Thornghost

by Tone Almhjell

They continued on into the avalanche. Without his flashlight, Niklas had to rely on his hands and Secret’s curt instructions to find the way. “Crooked root at left shin. Three steps, then wobbly stone.”

  “You really know your way around this tunnel.” Niklas fumbled at the wall.

  “This was our den,” Secret said. “I was born here. When my mother was shot, I hid here. Every time there is a snowstorm, I shelter here. So yes. I know it.” She padded on in silence for a while, then added, “I was starving already, before the storm last spring. I wouldn’t have survived without the meat you gave me.”

  Niklas was stunned. His plan had seemed so far-fetched back then: Give the lynx food, save her life. Make her like him, like Rufus loved Lin. Yet somehow, it had worked. “Then it was worth the scolding Grandma Alma gave me. She still hasn’t forgotten, you know. Sometimes she makes me cabbage and potatoes and claims it’s what I like to eat for dinner.”

  Secret wheezed at the back of her throat. “Cabbage and potatoes. Your grandmother is a hard woman.”

  • • •

  It began as a faint murmur, but as they pressed deeper into the mountain, the sound of water grew to a steady rush. The air in the tunnel changed, too. Niklas wondered at first if his nose had been damaged by the troll stench, because to him, it smelled like flowers. But then he bumped against the wall and felt something sinewy and sharp scratch his shoulder.

  “Is this . . . ?” His fingertips struck a silky, cool object that gave off a sweet scent. Suddenly it flashed under his fingers, and for a bright second, the tunnel became visible. Sure enough, the object was a pale, perfect rose. “It is! How can a rose grow here in the darkness? And why does it flash?”

  “I don’t know,” Secret said. “But it gets worse.”

  The tunnel widened to a cave. It wasn’t very big, but after the cramped corridor, it seemed like a ballroom. It was decked out like one, too. All the walls were overgrown with thorny branches that wove into a dense tapestry, tied with fresh shoots and dotted with white roses. Now and again the thorns twinkled.

  “This was your den? What are you, lynx royalty?”

  “It didn’t look like this back then,” Secret said. “It was just a cave with a spring in it.”

  The water spilled out through an opening halfway up the cave wall, gathered briefly in a small pool, and escaped on the other side, hurrying under the mountain to become the Summerchild. The opening looked like another grand doorway. It was taller than Niklas, pointed like an archway, and lined with more shrub.

  “The roses weren’t here before, then?”

  “No.” A little below the threshold and just to the side, a half-moon ledge stuck out of the wall. Secret jumped onto it. The ledge could barely hold all of her, but from the comfortable way she tucked her tail in and settled down, Niklas guessed it was a favorite spot from when she was little. “And neither was the doorway. It was just a crack in the rock, nice to drink from.” She sniffed the green skin of a vine. “Last spring I did notice a small twig poking out, but it looked old and dead. I guessed it was just a piece of the avalanche that had drifted here with the water. I never thought it could be alive.”

  Niklas pushed at a branch. This one was thicker than his thigh. “You think the roses cause the taint?”

  “The roses or the doorway. Or both. They have this strange smell . . .”

  Niklas couldn’t smell anything other than pretty flowers, but he trusted Secret’s nose. “Well, you’re right. This isn’t something we can simply lift out of the water.”

  He climbed up to examine the archway. “Maybe we can follow the shrub back to its roots. If we sever them, the rest of the plant should wither.”

  The rosebush delved into the mountain as far as he could see between the vines that trailed down from the roof. The flashing light traveled along the tunnel like a slowly beating pulse.

  “With the shrub shoring it up, it won’t cave,” Niklas said. Thorns stuck out from every branch, some small and vicious, some as big as knives. But with a bit of care, he thought it would be possible to find a path between them. He nodded encouragement at Secret, the way he would nod at Lin if they were lost. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find the roots.”

  He climbed up into the opening. The beginnings of the Summerchild flowed toward him along the stone floor, no more than a streamlet of shallow eddies. At least there were no thorns in the water.

