Faerie Winter tboft-2

by Janni Lee Simner

  The fire could have killed her. Did she expect me to just let her die next time? The stone’s purple light was dimming. I took it in my hands. “If you don’t trust me with my magic, how can you trust any promises I make?”

  “It’s a funny thing about the faerie folk.” Mom shut the drawer. “They cannot say things they do not mean, and once they give their word, they cannot easily break it.”

  “But I’m human.” I knew well enough that humans could lie.

  Mom laughed uneasily. “I’ve noticed that once the children in this town come into their magic, they develop an odd unwillingness to lie. This has presented challenges in keeping their magic hidden.”

  No magic controlled my words. I opened my mouth, meaning to tell Mom I wouldn’t use my magic to save her life, just to prove I could make false promises as well as anyone.

  No words came out. I tried again. My chest tightened, and my breathing went shallow. I couldn’t seem to get enough air.

  I stopped attempting to speak. Air rushed into my lungs. I gasped, stumbled, and caught myself. I couldn’t do it. I really couldn’t. I’d always hated to say things that weren’t true, but I’d thought it a choice. My choice.

  “So you can see,” Mom said quietly, “why your refusal to give your word makes me uneasy. I’ll meet you at Kate’s.” She turned and left the room.

  In my hands the light went out, leaving me in the dark.

  Chapter 5

  My hand clenched the dead stone. How could I refuse Mom, after all she’d been through?

  How could she ask such things of me, after all I had?

  I felt my way down the dark hall to my room. I pulled the coverings off my bedroom windows and took two nightgowns from my dresser, one for me and one for Mom. They smelled faintly of smoke, but there was no helping that. I added clean sweaters, pants, underwear, and socks to the pile. I went back downstairs, pulled on my hat and scarf and gloves, and headed to Kate’s.

  The path through town was silent now, with just a few faint stars piercing the clouds. Lantern light spilled out around the shutters of the houses and made their tacked nylon glow.

  “Sorry about your house, Liza.”

  I dropped the clothes and spun around, only to find Kyle’s brother, Johnny, standing right behind me. He laughed. At fourteen he had a wiry build that made him look taller than he was, along with the wispy beginnings of something no one but him called a mustache on his upper lip.

  I hadn’t heard him coming. I never did. “Don’t do that,” I said darkly.

  Johnny shrugged. His magic was stalking, meaning he was the only human I knew who walked as silently as faerie folk did.

  “Don’t go spooking the caller, Johnny.” Hope’s steps crunched toward us through the snow. “That can get you in all sorts of trouble. Almost as much trouble as spooking me.”

  Johnny slouched down in his fur-lined denim jacket. “I’m not afraid of a little wind.”

  “You should be.” Hope helped me pick up the dropped clothes. She sniffed at a sleeve. “We’ll find better for you and your mom,” she said to me.

  “I don’t mind.” As I folded the clothes, Johnny disappeared the way he’d come, without a sound.

  “Everyone else will, if you walk around smelling like this.” Hope laughed, and acorns clattered around her face. “Seriously, it isn’t any trouble. I was already planning to come by later to check on the firestarter.” She walked with me halfway to Kate’s house before peeling off for her own.

  Johnny appeared again at my elbow. “I really am sorry about the fire.”

  I flinched but kept walking, as if I’d known he was there all along. Johnny stopped to scratch at the leg of his pants. Kyle’s ants, I thought, and wasn’t sorry. I hoped the leather kept them warm. I hoped they stayed a good long time.

  As far as I could tell, Johnny didn’t follow me any farther. I glanced into Kate’s backyard as I neared her house. Light glowed from within the shed, and tools and scraps of wood and metal lay on a tarp beside it. They must have already gotten Ethan inside.

  I’d head out there soon, too, but first I crossed Kate’s front porch and entered the warmth of her living room. I set the damp clothes down near the fireplace, where a pot of water boiled above the coals. Kate’s walls were covered with bright wall hangings; I glanced at the one that hid her mirror. Most mirrors had been destroyed during the War, out of fear that the faerie folk could step through them into our world, but this one was a family heirloom, so Kate had secretly kept it. No faerie folk had found their way through the silvered glass, but I had used the mirror to bring Mom home from Faerie.

