Shadows of Winterspell

by Amy Wilson

  A rather awkward silence falls over the room, until Teacake, who has been sitting in my lap, decides to make a break for the jug of milk, which tips and spills across the table.

  ‘Teacake!’ I yelp, grabbing a cloth and swabbing at the milk before it reaches Mrs Nassar.

  She jumps up, and after a startled moment watching Peg take flight around the room, while I slap at the table with my cloth, and Teacake scurries around trying to drink as much of the spilled milk as possible, she claps her hands together.

  ‘Time for home, Zara!’ she says brightly, picking up her bag.

  There is no messing with that voice. Peg lands neatly on the mantelpiece, Teacake sits with her tail wrapped around her paws, a perfect picture of kittenish goodness, and Nan flaps her hands at us with a shake of her head. I note she’s getting thin already – it must have taken all her strength to make tea and conversation. I blow her a kiss, and we trail after Mrs Nassar to the front door, calling out our farewells and smoothing down our clothes.

  I take a long time saying goodbye to Zara and her mother, but in the end, the car is gone, and I cannot delay the inevitable any longer. It’s time to have that talk Nan promised so sternly earlier.

  ‘What a day you’ve had,’ Nan says, just about visible as I settle opposite her, Teacake back on my lap in seconds.

  I nod. I don’t even know where to start.

  ‘How is Yanny?’

  ‘He’s OK. Back at home. Thanks for letting me go—’

  ‘Tell me about it?’ she asks, and she looks completely uncertain, in an utterly un-Nan-like way, and not very angry at all, so I do. I don’t hold back anything; I just let it all come out. Peg whistles when I get to the end, but Nan doesn’t look impressed at all.

  ‘So now you know,’ she says eventually. ‘You’ve seen what it’s like – what I’ve been trying to protect you from.’

  ‘But they’re all in danger, Nan.’

  ‘And what do you plan on doing about it?’ she asks with a sigh.

  ‘I’m going to search for the palace,’ I say.

  ‘I thought I had more time,’ she says. ‘To train you, to teach you of the dangers.’

  ‘All you’ve ever done is teach me of dangers! What about the good bits? The magic, and the families in there who are helping each other every day?’

  ‘When I returned to care for you, I swore I’d keep you away from the forest until you were grown,’ she says, staring into the fire.

  ‘And now I am.’

  ‘So show me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Undo the glamour I put upon you. If you are ready, you’ll be able to.’

  Her eyes shine in the firelight. Peg watches, and so does Teacake, whom I’ve placed on the floor beside me. But no matter how deep I dig, what words I mutter, how much I want this right now, there is no shift in me. I remember how I glamoured Yanny, and I try to find the edges of what she’s done to hide me, but nothing shifts.

  Nothing changes at all.

  ‘Nan!’ I burst out eventually, stars in my eyes, infuriated with her and all the world.

  ‘There is great power in you, Stella,’ she says. ‘You can do this, in time. Your parents and mine were part of the longest period of peace Winterspell has ever known. It was a golden time; we did not know how lucky we were. There was food, and there was laughter. There was the palace, where the fae danced and where nothing was impossible. Many fae forests have disappeared; many destroyed. Many fight for their existence daily . . .’ She shakes her head sadly.

  ‘But our forest is one of the greats; one of the oldest. It was protected by man, and so it thrived. It is still protected, from man’s interventions. But what you fight is far wilder. Your father’s heart is twisted, and his eyes see only darkness. His shadows have spread through the trees, and you have seen for yourself, they are still destroying the forest now. They take the light, and the energy. They are a curse, and that is why your friend’s wings are the way they are. Because of the curse the Shadow King laid upon Winterspell when he retreated into the palace and let his shadow stag run free. You cannot fight that, until you are all that you can be.’

  I sit on the bench by the fire. Peg makes more tea in tinkling cups, and Teacake bounces back into my lap again, curling up with a wide, toothy yawn. Nan watches me.

  ‘Rory said I was full of darkness, that I drew the shadows . . .’

