you know about everything, I don’t have any reason to want you dead. Killing is a last resort, anyway. But no one would have blamed me, after all you’ve done.”
“So you get to look good for sparing my life? That shows the pack how merciful and fair you are? To refrain from killing your own daughter? How noble.”
“Would you rather I’d called for your death?”
“I’d rather you have let Harmon lead his pack, invite me to be part of it if I wanted. Since I’m your blood, the blood relative of a former Alpha. You said that meant something. Why couldn’t I shift into a wolf at the full moon with the rest of you?”
“If I’d agreed with Harmon, there would be no reason for anyone to side with me,” she says, as if it’s perfectly logical. “A large part of our pack wanted you exiled, if not killed. Who gives those people a voice, if Harmon and I agree?”
“So you took their side, even though you don’t agree with it, just so people would follow you, and you could contest Harmon?”
“That’s how politics work,” she says. “If there are no opposing platforms, there is only one choice. That’s tyranny. Don’t you think it makes more sense to let the pack vote for whoever it wants, male or female?”
“The pack voted for you?”
“They haven’t taken the blood oath to support Harmon, if that’s what you’re asking,” she says with a haughty smirk. “And if he keeps causing trouble, I can exile him. He won’t like it, but he’ll obey me. He’s too young and inexperienced to lead. If my taking over has proved nothing else, it’s proven that much.”
I take a deep, slow breath, resisting the urge to give her a good slap again. “What are you really doing up here?” I ask. “Come to dig up some herbs and make a potion to keep everyone under your control?”
She gives that high laugh again, and it makes me cringe. It’s not just unlike my mother, not just fake, but slightly unhinged, the laughter of a mad woman barely maintaining control. “I’m not the one living among witches,” she says when she recovers herself. “But now that you mention it, maybe there are things you could learn from them.”
“Oh, so that’s why you wanted to forget the past, get all friendly with me? So I’ll find out some potion recipes for you? I should have known you’d never actually want to know your own daughter.”
“Nothing in life is free,” she says lightly. “But believe it or not, I do want to know you, Stella. There’s no reason for conflict between us anymore. We could be friends.”
She looks at me with the strangest expression, almost childlike in its hope.
“I’ll think about it,” I mutter. I wouldn’t trust her with one fingernail, but I can’t see what she’d want from me. I literally have nothing, am nothing.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she says, reaching into her straw basket. “I was hoping you’d say that. I brought you something.”
I wait without moving towards her, halfway expecting her to pull out a rattlesnake and throw it in my face. Instead, she pulls out an ivory hair comb. “This belonged to my mother,” she says. “I want you to have it.”
“Why me?” I ask without moving to take it. “What about Elidi and Zora? You know, the daughters you actually acknowledge as your own?”
“They have plenty of my things,” she says. “Besides, you need it.”
At her disdainful glance at my hair, I reach up and touch it. Something that feels suspiciously like a dreadlock meets my fingers.
“Fair enough,” I mutter, taking the comb from her. It’s creamy white and smooth as glass, with swirls of stark white inside it. It looks like something that belongs in a royal museum, not in my calloused hands. I don’t know where I’ll keep it out here in the forest, but I feel a bit giddy at the thought of having
something of my very own.
I want to ask her about shifting, if she knows how I can unblock the ability. But I don’t know if I can trust her with that yet, so I settle for something less dangerous. “Have you seen Dad?” I ask. I don’t want to care about him, either, but I can’t help wondering.
“Yes,” she says, making a face. “He’s as selfish and hedonistic as ever.”
“If he was always like that, why’d you marry him?” I realize once I’ve asked that I’ve always wanted to know this. How could my father love this woman? But also, how could a woman like her be carried away by anything, let alone young love? I try to imagine her as a wild, impulsive, rebellious teenager refusing her father’s orders and falling so madly in love that she couldn’t see anything else. But I just can’t. She’s a frosty ice queen, not fiery and passionate.
“That, my dear, is a very long story,” she says. “One we’ll have to save for another day. I must get back now. When the cat’s away…” She smiles, and for a second, I think she’s about to wink at me. A wave of déjà vous sweeps over me, the way it does sometimes when she’s nice to me, and I get a flash of what it would be like to be her child, one she acknowledged as her own blood. As always, it’s unsettling.
Chapter 12
“My mother came by today,” I tell the others that night, as we sit huddled on the log. The sky hangs low and ominous over us, thick with clouds, but somehow it seems brighter than the frigid, starry nights we’ve had lately. A strange humidity clings to us, making me even colder than usual.
“What?” Xela says, turning to me with wide eyes.
“What did she want?” Uzula asks.
“She was acting kind of odd,” I admit. “She said she wanted to be friends.”
“She wants more than that,” Haven says, nodding wisely. I wonder how old these people really are. “You just wait. You’ll see.”
“You said you’d hide if she came back,” Kale says quietly, frowning into the fire.
I know better than to mistake his concern for affection now. He worries about everyone, but it doesn’t mean the same thing to him as it does to me. An invitation to sleep with him is just that—nothing more. I’ve learned over the past few weeks that I’m the only one who always sleeps alone.
Ghostly Snow: A Dark Fairy Tale Adaptation (Girl Among Wolves Book 3) Page 6