  I heard voices from Kate’s kitchen.

  “What he really needs is a burn clinic,” Kate said. Adults were always wishing for medicines and facilities from Before. The way they talked, it used to be that any hurt could be cured, no matter how severe.

  “Well, we don’t have one.” Matthew’s voice was quieter—angrier. “That’s why I have to go.”

  I put my hat and gloves in my pockets and joined them. “Go where?” Matthew and I drew each other into a quick hug. He smelled of smoke, too.

  “To Caleb and Karin’s town,” he said as we drew apart. “Ethan—it’s bad.”

  Kate drew a jar from a cabinet. Ground valerian root—it was a sedative, used when pain became too much to bear. “Bad enough I was debating between this and something rather more deadly,” she said.

  “If Caleb can heal him, it won’t come to that,” Matthew told her. As far as I could tell, Caleb’s healing magic was as powerful as anything from Before.

  I tried to picture Caleb controlling Mom’s thoughts. He’d risked so much for her—if not for my vision, I might not have believed it, even now, though I knew he was as capable as anyone of pushing too far.

  Matthew and I followed Kate to the fireplace, where she sprinkled the valerian root into the pot. I wrinkled my nose as its sweaty-sock smell filled the air. Kate said herbs hadn’t worked nearly as well Before as now. I wondered if that meant they’d at least smelled better then.

  Strands of soot-smudged hair fell into Matthew’s face. “Three days isn’t much time. If we can’t stop the Council from sending Ethan away, he’ll die out there. If Caleb can’t come, maybe Allie can.” As Caleb’s student, Allie didn’t know as much about healing as Caleb, but she still could do more than any of us.

  My hands and sleeves were streaked with ash. “I thought you didn’t intend to let the Council send Ethan away.”

  “Even if we stop the Council, he’ll probably die as he is now,” Matthew said. “I can’t let that happen, not when I have another choice.”

  Kate stared into the boiling water. “At least wait until morning.”

  I thought of Ethan’s blackened skin. I wasn’t sure a burn like that could heal on its own. “Matthew’s right. We should go tonight.” Once I wouldn’t have dared venture out so far into the dark if I had a choice, but that was before the trees slept.

  Downy gray wolf fur shadowed the backs of Matthew’s hands, a sign he was uneasy. “I’ll go faster alone. It would take us all night to reach Caleb’s town on foot, but as a wolf I can get there in a couple hours if I run. If Caleb’s willing, he could be back here by morning.”

  “I don’t like it,” Kate said.

  I didn’t like it, either. “If anyone should take risks for Ethan, it should be me,” I said. Matthew had warned me not to push the firestarter too far.

  “But I’m the one best able to do something about it this time.” Matthew rubbed the scar on his wrist. “You’re not the only one who can save people, Liza.”

  “I never said—” The words caught in my throat. I’d spent enough time patrolling with Matthew to know he could manage a couple of hours alone in the winter forest well enough. Unless he ran into owls, or wild dogs—I swallowed a nervous laugh. If anyone could handle wild dogs, it was Matthew. “If you’re not back by first light, I’ll come after you.” We keep each other safe.

  “I’ll be
back before dawn,” Matthew promised. “I’ll run ahead of Caleb and Allie whatever they say, so that you’ll know whether to expect them.”

  “I’ve trusted you before to know where you were needed and to take no more risk than you had to.” Kate filled a mug from the pot as she spoke. “I’ll have to trust to it now, too, however much I might wish things otherwise. Come. Let’s check on Ethan—and tell Tara—before you go.”

  Matthew shook his head. “Tara will try to stop me. You know that.”

  Kate drew the mug close, as if for warmth. “I do know. Perhaps I was hoping for it, and that isn’t fair of me, is it?” She set the mug down, brushed a few wisps of gray from her face, and hugged him. “It’s nearly spring. Keep an eye out for crocuses. Let me know if you spot any.”

