The School between Winter and Fairyland

by Heather Fawcett

  “Why should you?” Autumn said with a shrug, taking another bite of apple. But Cai looked bothered for some reason. He asked about her education, but there was little for her to tell. Servants at Inglenook weren’t taught anything but their duties. What would they learn? Few servants could read. And it wasn’t as if the cooks had any use for geography, or beastkeepers for mathematics.

  Cai hesitated. “My parents can’t read either.”

  Autumn didn’t understand. “But all magicians can read.”

  “They’re not magicians. They were servants here at Inglenook.”

  Autumn’s jaw fell. “Servants?”

  Cai nodded. “My dad was one of the cooks. My mom was a housekeeper. Your gran probably knew them. I wondered at dinner if she’d say something.”

  Autumn couldn’t believe it. The prophecy said that Cai was of low birth, but she’d thought it meant his parents were merchants or something. Not servants! “Don’t tell me they’re still scrubbing floors somewhere.”

  “No. There aren’t many magicians with nonmagician parents, but there are some. The king provides for them if they’re poor. After I was born a magician, we moved to a manor house in Langorelle.”

  Autumn shook her head. It was like something out of a fairy tale, one where a goose girl became a queen or a wolf turned into a prince. She supposed it explained some of Cai’s strangeness, though. He treated her differently than the other students did, as if he barely noticed she was a servant.

  Some of his strangeness. Not all.

  The sun began to move behind the mountain until only a sliver remained. The sunlight went slant and hung in the air like gossamer, clothing the treetops in white. Cai stared out the window, his eyes full of the forest.

  Autumn watched him for a moment. “Why do you do that?” He blinked. Autumn noted that his eyes were now the brown of the undersides of mushrooms. She found it interesting that they never changed dramatically. It was always small enough that most people wouldn’t notice.

  “What?” Cai said.

  Autumn tapped her knee with her fingers. She felt like a detective, but she would have to be a careful one. She had her suspicions about Cai, but she didn’t know how much he suspected about himself. It wouldn’t be kind to scare him. “Why do you look at the forest like that?”

  “Oh.” Cai turned away. “You noticed.”

  “I notice a lot of things.” Color-changing eyes, for instance. “What are you looking for?”

  “It’s not that I’m looking for something,” Cai said. He wiped his palms against the knees of his trousers. He suddenly looked very nervous, and Autumn wondered if she should get the bucket.

  “All right,” he finally said. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. There’s a second reason why I came to you for help.”

  “Okay,” Autumn said slowly.

  “The forest—” He took a breath. “It pulls at me.”

  Autumn’s brow furrowed. Was this magician-speak for something? “What does that mean?”

  “It’s like …” Cai seemed to search for words. “It’s like I’m caught in a tide, and it’s pulling me toward the Gentlewood. Always pulling. Whenever I’m near it, whenever I walk the paths, I want to go deeper. But no matter how deep I go, it’s never enough. When I sleep, I can hear the leaves rustling.” He stopped abruptly and looked down at his hands.

  “You said there was another reason you wanted my help,” Autumn said. “You should just say it.”

  “Right.” Cai wiped his palms again. “You know a lot about monsters. I want you to tell me if I’m one.”

  His voice was quiet but steady. When he finally met her gaze, he blinked. “You’re not surprised.”

  Autumn bit her lip. She tried to imagine what Winter would say—he always said the right thing, unlike her. She didn’t want to hurt Cai—she realized that she cared if she hurt him now. She hadn’t before.

  “Like I said, I’m good at noticing things,” she said. “Nobody looks at the forest the way you do. Nobody except, well, monsters. It’s their home, see. They’re part of it, and it’s part of them. And you heard me down by the river, when I used the Speech. You could be a Speaker, I suppose. But—” She paused. “You’re different. I can’t explain how I know that; I just do.”

  Cai leaned forward. His eyes were as bright as sunlit amber and full of longing. “What am I?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s the honest truth. You could be a shape-shifting monster that got stuck as a boy. Or maybe some magician caught you and made you look this way with a spell. Or you could be a changeling, left behind in the crib while some spriggan stole the real Cai. There are also stories of half-human monsters, though I’ve never met one. I don’t know. I just know you’re something.”