  Behind him, Secret gave a low whine. She lingered in the opening, front paws planted in the water where it slipped out through the archway, while her back paws still remained on the half-moon ledge. Her ears turned down and out, one tufted and perfect, the other torn and limp. “Cub,” she said. “I feel so strange.”

  Without her calm dignity and hunter crouch, she looked much smaller. A wild animal out of her depth, so different from the brave Secret who watched his back and rescued him from trolls. Niklas swallowed. He hadn’t thought of this until now, which made him the world’s biggest idiot. The trolls wouldn’t be the only magic to go away if they got rid of the taint. “Wait,” he said. “If we stop this . . . you’ll go back to . . .”

  Secret shook her head. “I’ll be the lynx of these woods again. You’ll be the boy of the farm. And we’ll both go back to our ways.”

  Of course, Niklas’s way was being alone all the time. He glanced around at the roses, tried a smile. “Maybe we don’t have to get rid of them now. After all, we already took care of Rafsa and her brood.”

  Secret hadn’t taken her eyes off him. “But not the nightmare.”

  Niklas nodded. She was right. He knew that, even if the cold filled his stomach again. He covered up the chill as best he could. “You know what? It won’t happen like that.” He took two steps back toward her, pulled a sinewy branch out of her way. “Because we know each other a little by now. For instance, I’ve learned that if you turn very quiet, something is wrong. And that if you squint and look away, you’re pleased.”

  She looked away, squinting. “And I’ve learned that if your smile turns wide instead of lopsided, you’re lying.”

  Niklas laughed. “See? So what if you can’t speak? Lin and Rufus are friends, and he never said a word in his life. I promise you, when the taint is gone, you and I are going to raid Mr. Molyk’s apple orchard together.”

  “Hard to raid anything when you don’t know how to sneak.” With a shiver, Secret jumped into the tunnel. When she slipped past the branch he held for her, she nudged his hand with her nose. “But maybe you’ll learn that, too.”

  Apart from knocking him to the ground at Oak Bridge, it was the first time she had touched him. Her nose felt scratchy and warm, and it melted every bit of cold away.

  • • •

  Niklas yearned to see the sky. As the Summerchild dwindled to a trickle under their feet, the passage narrowed, and the thorns closed in on them from every direction.

  A darker kind of vine wove through the rosy branches, snaking in and out like barbed wire in a flower wreath. These vines didn’t flash and they didn’t bear flowers. They had a shriveled appearance, as if they were sick. But their thorns, brown and curved like claws, were sharp enough.

  Niklas used his satchel to push aside a tangle of vines, hoping to find the roots. Instead he found a weave of branches that barred their way. Some of them were of the withered kind, but most carried rosebuds.

  “Do you think this is the end of the tunnel?” Niklas tested the weave with the tip of his boot. It yielded only a little, and he couldn’t see through to the other side. The sound of water had disappeared completely.

  Secret had also been very quiet since the cave. She just lifted her lips to taste the air, then shook her head. The breeze blowing through the bony strands of rosebush seemed fresh enough. But whether the passage continued or not, Niklas and Secret couldn’t go on.

  Suddenly the silence broke.

  “Who is there?
”

  Niklas whipped around. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, and it had a strange double pitch. Secret crouched low, ready to attack, but she circled as if she couldn’t find her target.

  “Who is it?”

  One of the rose branches stirred. It coiled free of the wall, creeping along Niklas’s leg, scratching his pants with its thorns. Another lifted toward Secret.

  “Who?”

  With a snarl Secret batted at the vines, striking them aside. But others took their place immediately. Niklas cried out as one of them sank a thorn into his arm, deep enough to draw blood.

  All around them, the rosebuds sprang open, spreading their petals like focusing lenses.

  “Not her.”

  “Not the trespasser.”

  “Not the burned one.”

  It wasn’t a double-pitched voice, Niklas realized, but two voices, one thunderous and very old-sounding, the other whispering sweet. They had been speaking as one, but now they spoke to each other.

  “It’s a child,” said the whispering voice.

