by Ellie Cypher
I refused to look away. My wits, dazed as they were, were coming back. I forced my shoulders square. With a grunt and a curse, the Rover pushed past me rough and stepped out into the passage. I sprinted after him.
Too slow.
He’d already got Bren over his shoulder by the time I got into the room.
“You put her down. Right now.” I screamed it, the last of the concussed stupor gone. My body felt aflame. The Rover only laughed, low and loud.
In the flash of an eye, the beast was at his feet, black body whipping back and forth. The Rover put one hand on the door. Smiling at me, he opened it. Outside a blizzard were howling. The world nothing but freezing swirls of grays and green.
“You give her here. Or I’ll kill you.” I moved, snapping forward, only to come up short. The beast lunged across my path. The Rover laughed harder, hoisting Brenna higher up onto his shoulder.
“That ain’t how this is gonna go, girl. I figured he had a friend out here, way he were carrying on. And a liar is a liar. Can smell it right as bear scat in the wild. I sure as stars didn’t make it this far for some little girl to stop me getting what I’m owed.”
I clenched my fists. The Rover held up a hand.
“And desperate a case as you’re making, girl, it ain’t till you give me what I know you have that you get her back. Till then, I reckon she’s sweet enough to do just fine. People’ll pay good for those mismatched eyes of hers.”
“Stop! Where are you taking her?”
“Smart girl like you, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He pulled down his goggles, masking his face. “You know, two will sell better than one.” And with that, the man strode out into the storm.
I ran after him, hurtling out into the wide frost-eaten earth that surrounded the house.
But I couldn’t see them. Couldn’t see the Rover, or the wolf, or Bren. I couldn’t see much of anything—except there. Soft red drips of Bren’s blood fallen in the snow.
I followed, but after only a few steps the color faded. And then were gone. My breath came in short. No. I spun. I couldn’t lose her.
Shielding my eyes from the wind, I ran on. But the snowstorm was picking up. The storm whipped wickedly at my unprotected face, eating at the warmth of my exposed skin, licking at the edges of my jumper.
Even without the sun reflecting, the snow could be blinding. Tears froze and cracked against my face. I ripped at them wildly. Ripping flesh and ice away in equal raw measure. But no amount of looking would find something that weren’t there.
Forcing my body forward, I ignored the burning ache of cold running through my veins. I scanned the ground. A single set of footprints pressed into the snow. Human ones. Trail leading straight into town. I ran. Faster than I’d ever run.
But the footsteps, they began to fade, buried by the falling show. No, no, no. I ran harder, stumbling on legs so numb I couldn’t feel nothing from my knees down and still I ran.
Then the footprints were gone. Just gone. I twisted, faltering—a wall of freezing gray was all there were.
“Bren! Brenna!” I called, but the wind stole my voice.
My heart thundered in my chest. A frantic rhythm my failing muscles couldn’t use. I collapsed to my hands and knees, scraping skin against the cold of the ice and snow. A hard warmth slipped under my hand. I blinked down, barely able to breathe. Half-hidden under the snow, like a shiver of memory, the stone still held to the heat of her skin. I blinked and blinked at it.
Bren’s pendant. The silver-blue stone near to purred with familiarity against my skin. My throat tightened. It weren’t something Bren would ever leave behind. Not willingly. I tried to rise. To stand. And failed, slipping.
The last two things I remember were the crunch of snow under my fingernails as I clutched at the pendant, and a large dark shape raging out of the blinding whiteness of the storm. Right at me.
CHAPTER 4 Cold Burns Deep
I woke next to a half-smothered fire, cold floor at my back. My face warm as I blinked against the heavy layers of ash settled in my lashes. I sneezed. And then immediately started coughing. I took a long moment to settle, blinking back tears.
Everything hurt fierce. I could just feel my fingers. I wiggled my feet. And only some of my toes. I ran a hand over my face. At least I weren’t currently freezing.
