by M. E. Breen
Page threw open the door.
“You are not excused!” the king bellowed.
She slammed the door behind her.
He raised his arm over his head. Annie felt a flash of panic and rage. But it was only, after all, to pull the tasseled rope that hung beside the throne.
Annie caught up with Page outside the door to her room. Her sister’s limp had been more noticeable coming up the stairs and even now, standing still, she shifted her weight from her bad leg to her cane. Watching her, Annie felt a sudden surge of love so strong she didn’t know what to do with it. In the old days, she would have grabbed her around the waist and not let go. Now she took Page’s hand in her own and simply held it.
“I don’t want to stay here any longer,” Page whispered.
Annie glanced up and down the hallway. “Together, with Sharta, we could leave,” she said. “We could leave tonight! We’ll need weapons, a map, food. Can he hunt for himself, do you think?”
Page was looking at her strangely.
“And lanterns! Of course we’ll need lanterns. And plenty of matches and candles.”
Page kept looking at Annie in that strange way. Then, slowly, she smiled. “You’re mad, you know that?”
“You said Sharta wanted to warn his pack about Gibbet. So we’ll do it! Then you and I can …”
“Storm the orphanage and rescue Gregor?”
“Well, why not?” Annie said hotly. “With Sharta …”
“Perhaps not Sharta alone.”
“What do you mean?”
Page’s voice turned brisk. “I’ll get what we need. Be ready an hour after dark.”
The fourth time she tripped over Prudence Annie bent down and scooped her up, slinging her over one shoulder like a stole. Already she was dressed in everything she owned. She had even polished her new boots, which needed polish about as much as the knick-knacks had needed dusting and the chairs straightening. She wished she had all those things to do over again. She tried the door, knowing it wouldn’t budge. Page had locked her in before she left, in case anyone came by to check. Strictly speaking, she and Annie were both still prisoners of the crown.
At last the dark came. Fifteen, twenty, thirty-five, forty, fifty, fifty-five … at exactly sixty minutes past dark, a piece of paper appeared under the door.
It was a page cut from a book, a very old book. The lettering was curly and hard to read. A gold border ran around the edge of the paper. Thumbnail-size paintings of animals filled the margins. The title of the book was written at the top: A Compendium of Creatures. Below that were a big gold letter Band the words Badger—Brightling.
Badger, Barry Owl, Beaver, Bellaphel, Bittern. In the middle of the page was an entry somewhat shorter than the others.
Black Wolf: (pl. wolves) Warm-blooded and carnivorous. Forest-dwelling. Similar in form to Frigian Ice-wolf, with pelt of black or russet hue. Largely nocturnal, vision exceptionally keen. Habits unknown. Much feared for its eerie cry. Common folk names: Witch’s Wolf, Kinderstalk.
In the margin was pictured the tiny, perfect likeness of a kinderstalk. It might have been Sharta, except with two bright dots of amber for the eyes. Annie turned the page over. On the back, where the black painted kinderstalk showed through the paper like a stain, Page had written a few lines: It’s time you knew their proper name. I’ll be back for you. Don’t hate me.—P
After an hour the bone key cracked in her hand. Page had jammed something in the lock from the outside. An icy breeze touched Annie’s damp skin, the back of her neck. The window must be open, she thought vaguely, and shivered. Then she raised her head: the window.
She could have picked a bouquet of flowers easily from where she sat on the sill, but this part of the vine was still new growth. The woody stem of the main plant clung to the palace wall several feet to her right. She would have to jump to reach it. Far below her the lawn glittered with frost beside vivid flowerbeds.
Isadore leapt onto the sill beside her, then onto the vine, easy as that. Prue followed him, stopping first to rub her cheek against Annie’s knee. Annie looked down again, but this time she saw the yellow cliffs of the Drop, the river at the bottom of the gorge. She closed her eyes, as if that would keep her from seeing his face.
For Number Five, then. Do it for him.
She scooted to the farthest edge of the sill and crouched low on her haunches, as she had seen the cats do.
For Number Five. For Number Five. Don’t look down. For Number Five. Jump!