  Nan is silent for a moment. ‘You are not full of darkness. You are the opposite, and that is what attracts the shadows. Whatever we may feel, Stella, there can be no darkness without light, and no light without shade.’

  ‘Why can’t he see that? Why does he let this happen, Nan?’

  ‘He is lost,’ she says, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘The fae king who was your father is gone, Stella. I am so sorry. I wish it weren’t so. I wish I could tell you that you can help him, but you must not go in there hoping for such. When you go in there, it must be with one thought only: to wrest the power from him, to undo the curse, and send the shadows away.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘I’d tell you, if I knew,’ she says.

  ‘I’m going to try, Nan,’ I say. ‘Even if you think I’m not ready. There must be something I can do. They’re all working so hard to survive, and I’m one of them . . .’

  ‘You’ll choose your path,’ she says. ‘I know. I wish it weren’t so soon.’

  I have so much more to ask her, but her words are faint. She mutters something about patience, but I am not going to just ignore it all now and leave others in danger while I hide in this big old house. My friends need help now, not in some fictional legendy future. I stare at Nan, my heart sinking as she slowly fades from view. What can you do when you’re living with a ghost? It’s impossible to argue with someone who isn’t even visible. I don’t want to wear her out so much that she disappears for good.

  I humph and close my arms around Teacake’s warmth, but she struggles against me and drops to the floor, heading upstairs with her tail arrow-straight.

  Curious that she’d leave the comfort of my lap, and the warm fire, I look from her to Peg. He’s apparently sound asleep, his scales gleaming red-gold as he lies flat out on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Where are you going, kitty?’ I whisper, getting up and following her as she heads up the stairs. She glances over her shoulder at me with a small chirrup and walks purposefully down the corridor to the old study.

  I follow her inside. It’s cold in here, and dark. The heavy curtains are drawn, and there are cobwebs on the ceiling and draping from an old brass chandelier.

  ‘What are we doing in here?’ I shiver, taking matches from the desk and stretching up to light the candles in the chandelier. They snap and fizz as the dust burns away, and the flames cast a restless golden light over the room. ‘Teacake?’

  She gathers herself and launches up on to the bookshelves in the furthest, darkest corner, sending a load of dust swirling into the air. When it settles, she’s sitting on the third shelf up.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘That’s the shelf, then. What am I going to find? Some tome on the best treats for small cats? A beginner’s guide to fishing?’

  She swats her tail and narrows her eyes at me, then jumps down and settles on the worn leather chair behind the desk. I look at the shelf: Ladies of the Fae; The Lay of the Land: Protection of Fae Forests; Lessons on Blackthorn; Love and Lavender: A Text on the Properties of Herbs in Magic; The Lost Folk.

  I pull out The Lost Folk. It’s newer than some of the books here, its cover plain brown with the lettering picked out in copper. The spine creaks as I open it, and some of the pages are uncut. I scoop Teacake up and sit in the warm place she’s made, settling her into my lap.

  The Lost Folk: Those Who Have Left, and Those Who Long to Return.

  It seems to be mostly about extinct fae creatures. It talks about lost habitats, changes in the air itself. I take the paper knife out of the pot on the desk and carefully break apart the uncut page
s. They’re handwritten in spiky black lettering. I flick through, my fingers moving over unfamiliar words, until I find it.

  Teacake was leading me straight here.

  THE LOST PRINCE

  When the fae queen succumbed to the Plaga, shadows descended over Winterspell, and great change was wrought. The creatures who had known only peace were slow to realize the danger they were in, but once they saw how the shadows destroyed all they touched, they began to fight. Sometimes, they won, and sometimes they lost. But always, the shadows remained, for the old fae king’s mourning knew no bounds, and he hardly knew what he had unleashed upon the world. Hidden in his cursed palace, locked away from all the fae, he saw only his own grief.

  The fae will fight for eternity for Winterspell. They need no hero, for they are all heroes living in that magical forest. But there are few who gleam with the moon’s own light. And fewer still who can call upon the fae king’s heart. The child of the Lost Queen may just be the key, in time.

  The Lost Prince will return when he is grown. He will find the palace, though the way is treacherous. He will face his father, and his arrival in Winterspell will herald both a new beginning and an end, in time.

