The Girl Gingerbread in the Woods of Winter White

by Bethany R. Lindell

  The unicorn tossed his head and arched his neck. He picked his hooves high up from the snow and brought them down again with the precision Clatch struggled to capture in his mechanisms. The unicorn pranced beneath the boughs and Gingerbread laughed as he kicked up snow, then whirled about, scatting light through the flakes with his horn until they shone bright as stars.

  Gingerbread laughed again, the sound burbling up her throat and leaving a small ache behind as her muscles made the unfamiliar sound. "Lovely," she told the unicorn as he wheeled again, scattering his field of snowy stars. He tossed his head, the green of the trees catching on the slope of his neck. Gingerbread lifted a hand to keep snow off her face. "Watch it you klutz. You almost got me full in the fa-"

  Snow showered down on Gingerbread, and she ducked with a screech, sending it down the back of her collar. The cold startled her skin, sending her dancing around trying to shake it loose while the unicorn whickered laughter.

  "That is so not funny!" Gingerbread smiled as she bent down and scooped up snow in her head. She patted it down and threw the snowball at the prancing unicorn. He bucked, neatly avoiding it, and then threw his head down and up, scattering snow over Gingerbread with the tip of his horn.

  She shrieked with laughter and danced away, scooping up more snow and tossing it blind. She heard a paff as it hit and, peeking out behind her gloves, saw snow stuck to the unicorn's cheek. It stood out blindingly white against his darkening coat.

  "You're changing!" Gingerbread said. "Like the trees."

  The unicorn tossed his head and reared upright. He screamed with joy, the light from his horn dazzling Gingerbread's eyes until she had to look away. His front hooves met the earth with a tremendous sound before kicking snow across her head and shoulders.

  "Hey!" Gingerbread blinked her eyes open and found the unicorn racing away with powerful strides. "Wait up! I thought you wanted to show me something!"

  She chased after him. Her legs had no chance of keeping up with a unicorn, but she kept sight of him as he wove his way through the trees like he'd known them all their lives. Had seen them planted and sprouting, tiny trunks growing, growing, grown into towering giants.

  A giggle escaped Gingerbread's breathless lungs as she ran full speed after him. Between trees, in circles around them. More than once she could have leapt and thrown her arms around his neck and Gingerbread had to hold herself back from burying her nose in its sleek side. He would let her, Gingerbread knew, but then the chase would end, and the thought alone sent a pang through her chest like an off-kilter bell.

  Is this why girls chase unicorns? she wondered. Because they don't want to catch them?

  Gingerbread leapt around a fir tree with a triumphant shout, but found an empty patch of shadowed snow. She blinked, some of her heady amusement evaporating. "Unicorn?"

  She looked around and found an empty labyrinth of tree trunks. Gingerbread filled her lungs and shouted, "Unicorn!"

  For a beat of her heart, nothing changed.

  Then all the birds stopped singing.

  Insects stopped buzzing.

  A silence so thick filled the Winter Whites that Gingerbread swore she heard the crack of ice growing over the trees.

  Gingerbread remembered where she was. She drew her sword, but the weight of it in her hand did not comfort her. She was here. The Piping Witch. But where's the unicorn?

  Pine incense brushed her nose and Gingerbread chased after it, sword angled away from her legs. Its sharp edge nicked outlying needles from the branches and left them littering the snow in a green trail behind her, but nothing so large to deserve the cracking sound of wood tearing in two that reached her ears.

  Gingerbread slowed and picked her steps with care. She gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, lifting the tip before stepping through the last of the trees muffling the sound of battle.

  The unicorn stood in the heart of his wood, so magnificent he turned the vision Gingerbread had followed into a pale ghost. His body was broad and powerful, his coat a gleaming evergreen. Hooves the tawny color of fallen pine needles pawed the ground and white clouds plumed out of his nostrils. His back was strong. His neck arched and proud. His horn speared the air, holding a burning star on its point with his mane and tail streaming as banners out beside him. His eyes set Gingerbread's spine quaking, the shivers running clear to her fingers and making her sword waver. They were fierce as sudden snowstorms, sharp as holly leaves.