Her body sailed through the darkness. Everything went quiet and for a moment she felt free and full of grace. Then she landed and got a face full of flowers, a fistful of leaves, a knee full of wall.
One backward, groping step at a time, she made her way down. The vine flexed under her weight and she couldn’t help calculating how much heavier she was than the cats, how tiny were the actual fibers that held the plant to the wall.
She couldn’t see the cats, couldn’t see much of anything besides the green of the vine and the white stone of the wall behind it. Despite the cold, her eyes burned with the sweat trickling off her forehead. Every so often she would stop and lean out to see how far she was from the bottom. Each time, the lawn seemed just as far, the ladder of leaves just as high.
Still, she had to be getting close, and Page and Sharta couldn’t be far ahead of her. The blind leading the lame, wasn’t that the saying? Annie gasped as her foot slipped and she skidded a few feet down the vine. She supposed she deserved that.
She was about to take another step when she heard a strange noise above her. The sound was a creak and at the same time a whisper, like the sound a ship makes floating at dock. For a moment she was confused; she had the sensation of tipping backward, but she still had a tight hold of the vine. Then she understood.
The bindweed groaned as it loosed itself from the stone, one fingerlike branch after another snapping free. The top of the vine, already loose, had curved over itself like a question mark, its leaves hissing and whispering as they fell. She climbed frantically now, slipping more than climbing, her hands flayed by the rough stem, the hiss of the dying vine growing louder, chasing her, until the stem broke free under her hands and she plunged toward the earth.
And then she stopped falling, and began to bounce. Her hair flew up around her face, then fell back, then up again, then back. Annie found herself hanging upside down, her hands and feet hooked in a death grip around the stem. The vine bounced lightly a few more times, then stilled. The bottom part of the stem, the oldest, thickest part, had stuck fast to the wall. Annie twisted her head to the side, forcing herself to look down. Then she began to laugh, and cry. Not two feet from her face was the neatly trimmed, frost-tipped grass of the palace lawn.
It was easy enough to slip past the guard. It was easy to do anything in the dark, people were so afraid. A handful of gravel on the flagstones of the courtyard, his quick turn and shout, her dash through the gates. She wondered how Page had managed it. Sharta? But the guard would have sounded an alarm by now. She watched him pat his breast pocket, then a moment later pat it again. Apparently the king’s servants were easy to bribe.
At the bottom of the hill Isadore turned west, back along the Royal Way. When they reached the inn where she had stayed with Serena, Annie hesitated. Why would Page come here? But Izzy led her determinedly to the stable. She almost laughed when she saw him sitting beside a ladder lying lengthways on the ground, just beneath a square window near the roof.
But there was no trick here. The ladder led her right to the hayloft, and from there it was an easy climb down to the stable.
She followed Izzy past the drowsing horses to the last empty stall. Inside each stall was a water trough and a slatted wooden rack filled with hay. Izzy flicked his tail once, then squeezed between the slats of the hayrack. Prudence followed, reemerging seconds later with a piece of hay stuck in her whiskers. The rack was small and didn’t look especially sturdy. And what if a horse was stalled here and began to eat?
It was hard, sometimes, to trust a pair of cats.
Annie climbed into the rack and lay down, plucking fistfuls of hay to spread over herself. Her knees nearly touched her chin. She needed to sneeze. Her hands hurt where she’d scraped them on the vine. But the hay was new, and fragrant, and soft beneath her. No worse than her bed in the giant oak. Better by far than her bed at the palace.
Chapter 12
Again? We looked here already. I’m glad for the money, don’t get me wrong, but it’s insulting, looking for a girl.”
Annie opened her eyes, instantly awake. Men. Big men in heavy boots and creaking leather gear. One of them was dragging the butt of something—a spear?—along the wall of the stable as he walked. Thhhrrrd, thhhrrrd. The noise stopped and she heard their voices again, very close by.
“Not just any girl. His betrothed.”
The other man snorted. “If this was anything real he’d have the Royal Guard on it, not us.”
