The Doorway and the Deep

by K. E. Ormsbee

  CHAPTER NINE

  Blood and Barghest

  LOTTIE FISKE was a girl well acquainted with pain. She had fallen out of trees and crashed her bike more than once and been plagued her whole life by bad spells. But no difficulty that Lottie had experienced before now could quite prepare her for the blinding, howling cold that burst into every particle of her body as she plunged into the River Lissome.

  When her head came to the surface, all was havoc and a clamor of sounds. The river’s current whipped at her legs, dragging them back under the water and, with them, Lottie’s head. Her hands and feet had gone numb. She took a frantic gulp of air before she was pulled down. Her coat was heavy, so heavy, and her boots felt like they were made of metal, and why, thought Lottie, did she not think to take them off beforehand?

  In the midst of the confusion, she understood with sudden clarity that she might not resurface. The current was too strong to fight. And where was Fife? And what was happening to the others? Then those thoughts scattered to make room for the overwhelming realization that pressure, unbearable pressure, was pushing into her chest, and she could give it no relief—that this pressure would build and build until it burst, and then her thoughts would be no more.

  Then, suddenly, relief came. Something wrapped around Lottie’s shoulders, and she was no longer being dragged sideways but upward, until she broke from the water into bracing cold air. She breathed deeply, choked in the process, tried to breathe again.

  “Hang on,” said a voice she knew. “Just hang on!”

  Lottie tried to answer, but words coated her throat like thick paste and refused to come out. She was shivering violently, and the arms around her fumbled twice to keep her aloft. Then her back hit solid ground. The world stopped moving. The sounds of rushing water and the ice crawler’s bellow weren’t so deafening. She thought her eyes were open, but all she could see was blackness.

  “Lottie? Lottie, can you hear me? Don’t stop listening to my voice, okay? We’ll get you warm. It’ll be all right. Spool, would you hurry up already?”

  A bird squawked. Then came a delicate clinking sound.

  “Just hold on, Lottie,” the voice said again. “Eliot, she’s got to drink this. All of it. Watch her closely. I’ll be back.”

  Something pressed against Lottie’s lips. She felt a hot liquid trickling into her mouth, filling it with heat and the taste of browned butter. The liquid ran down her throat, and Lottie coughed. Then the heat wasn’t just in her mouth, but throughout her body, shooting down her spine and into her arms and legs, filling her with strength and feeling again. She could move. She pushed herself to a sit, and Eliot’s face came into focus.

  “Where are the others?” she asked, before heaving out a round of watery coughs.

  “Fife’s gone back for them,” Eliot said, steadying her by the shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Fife can’t rescue all of them,” said Lottie. “The boat was going under.”

  Lottie’s sight was blocked on all sides by birch trees and evergreens. She heard water close by, but the awful sound of the ice crawler’s cries had ceased. The silence filled Lottie with unease.

  “We can’t just sit here,” she said.

  She began crawling in the direction Fife had floated.

  “Lottie,” Eliot hissed, but after a moment’s hesitation, he followed.

  Lottie emerged through a space in the evergreens at the water’s edge. The boat was gone. All Lottie could make out in the moonlight with any certainty was Fife, floating above the water, scanning its surface, calling out, “Ollie? Adelaide!”

  There was no response. He sped on, following the current.

  “Dorian!” he yelled. “Ollie! Ada!”

  “Fife!”

  The shout came from the opposite bank. It was Adelaide.

  Fife rounded back sharply.

  “Ada? Where are you? Where are the others?”

  “They’re—no, that is, Oliver’s here, but—”

  Adelaide’s bodiless voice was interrupted by a great explosion of water, just where Fife was floating.

  “Fife!” screamed Lottie. “Look out!”

  The ice crawler reared out of the river and released another blood-freezing scream. Its mouth hung wide open like a jack-o’-lantern’s smile. Its dozens of legs flailed, grasping at the air, and water sloshed heavily as the creature moved closer to Lottie’s side of the bank. She remembered then her fear that the ice crawler could travel on land, too.

  “Back!” she said to Eliot. “Get back!”