  “I’ll be careful.” Matthew knew as well as I the danger crocuses held. Until this year, they’d grown even in winter, burning through leather and wool and the skin of those unfortunate enough to miss them hiding beneath the snow. He pulled away from his grandmother and grabbed my hands. I squeezed them hard. As I looked into his gray eyes, it was all I could do not to pull him closer. I feared if I did, I wouldn’t let go and Matthew would lose more time. Besides, Kate stood right beside us, and what if I didn’t stop at holding?

  Matthew laughed softly. “Nothing to pack—I couldn’t carry it anyway.” He released my hands to step back, and silver light flowed over him. Skin stretched and changed, arms and legs and body all giving up their shape, as if the form Matthew had worn all his life were illusion, nothing more. He fell to all fours, skin shifting to silver-gray fur, hands and feet to paws with dark pads. Dark markings emerged around his eyes and muzzle and ears. Those ears tilted toward me.

  I caught my breath. No matter how often I watched, I never got tired of this. I leaned down and put my arms around him. His fur had grown so thick this winter. I inhaled its musky scent. The smell of smoke was faint now. “Be careful out there,” I whispered. “Give Allie a hug for me.”

  Matthew nudged my chest with his damp nose. He licked my chin, then turned and trotted for the door. I followed, stepping around pants and sweater, boots and wool underwear. I never could seem to catch the moment when his clothes were cast aside.

  He stopped by the door and looked up at me. I laughed. Whenever we set out together, I had to open the door. As I turned the knob, Kate moved to my side. We watched together as Matthew made his way across the porch and down the steps. When he reached the path through town, he burst into a loping run. The moon was hidden by cloud, and he quickly disappeared into the dark.

  Kate squeezed my shoulder. “I’m going to see to Ethan.” She went inside, gathered up her coat and the mug, and left. I lingered on the porch, staring out into the night, for a long time before I followed.

  When I did, I found Kate outside the shed, talking with Hope. Hope’s little sister grinned beside them as she shifted from foot to foot for warmth. “I get to stay,” she announced.

  Who better than a waterworker to have around a firestarter? Hope ruffled her sister’s fur cap. “Not alone. The rest of us will take turns with you. Keep guard, in case anyone decides they want Ethan leaving ahead of schedule. You too, right, Liza?”

  “Of course.” I couldn’t run as fast as a wolf, but I could keep watch.

  “Good.” A gust of wind tugged at the edge of the tarp. Hope absently held out a hand, stilling it. I slid the shed’s metal door open and went inside. More glowing stones lit the small space. Orange this time, they provided heat as well as light. Mom sat in a rusted folding chair, watching over Ethan.

  He lay on an old army cot. More blisters had burst, and fluid seeped from his skin. There were no blankets around him now. I wondered how he even stood the touch of the soft sheet at his back. Only his face looked peaceful, eyes shut in sleep. His breathing was ragged, though, and the burned-meat smell lingered, along with a faint sickroom scent that made me suspect his wounds had become infected.

  Mom looked up, then flinched, as if she feared my magic still.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “Holding on.” Mom forced herself to look at me. “I don’t know how, but he is.”

  There was no other chair, just a water bucket wedged into one corner beside a wobbly table. I slid the door shut to keep in the heat. “If all goes well, Caleb will be here by morning. He only need hold on until then.”

  “Kate told me.” Mom frowned. “I wish Matthew hadn’t gone.”

  My back stiffened against the hard metal door, though some part of me wished the same thing. “He only does what needs doing.”

  “I know,” Mom said. “That doesn’t stop me from worrying.”

  “I worry about you, too, you know.” It felt good to say so aloud.

  Mom said nothing. How much had she not said through the years?

  “Did you mean what you told me? About you and Caleb starting the War? Who were you?”

  “The children of powerful people, Liza, nothing more.” Mom’s gaze grew distant, as if she were seeing all the way back to Before.

  Ethan moaned and kicked the air. Mom made shushing sounds. She reached out to stroke his forehead, but then her hands moved abruptly to her stomach.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m all right.” She stood and pushed past me to open the door and run outside. I heard her throwing up behind the shed. I wondered what it was like to be able to lie.

