The Girl from Shadow Springs

by Ellie Cypher

  “Why? Why do you care so much? They aren’t even your stories.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin. “Because a world like that one, Jorie? One with no Scholars to impress, or people to please—where being brave and good and kind are more important than status, connections, or wealth—it would be a paradise. My whole life, I’ve wished more than anything for a place where just one single worthy heart could stop the world from breaking. A place where someone who has been overlooked their whole life, where they mattered. A place I… I mattered.”

  I kept my eyes firmly fixed straight ahead.

  Cody rubbed his hands together, shifting his feet. “But then I went to live with my uncle… he studied the histories, so I asked him about that wild, but all he would talk about was the research. The facts,” he said low and bitter. “Only then he stumbled across something in his studies that made him pause. And then it was him asking me about them. And saying that wild world of myth is all really real. Vydra is real.” Wonder raw tinged his voice. “Don’t you think it’s magnificent?”

  Yes. No. I didn’t know. I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to be away, anywhere but here, away from the too-close memories I didn’t want to look at. From the coil of emotion dangerous close to sympathy spooling in my stomach.

  “Jorie?”

  I didn’t reply. Cody turned to me, smile serious.

  “What?” I grunted. A tremor as if I were about to step out onto a fresh edge of ice flashed through my spine.

  Cody looked down at his hands. “Never mind.”

  The silence went on long enough that it started to get awkward. Something of that feeling twisted painful in my gut. I should say something. Anything. I cleared my throat.

  “If it makes you feel better, Bren always said the same thing. That it was only me who weren’t looking at it right—” I flushed. Don’t be a fool. Cody don’t care about you or Bren, not really. He’s only here for his uncle. You are the means to the end. No one is nice for nothing.

  But then Cody’s eyes flashed to mine and he smiled. It were quick as the flash of silver beneath the sea. Beautiful bright and unexpected. A sudden thrum of heat twisted though my chest. “You might think it beautiful out here, but this wild? It ain’t kind. It’ll eat you alive if you let it.”

  For the barest of moments, his smile faltered. Only to redouble, blinding sharp. “Danger and beauty are not always so different, you know.”

  I looked away. Looked anywhere but his face. Feeling like that, it weren’t for people like me. For girls that had to survive. A stone weren’t hard because it wanted to be, but because it had to be. Else it’d be nothing but sand.

  “Sentimental and dead ain’t always so different neither.”

  Cody only beamed at me, brilliant and happy, as if I’d said some great joke.

  “That ain’t a compliment,” I said. “A wolf might be beautiful, but if you think she won’t tear out your throat when she’s hungry, you’ve got more than a few bloody surprises coming your way.”

  His smile widened, crinkling the edges of his eyes. I tossed up a hand. He were impossible.

  Cody turned his auroral gaze out to the molten glow of the setting sun. “But the greatest mystery of the North is, is she real?”

  I frowned. “Is who real?”

  “The Ice-Witch, of course.”

  “What? No.” I stared, incredulous. That were certain an unexpected turn in conversation. And an even more ridiculous one than the last.

  “Oh.” He flicked his eyes to mine. “I just thought, since you’ve lived up here and you, well, you know”—he waved generally—“have survived well enough, what with you bringing in all those bodies, that maybe—”

  “Well, you thought wrong,” I snapped. “And I ain’t all alone, I’ve got Bren.”

  Cody had enough decency to look chagrined.

  Good. “So I’d thank you to do your own thinkin and leave me to mine.” I had one job, one girl to save, and I wouldn’t be distracted. It were better this way. It were.

  “I’m sorry, that was rude.” He placed a hand gentle on my arm. “But I would really like to know what you think. I’ve only read about this in books. But you, you’ve lived it.” Cody’s lips tipped up in a grin. A tiny echo of warmth rose inside me. Aching.

  I jerked my arm away and rubbed the spot where his hand had rested. Who was this boy? “It ain’t so great as all of that,” I muttered.

  “But you know them,” he said.

  “They are just stories.”