  Together, they scrambled into the shelter of the trees. A blur passed by Lottie’s face, then tumbled to the ground just in front of her: Fife. Lottie ran to his side.

  “I’m okay,” Fife said, waving her off. “It’s—it’s okay.”

  The ice crawler’s cries continued, but they came no closer.

  “You heard Adelaide, right?” Lottie said. “She and Ollie are safe. We’ve just got to wait until the ice crawler moves on, and you can float them to our side of the bank.”

  Fife licked his lower lip.

  “Lottie,” he said. “I’m not sure that can happen. I dunno how long that thing is going to hang around, and in the meantime I’m—”

  “What do you mean?” Lottie interrupted. “We have to find a way to get back to the others. The ice crawler has to move on eventually.”

  “I don’t know what it’s going to do,” said Fife. “I didn’t think ice crawlers even existed until a few minutes ago. But, by Puck, they’re real.”

  Another low bellow sounded from the river.

  “Where are we?” Eliot asked.

  “We have to be close to the Northerly Court,” said Lottie. “Adelaide said we weren’t that far off. It’s just, I don’t know how to get there from here.”

  “That warming syrup I’ve given us isn’t going to last forever, either,” said Fife. His voice sounded odd—threadbare and stringy. “We’re cold enough as it is, and wet through. Once the medicine wears off, we’re as good as dead.”

  “Fife?” said Eliot. “Whoa, Fife.”

  Fife had doubled over, hands clutched to his side.

  “Are you hurt?” Lottie cried. “Fife, why didn’t you say something? How bad is it?”

  “It’s not worth . . . it isn’t even . . .” Fife lowered his hands from his side, and Lottie stared in horror at the splinter of broken wood lodged there. Pink blood soaked his jacket.

  “Just a bit of driftwood,” Fife said weakly. “I’d fix it myself, but I think it’s beyond my skill.”

  “No,” said Lottie. “No, no, no.”

  He was hurt saving me, she thought. Saving me.

  “Tell us what we can do,” Lottie said. “Spool. Where’s Spool?”

  There was a flutter of yellow wings overhead. Fife’s kingfisher flew down and alighted on his shoulder. He chirped loudly, head cocked to the side.

  “You carry all his supplies, Spool. You know what he needs. What does he need?”

  Spool gave a sorrowful warble. He shook his head.

  “There has to be something!” Lottie shouted.

  “Maybe someone lives around here,” said Eliot. “Maybe there’s a house or a village. I could go see.”

  “No,” Lottie said. “We need to stay together. Maybe we could send Spool to—”

  “Lottie,” said Eliot. “Look.”

  He pointed to a frosted patch of ground nearby. The outline of the warbler was barely perceptible, so dark were his feathers, but Lottie could see his mischievous eyes winking clear enough. Trouble chirped triumphantly.

  “But how did you—” Lottie began. “When did you—oh, never mind! Trouble, you have to fly in, or up, or—I don’t know, you have to find someone who can help us!”

  Trouble chirruped. He sounded annoyed.

  “I’m serious, Trouble. This isn’t the time!”

  Trouble just made a rumbling sound and hopped away, into the shelter of a tree root. Lottie shouted in exasperation.

&
nbsp; “Can’t you do anything, Lottie?” Eliot asked. “Like the way you healed Nash?”

  “No,” said Lottie. “No, it’s not the same anymore. I can’t feel it in me.”

  All the same, she took hold of Fife’s hands. He made a weary noise, his eyes drooping.

  Clear your mind, Lottie thought. Clear your mind.

  But she couldn’t quiet her raging thoughts. She didn’t feel even the smallest twinge of a bad spell. She couldn’t heal Fife, and Trouble would do nothing, and they would soon freeze out here, in the middle of a deserted wood.

  And what about the others? Oliver. Adelaide. They were freezing to death, too. How Lottie wished they were here! Adelaide would probably be sobbing right now, and Oliver would be quoting useless poetry, but just having them near would’ve better calmed her mind, would’ve made her feel that she wasn’t so hopelessly alone.

  “Listen,” said Eliot, jolting up. “Do you hear that?”