  His trees ringed him, standing back but awaiting his order. Sap oozed from missing limbs where they had been torn from their trunks, and the branches lay strewn upon the snow, casualties of the battle.

  The Piping Witch stood across from him, looking like she had when Gingerbread fought her in the deep wood. Exactly like, Gingerbread realized. Right down to the fresh cuts on her sallow face. The Witch lifted a hand and that was the same as well.

  "So you can see me too," she said to the Evergreen Unicorn and Gingerbread's heart seized. "I thought you might." She took a step to the side, the fabric of her dress dragging out over the snow behind her. Her slanted look, her smile, her every inflection when she spoke. It was the same as before. All the same!

  "My what lovely eyes you have. My teacher used to tell me all good things come to those who wait."

  She lashed out with her flurry of ash, like she had lashed out at Gingerbread and the unicorn charged in the same foolish way Gingerbread had. Only he tossed his head and his horn ripped the ashen cloud, spraying white dust to either side so that it tore like cheap fabric.

  He charged down the center, horn lowered as a lance. The Piping Witch danced her ballerina spins to avoid him, her movements much less mysterious now that ashes didn't blind Gingerbread's eyes. All her pirouettes and absurd ducks. She was avoiding the unicorn's hooves.

  You stupid girl. So proud of all those misses, Gingerbread thought as the Piping Witch made the air oily with smoke. She was never aiming for my neck. I really was seeing things.

  The unicorn fought like an avenging army, throwing off the Piping Witch's sad attempts to scald him and ripping through her defenses like decorative paper. He caught her high collar on his horn, tearing through the thin skin of her neck, but Dearie brought her arm up before he could leave more than a scratch.

  Gingerbread's stomach turned to lead, weighing her down. Before, in the Winter Whites . . . "I didn't do a blasted thing."

  To prove her right, the unicorn struck the Piping Witch's cheek with his hooves and she cried out, slinging her candle wax slurry as she fell. The sound raised the hair on Gingerbread's neck a second time, and she hid her nose in her capelet as putrid steam rose over the snow.

  Dearie discovered her witch-fire. It wouldn't be long. Gingerbread sucked in air, half-knowing it was useless but shouting anyway. "Look out for the one behind!"

  Churning balls of fire left Dearie's hands, and she cried out in triumph. Again the unicorn's horn tore through the first burst of power. And again the second one slammed into his chest and broke over him like water.

  Gingerbread screamed as the unicorn crumpled to the ground, his silken hair trailing down after him. She ran for him, her legs intolerably slow in the churned up slush and snow. She threw herself forward and skid to a stop on her knees, ripping holes in her woolen leggings.

  "No, no, no . . ." The word kept falling out her mouth as her hands hovered over the unicorn. The witch's spell crackled over his coat, zigging in jagged patterns before leaping off at sudden angles. White followed in their wake like trails of frost. "I don't know what to do. You're the one that brought here so tell me what to do! What has she done to you?"

  His muzzle grayed prematurely before icing into white. He managed to roll himself up from his side but could not get his legs back up underneath him.

  "You have to stand. Please." Gingerbread tried to pull him up only to fall back with a yelp as cold bit deep into her palms. Sticky frost started to grow across them, reaching up her wrists.

  She tried to scrape them off but e
very speck bloomed like evil flowers until her hands were covered as sure as gloves.

  Well if she was going to be overtaken no matter what it didn't matter if she fell freeing the unicorn, did it? Gingerbread tore at the ice thickening over him. The absolute cold stabbed into her fingers, but never numbed them. Gingerbread cursed and cried as she tore at frozen petals, but no matter how fast she dug she only found white.

  "No." The unicorn's head bowed. "No." His eyes slid halfway shut. Snowflakes caught on his thick lashes before blooming to cover his eyes. "Please . . ."

  The light from his horn dimmed, and the evergreen of his coat faded into a perfect frosty white.

  Gingerbread slumped in the snow. The stabbing pain of the ice creeping up her arms faded into the background of her awareness. It was nothing to the tearing of her heart. "Don't leave me . . ." The words seeped out of the cracks in her chest.

  A step crunched behind her, and another, but like the ice slowly consuming her, it meant little with the unicorn fading away in front of her.