  Cai sagged back against his chair.

  “I’m sorry,” Autumn said. She really was. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like, not knowing who you were. Not knowing what you were. “But I’ll help you figure it out, Cai. I don’t know how, but I’ll try.”

  Cai gazed at his folded hands. “Sometimes at night, when I wake up from dreaming of forest paths and the smell of the pines, I think about just walking into the forest. Walking and walking, and never coming back. I’ve stopped myself a hundred times.”

  “Why do you?” Autumn said. “Stop yourself, I mean.”

  Cai made a helpless gesture. “I don’t really belong there, any more than I belong here. When I go into the forest, it treats me like any other magician. The wisps lead me astray. Other monsters follow me or try to lull me asleep so they can eat my heart or bones or who knows what. I get cold at night.” He rubbed his head. “I don’t really belong anywhere. Do you understand?” He frowned. “Of course you don’t. I’m sorry. You have a home—you belong here.”

  “I suppose I belong here.” She thought of Inglenook glittering up on the mountainside, the play of light from magicians’ staffs. “But I would rather belong somewhere else. Even though I know it’s impossible.”

  He gazed at her. “Then you do understand.”

  Autumn swallowed. They sat in silence.

  “No one else knows,” Cai said.

  Autumn’s mind boggled at that. Boggled at all of it. She shouldn’t even be sitting there with Cai Morrigan. She shouldn’t be sharing secrets with him, secrets so big they could tear a kingdom apart.

  “You don’t really want to fight the Hollow Dragon, do you?” she said. “Monsters don’t usually fight other monsters.”

  “I have to fight him. I’m the only one who can stop him—that’s what the prophecy says. It doesn’t make a difference what I am. I can’t just think about myself.”

  “Hmm,” Autumn said. “Well, you’re definitely not a boggart, then.”

  A smile tugged at Cai’s mouth. “Your boggart might hear you.”

  Autumn snorted. “I hope he does!”

  They talked for a while about Cai’s parents and their home in Langorelle, where he had lived until he was eight, the customary age for magicians to enroll at Inglenook. There were no clues there—Cai’s childhood had been disappointingly ordinary, apart from his constant yearning for the forest. His parents were ordinary; he had an ordinary sister named Bluebell; and they lived with two ordinary cats, Sir Purrsival and Catastrophe.

  “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” Cai said suddenly. He looked so worried that Autumn almost burst out laughing. She imagined the wyverns or the Hounds of Arawn sitting in their stalls picking their teeth and worrying about whether they were too scary.

  “No,” she said, slurping her tea contentedly. “You’re all right.”

  It was the truth. If Cai was a monster—like Amfidzel, or her dear boggart—Autumn wouldn’t like him any less. In fact, she would probably like him more. She spent plenty of time with monsters and understood their ways. She couldn’t say the same about magicians with grand destinies.

  “I should go,” Cai said eventually. He looked lighter, as if he’d set down a heavy weight. H
is eyes were a peaceful mud color. “I’ll see you later. Meet me in the hallway behind the Jenkins Library at midnight. I think we should investigate all our clues one by one, starting with the very first sighting in the kitchens.”

  Autumn nodded, not looking at him. Cai didn’t seem well enough for another adventure. But what was she to say? Winter needed her. She’d risk her life to rescue him and not think twice—but risking someone else’s was a harder matter.

  Cai looked like he knew what she was thinking. “I’m going to help you find your brother,” he said in a voice that Autumn couldn’t imagine arguing with. It gave her a glimpse of the Cai Morrigan the stories talked about.

  Autumn walked him to the door, Choo whining at their heels. There was nothing the dog disliked more than a guest rude enough to leave.

  “Wait.” Cai paused thoughtfully on the porch. “How will you get into the castle? They lock it up at night with magic. I have a secret door that I use, but you can’t see it unless you’re a magician. Why don’t you come by after supper, and I’ll hide you somewhere?”