  Lottie heard. It was a thudding sound. Not a solitary thudding, like a hammer hitting a nail, but many thuds all at once, toppling over each other and growing louder with each passing second.

  Lottie’s first thought was, I wonder if that’s what an ice crawler sounds like on land.

  Her second was, There’s nowhere for us to go.

  Fife’s eyes were shut fast. His breathing was off kilter. If she and Eliot tried moving him, he would lose more blood—just like the guard who had died in Wisp Territory.

  The thudding grew louder.

  There was nothing to do but wait with bated breath.

  The thudding grew louder.

  “Hey, I know what it is,” said Eliot. “It sounds like people running.”

  “It could be Iolanthe’s soldiers,” said Lottie. “Maybe they’ve followed us here.”

  “Well, if they’re going to take us captive at least they’ll take us together.”

  That, thought Lottie, or they will kill us on the spot.

  Then Lottie heard another sound entirely: a howl. It rang through the wood, its pitch changing, like a melody.

  “Not people,” she said. “Animals.”

  “Wolves?” Eliot asked.

  Lottie shook her head, her chest trembling with a fragment of hope.

  “I think I know what they are,” she said, but she didn’t dare say it yet.

  Another howl rang out, and another. They grew ever louder until Lottie could see movement between the trees.

  The first time Lottie had encountered a Barghest had been in a darkened wood, very much like this one. That night, she had been terrified. She’d never seen anything like the hulking frame of the Barghest—built like a wolf, but like a lion, too, yet something else altogether. She was ready now for the sight of these creatures, but all the same she had never seen so many together at once. As they trotted into the splotched moonlight, she found herself terrified all over again. One Barghest was frightening enough, but here were seven total.

  Lottie’s Barghest was not among them. She knew instantly. These Barghest did not have the dark coat of her Barghest. Their fur was lighter, in varying shades of white and gray. Six of the creatures came to a stop behind the biggest of them—an icy white Barghest, broad chested and heavy flanked. It flashed its fangs, but Lottie knew enough about the Barghest to be certain this wasn’t a menacing gesture. If Lottie had any remaining suspicions about the creature’s intentions, what it did next sent them all flitting away. The Barghest ducked its head before her in a bow.

  “Heir of Fiske,” it said. “We have come to give you aid.”

  “Cool!” said Eliot, who was grinning but also keeping his distance. “That’s lucky, isn’t it? Aid is just what we need.”

  The Barghest tipped its head toward Eliot. “It is not luck, child. It was the Heir of Fiske’s genga that fetched us hither.”

  Lottie gaped. She turned to Trouble, who was still roosting quite happily beneath the tree root.

  “You!” she said, not sure if she meant it to be a reprimand or a cry of gratitude.

  Trouble rustled his feathers with smug assurance.

  “Thank you,” she said to him. Then, turning to the pack of Barghest, “Thank all of you. We’re in a lot of trouble.”

  “Indeed,” said the head Barghest. “It was for such times as these that we Barghest first swore our oath. We will do all we can to assist you.”

  “Then you’ve got to help Fife,” said Lottie. “My friend, he’s badly injured. He needs medical attention right away. Will you take us to the nearest place he can be healed?”

  The Barghest lowered its head in assent. It turned to its pack and let loose a series of short, stuttering barks. In response, the pack of Barghest moved. Two padded forward, close enough for Lottie to touch.

  “You may ride on our backs,” said one. “One of you must travel with the injured boy. You must hold him steady lest he fall.”

  “I will,” Lottie said without hesitation. “It’s my fault he was hurt in the first place.”

  Lottie didn’t want to move Fife; she was sure that to do so would hurt him. But she had no other choice. She and Eliot struggled to lift Fife onto the Barghest’s back. His body felt limp in Lottie’s arms, but he was still conscious, his breaths shallow. Once positioned, he weakly held on to the Barghest’s mane.

  Eliot climbed atop the other Barghest, but he looked at a loss as to what to do next.

  “Clench your legs tight,” Lottie said, “and hold on to its mane if you need to.”

  Eliot still looked uncertain. Lottie climbed atop her own Barghest, behind Fife, and demonstrated as best she could.