  They stopped just behind her back.

  The Piping Witch stood over the both of them, a smile seared across her face. Her teeth caught reflections of her amber eyes, turning them bright and sickly gold. A memory pricked at Gingerbread's mind. Of a unicorn watching her with witch's eyes.

  Her voice followed Gingerbread beneath the ice, staying with her. "And I have waited such a long time for you . . ."

  The Piping Witch reached a slender finger toward the unicorn's half closed eyes. Before the ice consumed her, Gingerbread realized. Her dream. This was why it changed. It hadn't been her dream at all, but the unicorn's memory.

  Hope winged up. The unicorn's horn flared star bright, forcing Gingerbread to close her eyes. The Piping Witch shrieked frustration and Gingerbread couldn't stop the laugh that tumbled from her tongue as the starlight swallowed all three of them up. The unicorn is still alive!

  AND FIGHTING.

  The thought followed her back to the waking world and Gingerbread opened her eyes to snow falling in dainty drifts upon her face. She sat up and blinked in surprise. The caravan wagons had disappeared in the night, leaving her surrounded by endless trees.

  "Ginge?"

  She whipped her head around, stray loops of hair flying around her face. Clatch stood under one of the trees, his shoulders huddled around his ears to keep them warm. He tilted his head and eyed her. "Are you awake now?"

  Gingerbread thought that over. Ice clung to the trees again. No birds or insect calls reached her ears and all she smelled was cold.

  "I think so," she told Clatch.

  She struggled up out of the snow and Clatch came out from under his tree. He held out his hand to help her up.

  Gingerbread glanced up and found Clatch waiting with his usual patience. Fear still shadowed his eyes, but relief added bright spots, revealing brilliant blue.

  The tightness in her chest loosened by one notch. "You forgot your mittens," she chided him as she reached up and caught his waiting hand.

  Clatch took a step back to help pull her to her feet before he shrugged one tense shoulder. "I didn't have time to grab them before I had to run after the crazy girl sleepwalking through the wood."

  The one little word stung Gingerbread like a barbed dart. She jerked, pulling her hand from Clatch's without thinking. He stared down at her a bare moment and then turned away, scratching behind one ear.

  "I deserved that," he said, eyes darting to hers and quickly away again. "And that's why I came after you too. I'm sorry Ginge. For avoiding you. The other day when you were fighting . . . nothing." The word tried to stick in his throat, and he swallowed hard. "I thought you were losing your mind."

  He tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. Gingerbread blinked at him and heard the truth pop out her mouth. "But I am."

  Clatch stared at her, eyes unblinking as they locked with hers for the first time since she fought the Piping Witch. His fear grew more insistent, and Gingerbread wrapped stiff fingers around her arm. She dared to glance up at him beneath her lashes. His fear showed in the unbroken whites showing around his pale blue eyes, but the fear had changed. Clatch wasn't afraid of her. More like . . .

  He laid a hand on her shoulder, startling Gingerbread. "You shouldn't joke about things like that Ginge. I started to believe you."

  Gingerbread leveled half-closed eyes at him, her eyebrows disappearing beneath her loose hair. "Don't be naively optimistic," she told him. "I am losing my mind. Not very quickly, maybe not even right at this very moment, but I am going mad. It comes with the eyes." She shook her head with a sharp jerk. "But it's not important. What is is that I-"

  "Not important!" Against all physical limitations, Clatch's eyes grew wider. "How can the fact my friend is losing her mind not be important?"

  Gingerbread resisted the urge to stamp her foot. She would only get more snow in her boots. "Because it isn't! I knew this was coming a long time ago so drop it, all right?"

  "Gingerbread!" Clatch was getting stubborn. Well fine, she could be stubborn too.

  "I'm not talking about it."

  "Ginge-"

  "I said I'm not talking about it!" She scowled at him, eyebrows hanging close to her sparking eyes. "Now do you want to know what I learned or not?"

  Clatch's face glowed red in the white of the wood. He huffed out a cloud of hot air before snapping out a hand for her to get on with it.

  Gingerbread turned on her heel and struck off through the snow. She didn't want to talk about that now, not with Clatch.