  Ethan kept thrashing at the air. His moans turned to sobs. I didn’t hear when Mom returned to the house. I kept watch, making sure Ethan didn’t fall from the bed, but otherwise not touching his damaged skin, until Hope and her sister came to take my place. By the time I returned to Kate’s house, Mom was asleep on the couch.

  “She’ll be fine,” Kate said, but Kate had kept secrets from me, too. Once Caleb was through healing Ethan, I’d ask him to look at Mom. He’d know whether she was really all right, and, unlike Mom, he wouldn’t be able to lie about it.

  In Kate’s house, as in mine, the downstairs rooms were warmer than the upstairs ones, so in winter everyone slept by the fire. Kate slept in her oversized armchair, while I wrapped myself in blankets on the floor. I kept drifting off only to wake whenever I thought I heard Matthew’s paws on the stairs. It was a long time before I slipped into deeper sleep.

  When I did, I dreamed of flames roaring around me, of skin melting from my bones. Burning ash clogged my throat, choking my screams. “All human things must die,” a stranger’s voice said, and I knew I had no choice but to let the fire consume me.

  I couldn’t let it consume me. I ran, and blistering heat gave way to a cold gray winter forest. A dark shadow lifted its head, and it wore my mother’s face. “Liza,” the shadow whispered.

  I ran harder. I knew if I looked at that shadow again, Mom would be gone, and only the shadow would remain.

  “Liza!” Mom called me again and again. “Liza, wake up.”

  My eyes shot open. I bolted upright, blankets tangling around me. Mom sat beside me—she was real, not a shadow. “You’re all right,” I said.

  Mom reached for me, her eyes seeking mine to make sure I was awake. We’d learned that if she touched me—if anyone touched me—before I fully woke from a nightmare, I’d lash out with my magic, not hearing those around me.

  I threw myself into her arms, and she held me close. “I don’t want to lose you.” I choked on the words and began to cry.

  “I know, Lizzy.” Mom sounded near tears, too. “I know.” She stroked my hair, as if I were still a child, and I let her.

  The front door opened. Kate’s footsteps crossed the room. Pale light crept in the cracks around the windows.

  First light. I was suddenly as wide awake as if someone had poured snowmelt down my back. I pulled away from Mom.

  “Where’s Matthew?” I asked her.

  Chapter 6

  He hadn’t come back. I knew it even before Mom said so. Kate thought maybe he’d waited to return on foot with Caleb and Allie after all, but the shadow
s around her eyes told me she was worried, too. Matthew could no more lie than I could. He had to have meant it when he’d said he would run ahead of the healers.

  While Mom tried to talk me into waiting longer, Kate helped me pack. Hope had left clothes for us. I rolled up the sleeves of a borrowed sweater and the legs of a pair of pants, and I packed another set of clothes in the backpack Kate gave me. I also packed dried meat, flint and steel for a fire, a couple of water skins, and oil and cloth for a torch. I stashed more meat in my coat pockets.

  “At least take someone with you,” Mom said. She’d not complained when Matthew went alone. Matthew hadn’t given her the chance to.

  There was no one for me to take. Hope shouldn’t be traveling too far, on account of the baby; Seth had three younger siblings he was looking after; and Charlotte couldn’t keep the pace I intended to set. I wouldn’t risk any of the younger children, not when I didn’t know what danger we might face.

  Mom stirred the coals with a metal poker. “I can go with you.”

  “No!” The word came out with more force than I intended. I tied my pack firmly shut. “Not when you’re ill.”

  The words hung between us as the coals burst into flame. Kate pressed a square of cornbread into my hands. I ate it, not wanting to take too much from her rations but knowing I’d need energy for the journey.

  “I’m well enough to travel,” Mom said.

  The fire’s heat burned against my face as I buttoned my coat, tied my scarf, and put on my hat and gloves. “It didn’t work out very well the last time you decided to travel, did it?”

  Mom drew a sharp breath. “Why not dig the knife a little deeper, Liza? You always were good with knives.” Mom carefully set the poker down by the hearth. “I know well enough all the ways in which I’ve failed you. You need not remind me of them.”

  “I didn’t mean—” I couldn’t say it. I’d meant every word I’d spoken, and Mom knew it.

  “I’d best check on Ethan.” She crossed the room and left without another word.