by M. E. Breen
Annie slipped the knife into her boot. After a moment’s hesitation, she picked up a pistol. She laid the rifle next to Beatrice and jumped down from the wagon.
The cats were beside her in an instant. Prudence kept bumping against her ankles, and Isadore would sit, stand, walk a few paces, and sit again. With a last, worried glance at Beatrice and Serena, Annie turned and began to walk north. The closer she came to the forest, the deeper the silence grew.
When the cry finally came, Annie realized two things at once: this was what she had been listening for, all along, and it was much, much worse than she could have imagined.
The cry went on and on, part howl, part scream, part sob, part snarl. Not wolf, not human, but both together. Page and Sharta. The pistol banged against her thigh as she ran. Light flickered ahead of her through the trees. The cries came intermittently now, but there were new sounds, grunting and scraping. Shapes emerged from the darkness, gigantic shapes, thrashing wildly in a violent dance. Annie stumbled, stopped. Those weren’t wolves. They were monsters. It took her a moment to realize that she was seeing not the animals themselves, but their shadows, cast in huge relief on a boulder behind them. A large torch, planted in the ground, bathed the writhing bodies in light.
As she drew nearer, Annie recognized Sharta, his white eyes rolling in his dark head. He had the other wolf by the throat and was shaking him as hard as he could. The other wolf scrabbled at Sharta’s neck with his claws, trying to reach the vulnerable veins of the throat through the thick ruff of fur that protected them. Both animals were bleeding freely from wounds on their torsos and flanks.
A few yards from where the wolves fought lay Page’s cane. Like an arrow, it pointed toward the deep shadows on the other side of the boulder.
The wolves had gathered in a semicircle, at least twenty of them. Page stood with her back pressed against the rock, her hands spread in front of her in a supplicating gesture. She was speaking rapidly in the sharp, broken tones of Hippa. The wolves seemed neither to hear nor understand her. A wolf with a reddish brown coat lunged forward, snapping and barking. Page screamed and cowered against the rock. Another wolf leapt forward, snarling, then backed away.
“Stop!” Annie cried.
Page looked around wildly. “Annie? Is that you?” Fear chased hope across her face. “Get away from here! Go!”
At the sound of Annie’s voice several of the wolves turned their heads. The red wolf looked her straight in the face. Slanted amber eyes ringed with black, the muzzle and shoulders narrower than Sharta’s. A female, Annie realized. A beautiful animal.
She raised the pistol.
Something that had been alive in the wolf’s face, some question, went dull. She barked twice and the pack broke apart, wheeling in different directions like a flock of startled birds. Annie stood frozen for a moment, struggling with a queer sense of loss.
“Annie, are you there? What’s happening?”
“They’re gone.” She walked over to Page and touched her arm. Page jerked away, then jerked toward her, grabbing clumsily at her cloak, her hair.
“He protected me! He couldn’t see, but he protected me. He saved me again.”
It reminded her of leaving the orphanage with Gregor, her sister’s body a trembling weight, clutching Annie like a buoy in the darkness.
As soon as they reached the torchlight, Page broke away.
“Sharta! Sharta! Oh, stop it! Oh please, make him stop!”
The other wolf stood over Sharta as he writhed against the earth, his torso twisting in agony. His front claws scraped uselessly against the ground.
“Annie, please! Do something! Please, please help him!” Page was sobbing now.
A rush of different feelings struck Annie all at once. Pride at being asked for help. Fear and its tinny, resentful echo: why me? But mostly a sense of something being off, a kind of dread for what she was about to do. This was nothing like when she attacked Smirch or the king. This was deliberate.
She handed Page the pistol and took the knife from her boot. Up close, the wolves seemed impossibly huge. She edged up behind the standing wolf and raised her arm. Don’t do it. Not this way. She plunged the blade into the meaty part of the wolf’s hind leg. Instantly, he let go of Sharta. But she had expected him to cry, to fall. He whirled around and threw himself at Annie, knocking her to the ground. She smelled the stench of old wounds, the fresh blood. The wolf lowered his head. She gasped, and he stilled. Their eyes met. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He growled.
Their bodies were so close together that she felt the impact when he was struck once, then again. Izzy and Prue. The wolf snarled and lifted his head, trying to shake free the two small forms that clung to him, hissing and spitting. Relieved for a moment of his weight, Annie flailed around with her hands and feet, hoping some blow would land. Her foot knocked the handle of the knife still lodged in his leg, and the wolf yelped and leapt back. He twisted his head from side to side, a frantic gesture, and Annie realized he was looking for his pack. Again, she felt that queer pang of loss that they were gone. Felt it for him. She rolled sideways, away from the wolf, away from the feeling.
A change came over the wolf. He seemed to age before her eyes, to shrink and grow frail. His eyes gleamed dully and he stood for a moment, swaying, then fell, slow and heavy as a tree. He hit the ground with the whole weight of his life and lay still.
I killed him, Annie thought. I killed a wolf. She scrambled backward.
“Annie! Are you hurt? I couldn’t … I don’t know … and Sharta … I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m so … useless! Let me look at you, let me help you!”
Annie grabbed her sister’s wrists and gave her a little shake.
“Page, I’m fine. I’m safe.”
Sharta lay crumpled in the snow, not far from the other wolf. His eyes leaked blood tears. Page knelt and took his head gently into her lap, stroking his ears and murmuring to him in Hippa. He growled weakly in response. Page raised her face to Annie.
“He’s dying.”