  ‘Oh will it,’ I mutter, stroking Teacake. ‘What a load of rubbish – it’s no help at all. Nan made it up, after all. There is no Lost Prince!’

  Teacake makes a questioning sound in the back of her throat, staring hard at me with her unblinking green eyes, and then she sticks her claws into my knee and starts to knead, purring. I tuck the book into my cardigan, and pick her up, heading to my bedroom. What would it have been like to grow up in Winterspell like Yanny did? To be truly part of that fae world? We did live in there, once.

  If only I could remember.

  ‘Stella!’

  Peg pokes his imp head in through the door.

  ‘You didn’t say goodnight.’

  ‘You were asleep!’

  ‘That doesn’t usually bother you.’

  He leaps across the floor and lands on the bed, bouncing Teacake into the air with a fierce little toothy grin. She recovers herself and prowls around him for a moment before curling up next to him, her smoky tail twined with his bright scaled one.

  ‘Pesky creature,’ he hisses, but he doesn’t move away. ‘So, you’re not happy?’

  ‘I don’t know what to do. Nobody will tell me. They just keep saying when the time is right . . . How am I supposed to know when that is? I can’t even undo Nan’s glamour – I’m useless!

  ‘You are NOT!’ he shouts, with a pop of smoke, rushing over to me. ‘Stella, you are not useless. You are exactly who you should be. You are brave, and bold, and wilful, and kind – you are the very best of fae!’

  ‘I don’t see how that can possibly be true.’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t yet,’ he concedes, his amber lamp eyes glowing up into mine. ‘Just take my word for it. There are other, more pressing things to worry about, if worrying is what you have your heart set on.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘The fact that you left the boundary unshielded!’

  ‘Not for very long!’

  ‘Shadows are fast,’ he says. ‘Who knows what they might have heard, or seen.’

  ‘But they couldn’t get into the house because of the bells at the door. And we didn’t say anything very special, did we?’

  ‘We can only guess what they might have picked up on,’ he mutters. ‘Something’s bothering me though. What if . . .’ He stares at the window. ‘What if there’s still one here . . . in the garden? We could have locked it in by mistake when you sorted the charms out earlier.’

  ‘We should go out and check!’ I say, scrambling off the bed.

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ he says drily, jumping to my shoulder.

  ‘But how do you get rid of a shadow?’ I whisper, as we head down the stairs.

  ‘Kill one?’

  ‘No. Send it back to the forest!’

  ‘You don’t want to send it back; it’ll go running off with all our secrets,’ Peg says. ‘The trick is for it to not go back, Stella.’

  ‘I can’t kill something!’

  ‘It isn’t a creature, a living thing,’ he says. ‘It’s created out of night itself – a product of fear.’

  ‘Then how do I even do anything to it.’

  He sniffs. ‘I don’t know. I’ve avoided them as much as I can. Perhaps I should have made a study of them instead.’

  ‘Why aren’t you allowed in there, Peg?’ I ask.

  He stares at me for a few moments.

  ‘Not all things can be so easily spoken of,’ he says, winding his tail through his fingers. ‘It was a misunderstanding. A silly thing that I haven’t had the time to fix.’

  ‘So you’re not going to tell me?’

  ‘Not now, no,’ he says. ‘Come on – let’s sort this shadow.’

  I blow my breath out and shake my head at him, and then we creep through the kitchen, and I shove on my boots and open the back door as quietly as I can, trying not to alert Nan to what we’re doing.

  The garden is creepy at night. I light the lanterns that swing from iron hooks on the outer stone wall of the house, and the moon is high, but there is still so much darkness. Peg is a sharp-clawed bronze bat on my shoulder, and we dance between the light patches, scouring the empty air for signs of a shadow that shouldn’t be there.

  ‘Use your magic,’ he hisses after a while. ‘That’s what attracted them, when you were in the forest. Rory saw it herself. Maybe if you focus on it now, the shadow will be drawn to you.’

