The Girl from Shadow Springs

by Ellie Cypher

  “Then what about the Witch? Surely we need protection from her? That is what they are for, at least in some of the stories.”

  I laughed. Just how many questions were lodged in that head of his? “You mean the Ice-Witch that brings the storms and the ice and the snow? The one that don’t exist?”

  Cody frowned. “But don’t you ever wonder about it? That there could be something bigger than us out there? That this life, that it isn’t all there is? That there is something… more out there waiting for us, something different and real and wonderful?” A note of something desperate sad were in the question. I thought of that picture in his pocket. Of the bright-eyed boy in the sun. And his parents, smiling down at him.

  “No,” I said, surprising gentle, thinking how to explain. It weren’t my strong suit. “Cause this is it.” I gestured around me. “We only got one life, Cody Colburn. And it’s us that’s got to make it enough.

  “The North ain’t something you can learn in books, sitting in comfy chairs. This ain’t some dream, some adventure you have cause you’re bored. This is it, what you see. And it’s real and raw and painful. No matter how many stories you tell yourself, no matter how hard you think about ’em, there ain’t nothing that’s gonna save you from this.” An ache began to build down deep in my belly. “No matter how hard you try, this place, it kills you. Year by year. Takes everything from you one aching breath at a time. And I can tell you, Cody, there ain’t much adventure in that.”

  Cody were silent a long time, face real pensive like. “But you live here. Surely all those books I’ve read, all the lectures I’ve heard—my uncle’s research, it can’t all be wrong, can it? Legends have to start somewhere, Jorie. Why not here? After all, most of our own histories seem impossible if you stand far enough away. What are stories in the end but the truths we hide from ourselves?”

  I ran a hand over my face, scrubbing at the cold. How else could I tell him? When you weren’t sure where your next meal was coming from or who were gonna die next, you stopped askin silly questions. Quick. Curious ain’t ever something I’d had the privilege to be.

  “Just take those people we found under the ice,” he said.

  I side-eyed him. “Can’t say I’m inclined to.”

  “They were real. That story you told me, it was real,” he said, a note of awe in his voice. “That has to mean something. It just… does.”

  “It don’t.” I gave Cody a half glance. “Sometimes stories are just that. Stories. And the truth is that someone were bored and wanted to scare or cause fear or get people to give over their coin. Silent Lake is real, but it’s not because there is some avenging Ice-Witch out there punishing foolish men, it’s because men were foolish enough to try and live out here.”

  He opened his mouth.

  “Enough speculating.” Irritation bloomed. I were tired. And hurt. “What’s real is right now. It is those wounds on your side, your wrist. What’s real are the cracks in my ribs. The ox and the ice and wind. That were real. The people who listen to all them stories you love so much? Those are all the bodies layin dead out there in the Flats. Them, your uncle.” My Pa. I began to shake. “They all listened, just like you. And look at them now. Those stories only ever kill people, Cody Colburn. So I stopped listening to them years ago.” You can’t be hurt by what you don’t believe in.

  Cody were silent a long time. Long enough I thought he’d fallen asleep. But then he turned his eyes to mine, so that we weren’t bare a foot apart. “I’m sorry, Jorie. About all of it. About your family, my family. Your sister. And the Rover, the map and… everything.”

  My throat felt sudden hot. I turned my eyes away.

  Cody placed a gentle hand over mine. “You know, Jorie, I can make a new one.”

  I stared at where our bodies met.

  “A map. I can draw a new one. It might not be perfect, but—” He looked down into his hand over mine, shy or sad or both. “But the Rover won’t know that. You haven’t lost her yet. Not if I can still help it.”

  “I…” I didn’t know what to say. Thank you. That means everything. But instead of sayin it, instead of reaching out, I pulled my hand from his and stood up.

  “Great.” I walked over to scoop up a piece of burned scrap wood. I tossed it on the fire, where the tender flames ate it eager. I glanced at Cody’s expectant, beautiful face. Throat seizing tight. “I—I’m gonna go get more kindling. Stay here.”

  “Oh—okay,” Cody murmured.