  “No, I don’t want Gran wondering where I am,” Autumn said. “I’ll sneak out after she goes to bed. Don’t worry. I’ve got it all figured out. Just tell me where to meet you.”

   10

  IN WHICH WINTER WAKES THE BOGGART

  – LAST SUMMER –

  The next time Winter stopped being a cloud, he found himself in the Inglenook kitchens. Or, rather, looking out at them from a grimy mirror above one of the sinks.

  The kitchens were a hot, dark, steamy place. But they were also surprisingly cozy, nestled deep beneath the school. There a small army of men and women labored day and night—for the bread had to be started at three in the morning—to feed several hundred students and masters. Not just feed, but feed well, as only the best would do for magicians, Eryree’s protectors. Every year, the cooks churned out thousands of braised hams, delicately flaky salmon rolls, gooey cheese sausages, mussels with cream sauce, vats of custard and treacle, and more tea cakes and marzipan drops and seaweed crisps than there were stars in the sky.

  Winter had visited the kitchens a handful of times when he lived on the other side of the glass, when he and Autumn would try to cadge leftovers from a feast. Whenever the head cook proved unsympathetic, Autumn created a distraction—unsurprisingly, she had a knack for them—while Winter crept around on stealthy feet and shoved whatever he could reach into his pockets.

  Autumn.

  Just like before, the memories rushed back. Of course—Autumn would get him out of there, wherever he was. She was probably already looking for him.

  Winter clung to the memory of his twin, her apple-red cheeks and light step, the way she snorted when she laughed. Thinking of her was like stepping into a patch of sunlight in a dank forest. He wouldn’t forget her again. But how would he find her?

  Something stirred under the table where the bakers stood in an intricate assembly line, preparing scads of blueberry flatcakes. Winter leaned forward so that his forehead brushed the steamed glass. There it was again—the gleam of dark, sharp claws in an empty pocket of air that was far from empty, that seemed to vibrate with contained power.

  Winter drew in his breath. “Boggart!” he shouted with all his might.

  The boggart didn’t stir. He was folded up small in a breadbasket beneath the table, dozing. Every few seconds, Winter caught the gleam of his black eyes, as if the boggart was waiting for something. No doubt that something was an opportunity for an unpleasant prank, perhaps related to the enormous birthday cake the head baker was frosting on the table.

  Winter’s breath quickened. The mirror-world of the kitchens was dark and indistinct, for the glass was too corroded and spackled with grease to reflect the world truly. It was like being trapped in a nightmare.

  He pressed himself against the glass and shouted in the Speech, Boggart!

  This time, the boggart started. Winter? His voice was sleepy and confused.

  Boggart! Winter cried. I’m here!

  The boggart uncoiled from the breadbasket and circled the long table. He turned himself into an astonishing replica of the tabby cat whose mouse-hunting grounds included the kitchens and sniffed the corners.

  I’m here. Winter tried to shout, but he couldn’t summon the energy anymore—it was as if all his strength had been funneled into that first cry. Tell Autumn I’m here.

  The boggart sniffed everywhere. When he was finished, he turned himself back into a boggart—in other words, disembodied himself—and Winter couldn’t track him anymore. He still caught flashes of his eyes sometimes as the boggart circled the pantry or nosed into cupboards. Winter kept calling, both aloud and in the Speech, but the boggart didn’t reply again.

  “Gosh, you’re a noisy one.” It was Maddie. Her black braids wavered behind her like branches in the wind. “Who are you yelling at?”

  Winter was too sick with disappointment to answer. Nobody had ever called him noisy before—that was Autumn. He was more likely to be called her shadow, which had always made him happy. Autumn’s shadow was a comfortable place to be. He missed her so much.

  “Can you tell me my name again?” Maddie said. “I’ve forgotten.”

  It took Winter a moment to remember. “Maddie.”

  She smiled. Her grayish body seemed to come into sharper focus. “That’s right. And you’re Winter.”

  Hearing his name made him feel better. “I need to talk to someone on the other side of the glass.”