  ‘I don’t want to draw it to me!’ I say. ‘And I don’t really know what my magic is, Peg. Or how to use it.’

  ‘You’ve already used it,’ he says. ‘When you glamoured Yanny, for example, and probably many other times. If you’d just stop telling yourself you can’t do it, that might help. Just try,’ he says. ‘I’m here.’

  There’s a small howl from my ankles; Teacake has followed us here.

  I close my eyes and imagine the magic as a small fire deep inside me. I picture it getting brighter, filling my veins like a silent stream. When I open my eyes again, my whole body feels like it’s on fire.

  ‘Steady,’ says Peg.

  I breathe out, with a little burst of silver sparks that fizz in the cold air.

  ‘Goodness!’ he yelps, scrambling to cover his face with his wings.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  My tongue feels dry and dusty. I try to calm the rush of energy that’s still rolling through me, and that’s when I see it. Over by the fence, perched on the henhouse, a small figure with spines running down its back.

  ‘What kind of creature is that?’ I ask.

  ‘Could be anything,’ Peg whispers. ‘They make their forms out of shadow; there are no limits.’

  ‘I suppose that makes sense,’ I say. ‘In the forest, there were wolves, and birds . . . and the Stag . . .’

  The creature looks back over its shoulder at us, and hisses, revealing iron-grey teeth that shine.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be attracted,’ I say.

  ‘Give it a minute.’

  I focus on steadying the energy, until it’s a low hum. The creature jumps down from the henhouse and hunkers low on the ground, barely visible, and after what seems an age, it starts to move towards us.

  ‘What do I do?’ I whisper, terrified.

  Teacake stretches out on the ground before my feet and rolls on to her back, exposing her tiny belly, the picture of unconcern. I frown.

  ‘Silly kitten,’ growls Peg. ‘What’s she doing?’

  ‘Something,’ I say.

  I crouch down, put a hand on her pale fur. She curls up around my hand, her claws sharp against my skin, but not digging in, her green eyes staring as if she’s trying to tell me something. The shadow edges ever closer, watching intently, but I act like I don’t care. Like this is all perfectly normal. And then, when it’s crept closer than my mind can really bear, and all my skin is goose
bumps, I take my hand away from Teacake and curl my fingers around my acorn, turning to face the shadow.

  ‘Go, Stella!’ says a little voice in my mind.

  And so I do, eye to eye, fear against fear, I howl. A little bright spark flares around me, and the shadow is, after all, just a shadow, I tell myself in a hard, new voice. In this garden, in my home, it does not have the power of many – no power over me. The sparks keep flying, and the shadow unravels, and then I’m breathing hard, and Teacake is sitting pert and watchful, and Peg is his beautiful imp self, his tail curling over my shoulders, and the garden is, just for an instant, a blaze of pale light.

  ‘That’ll do it!’ Peg claps his hands. ‘Yes, Stella!’

  I don’t really know whether it was me, or Teacake, or some kind of team effort, but the shadow is gone, and hopefully with it, any secrets it might have learned.

  I turn and head back into the kitchen with Teacake tucked under one arm, and Peg perched on the other, and we drink warm milk huddled together on the old settee, staring into the still-glowing embers of the fire for a bit. It’s warm, and they keep close, and there is so much to think about, but I am restless, because I did it. I sent a shadow away, and if I can do that to one, I should be able to do it to many.

  I should be able to do it in Winterspell.

  School is weird the next day. From the moment I get in, the sense of everything is different. The magical kids look at me suspiciously, and without Yanny, it feels far less friendly.

  ‘You’re causing trouble,’ says Tash, as soon as I sit down. ‘I can’t believe you let a human up here. Haven’t you read the contract?’

  ‘I have, thank you. And if you have, you’ll know there are exceptions. Besides, you were the one who left the door open!’

  She freezes, as everyone turns to watch us.

  ‘So, I don’t think anyone else has a problem with her coming in,’ I continue. ‘She’s our friend, so she stayed to help Yanny. She looked after him better than you have.’

  ‘What would you know about that?’

  ‘Well, where were you? When he was struggling with his glamour, I didn’t see you hanging about to help!’