  “Staunch his wound, Heir of Fiske,” her Barghest rumbled out. “Press it closed as best you can.”

  “Yes,” said Lottie. “Yes, yes, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? I haven’t been thinking at all.”

  But the truth was, Lottie had been thinking of Oliver and Adelaide. Where were they? How were they? Freezing or injured or—no. It was better not to think of that right now. Instead, she focused on the task of unwinding the damp green scarf from her neck and bunching it up. She wrapped her arms around Fife and pressed the scarf against his wound, staying clear of the shard of wood that stuck out from his skin, careful not to drive it in deeper.

  “Trouble!” she called.

  She heard a sleepy chirp, followed by the flap of wings. She would have to trust that he would follow. But now Lottie did trust him. Trouble had found the Barghest. He had very possibly saved them all.

  Lottie had never before felt such weariness.

  The arrival of the Barghest had restored her hope, and that was a precious thing, indeed. But Lottie learned soon enough that the presence of hope did not make for an absence of discomfort. She was so uncomfortable in so many places and for so many reasons that they all began to bleed into one all-consuming affliction, and that was weariness.

  She was weary in her stomach, which had remained unfed for hours. She was weary in her arms, which had struggled against the river current and channeled her keen and now held Fife upright. More than anything, she was weary in her mind from worry. She was worried about Eliot, whom she could hear coughing in the dark. She was worried about Oliver and Adelaide, stranded somewhere on the opposite bank of the Lissome. She was worried about Dorian and Reeve and even Nash, and she tried to beat back an ever-present whisper in her mind that told her they’d been taken down by the ice crawler and were beyond anyone’s worry now.

  And at every moment, she worried about Fife. Her hands had gone sticky with his blood. With her forehead bent against his neck, she could still feel the faint pulse beating through his veins, but she knew that Fife was in grave danger and that each minute the Barghest bounded on was a minute less in which to save him. Even now, with her hands pressed hard against his wound, she willed on a bad spell like the one she’d felt when she’d healed Nash. Her chest remained frustratingly at peace.

  Why, thought Lottie, could I heal Nash, a kidnapper and a stranger, and not Fife, who’s actually
my friend, who’s one of the greatest people I know? Even if he has been acting rotten the past few days . . .

  Surely she felt more of Mr. Wilfer’s “deep empathetic connection” to Fife than to Nash. So was it only that she was too tired? Had she worn herself out? Was her mind irreparably cluttered? What was the point of having a keen she couldn’t use when she needed it most?

  The heat in Lottie’s body was fading. Fife had warned that the warming syrup he’d given her on the bank would wear off. In place of its warmth was nothing but damp cold, made three times worse by the whipping wind. Lottie’s eyes kept shutting, then snapping open. From somewhere in the back of her mind, she recalled what Adelaide had told her about wisp blood’s effect on humans. She’d said that it made them sleepy. Fife was half wisp. Was his blood, now coating Lottie’s hands, making her even more tired?

  She had no way of knowing how much time had passed since the Barghest pack had first set out. It felt like they had been riding for hours, but Lottie wondered if she hadn’t merely slipped into her troubled thoughts the way one does into a dream—where, on the inside of her mind, time passed much more slowly than on the outside.

  Lottie’s vision was constantly being jostled about by the gait of the Barghest, which made it impossible for her to see anything steadily. But now she could make out several lights bobbing up ahead, and this filled her with a new sense of urgency.

  “Hurry!” she cried, unsure if the Barghest could hear. “Oh, please hurry!”

  It had been difficult work, holding Fife upright. Now the sag of his weight gave Lottie the most dreadful thought, that this was what it would feel like to hold Fife dead, should they not arrive in time.

  The lights grew closer. The trees the Barghest had been so deftly dodging thinned out, clearing the view ahead. They were racing toward a wall made of sharply hewn logs, twice as tall as a grown wisp. The lights—torches atop the wall—shone upon an iron gate guarded by sprites, who held long spears toward the approaching Barghest.

  One of the sprites gave a shout. The others raised their voices, too. Lottie couldn’t tell if they were calling to the Barghest or to others, unseen, behind the gate.