  "A unicorn lives in this wood," she said loud over her shoulder. "I think he's the reason why the Piping Witch came here. She tried to trap him somehow, only she was never strong enough to kill an immortal creature, and he . . . I don't know, turned her into this witch-wood thing she is now. Catch up, would you?"

  She reached the first of the trees but didn't stop to wait for Clatch. Her mind whirled with what the unicorn had showed her, trying to hold tight every detail, but it was much harder now that she was awake.

  The snow crunched and cracked as Clatch ran to catch up to her. "What does a witch want with a unicorn?"

  "How should I know?" Gingerbread shook her head, eyes still drawn inward.

  Clatch tugged her capelet, making her sidestep away from the tree she almost ran into nose first. He kept hold of her arm, his other hand propped on his hip as he frowned down at her. "Because you're the only one that can see either of them?"

  Gingerbread stopped, not feeling up to dragging Clatch after her like a very vocal anchor. She rolled her eyes to show him this was stupid. "To possess him or steal from him or something. Absorb him! I don't know! She kept going on about his eyes."

  Clatch shuddered and Gingerbread whirled about to stalk through the trees. He stayed with her this time. "Just like a witch to want the soul of a unicorn," he said under his breath.

  "What?" Horror skittered through Gingerbread's skin, raising goose flesh along her arms and neck. "How could you- Don't even say such disgusting things Clatch!"

  She whacked his arm and stalked off, shuddering to try to throw her shivers off. Clatch jogged after her.

  "It's a tinkerism, Ginge. The eyes reveal the soul." Clatch rubbed his arm. "It's just something they say."

  Those words unlocked more in Gingerbread's head, and the Piping Witch's last words waltzed across her memory. And I have waited such a long time for you . . .

  "That's exactly what she wants," Gingerbread said. She blinked and the constant light of the Winter Whites brightened, dragging her out of her head. Clatch focused on her face, waiting for an explanation.

  "Mother killed the witch when she was a girl, pushed her into her own oven and locked her in, but something of her survived. A piece of her that . . . that latched on to Mother like barbed hooks. Mother could never get rid of her until she-" Her throat seized up, stopping her words. Gingerbread couldn't say it. Not even now. "Until she died," she said instead. "And what was the Piping Witch then? Jus
t a phantom like the others with no one to see her. She must have started to fade away, lose her power." Gingerbread touched her cheek. "Maybe that's why she couldn't take over me. Or she wanted someone else anyway, someone with more power she could steal."

  "Someone like the unicorn." Clatch's eyes grew very round.

  Gingerbread nodded.

  "I think," she added in a whisper, "she wants to steal the unicorn's soul to try and save her own. If she can't take someone's already living body, then she'll take enough magic from a real unicorn to make herself a new one. A better one than what she started off with."

  "But if she's too weak to possess an ordinary human, how could she kill a unicorn?"

  "Ah!" Gingerbread whipped up a finger, almost catching Clatch on the nose. "But she didn't. She couldn't! He's only sleeping. When she realized that, Dearie began siphoning off his power instead. Look at this! Look." She hit one of the ice-covered trunks, rattling icicles over their heads. "These are his trees. His home. The Winter Whites belong to the Evergreen Unicorn and by taking them over she's weakened him." She stared up at stiff needles, the icicles swaying over her like cobras. "That's what he wanted me to see."

  Gingerbread paused. "I'm right," she whispered to herself. "I know I'm right. So why does my brain itch like I forgot something . . . ?"

  An irregular thumping began beating against her ears before she could figure out how to scratch the vague memory. At first, she thought it was her heart reverberating up through her chest, but then Clatch looked over the top of her head.

  "Klimpern?"

  Gingerbread recognized the rhythm of the reindeer's racing gallop just before the beast passed them, head thrown forward in panic. He ran as fast as his legs would go without breaking. His hooves barely impacted the ground before they folded up close to his heavy body, snow shooting out behind him in sprays of white.

  Clatch lunged for Klimpern's harness only to curse and dive in the other direction, pulling Gingerbread down with him. She yelped just before they landed in the snow bank and wound up with a mouth full of snow.