I rolled over onto my side and wiped at the spit on my lips. The back of my hand came away gray and black. At my side a soft tug, gentle but insistent, pulled at the hem of my shirt. When I looked down, there weren’t nothing there. I frowned. At least the fire was warm.
Then, sharp as a crack of lightning cross the midnight sky, everything came flooding back. The storm. The Rover. Brenna. I had to go. How long had I been asleep, how long—heart near to seizing, my fingers fumbled for the pocket of my shirt. Till they curled tight around the lump. Breath shot out of me. Cause it were still there. Bren’s pendant. Her stone restin warm against my skin, like a second heart beating next to mine.
“Done yourself a disservice, girl.” The voice that cut across my addled thoughts were rough, but it was familiar. “Take days to warm you up. And just what kind of fool idea you had stuck in that freckled little noggin of yours, I’ve no idea. Wandering into a blizzard like that, no coat. Right rum if you ask me.”
“I have to find her.” I sprang to my feet. Well, at least tried to. Only just caught myself on a haphazard stack of scrap wood in front of the fireplace, shaking something terrible.
“Jorie, you just sit your rear end back down right this second. You hear me?”
I spun round and, knees wobbling, took a step backward. A high-pitched cry filled the room. I looked down, just in time to see one very pissed-off ferret scurrying across the floor. Well, least I knew who had been harrying my shirt.
Della shook her chin. “The way you are right now, your mother would’ve killed me for just letting you stand up on your own. Right now you ain’t fit to so much as clean your leathers, let alone go back out there. And there’s no small matter ’bout that storm still raging, either.”
I darted a glance at the small window where Cur, Della’s white-coated ferret, had taken up offended residence. One eye on his groomin, the other on me. Just in case.
Behind him it were a stark contrast. Through the thick bottle-glass window it were dark as night. The blizzard was right raging outside. A low whistle of air rushed in through small gaps between the wooden planks of the one-room house. The storm’s breathing stirring the fire’s embers like a lick of demon’s breath.
Della eyed me, wary. As if maybe she’d have to tackle me from trying to run. She didn’t need to bother. Even if I wanted to run out there, storm like this, I’d be froze before I’d even had time to call Bren’s name. I slumped back onto the floor. In the silence, determination coiled with guilt in my gut. If I couldn’t leave now, I would leave the first second I could. The very first.
“She must be right angry tonight, sending us a storm like that.” Della frowned, fingers darting quick over her heart as she muttered out a few words.
I turned away. I learned long ago there just weren’t no point arguing that the Ice-Witch weren’t someone to believe in. That there weren’t no curse to blame for the ice and snow and death that littered the Flats. Weren’t no Witch to fault for when children stopped breathing in the night. Or when animals collapsed under the weight of the water freezing in their veins. Or when your pa weren’t never gonna come back in from the snow. No matter how much you needed him to. Or how much your sister cried.
Stifling a pang of memory, I let my hands fall into my lap, tryin and failin to rub a little warmth into the tips. The cold had just plain come to stay. Permanent. And there weren’t nothing to do about it but live. But Pa’d always said, Let people find comfort where they can. Stars above knew there was little enough of that to go around.
I glanced up at the window. Della were right about one thing. That storm. Bad as I’d seen in a long time. Getting worse every year, they were. Longer, c
older. Deadlier. As if with each year the winter crept just ever so much closer, unwilling to let go. Times like this, even I reckoned it weren’t too hard to believe in all them myths after all.
I’d only the fuzziest memories of a time before the ice, when something akin to spring still came to Shadow Springs. Green and bright and full of sun. But it had to be a dream. Cause true spring? This town ain’t seen that for a generation. Pa used to tell us about the time he’d seen one once, when he were young, when he met our ma just after she’d arrived in town. But me and Bren hadn’t. Not really. Just the pale imitation, a flicker of warmth.
From his gray perch by the window Cur padded his way over to my lap. He nestled into the crook of my arm. Once his pink nose were buried, he let out a half-muffled little chirp. I smiled raw. He smelled of fresh burning pine and something sweet. I held him close.
