“I ate a mouse, who happened to have eaten a piece of cheese, and that piece of cheese just happened to have rested for a fortnight in an enchanted barrel. Remember that, boy? Remember when Zora used to enchant whatever she got her hands on? Ha, foolish child! Good times. Good times.”
Adrik said, “What Bahra means is that—through an unfortunate series of events—Zora, our resident mage, handed the gift of speech to a cat.”
“Oh, but how good of dear Zora to give me a voice you strange creatures care to heed! As if I was not talking before. You neverlistened!” Despite his vexedness, Adrik looked quite fondly at her. “I’m graciously inclined to forgive the lack of supper, boy” Bahra purred as she strolled to the door. “I bet Agnesa will not be so benevolent. No one has time to repair the hole in her roof, no one at all! The poor thing, horribly cold and all alone since Milana died. A cough she’s caught from the weather and from the snow in her parlor. I barely heard her over the shivers and the sneezing—close to death, I reckon.Adrik, she said to me, quite weakly.You must get Adrik.”
Bahra opened the door with a leap and a nimble paw, and she did not cease to lament Agnesa’s plight until snow and distance swallowed her fretful voice.
“I wonder sometimes,” said Adrik with a suffering sigh, as if he’d forgotten I was there, “how these people lived before I came.”
Just after moonrise a rustle stirred the fir’s lower branches. I almost smiled when I glimpsed the fox. I was wide awake, but the beast was not. It shook the snow from its coat and sank into the snow, resting its head on its paws.
It fell asleep long before I did and I knew no better way to calm my restless fingers than by flipping the notebook to a blank page and adding in fine pencil strokes the outline of a mighty fox.
It came to me as easily as braiding my own hair. My fingers knew without thinking where to place each glimmer of moonlight on its fur.
A strange town, full of strange and wondrous creatures.
I fell asleep still holding the pencil.
EIGHT
You reek of despair, little witch.
“Spring will come soon,” said Lorell with a shiver when he came in the wee hours to bring another stack of quilted blankets.
The wind scratched like a furious beast on the walls. Its screech had roused us from sleep too soon, and the bitter draft whistling through the house kept us awake. I turned the pillow thrice to no avail.
Soon, it began to snow.
Within the first morning, the snowdrift before the window swallowed the view, but not before I’d stolen a glimpse of Almira’s garden, withered and grey. The sight granted me no relief—though I no longer feared that the monster within me might stir awake, I was sharply reminded of Almira’s feebleness when I’d last seen her.
Around noon Lorell wandered into the chamber to stare blindly at the window. “The boy will be well-occupied today,” he grumbled. “He is gone more than he is here. I find myself without much to do.”
“What would Adrik do if he were here?”
Lorell said wistfully, “He would read to me.”
That was how we came to sit together while the storm howled and the snow climbed higher. I read from the book of folktales that day; stories about spirits who came at noon to behead those working in the fields, of fiends who climbed out of hearths to steal children, of the evil dead who traded in secrets.
I tried, as well as I could, to conceal the tremor of my voice while I read that particular tale. I rushed to its end, feigning a yawn. The skies were darkening, but it was not the promise of sleep that made me keen to be rid of Lorell.
“It is late,” he said stiffly and shuffled to the door. “Rest well, girl. I appreciate the time.”
“It was no trouble.”
I waited until his telltale tapping had faded before I gritted my teeth and wobbled on weak, aching legs to the hearth. I bit into the sleeve of my nightdress to stifle my moans, anguish twisting deep in my thigh. From the mantle, I snatched a stick of half-burned incense and relit it over the candle. The flame in the hearth crackled merrily. From the armoire came a pleased hum. I’d left a bite on the plate that eve just to please the spirit.
The evil dead traded in secrets, and I was in desperate need of one.
I climbed onto the bed, bracing myself feebly against the wall. The snow bathed the chamber with sickly light. A draft stirred the laced sheet on the mirror. To keep the evil dead from slipping back into this world—
I did not allow myself to hesitate lest I falter with fear. A madness had taken me, but I was desperate and I could not afford to let this chance slip past.
I lifted the sheet.
The hearth hissed and darkened as if doused with a bucket of water. The hum in the armoire died.
The mirror was silver and cool with the glint of frost. I frowned at my reflection. I was no friend of mirrors, for they showed me clearly what I did not wish to see. A face drawn with shadows and grief. I’d become withered with shame and fear and loneliness. Like a flower plucked from the dirt, discarded and forgotten—without water and roots, and all the bright things it needed to live.