  “Aren’t they just.” Cody’s face crunched down and he went silent. For a long time.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. Rather than answer, he turned away to study the dogs.

  “How far can they run in a day?”

  I tilted my head at the question. His attention were bouncing all over the place. But I didn’t argue. No more talk of Witches were well and good with me. “Depends. But if we don’t hit too much trouble, twenty to thirty leagues in a day ain’t bad.”

  “As far as that, huh?” Cody, more troubled than before I’d answered, wandered over and in silence helped pack the sled back up.

  The trip turned too rough to keep conversation going, which suited me just fine. We made decent enough time, but the wind soon grew to a near constant headwind and stunted our route. By the time the sun set and it had become too risky to continue, we’d not made it to the next town.

  Some luck held out, as I spotted a promising-looking outcropping of rocks. It weren’t much, but with the ice becoming more and more unpredictable the farther out we went, I weren’t about to run the team at night. In the dark there were no one to see you fall. Cody didn’t protest as I’d pulled us up into the meager protection of the rocks and told him to get out.

  Below us a harsh golden glow strummed across the ice. Sunset igniting the world at our feet, as if we stood upon a river of fire running through the glacier’s veins. Maybe it were a little beautiful after all. Not that I were gonna tell him that.

  Cody cupped his hands over his face, blowing out heat from his lungs. “How much longer till Nocna Mora, do you think?”

  “Takes what it takes.” I rubbed the light caking of sweat that had settled into my eyebrows.

  Though the rocks displaced most of the wind, the temperature were dropping fast. Cody pulled the bearskin tighter around his shoulders. I busied myself feeding the dogs. After a moment Cody came up beside me and reached down.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Fen don’t take kindly to outsiders. Specially when the pack’s eating.” But my warning came up—as usual with Cody—a bit too late.

  Cody had already stuck his hand out, his palm about an inch above the sled dog’s raised hackles. But to my surprise, that were all she did.

  Instead of snapping or pinning her ears, Fen gave Cody a curious sniff and a sharp tilt of her head before trotting off to join the rest of her pack.

  “Nice dog.” Cody smiled, walking over to my side.

  I shot him a quick look. Like me, nice weren’t something Fen were usually called.

  “Funny thing to name her though, wouldn’t you say.”

  I grunted.

  “Fen. Short for Fenrir? Monstrous wolf who ate a distant god,” he said.

  I snorted, hefting off some of the kit from the sled and setting it into the snow. “Not too far off then.”

  Cody must have mistaken my comment for interest in his opinion, and he went on. In bloody verse, no less.

  “Unfettered will fare the Fenrir Wolf, and ravage the realm of men.…”

  I hunched my shoulders. For a tagalong who were about dead only a day ago, he sure had the energy to talk. A lot. The tent were in here somewhere. I dug in deeper, shifting the sulfur globes. More than a few were colder than I’d like. Thin cracks of ice forming at the stoppered end. Not useless, but used. And if they split open? Stink something fierce.

  “You know, this would be a lot easier if you maybe helped. Start with not moving everything around
in here. Basket’s as stirred up as a marmot’s burrow.” I sniffed the canvas shelter, thankful it only smelled of old shoes and dried earth. I tossed it out onto the ground, where it hit with a burst of flurries. Cody ambled over to my side, humming. I shot him a sideways glance.

  “Here. Make yourself useful.” I chucked Cody one of the hinged poles. He caught it smartly and began unfolding it.

  Only a few misdirections—including Cody tryin to put the center pole up ’long the side so that it looked half skewered—and we had it put up right and proper. Unlike last night, where we’d the shelter of the barn, out here this were it. The small canvas covering flapped lonesome in the cold. One tent. For the two of us. My stomach gave a funny turn.

  Must be all the salt-dried food and not enough water. Cold didn’t make you realize how much water you was actually losing.

  Piling the pelts high, I glanced over my shoulder. The dogs were naught but little rolls of fur, faces and tails tucked in tight against the night. Wind blew past, breathing life back into the snow about my ankles, sending tendrils of cold up my spine. I snugged my fur coat tighter about my waist.