“You didn’t hear? Royal Guard’s all gone. Sent them west late yesterday.”
“For what?”
“‘Liberate an orphanage.’ Doesn’t make sense to me either, but that’s what the captain said.”
So he’s done it after all, Annie thought. She wondered if Page knew. “Ah, there’s nothing here,” the first man said. “Out all night in the dark? With a kinderstalk? She’s dead. We all know it. He knows it. Let’s get something to drink.”
The cats were waiting for her near the entrance to the barn.
“Let’s go,” Annie whispered.
Neither of them moved.
“What’s the matter with you two?” And then she knew. Footsteps crossed the yard, the same as before—heavy and slow, accompanied by the clank of metal and the creak of leather. The air darkened as the men came into the barn, filling the doorway. There was no time to hide. They had seen her.
“Annie?”
Serena was wearing big boots, leading the horse into the barn by his halter. And behind her, tiny feet making no noise at all, came Beatrice.
The twins made a seat for her in the back of the wagon with some grain sacks and an old horse blanket. Beatrice alternated between patting her arm and scolding her.
“Serena came home in such a lather when she found you gone! We’ve been back and forth across three counties. Don’t tell me you’ve been in that stable all this time! But you look rather well. She looks rather well, doesn’t she, Serena?”
“She looks our same Annie, which is to say somewhat mysterious and quite a dear. Now tell us, where are we going, and what are we about?”
Annie didn’t know what to say. Then, looking at the two of them, an identical worry line drawn between their eyebrows, she did.
“I’m trying to find my sister. Will you help me?”
If the twins thought there was anything unusual about the way Annie rode in the wagon—hunkered down almost flat, with a blanket over her head—they didn’t say so. They chatted quietly together, only asking her from time to time if they were still headed the right way. Annie wasn’t sure what the right way was, but her instincts told her to keep close to the forest.
“Go north,” she said, and Serena drove north.
When they stopped to rest the horse, Annie watched Prue and Izzy chase some prey under the hedge at the side of the road. Winter was ending. A layer of dirty snow still covered the countryside, but the frost that had gripped the earth for months had begun to melt, making the road soft. Annie couldn’t help smiling at the neat little trail of paw prints the cats left behind them.
The next instant she was down from the wagon and on her knees in the roadway. Clearly delineated in the mud were the heel and toe of a small boot and, a few inches ahead, the shallower impression of a foot that had touched the ground lightly. To the right of the footprints was a deeper print, round and perfectly symmetrical—the print of a cane.
“Serena, Bea, look! My sister came this way.”
“That’s wonderful, dear, just wonderful!” Bea called from the wagon. “Serena, did you hear what Annie said?”
Serena had climbed down from the wagon and stood frowning at the ground a few yards off. “A kinderstalk has been here. A large one, by the look of it.”
The fat, splayed pads of an animal’s foot were visible in the mud. A smaller indentation above each pad showed where the nails had dug into the earth.
“It crossed the road here, and then … oh my. Oh my goodness. Annie, don’t—”
But Annie had already come up breathless beside her. “What? What is it?”
“Your sister’s tracks and the kinderstalk’s—I’m afraid they meet here. And it looks like … it looks as though only a single pair continues on.”
Annie bowed her head. She was grateful her hair shielded her face, because she was smiling. Sharta had made those tracks. She knew it. It was almost as if she could smell him, his particular, shaggy scent, blood and pine.
“Oh, the poor dear!” Serena swept Annie into her arms and began to rock back and forth. Bea hovered around them like a hummingbird, darting in to touch Annie’s back or stroke her hair.
“There, there, don’t cry. We don’t know for certain what’s happened.”
But Annie knew exactly what had happened. Page had gotten tired of walking and climbed on Sharta’s back. Page was riding a kinderstalk! No, that wasn’t right. Kinderstalk wasn’t right. It’s time you knew their proper name. Sharta was a wolf, a black wolf. And a wolf had carried Page to the palace. What had she said before she left? Perhaps not Sharta alone.
Annie wiggled free of Serena. “You’re right, we don’t know for certain what’s happened. Let’s keep going, can we?”