  “Yes,” the other voice boomed. “A child and his cat, come to brave the crossing.”

  A long hiss swept through the tunnel, and the dense weave pulled aside to reveal two thick branches that barred the way in a great cross. One was thick and gnarled, but the bark still bore fresh green thorns and pale flowers; the other branch was choked with dark vine and looked brown and leathery.

  “He has not been invited.” The shriveled branch didn’t move, but Niklas still felt that the whispering voice controlled it somehow. “He does not have a key.”

  “He has a key,” the thunderous voice replied. “A forgotten one. A late one.”

  “But it does not belong to him.” Niklas didn’t like the whispering voice. There was a nasty undertone to its too-sweet murmurs.

  “No, it belonged to someone else, someone . . .” The old voice sounded confused, as if it struggled to remember. And after a pause: “But he has a right to it.”

  “The boy is just as weak,” said the nasty voice. “Taste him again and see.”

  “Yes,” agreed the booming voice. “Taste him.”

  The tendril pricked Niklas’s arm a second time. The thorn drank the blood drop, and soon after, the nearest rose gained a red smudge on its white petals.

  “Fear.” The shriveled branch creaked. “Fear in this one, gray as old bones, heavy as a cage. He tries to cover it with bravery, but it eats at his core. He is not worthy.”

  All the roses opened very wide.

  “Are you scared, boy?” As the old voice asked the question, the thorny vine prodded Niklas, as if to underline that an answer was required. He had an uncomfortable feeling he was being tested. “No,” he said. His chest felt so tight, he had to squeeze the words out. “I’m not.”

  Secret said nothing, but her tail lashed.

  “You seem to think it’s a bad thing to be scared, when in fact there is so very much of which to be afraid.” The old voice sounded disappointed. “You might not have been chosen, if there was choosing to do. But there is not, now. Well, you can run and you can steal and you can lie through your teeth. Perhaps there is still . . .”

  The dark vines snared tighter. The thorns on the nasty branch grew longer, like the troll claws. “You forget the rule. No Twistroses will pass!”

  Around them, many thorns followed suit, flexing and growing. Dark webbing appeared in the bark like veins, and the tendrils snared around Niklas’s legs and arms, pulling tight. He clenched his teeth and tried to wrestle loose, but the tendrils were too strong.

  Secret shook her confusion and sprang into action. She bit at the vines, even if the thorns must sting her mouth terribly. But not even she could break their grip.

  “Stop!” The old branch gave another long, slow creak. “He is not a Twistrose. He is just a boy with a dead key. He will not challenge the rule or ruin the plan. We will let him pass.”

  One by one, the thorns retracted and the tendrils dropped to the ground, leaving Niklas coughing, but free. Finally the old branch moved to the side, scraping along the rocky tunnel floor, drawing a line of splinters and dust. Behind it, the opening had widened again, showing a short stretch of tunnel, and then stars.

  Only the nasty branch still barred their way.

  “Let him pass,” said the old voice.

  “Let us pass,” Niklas said. “We won’t do any harm.”

  The nasty branch didn’t move. “No,” it said. “Kill them.”

  Niklas whispered in his smallest voice, one he hoped would only be audible to a lynx. “I don’t think this piece of shrubbery quite agrees with itself. You go left, I’ll go right?”

  Secret’s good ear turned ever so slightly toward Niklas.

  “Now,” he said, and dove for freedom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  They tumbled out of the tunnel. The dark vines lashed after them, but Niklas fell flat on his belly, and he heard them whip through the air over his head. He crawled away from the opening, hands and feet slipping through fine, cool sand, until the lashing stopped.

  He sat up, rubbing his arm where the vine had cut into Rafsa’s half-finished rune. Immediately, his hopes of hacking off the roots were dashed. Outside of the tunnel opening, there were no roots and no roses. The vines had retracted into another doorway in the barren mountain wall, weaving it shut so only a softly pulsing light escaped through the thorns.

  Secret sat on the ground next to him, blinking.

