The Girl Gingerbread in the Woods of Winter White

by Bethany R. Lindell

  Gingerbread stared down at her boots again but couldn't say it. She was resolved to face Dearie, but it was hard like glass was hard. If she pressed it too much, her resolve would break, and everything she feared more than Dearie would happen.

  Clatch drew in air, re-inflating his lungs until he stood straight again. "I'll get them in the wagons. Bundle them up and get the heaters glowing-"

  "No," Gingerbread cut him off firm. "I didn't mean get them out of the snow. You've got to get them out of the Winter Whites. Frostlight Bridge shouldn't be far from here. If you get them across, away from Dearie, her magic might turn brittle, enough that they can wake up on their own." Maybe. Probably not. But if it convinced Clatch to go . . .

  "Frostlight Bridge?" His voice rose again.

  "It's not that far. Less than an afternoon's ride."

  "It could be ten minutes and I still wouldn't be able to drive ten wagons at once."

  "Is that all you're stuck on? You're not the son of a tinker for nothing Clatch. Call it Plan C and get cracking!"

  "All right, all right! Gingersnap," he muttered under his breath. Gingerbread pretended not to hear as she stared into the wood, wishing her own way was just as straight forward. "What about you? How are you going to find the unicorn?"

  Gingerbread swallowed down the chalk dusting her throat. "I know where to go," she said, her voice dark and soft. "He's in the one place no one's dared to go."

  Clatch followed her gaze past the ice light and beyond, deeper into the Winter Whites than even Nikolas would gladly go, and knew where she meant.

  "He's in the deep wood." Gingerbread turned to Clatch. "They both are."

  His Adam's apple bobbed down then up like a cork in his neck, and a slimy cold slunk into Gingerbread's belly. She remembered this feeling from somewhere.

  Goblins. Yes, that was it. The first time she and her uncle hunted goblins. The slick cold had shivered inside her stomach then too when they crept and crawled up out of the ground like blind fish with knobby fingers.

  A multitude of feelings rushed her until Gingerbread didn't know which way was up. She only knew Clatch, like north on her compass. "Clatch-" Words crowded into her mouth until they stuffed it too full to speak. She raised her chin and held his eyes, hoping he would read some of them there because she sure didn't know how to say them.

  Clatch stared back, as dense as ever. The tinker twinkle glinted in his eyes, distracting him. "Huh?"

  Gingerbread swallowed down the multitude choking her and a string of them managed to leap free. "I never had a real friend before."

  She bit her tongue, her face burning hot with mortification. Clatch blinked at her, the twinkle sputtering.

  Ohh! Panic pushed at her and Gingerbread pushed back. Say something else you stupid girl!

  "So . . . try not to run yourself over when you're wiring those tinderboxes together," she heard herself say. How is that better?

  Clatch blinked again and lowered his chin in a nod. "Yeah, you too."

  It didn't make any sense, but they pretended it did. At least I'm not the only one saying stupid things, Gingerbread thought as she stepped into the trees. Her face burned so red she thought she must be melting icicles as she ran past them.

  THE WOOD HAD GROWN larger since Gingerbread walked it in her sleep, and everywhere the Piping Witch's unseen eyes followed her.

  How do I separate a witch from her wood? Clatch's question circled Gingerbread's head as she jogged through the trees, rattling icy branches where they hung across her path. You give it back to its rightful guardian. Straightforward enough. But I need to find him first and I still don't know how-

  Her foot caught on a stubby huddle of ice half hidden in the snow, a tree's knee crooked above the ground for a peek. Gingerbread stumbled and caught herself on the hard trunk.

  "G'ha!" Snow dropped down on her head before sliding down the back of her coat. She slapped at the shoulders of her cape, but it was already melting into her dress.

  "Second time in an hour," she complained and shook the leftover snow melt out of her hood. But a chill that didn't come from her soaked clothes seeped beneath her skin. Gingerbread raised her chin, peering closely at the trees. They looked the same as the ones she had already passed, all blue and white and shining like cat's eyes. Exactly the same . . .

  An old dog's growl rose out of Gingerbread's throat, and she kicked the tree's knee, the same one that had tripped her an hour ago.