  Feeling like a thousand kinds of stupid, I stumbled past him, turned away into the comforting darkness of the cave.

  But dark weren’t all that were there. A path had been cut through the sandy floor.

  Snatching up a low burning stick from the fire, I followed the heavy animal prints as they mixed with those of what looked like sets from two different people. One large and heavy, a man’s, and the other lighter and smaller. Like a child’s. My breath grew fast. A man and a child. Like maybe a girl. Like Bren.

  I ran. At the back of the cave, the walls tapered tight. But it didn’t end. Protecting the light ahead of me, and laying flat on my belly, I slid through. Finally, just as I began to panic I’d get stuck, the tunnel erupted into a massive cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites ruptured all around me like sets of giant teeth.

  I kept on, following them until I couldn’t. The cave dead-ended. I spun in circles at the far wall. My heart sinking. Cause though there were two sets, they not only went into the cave, but out of it too. There weren’t no one else here.

  I stared blankly at the wall in front of me. The wall stared back.

  I reached up and took out Bren’s pendant, running a cold finger over the smooth silver chain. Over and over until it were shinning so bright it were practically glowing. I must have been more tired than I’d thought. Frowning, I slipped the pendant under my coat and turned away. A flash of motion caught my eye.

  I froze. No, not motion. Not exactly. I lurched a step backward. The wall. It were shimmering. A trick of the light, surely. I reached out a hand; the stone rippled warm under my skin, and I snapped my hand back. There weren’t no water.

  Slick as silt my fingers brushed over the stone. The cold solid stone. I glanced down at my hands. Warmth spread from them up my arms, into my chest. Thrumming.

  I fell back from the wall. But the heat scorched through me. Burning. I couldn’t stop it any more than I could stop the blood pulsing through my veins.

  My home flashed into existence, blotting out the darkness of the cave. I blinked and blinked, but nothing changed. I could feel the flicker of the fire over my skin, the brush of Bren breathing next to me, smell Pa’s cooking. The weight of the warm hand that fell on my shoulder.

  “Tell me again,” I heard myself saying. “The one about the Witch and her pieces.”

  “Really? Of all my stories, that’s the one you want to hear?” My mother raised a brow. “Haven’t I told that one enough for you?” But she were laughing.

  I pressed in tighter to her knees, nestling. She dropped a warm kiss to my head. I yawned.

  “The girl had not always been a Witch. She was once a girl like you.”

  I smiled up at my mother, but her eyes were far away. “She had a mother and father and sister. And then one winter, a strange sickness ravaged the village where they lived. People and livestock fell sick, most dying. But not the girl’s family. The surviving villagers began to whisper. To call them unnatural. Dark magic. And so what appeared good luck soon turned to a curse. Desperate and scared, the villagers marched on the one family that did not suffer.” My mother paused, her breathing steady behind me. “They attacked the family’s home.”

  “That’s not nice.” My lips moved with the words. “They shouldn’t have done that.”

  “No. It is not, my darling.” She ran a hand through my hair. “I think that’s enough for—”

  “No, please, Ma, keep telling it.” Bren yawned from by the fire.

  Ma gave us an indulgent smile. “Very well.”
She hugged her arms across her chest. “Desperate, the girl cried out. For anyone who would hear. She would trade anything to save them. To protect them. And just when she thought she was most alone, that no one were coming, something answered. Old and long forgotten, it lurched out of the raging sea below their burning home. The villagers ran, but it was too late. The girl’s family was dead.

  “Grief cracked at the girl’s heart. And so she made a bargain. The power twisted half-truths and fancy promises into the girl’s heart. Those villagers had shown her family no mercy. Why should the girl show it to them? Surely she wanted vengeance? The power curled about the girl, drinking in her warmth, soaking in the beating heat of her heart. The bargain was struck. A mortal life for an immortal power. And magic, like burning moonlight, poured through the girl’s veins, pooling in her heart. The villagers tried to run, but the girl was hungry and would not be settled. In her body, the powers grew more and more wild with each villager. Until there was nothing left inside the girl but the bitter cold vengeance beating in her heart.

