‘You would rather find out when her bed is empty one morning?’
A rock plunged in my stomach. What did the Witch have planned for me?
‘I only think of you,’ said Wolf. Despite the gruffness of her tone she brought a plate of lightly sugared biscuits to the table and pushed them in front of the Witch. ‘You really think she’ll return?’
I swallowed my shock.
‘Does it matter?’ snapped the Witch. Wolf began to speak but the Witch held up a hand. ‘I know. I know it matters.’ She sunk her head in her hands.
Wolf drank her tea. Snow fell outside the kitchen window, a blue wash of light fractured as it crossed the table.
‘If she doesn’t, we’ll find another way,’ said the Witch. ‘Someone else. Wolf, if I could have seen my father one more time, just once... I can’t say no to her.’
‘She’s not your friend.’
‘I know that.’
‘Do you?’ A moment passed. Something light swelled in my heart. ‘You only make it harder on yourself when you get attached to them.’
The Witch rose, dashed her cup in the sink. ‘Don’t you think I know that? It’s not you who has to—’
The thimble in my hand slipped, clinked on the flagstones. A small noise, but enough for the Witch to stop, for the both of them to turn towards the door.
My time was up. I had heard too much, and my flash of pleasure at finding out the Witch meant to let me go to my father had been quickly replaced by that prickle of dread every time I thought about her previous companions. I left, thinking to pack a bag for my journey to Blumwald. The more I tried to focus on the problem of my predecessors, the more it slipped out of view, like a phenomenon I could only see from the corner of my eye.
A little later, Wolf came to my room with my official permission to leave. I tried my best to look surprised, and it was no effort to show my gratitude. Wolf was stiff, mouth tight with disapproval but she said nothing to me and I wondered again what it was she knew about the Witch that I didn’t. Before I finished packing, I slipped back into the abandoned bedroom and took Edgar’s half-finished letter. Perhaps I could do some good by delivering it, fifty years late.
The carriage was waiting in the courtyard when I descended, carpetbag in hand. Its smoky dimensions stood out like ink against the fresh snow and the steam of the horses’ nostrils coiled above them so they looked like red-eyed devils. The Witch detached from a nest of shadows in the great hall. I had wondered why she hadn’t come to tell me herself of her change of heart but I understood it when I saw the raw misery and confusion in her. She looked tense enough to splinter from a single touch, the dark smudges under her eyes pronounced; for the first time I felt the balance of power shift between us. She needed me, and in letting me leave she was trusting that I needed her too.
‘Thank you.’ I held my bag before me, a barrier between us.
‘You complained too much. I knew you wouldn’t shut up if I didn’t relent.’ The words were sharp but there was no bite to her tone.
Before I could go, she darted forward, clasped my hand in hers. Her skin was warm – it still surprised me – her fingers rough like the women who worked the spinning wheels and the looms. ‘I hope your father lives.’
Awkward, a step sideways from the right words, but I was touched.
‘Thank you,’ I said, words thick in my mouth. ‘For everything.’
I squeezed her hand in return, then took my bag to the carriage; she followed me to the door to watch me go. Snow had begun to fall again. The flakes caught in her hair, a scatter of stars against black waves.
I mounted the steps into the carriage and we drew around to face the open gate. My world had become anchored to the Witch, and I felt it shift as we drove over the bridge and into the snow-covered forest; a new tethering thread spooled out.
Home lay just as much behind me as it did ahead.
b
We drove into Blumwald in a flurry of snow and lamplight.
I had tried to mark our way, but something in the jolt of the carriage and how the trees slid past in a blur like oil swirling through water made me sicken. The more I tried to concentrate on our route, the worse I felt. In the end I drew the blind and shut my eyes against my dizziness, turning my mother’s drop spindle between my fingers as a talisman against my fear. The Witch’s castle did not want to be found. Without her carriage, I would be alone between those fearful trees, in the gloom and the rot and the mist.
It was a relief, then, to see the walls of Blumwald rise from the snow-covered valley, when I finally summoned the strength to look out of the window again. Christmas had consumed the city; the square was full of stalls of the market and advent lights shone in every window. The salt and iron that had marked homes before had gone; the Witch had visited her terror and all who remained were marked safe. I had taken their fear away from them, and as my carriage passed through the streets I brought it back. Heads turned, mouths clenched, but I paid them no heed. My worry had built over the long journey back; it had been over a week since the letter had been sent. What if I were too late?
The palace was shut up and dark and I feared the worst. The servants were as bad as the townsfolk, twitching and whispering at my arrival, but I was led upstairs to my father’s bedroom by the light of a candlestick. Our apartments were as cold and hushed as the winter forest; it was as though the grave had spread its icy embrace around my home in preparation. I thought then of the weeks before and after my mother’s death. The stopped clocks and the muffled bells, all the warmth and colour drained from the world, and the waiting, the long, smothering nothingness. I pressed my hand to my father’s bedroom door, stiff with fear. I could not bear to go through all that again.
Before I could open the door, my stepmother came out, looking harried and holding a bowl of water and dirtied cloth. At the sight of me, they tumbled from her hands, splashing across the parquet.
‘Mina!’ Her face was ashen. ‘How is this possible?’