  "You can't have it both ways Dearie!" she shouted at the invisible ears that belonged to the unseen eyes. "You want me and so does he. And it might have struck you that the two of you are in the same place!"

  Her voice split on the dagger points of the icicles and ricocheted down the back alleys between the trees. For once the Piping Witch didn't answer her.

  Gingerbread turned one last time and shook out her aching toe. She settled her cloak and sword before taking off in what she hoped was a different direction, but the trees looked so blasted similar. Bark. Roots. Ice. Really, what was the difference?

  The Deep Wood was close though. Gingerbread could feel that like a stranger's breath on the back of her neck. But Dearie was making things difficult, using her eyes to lead her around by the nose.

  So don't use your eyes. Gingerbread stopped again, but might as well not moved at all for how different the trees looked to her. Another obvious answer, but what do I use instead?

  She searched her pockets and her usual tidbits and trinkets brushed her fingers. The porous crags of her whetstone, its sharp edges hard and cold even next to her body. Stubbly softness filled the next, but that was just her looking glass in its velvet sling. Rough string poked at her fingers, the bright beads strung on it all fallen to the bottom of the pouch. Far better than breadcrumbs the both of them. Although the wild peppermint is all but gone. Only a few sticky leaves glued themselves to her fingers.

  She wiped them on the handkerchief she yanked out of an opposite pouch with a small swip. Her compass tumbled out of the dry cloth into the snow. "Rats."

  Gingerbread growled in annoyance and bent to pick it up. "This is why you put things back in the same place . . ." she said as she flipped the compass over. The needle spun beneath the snow crusting its glass face and Gingerbread shook it off.

  She cupped the compass in the palm of her hand, willing it to settle, but it kept moving, swinging side to side, then all the way around to twitch at the points on the opposing side, a hunting dog trying to sniff its way back home.

  She shoved the compass back into her belt with a disgusted sound. "Magic and magnets," she grumbled. "Oil and water."

  A sharp scent bit her nose and Gingerbread sneezed. She wiped her nose, frowning harder. "Trying to stink me out of your front garden now Dearie?" she asked the air as she searched the trees for some explanation.

  I know this scent . . . Gingerbread kept thinking, but she couldn't think from where, from what. It was sharp and astringent, but not unkind. There was sunlight in it, or something just as warm, and it was bright. Piercing. Not like the sun at all but spice on her tongue. It soaked into Gingerbread and warmed her through, and she caught the faintest, sweetest scent, like sugar in the bitterest coffee.

  She tried to breathe it in deep to hold it inside her chest, but only caught a tantalizing whiff. It teased her nose and she followed it, searching for the scent only to run into a dense cloud of it that pinched at her nose and sent her into a fit of sneezing.

  Gingerbread sneezed her nose raw and the scent burned her palate worse than lemon juice on a paper cut.

  Lemons?

  A switch flipped in Gingerbread's memory, brightening her confusion, and Gingerbread remembered.

  Sap stuck to her fingers, dirtying her bare legs and stinging her nose as she ran wild through the forest, Mama chasing her in a grand game through the fir trees standing green and full in a world of orange and yellow leaves, bright as the oranges and lemons they ate at Christmas.

  "Pine sap." Gingerbread rubbed her fi
ngers together and looked again at the trees. They were all still sound asleep in their blue and white coats.

  But there. Red!

  Gingerbread jogged to the three bright specks now hanging from one of the tree's lowest branches. "Now where did you come from?" she asked the holly berries growing from a set of three sharp-edged leaves. Their green shone dark and glossy against the frost crawling up their stem.

  The frost grew thicker, creeping up those glossy leaves like strangling vines, embalming the holly sprig in frozen water. Gingerbread pulled one of the leaves free before it was consumed and two of the crimson berries came with it. She rubbed the damp sap between her fingers and took a cautious sniff.

  Sharp and sweet. Bright as spice. And warm all the way through.

  Gingerbread tapped the holly sprig against the air, frowning as she thought. Evergreens growing and the scent of pines in the air? It's the unicorn. Has to be.