  “Are you all right?” Niklas reached out to touch her, but at the last moment he remembered himself and let his hand hover.

  “I won’t bite.” Secret smiled. “I think.”

  Now it was Niklas’s turn to blink. He hadn’t seen her smile before. The corners of her mouth curled up extravagantly like a waxed mustache.

  “Not so slack-jawed, cub.” She turned away from him and lifted her paw to scratch her mangled ear. But she set her foot carefully back in the sand. “Maybe instead tell me where you have taken us.”

  Niklas turned to see what she saw, and slowly let his hand settle on Secret’s shoulder.

  He had absolutely no idea.

  Niklas had climbed Buttertop many times with Lin and Uncle Anders. At the end of every August, when it was time to bring the cattle home from summer grazing, they combed the shallow, windswept mountain vales of the Trollheim in search of the flock. Those valleys did not look like this.

  It wasn’t just the dark sand or the patches of coarse, silvery grass. The mountain itself seemed unfamiliar, cragged and sharp, with facets that shone like glass. It cradled the tiny valley on three sides, and the fourth opened to the night sky.

  Myriads of stars spread across the heaven like gem-studded dust. In Willodale, the night would be too light to show stars for weeks still.

  “I don’t know. I think it must be somewhere else.” Niklas got to his feet, his hand still buried in Secret’s fur. It felt rough against his fingers, keeping him on the ground when the stars tried to pull him up, strange and impossible. His heart pounded with the danger of it.

  Hoooowooooo.

  The sound didn’t come from the tunnel, it came from somewhere in the canyon. Secret wound tight like a coil.

  A creature appeared against the sky, so quickly, it seemed to blink into existence from one moment to the next. In the near-darkness it was hard to tell, but Niklas thought it wore a great cloak that shifted and swelled. But he could make out the creature’s head, which gleamed in the starlight. It was the skull of a giant bird.

  “What is that?” Secret whimpered.

  “A nightmare,” Niklas said. His throat felt dry. “It’s the creature from the bird castle.” And from the chapel crypt, and from his own dreams.

  The taint was here, too.

  The skeleton skipped to the side. Where it had stood, anothe
r followed, and more, until six of them lined up in a half circle, barring the way out from the canyon. Their beaks curved slim and sharp, and the wind threaded through their eye sockets, making an eerie hooting scream.

  Hoooooowooooo.

  Niklas and Secret had nowhere to go but back to the canyon wall. They moved slowly, feet treading the soft sand, hardly daring to breathe.

  The creatures kicked off from the ground. As they took flight, the black cloth spread out, showing their bodies underneath. They were all bones, unbound by ligaments and muscles, but still linked, like his mother’s marionettes in the bird room. The bones glowed with pale light as the flying bird skeletons circled overhead, claws stark and ready, blotting out the stars above the canyon.

  Niklas half stumbled over a stone. One of the birds dove for him. He wrenched to the side a heartbeat before the beak sliced the air where his head had been. Then the creature wheeled back up into the air.

  He pressed his back against the rock. “Now what?”

  “Can’t run,” Secret growled beside him as another bird dipped down. “So we fight.”

  With a snarl, she launched herself at the skeleton. She tore a piece of cloth off the wing, but the creature kept attacking, and now the others followed, wings flapping and beaks slashing. Secret became a sinewy streak of claws and teeth. She was almost as fast as the creatures, but not quite, and there were six of them. Her battle scream wrung high into a yelp when one of them stabbed at her.

  They seemed to have forgotten Niklas. His only weapon, the pocketknife, lay tucked away in his satchel. He fumbled under the lid until he found it, clutching it hard in his sweaty palm. He had never fought anyone in his life, let alone used a weapon.

  But when Secret screamed again and a wound opened up in her flank, he let out a roar of his own and sprang forward.

  His knife skittered along a bone. He toppled, rolled, and ended up flat on his back. The skeleton bird towered above him, no more than a yard away, but it didn’t strike. The air whistled in its eye sockets as it moved its head from side to side. As if it was searching for him.