  “The remaining few villagers, weakened and thinned, made one last stand. They may not have been able to kill the newborn Witch, but they could hurt her. And so they wounded her where she was weakest. The girl’s already cracked heart. They were lucky. They stole the seven pieces, bound them in the Witch’s own blood, and hid them away. Piece by missing piece, the Witch grew too weak to fight back. Until there was not enough of her left to hold together. The villagers tricked what was left of her into a prison of ice. Sealed the way with bones and silver, not dead but no longer living. The villagers bound themselves to the prison. Pledged to watch over her always. Just as trapped by the ice as the Witch, who was left injured and raging inside.…”

  Sudden as plunging into the sea, I were thrust out of the vision, near drowned to breathlessness and aching alone. The cave the only reality around me. I scrambled back from the wall. At my feet the last burning ember of my light sputtered out.

  Fear sunk inside me. I turned and ran. Ran until the darkness of the stone had faded into nothing behind me. Until I were once again tethered strong. Here. In this cave. A silhouette in the darkness shimmered. Weren’t I? A thread of doubt, a real one, began twisting at my roots.

  When I got back, Cody were fast asleep, body curled up in a little ball. He looked so peaceful. So quiet. Trying not to cry, wishing fervent I weren’t going ice-touched, I slid down next to him and wrapped the bearskin tight. Letting the deep, warm living breath of the boy at my side wash over me. Let the steady solid warmth of him beat against me, let it lull me.

  My nerves slowed. I breathed in the crisp, clean cold of the coming storm, and the hard cold reality around me.

  Bren, Ma. Their faces soft in firelight, their voices warm. The happiness that fluttered inside my chest. Aching. I remembered it all. I did not move to dry my tears. Because I thought most of all of the sister I hadn’t been able to save.

  Cody’s words echoed inside me. What are stories in the end but the truths we hide from ourselves?

  Truths hidden in myth just waiting to swallow us whole.

  CHAPTER 20 Shallow Graves

  We traveled without rest for the next day and a half.

  I tried and failed to shove the night far into the back of my mind. I pushed us harder than I’d ever run before. As if, in the sweat and strain, I could outrun the memories in my bones. It did little good.

  Cody didn’t complain. In fact, he’d begun to not say much of anything at all. Getting so quiet that I had started to worry. And slow. But with the rest came new worries.

  Wild Falls. That were the last place I knew of that existed before Nocna Mora. But hour after hour, nothing. Nothing but more snow and ice. Maybe I’d led us wrong, swung us off course. I’d check us against the path of the sun, and between Cody and me, we were more than good enough with the stars at night. We should’ve been enough. There should’ve been a town. There weren’t.

  I could have sworn I kept seeing it, just shining over the horizon. Only when we got there, there weren’t nothing but snow. So we carried on until at last Cody and I both collapsed against the only structure we had found in days.

  A massive black rock wall erupted out of the ice. We’d seen it from leagues off.

  I imagined, stupidly, that this were what it looked like at the heart of a long frozen mountain.

  The more I studied the rock, the stranger it were. Near to three stories high, it were also massive wide. Deep indentations like the press of some giant fingers shaped it. As I got close to it, it radiated heat, warmed from the sun. It wasn’t the town, but it were large enough to block the wind.

  I panted to my feet and set about seeing to the dogs, who were busy biting at the rim of algae at the rock’s base. I knelt down. Sure enough, little bright green specks dotted the surface, like lichen. Only it didn’t grow out here, and—as I scrapped off a bit into my palm—it didn’t tend to glow. Still, it were the first sign of anything other than snow and ice and death we’d seen for a long while. It were welcome enough.

  Lettin out a groan, I got up to prep for the night. As I passed him, Cody gave a weak cough, pulling himself into the lowest cove. I didn’t like the wet of that cough.

  Taking off a glove, I pressed my palm to his face. Cool enough. No fever. I’d have to check again later, when he were warmer. I stepped back, turning away. Motion, quick and sharp, flashed out of the corner of my sight. I spun.

  And when I looked at Cody, I near to started. Cause there were two of him in the nook of rock. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Only one Cody waited for me this time. One boy and his reflection. I must be more dehydrated than I thought.