  More red berries sprouted from more green-black leaves on different trees, all leading in the same direction. Ice held them tight, but the bright red of the holly blazed through the blue-white fists, leaving Gingerbread a trail leading up and in, deep into the Winter Whites.

  Gingerbread chased it.

  GETTING THE TINKERS out of the snow and into the wagons was simple enough. First the children and the old ones, then whoever was buried up to their necks. Clatch got them warm and bundled into their wagons, and then the wagons hitched up to the train.

  "Now what?"

  He stood between the Bodins' and the Suryvalles' wagons, fingers flexing as he searched for his next task. Gingerbread obviously had faith he could figure this out, but much good that did him with twelve fully weighted wagons and only one reindeer to drive them.

  Reindeer. Clatch ran for Nikolas's wagon up front and pulled the horn from the eaves, snapping its ties in his hurry. He licked his lips to blow and only just remembered to wipe them dry again before he pursed them against the cold metal.

  A deep, lonely call spun from the bell of the curved horn and reverberated between the trees. The sound didn't travel far and, heaving in air, Clatch blew again until the icicles trembled on their branches. Silber would come. At least Silber. If he'd heard.

  Clatch looked at each of the brightly painted wagons, their greens and daffodil yellows piercing amid the frosted shadows of the wood. "I can't move the whole train on my own. Gingerbread is wrong. It would take an army."

  He laughed like one of the deer, a rolling snort through his nose that had Klirren's ears pricking toward him. "I have an army. A very small one."

  The tinkers' benches still sat scattered around what remained of the fire, and Clatch threw open the lids. Most of the children didn't have their own yet and had to share with their parents.

  The hidden cabinets were well-ordered and full, and Clatch shoved aside spare fabric and mending and pin cushions, hissing when hidden needles stuck his fingers, until he found the hidden mess of toys beneath. His hands clattered through them until he found the first of his foot soldiers.

  "There you are." He grinned at the tin soldier with his faded paint. "Come on Captain. Time for muster."

  He searched the bench for stragglers and moved on. By handfuls, he pulled the mechanical soldiers out of benches and wagon cabinets, trundle beds and piles of yesterday's tunics. Louie's cavalier joined Fritz's captain, then Stephan's lieutenant and his sister's fifer and little brother's drummer boy. He found them support from wheeled horses and the toddlers' waddling ducks and wind-up frog hoppers. His own injured major-general with his wrenched knee was pulled from retirement to lead the makeshift troops.

  They needed adjustments—slight modifications to carry out their new marching orders—but he'd made most of the tin men with his own hands and Clatch still remembered the shape of their cogs and the kinks in their screws. Clatch lost himself in their workings until a soft nose snorted hot air over the crown of his head.

  Clatch jumped, his jeweler's screwdriver jumping from a lieutenant's back with a bent poing.

  "Silber! Thank God!"

  He jumped up and threw his arms around the bull reindeer's neck. Silber tolerated the boy for a beat of his massive heart and then snorted again, shaking out his crown of antlers.

  Flushing slightly, Clatch pulled back. He patted Silber's thick neck. "Good." His mind was already back at work. "Good. Now we'll get somewhere. Although it would be easier if you . . . had . . . brought friends?"

  Reindeer stood between the wagons, watching Clatch with still, staring eyes. Klimpern and Klingeln stood with them, but the other dozen or more Clatch had never seen before.

  "Where did you all come from? No-" Clatch shook his head, nearly losing his cap. "Don't question gift deer. Come on Silber, let's show these wild things how it's done."

  Silber stood proud as parade day while Clatch hooked him into his harness, then Klingeln and Klimpern. The other reindeer waited, still as carved stone and just as silent. They didn't run when Clatch came near them with ropes, his steps slow and thoughtful like the words he murmured to each of them. One's nostrils flared. Another flicked its ears back. None of the strangers bolted. Clatch spared exactly one thought for why they didn't—Maybe they came with Ginge's phantoms and got left.—before he lined them up on either side of the modified wagons. His tin army stood rigid at attention beneath the beds, waiting for the order to charge. At last Clatch led the silver reindeer and fixed him to the lead of the procession.

  Clatch climbed up to the bench of his wagon. The leather reins lay brittle in his hands. Behind him, Klimpern snorted, eager to start.