The sisters exchanged a look. Then Bea smiled with such kindness that Annie felt ashamed. “Of course we’ll keep going. Of course we will.”
Night was approaching. They could all feel it, the way the blue air seemed to thicken. Beatrice wanted to find an inn, but for miles now they had seen nothing on either side of the road but lichen-covered boulders and bracka bushes. The straight black trees of the forest loomed in the distance.
The twins held a whispered conference in the front seat.
“Turn back to Millerville?”
“No time. Worse to be on the road.”
“But the danger!”
“No sightings these six weeks.”
“Well, I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either. I don’t like it one bit.”
Serena turned to Annie with a forced smile. “We’ll have to camp. But don’t you worry. These days I travel prepared for every emergency.”
They jolted off the road a few yards and parked in a field of boulders.
“Annie, would you see to the horse?” Serena said. “But don’t tether him. If they—I want him to have a chance.”
While Beatrice laid out the bedrolls in the back of the wagon, Serena walked swiftly among the stones, sprinkling something from a can at the base of each boulder. She returned to the wagon a bit winded, and sprinkled the rest of the liquid on the ground around the wagon wheels. Annie buried her nose in the sleeve of her cloak.
“Skunk musk,” Serena said. “The kinderstalk hate it even more than we do.” She wiped her hands on her dress and nodded approvingly at her sister. “That’s nicely done, Bea.”
Beatrice had prepared the beds and hung lanterns on every side of the wagon. It was a strange sight, the lanterns blazing in broad daylight, but even before Annie had completed the thought the sky changed to black. Serena gasped. Beatrice made a small, choked sound. She made the sign of protection three times, once in Annie’s direction, once in Serena’s, and once over her own heart.
“I’ll take first watch.” As she spoke, Bea reached beneath the wagon seat and pulled out a rifle. Then she reached under the seat again and took out a pistol, a second pistol, a cudgel, an ax, and finally, a burlap sack containing an assortment of knives. Some were short and beveled for jabbing, others long and thin for slicing.
Annie sel
ected a short knife with a heavy handle that fit well in her palm. The blade was rounded, like a spear, and ended in a sharp point. She touched her finger to the tip and a drop of blood welled to the surface. Hastily Annie wiped her finger on her cloak and climbed back into the wagon.
Lying beside Serena in the darkness, Annie felt a strange kind of peace come over her. Despite the danger of their position, despite her worry over Page, there was something about the intense cold, the deep stillness of the night air that felt good to her. The hours crept by, and when Beatrice moved to nudge Serena awake to take her shift, Annie laid a hand gently on her arm.
“Let me, I’m awake already.”
Beatrice looked at her questioningly. “Do you know how to fire a rifle?”
Annie shook her head. “I’ll wake you if there’s need. Don’t worry.”
Beatrice hesitated, but her fatigue won out. She took Annie’s place beneath the warm covers and was asleep in seconds. Annie placed her weapons on the seat beside her and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She sat for a few minutes with the rifle across her lap as Beatrice had done, but she couldn’t stand the feel of it so she laid it at her feet. All this time, the cats had not stopped moving, weaving in and out of the shadows as they prowled the perimeter of the boulder field.
First her nose and then her cheeks stiffened with cold. Her back ached from sitting straight for so long on the hard seat. The sharp scent of skunk musk hung over everything. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and the sounds of the land at night filled her ears, the wind clicking through the bare branches of a bracka bush, the scuffle of an animal leaving its burrow, the shriek of a bird hunting, and somewhere to the west, the blub-blub of water issuing from the earth. A spring. In the morning she should remember to tell them.
Annie’s head drooped toward her breast. Then, with a gasp, she was wide-awake. There she was on the same hard seat, in the circle of lantern light. Serena and Beatrice still slept in the back of the wagon. A light snow had begun to fall, dusting the blankets that covered them. But it wasn’t the snow that had wakened her. Annie sat very still, straining her ears. There was nothing to hear: all the animals had fallen silent. Even the wind had died down.