“Now that you’re finally full awake, ya gonna tell me what you were doing out there, besides tryin to get yourself froze to death?” Della asked, rocking back in her chair, eyebrows raised. Before she’d taken to burying bodies for the town—when she grew too old and too married for her first trade—Della had been like me. Making her living scavenging off the Flats. So she knew. Knew I wouldn’t have run out there without reason.
“He took her, Della.” The words were all scratchy.
“Who took who?” Della demanded. No one messed with Della. She’d had enough knocks for ten lifetimes. And then some.
I took a deep breath, pushing myself to my knees. “A Rover callin himself Reeves.”
Della sucked in her breath, stopped rocking. Her hand went to the stock of her gun, displacing the few paltry winter fox and raccoon hides covering it.
“He came for a body, Della. But he took Bren. He just took her.” My whole body ached so fierce even my bones hurt, just saying the words out loud. Cause with ’em, any last hope it weren’t real evaporated on my tongue.
“You start right from the beginning, Jorie. And mind you tell me everything,” Della said, lips curling to expose more than a few missing and blackened teeth.
A knock against the wall. We both started.
“The wind,” Della said. “Shifting the snows, that all.”
I put my head in my hands, a deep pinch clenching about my heart.
“Della, there weren’t nothing I could do. He were waitin for me, like he had a plan.” My words felt heavy. “Why would he be doing that? Why?”
Della pursed her lips, rocking back as Cur darted into her lap. “You aren’t the only one round here to be seeing strangers, Jorie.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning, and don’t leave no detail out, no matter how small. It may be that you saw more than you know.”
I closed my eyes, swallowing down the bile of the memory, and told her. Of the Rover in our kitchen, in our living room, of his leering face as he’d carried Bren out into that storm. And away from me. I opened my eyes. My hands had become fists at my sides. “The Rover had a silver chain in his hand, all twisted up his arm—”
Della sudden stopped her rocking. “With a red stone?”
“I—yes. How did you know that?”
“That settles it.” Della gave a twist of her lip, face troubled.
“Settles what?” There was something about her look.
Della glanced to the rifle at her side, clearing her throat. “Last night there was a scuffle outside my door. A right toss-up. Thought strays were into the bin again.”
I tilted on the edge of my toes.
“Only when I got there it weren’t animals that were fightin. It were men. Two of ’em thrashing in the snow, fighting worrisome like. One I couldn’t see real well, but I did notice a flash of bright hair.… auburn maybe, and the other one, he were real tall. Both of ’em hollering something fierce.”
My breathing felt heavy. As if trying to take in air against a wet cloth. “What were they arguing about?”
“Money. Some big trade gone wrong.” Della scrunched her brow. “The big man had told something he shouldn’t have. Duped into saying it. A result he weren’t too keen on, I can tell you that much.” Della shook her head, soft. “There were a scream and then a spark of light as the smaller one ran for it.”
“It has to be the same Rover. It just does. Maybe he’s still here.” Please.
“Maybe. But Jorie,” Della said, “ya didn’t see them, the way they were fighting. Men like that don’t tend to stick around. Not after they get what they want.”
“Did you see which way they went at least? After, I mean.” What were it to me if the Rover had robbed the other man? I only cared what he’d stole from me.
Della shook her head. “They scuttled off right quick when I took that first shot. But that snowstorm were rising too fast, couldn’t see naught else.” Della’s frown deepened. “But mark my words, any man dead desperate enough to think he can run off into the night, he’s done for anyways. That and the gun the tall one pulled as he ran after him would settle his blood quick enough.”
“Della, can you think of anything else? What about a dog? Did they one of them have some kinda dog with them?” Dog was an understatement, but I didn’t know what else to call it. Not without sounding as if I’d less wits than Cur. But if she had seen the beast, maybe it would lead me to the Rover.
“No. Nothing, Jorie. I’m sorry.” Della pursed her lips, studying me, eyes bright. Finally, with a grunt, she shuffled over to the hearth. Quiet, she lay kindling on and stoked the embers back into flame. We stared at them together for a long time. We both knew I wasn’t leaving.