  Overhead, billows of gray-green clouds poured in. The promise of frost in their vaporous hearts.

  Taking the few steps over to the rocky overhang, I snapped off a couple of the more promising-looking icicles. Their cold bare registered in my hands as they slipped into my pocket. When I got back to the tent, I paused. Cody stood just a few yards away, back to me, coat wrapped tight about his shoulders. I called out, he didn’t turn round. The dip of his head the only sign he’d heard me. Otherwise he just stayed eyes fixed out over the white of the ice, unfurled in an unending tundra around us. I didn’t blame him. It were… a lot. Shaking, I ducked in and set myself into the tent.

  The small space more comforting than confining in the cold. Lighting one of the few stubby candles, I placed it careful inside the glass belly of the rusted lantern and started thawing what little would amount to our dinner. A flush of smoke filled the air.

  After a short time, Cody joined me, taking up the front half of the shelter. I scuttled as far back as I could. Even though it did feel sudden like he were all too close, least his body heat scattered the dull ache of cold. Pretty soon I couldn’t even see my breath.

  Aware of every motion I made, I handed Cody half what should’ve been my dinner. Slipping off my inner gloves, I arranged the bearskins under me, nestling in tight, and began the sad process of making more dinner. One eye never leaving Cody. I took a deep breath, pushing a little farther away.

  He were just too close. My heart beating too fast for my liking, I ran a hand over my neck, feeling the weight of the pendant that hung there. Don’t be ridiculous, Jorie, I scolded myself. What does him being this close matter any road? With what waited for us out on the ice, best get used to him now. Cause this were certain gonna get more uncomfortable before the end.

  Cody didn’t need telling twice about his dinner. Eager as the dogs to eat. Though eating were a generous term for what he were doing. Despite myself, a little smile crept at the edge of my lips.

  “Slow down, Southerner, you’re gonna choke eating it like that,” I said.

  Cody held up the strip of meat, looking at it as if it were some strange object he ain’t ever seen before. “Are you certain you didn’t mix up the rations with the leather reins? Please tell me this is… not supposed to be edible?” he asked real hopeful.

  I grunted out a grudging laugh. “You gotta warm it first.” I opened my hands to show my piece. “Then chew it. Unless you don’t want your teeth.”

  Clear annoyed—I would be too if I didn’t know how to eat—Cody did what I showed him, and with some persistence, were finally able to rip off an edible section.

  Leaning across the small space, I held out the cup of water I’d melted for us when I’d seen to the dogs. Cody took it, his bare fingers brushing mine. I snapped my hand back.

  “What is that?” Cody asked. And for a long moment I were confused. Cody pointed at me. “It’s beautiful,” he added. Which only made me more confused, and a heat rose in my chest. I looked down. Oh. Right.

  Bren’s pendant swung at my neck. The ice-stone caught the flickering flame in its many facets, looking near enough to a beating heart. I shoved it back under my shirt.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Cody frowned. He slipped one hand into his pocket. “It didn’t look like nothing. It is just that it reminds me of something my uncle…”

  “It ain’t mine. And I said it were nothing, alright? So it’s nothing.” I swallowed hard.

  Cody held up his hands in surrender. Only they weren’t empty.

  “You swiped that,” I said, more curiosity than heat.

  “Yeah, sorry. But it is—was my uncle’s. Though I suppose now it is mine.” He blinked down at the compass. And real gentle he ran his fingers over the silvered surface. It clicked open. “He always told me he won it in a game of cards.” He gave a little laugh. “Said he wasn’t sure which had been more extraordinary: that he had won the game at all, or that the old man had handed this over. Some spun-up tale about it having held a shard of a fallen star. It was from the North country certainly, but it was just broken silver. Whatever else the compass once held, it had long since been lost.”

  I held my breath, but there were a great big nothing inside. “Just impressed I didn’t see you take it is all.” What had I been expecting? The map? You’d seen it were empty before, Jorie. Don’t be a fool.