  Maddie gave him a puzzled look. “You can’t. Them outsiders can’t even see us properly.” She drifted closer. “Do you know any stories? Will you tell me one? It’s been so long since I heard a story.”

  “What about that other person you mentioned?” Winter pressed. “The one who’s been here for a long time. Would he know how to talk to the outside?”

  Maddie’s face fell. “The Old One,” she murmured. “I forgot about him. He’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “The Dark got him.” She shook her head slowly. “It gets everyone in the end.”

  “What do you mean? What’s the Dark?” Winter froze. “Is there some sort of monster in here with us?”

  But Maddie only shook her head again and wouldn’t answer.

  “Why don’t you ever try to get out?” Winter asked, frustrated.

  Maddie wrinkled her brow. “Where would I go?”

  “Out there, of course! Where we belong!”

  “With them?” Maddie shuddered. “I was always afraid of ghosts. I wouldn’t want to haunt anyone.”

  Winter froze. “But we’re not ghosts.”

  She stared at him. “Course we are. What else could we be?”

  “I don’t know,” Winter said. “But I know I’m not dead. I don’t feel dead.”

  Maddie snorted. “Oh, and you know what dead feels like, do you? You only die once. So how can you be sure of the difference?”

  Panic rose in Winter’s throat. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. He wasn’t dead. They were trapped somewhere, somewhere bad, but they could still get out. Autumn would find him. It was going to be all right.

  “Is there anyone else I can talk to?” Winter said.

  She shrugged. “Sure. Take your pick.”

  Winter blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Can’t you see them?”

  Maddie gestured. She didn’t seem to be gesturing at anything. But then, abruptly, Winter saw.

  There were others there. Perhaps six, maybe as many as ten. Some were like wisps of fog with hands and feet. Others were recognizable as men or women or children, but they were all so gray, so faded, like charcoal sketches left out in the rain. One was little more than a smudge.

  Winter’s knees trembled. “What happened to them?”

  “Same thing that happens to everyone.” Maddie looked down at her grayish body. She was grayer than the last time he’d seen her. “They forgot their names. That’s the beginning of the end in here.” She motion
ed to the pale smudge. “Look at her, poor little ghostie. The Dark’ll get her soon enough.”

  “No, it won’t.” Winter’s voice was as quiet as ever, but there was a granite-like quality about it that made Maddie stare. “Whatever this Dark is, we should protect her from it. I’ll protect her.”

  Maddie made a disbelieving sound. “You can’t even protect yourself. Look at you!”

  Winter looked. At first he didn’t know what Maddie was talking about. But then he did, and his breath snagged in his throat. He was blurring. Not all of him, just the edges and angles, as if he were a mountain smoothed by a curtain of rain. He hadn’t looked like that before.

  He looked at Maddie, at the others. Whatever was changing them, wearing them away piece by piece, was changing him, too. How long did he have until he looked like Maddie? Like the little smudge of a girl?

  “Winter,” he murmured. “I’m Winter.” Terror scattered little black dots across his eyes. He turned toward the kitchens, where the boggart was still scouring every nook and corner, looking for him. Looking, but not seeing.

  Autumn, where are you?

   11

  IN WHICH CAI HUNTS FOR SPELLPRINTS

  It was almost midnight by the time Gran’s snores filled the cottage. Stealthy as the wind, Autumn crept out to the old beastkeepers’ hut and woke the boggart.

  The boggart wasn’t easy to wake. Autumn found him nestled inside the caved-in fireplace where he stored his favorite trinkets. Her lantern caught a flash of claws and a gleam of black eyes, the only hints of boggart that remained when he was bodiless.

  Autumn rapped on the wall above the fireplace, and then, when the boggart only groaned and went back to sleep, she reached in and scooped him out. But he was a bodiless monster, which aren’t very scoopable—the boggart simply drifted through her fingers and went back into the fireplace.

  “Boggart!” Autumn’s voice caught. She needed the boggart tonight—not only his ferocity, which wasn’t exactly on display at the moment, but his ability to sniff out enchantments. “Boggart!”

  WHAT, the boggart said.