Cur on her shoulder, Della walked back over and sat in her chair, settling down. “If there’s one Rover sniffin round like a mutt in heat, you can bet there’s more. And if he’s not alone and one of ’em’s already targeted you…” She fixed me with her stare. “Don’t you trust no one, Jorie, you hear me. You got something they want, no matter if you know it or not. And there ain’t no one round here that can’t be got at.”
For the right price. I nodded sharp.
“You and your sister’s in more trouble than you know.”
CHAPTER 5 Shadow Springs
The storm didn’t let up its thrashing till midday next. And like a winter-starved hare, I was up and out before the sun were fully risen cross the horizon.
All around it were like a fresh-cleaned skin of white. The blizzard had smoothed and smothered everything. Tree boughs hung thick, tucked down against sleet-covered trunks. Not a lick of life to be seen. No tracks. No directions. No way to tell me I weren’t the only living thing in the world.
Shoving at the thigh-high deep snow, I tugged Della’s jacket tight. At least the wind had merciful settled down. Though the silence, still and cold and sharp as cut glass, were near as uncanny as the storm. Hunkering down, I let the broken wooden mouth of Della’s fallow garden gate bang shut behind me, boards rattlin loose, and took my first step toward town.
Shadow Springs was as much a set of half-caved-in boarded-up shacks as it was a town. More so, maybe. Three streets wide, with only one central road, it weren’t much to see. Less you liked rotting wood. And didn’t mind that nothing sat at right angles to nothing else.
It had been something, once. Something big, Pa had said. When people from towns all over the North would come and stay. Try their luck at prospecting or trapping or hunting out on the ice. But the gold and the furs—just like the hope—had never really panned out. Then winter had come. And the only people who showed up in town weren’t after the furs.
Still, taking the turn around the last abandoned building on the edge of town—the pine walls of the old jailhouse stuck up like giant ribs jutting from the snow—I kept my eyes keen. And my ears alert.
The bar, which also served as the only inn in town, was the biggest and squarest building on Main Street. It were also the only place I was likely to find someone.
Frowning, I took the crumbling stairs outside the bar three at a time. I sho
ved at the door, which were tall and thin, the hinges giving a cough of rusty protest. Kicking the bags of sand blocking the bottom seam of the doorway to the side, I shook off the fine dusting of snow from my coat.
I stamped my feet and gave a snort. Room sure was packed. A whole three people. The same drunks there always were, slumped about the room, more drenched leather and unwashed body than real men. The room smelled of stale smoke and the dank rot of slow blackening wood.
Dev wasn’t out in the main room, but he’d like as not be in the back minding his stock, refilling the liquor bottles or attempting to repair something that were near to as hopeless as this whole stars-forsaken town. The various clocks, storm glass and barometers lined up behind the bar ticked slow and steady, the only motion in stillness as I made my way toward the long bar. Halfway there, I froze, my stride pulled short.
A boy, one I didn’t right know, slumped against the far side of the bar, his body half hid by shadow in the stale yellow light. Careful eye on him, I strode the rest of the way over.
This close, the smell of whiskey floated off his thin frame. It were dank. I wrinkled my nose and leaned over to grab a bottle from under the counter. A pile of half-washed glasses clanked.
The boy didn’t look up.
I hooked my foot and kicked a stool out from the bar, the wood legs gritting over the uneven floor. Dev’s scarred face appeared from the back room, cleaning rag tossed over his shoulder. He gave me his familiar grunt of a greeting. A flutter of guilt brushed against my gut. It had been a long time since I’d come to visit him. It weren’t nothing against Dev. Opposite, really. He and Pa had been close as brothers once. Then Pa had died, fallen out on the ice. It were an accident. That there must’ve been a flaw in the pack ice he didn’t see. They said that there were nothing anyone could’ve done. He’d hit his head and bled out. Alone. Cause I weren’t there to help him. You lived out here long enough, eventually you died. It weren’t like I didn’t get that. But even in this stars-forsaken town he didn’t have to die alone.