  Cody saw me staring and gave me a sideways smile. He closed the case. I could just see letters running around the outer rim.

  “What does that say?” I asked.

  “Sanguinem veritas stellis.” His words were thin. A dusting of gloom chilled through me.

  Cody cleared his throat, eyes meeting mine. “It means, roughly, In the blood of starlight, truth. Or close enough to it.”

  “But that don’t mean nothing real, does it?”

  “My uncle always did have a flare for the dramatic. Didn’t make him many friends. Though that doesn’t much matter to him now.” The shine of water brimming in his eyes. He wiped it away. “I guess I have nothing now too.” He said it sad, and slid the compass back into his coat. “Useless.”

  I opened and then closed my mouth. Comfort weren’t something came natural to me.

  We ate the rest of our dinner in silence.

  Not that there weren’t a lot to say. I gave a hesitant glance at the boy across from me. Only that the quiet had always suited me fine.

  And so too did the cold.

  CHAPTER 14 Echoes in the Snow

  From underneath the ice a flash of silver that caught my eye. That made me stop.

  “What is it, Jorie?” In the basket of the sled, Cody whipped his head around, searching for the danger.

  I stared down at my feet. “A trick of the light. That’s all.” I waved my hand. But it weren’t all. Not by a long shot.

  I kicked the covering of snow from the sheet of ice, smearing the flakes across the blue surface. Through the frozen water, an unblinking face stared back at me. A young woman. Golden waves of hair suspended still about a heart-shaped face.

  A silver necklace floating up and off her thin neck, pressed against the underside of the frozen lake. I fought back a deep shiver.

  Below me, the girl’s mouth was slightly open, teeth parted as if in prayer. And she weren’t alone down there. More forms hung suspended in fleshy shadows around her. Men, women, horses, caribou. I refused to count them. There were too many.

  The image of another blond girl, this one’s hair back in fishtail braids, flashed up. My sister’s face, perfect and pale and more scared than anything I’d ever seen, disappearing below the surface of the cracking ice. I had run. Sliding to a stop at the gaping brim of the ice, my body gone cold as I pressed against it, my fingers reaching.…

  We was just seven and eight. I had walked that floe a hundred times, if not more. The ice should have been solid for
another month at least. But it weren’t. I’d trekked out not knowing, and behind me, bluebell braids whipping in the wind, had followed Bren.

  If I hadn’t found her fingers with mine… if I hadn’t held on… if Pa hadn’t heard me scream. I pressed my eyes shut. Only this time when I opened my eyes the girl’s face that stared up at me through the ice weren’t Bren’s. None of the people down there were. Not that anyone could save them now.

  I stood there numb, clutching to Bren’s pendant. Heartbeat after heartbeat, I felt naught but the swell of my breathing and the cold stone in my palm.

  “That poor girl,” Cody said, kneeling on the ice. “How terrible.”

  “And Winter swallowed them whole.”

  “What was that?” Cody tilted his head toward me.

  “I…” I didn’t mean to say it out loud. “Nothing.”

  He pressed his lips but didn’t push. For which I were glad enough. Overhead the clouds parted and a dark shadow passed below us under the ice. “Do you see that?” Cody’s eyes widened.

  I did. The edge of a submerged building visible just under the body of the girl. And then another. It were a whole town down there.

  “What happened here?” Cody turned to me. As if I somehow knew all the answers.

  A wry twist of my lips, I turned to him. I suppose I did know this one. “Yesterday you were askin ’bout all the stories, the tales of what happens out here on the Flats. Well”—my breath came out short—“now you’ve seen one.”

  The ice under our feet gave an ominous groan.

  “Oh,” he mouthed.

  Oh were right. “It’s called Silent Lake.” I walked back to the sled. I didn’t turn to see if Cody were following.

  Cody plunked down in the sled. “What is the story? If you don’t mind telling me.”

  I hitched the team up. Taking the reins, I cleared my throat and stood next to the sled, one foot on the rails. “The Silent Lake was supposed to be a warning.”