  Frowning, I put my glove back on and walked over to the kit. I were certain not thinking straight lately.

  I blinked, trying to shake the cold grip of memory. I was standing, though I do not remember doing it, and staring down at the small pile of my earthly goods. Right. I forced my body to move.

  Starting with a bowl of melt water. If I were dehydrated enough to see double, bad as we felt now, it would be a hundred times worse tomorrow. The eerie cry of an owl echoed out across the snow, though by rights there shouldn’t be any birds this far out. I swirled the snow in the bowl. While it melted, I worked on blocking the curve of the rock where Cody sat. A combination of the broken canvas, reins, and piling up the snow in front to seal it in.

  When I were done, I took a long drink, my lips cracking and raw. Rousin Cody, who were having trouble stayin awake long enough to take a deep pull, the whites of his teeth chatterin against the metal.

  I slumped down by Cody’s side. The white world rolled out before us. In the silence, Cody extended his furs. With hesitation, I pushed close.

  Sighing, Cody leaned in, the warmth of his body an unfamiliar comfort against my side. Overhead the owl’s cry echoed in the dark. I ran a hand over the back of my neck. At my side. Cody’s breath settled into the regular pattern of sleep next to me. Warmth against the cold. I pulled the furs over our heads.

  It was easier to be close to him like this. When he were sleeping. When I could watch the slow rise and fall of his chest, the flutter of his heartbeat and not worry. Not think on how I moved, or what I said, or if I said it too hard or too cold, too everything people had always told me I were. I didn’t know what that said about me, that I were better with people when they weren’t conscious.

  Careful, I pushed the loose strands of hair from his face. He looked so fragile there in the cold. As if I pressed him just right, he’d shatter. It weren’t fair. None of this were. For any of us. Everyone needed someone, didn’t they? Cody, he didn’t have no one left to hope for him. At least I had Bren. Even if I died trying, I would find her. But if Cody died, if he got lost out here in the Flats, there would be no one left to mourn him.

  An unexpected spike of heat pierced at my throat. We all needed someone. And right as I could figure, I owed Cody.

  “I won’t let you down, Cody Colburn.” I pressed a soft hand
over his heart. “I promise.”

  “Jorie,” he whispered.

  I froze. But he didn’t say no more. Just let out a long breath and tucked his face into my shoulder. I snapped my hand back to my side. But he didn’t wake.

  I cussed my foolishness.

  It were always easier to make promises when no one were listening. I slid his head off me and curled deeper into my furs, uncaring that a pit of something dangerous had begun heating inside my chest.

  Or maybe, as I leaned back into the smooth black rock, it was that I were simply too tired to know the difference between what were exhaustion and what were sadness.

  Tucked up together in the warm hollow of the rock, sleep were surprisingly easy to come. This time, it weren’t wakefulness, but the ache of the nightmares that were impossible to avoid.

  It were my shiverin what woke me first.

  I tried to open my eyes, but all there were was blackness. My heart skipped a beat before I knew what were wrong. The furs had slipped off my face, and my eyelids froze closed. I must have been crying in my sleep. With care I peeled the ice off, lash by ice-covered lash. I let out a long sigh.

  Cause it weren’t like the sight that greeted me were any better than the nightmares, dreams of Bren stumbling alone out on the Flats, of Bren calling my name, trying to tell me something important, to warn me. And when I ran, I never got closer. A phantom in the snow, always just out of reach.

  I shoved my way up onto my feet, furs falling to the ice beneath me. I began packing up. Behind me, Cody stirred.

  Ignoring him—weren’t no kindness to wake him a moment sooner than needed—I forced my cramping muscles up. I had to see to the dogs. When I’d finished, still something itched at me. Like the cracking of sea ice under my skin, my nerves felt like they were splitting.

  I hugged my arms about myself. The quivering weren’t stopping. Cody placed a gentle hand on my arm. I blinked. And dropped the ice-stone. When had I even picked it up? A sensation, not unlike the lingering trail of a finger, passed down my side. I shook out my arms. I turned from Cody, cheeks flushing.