  "Niko is going to be sorry he missed this."

  Clatch raised the horn and with a deep breath blew out a gliding brass note. Furry ears flicked to him up and down the caravan, and the pawing stopped. He had their attention, even the well-behaved strangers.

  "Please work," he prayed. Then Clatch raised the leads and brought them down on the reindeer's backs with a sharp command. "Ha!"

  Silber set a brisk pace, Klingeln matching from long years next to him, but none of the others matched. The strangers leapt forward or lagged behind, pulled by their traces rather than the other way around. The wagon lurched under Clatch, one wheel grinding as it dragged its stubborn partner. "C'mon, hie, hie!" Clatch dangled the whip above their backs, urging the slow ones faster. "Hie."

  Wood cracked behind him and Clatch ducked. Half formed visions of one of the wagons tearing apart flashed into his head. He twisted past the wagon cover.

  "Klimpern!" The young bull shook his antlers and charged again, throwing himself against his harness to run the other three Clatch had lassoed to the rear wagons. The deer on his opposite side followed, white eyed, and the Suryvalles' wagon slammed into the Foglios' ahead of them, shaking the train.

  The well-behaved strangers harnessed to the sides of the caravan skittered and shook their heads, pawing at the snow and rumbling bass sounds in their broad chests. Not working . . .

  Silber's bellow broke the air. The big bull had stopped with the others and his hooves cut the snow in his impatience. He swung his head back and bellowed again, his deep voice making Clatch's horn sound like a tin fife. Silber pulled and the other reindeer didn't fall into line so much as charge after him. They wanted out of this wood. Clatch read it in the whites of their eyes, the tension in their slender legs. And if Silber knew the way out they would follow him, no matter what they had to pull with them.

  The wagons straightened out, wheels grinding through the snow. Rocks caught beneath the rims, slamming the bench against Clatch's spine when they popped free. He held his breath each time they stalled, imaging the hours it would take to dig them out.

  Clatch pulled the lever earlier than he meant to, and all down the line, the other wagons' levers thunked forward with his. Rigging them together was child play's. Gears grumbled. Metal whined out do I have to?

  The soldiers Clatch had jury rigged to the wagon axles put out their protests, their legs marching up, pulling the axles,
then stepping down and making them spin just a little faster. The wagons rolled easier for a quarter turn.

  The reindeer lifted their heads, shaking their antlers to ask what was that?

  Clatch growled beneath his breath and jerked the lever back. He stared at Silber's hooves, counting out his paces. "Hup, two, Hup two, Hup two-"

  He threw the lever again. The mechanics caught, the soldiers marched. The wheels spun a smooth third before they stalled this time.

  Faster. Clatch cracked the whip above their heads crying, "Hie up!"

  Silber pulled harder, the others with him. They couldn't pull the caravan's weight for long. Clatch kept his eyes on Silber, counting. "Hup and Hup and Hup-"

  He threw the lever and the wheels jumped forward to match him. The deer picked up their feet. They tossed their antlers back and eased into a lope. Run, run!

  The breath Clatch held leapt free of his mouth as laughter. "It's working! Mad as I am, it's working!"

  He laughed again and crowed, "Over the river and through the woods~! Come on Silber. We'll get out of these woods yet. The tinkers will have lots of questions, falling dead asleep someplace and waking up in another, but explanations will have to wait until I get back with Ginge!"

  THE HOLLY BOUGHS LED Gingerbread straight into the deep wood. Past the phantoms. Past light altogether, into the husk of twilight that lingered. There was no room for frosted ice light here. This was where real work was done.

  The holly berries glowed red from their crystal casings in the twilight, letting Gingerbread follow them. Once she looked behind her, only once, and breathed relief when she saw their scarlet drops still glowing, showing her the way out.

  I could still take it, she thought. Then shook that want from her head. No I can't. Not really.

  She forced her legs forward. Clatch should have the tinkers out of the cold by now. Maybe he's even thought of the impossible and gotten them moving. Gingerbread stepped high over a snow drift, her fingers trailing over the craggy ice covering an ancient pine. The pits and peaks in the ice jabbed at her fingers through her gloves.