“No, Page, surely—I have a wagon; I’m traveling with two good women, strong women. We can help him.” Page shook her head.
“It’s too late; he wants to go. The wolf he fought was his son, Rinka.” She said something else in Hippa and Sharta responded, weaker than before.
“He says we must try to save Rinka.”
Annie looked at the wolf lying a few feet away. Snow was settling on his dark fur. She felt the tickle of blood on her neck where his teeth had grazed her.
Sharta’s breath came in rattling pants. Page bent close to hear him.
“We must protect the pack, protect their future. Neither the king nor Gibbet will do it.”
Annie studied the two faces, one stained with blood, the other with tears. She spoke in a clear, loud voice. “I will do whatever I can, Sharta.”
Page whispered in his ear. Sharta tried to respond, but no sound came out. Page laid her hand over his wounded eyes and bent until her cheek rested on his breast. Then she buried her face in his fur and wept.
Chapter 13
Annie stood over the wounded wolf. The one Page had called Rinka, Sharta’s son. Blood seeped from dozens of wounds and his injured hind leg lay at a strange angle. With the knife in one hand, poised to strike, she held her hand over his muzzle. Ragged puffs of warm air touched her palm. She lifted one of his eyelids. The white showed. Tentatively, she ran her hand over his side, from shoulder to flank. She could feel each rib, and his hipbones, even through the thick fur, were painfully sharp. She frowned. This wolf was emaciated. Stripping off her cloak, she wrapped it around his body, careful to protect him from the frozen ground. She went to Page and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m going to get help. We have a wagon. You stay here.” Page nodded without lifting her head. Annie put the pistol on the ground next to her sister and moved away.
“Annie, wait! Who is helping you? Can we trust them?”
“Yes.” Annie hoped she sounded more c
onfident than she felt. People had strong feelings when it came to kinderstalk, even good people. Even the best people.
In the end, she told them everything: about Uncle Jock and Aunt Prim, about Page and the king, about Gibbet and Sharta. She spoke quickly, staring at her lap, afraid that if she stopped or slowed down she wouldn’t be able to start again. The twins listened without speaking. When she had finished and they still said nothing, Annie peeked up and found them staring at her, Beatrice in open-mouthed shock, Serena with an expression she couldn’t read.
Gently, Serena gripped Annie’s chin and turned her face toward her own.
“Yes, if you’re wondering, I am angry with you, but only for not trusting us with this earlier. How can we protect you, protect ourselves, if we don’t know what we’re facing?” She sighed. “We knew you were in trouble, child, but nothing like this. We’re a day’s ride from home yet, but I’ll see what I can do with the kinderstalk before then. Mind, you had better make sure it doesn’t bite. And we’ll have to use a blanket or some sort of covering; it won’t do to go traipsing around the byways with that in the back of the wagon.”
In a very small voice, Beatrice said, “Perhaps the kinderstalk can wear Mother’s wig.”
For a beat, they were all silent. Then Serena started to laugh. Her big belly shook. Annie laughed too, and it felt like water pouring from a burst dam.
She wiped her eyes. “Stop here.”
The falling snow had obscured much of the wolves’ blood, but still the women gasped and drew back at the sight of the two long black bodies.
Page had been sitting just as Annie left her, Sharta’s head cradled in her lap. Now she rose and without a word to anyone began rolling rocks into a pile. Annie opened her mouth, a question on her lips, then closed it again.
Serena was crouched over Rinka, eyeing him closely.
“Doesn’t weigh as much as he looks, I’ll bet. Bea, come here and hold the jaws shut. Annie, drop the bed.”
Annie stared at her, puzzled, until Serena jerked her head in the direction of the wagon seat. Level with the footwell was a wooden lever that Annie had never noticed before. She pushed the lever along its track and the back wall of the wagon bed fell flat. The bed tipped a few inches toward the ground. Serena eased Rinka’s body onto the wagon. She washed his wounds with water from her canteen.
“Watch now, Bea,” she said, and retrieved a needle and thread from her duffel bag. “It’s really you who should be sewing this fellow up, not me. How anyone thought I could be a doctor with these sausage fingers …” She bent over the wolf, frowning in concentration. Beatrice tightened her hold on the muzzle. When she pierced the skin around the wound on his flank, Rinka jerked, nearly lifting Beatrice off the ground.
Serena chuckled. “That should teach you to eat a few more pancakes.”
Bea glared at her sister. She held out her hand. “Let me, then. Maybe you won’t be so fresh standing here by the thing’s mouth.”
Already Page had rolled several dozen rocks into a tight circle around Sharta’s body. As Annie watched, she began to pile them on top of each other; the ground was still too hard to dig a proper grave. The two sisters worked side by side, building a tomb of rocks over the dead wolf.
Annie wished she had something to give him. Here, beyond the palace walls, the winter forest offered no flowers, no bright leaves.
But she did have something bright. From the pocket over her heart she took the lock of Page’s hair. She handed it to her sister. “You give it to him.”
Page opened the locket she wore around her neck and removed a coil of black hair. She braided it together with her own hair. She kissed the braid, then held it up for Annie to kiss.
“It’s Mother’s.” She smiled, and tears ran around the corners of her mouth.
Annie smiled too, though she didn’t understand why Page wanted to give Sharta their mother’s hair. Together they placed the braid over the wolf’s heart and rolled the last stones into place.
“I’m finished here.” Beatrice’s voice broke them apart. “There’s not much I can do with the worst wound. Serena thinks it’s severed one of the tendons, so whether he’ll walk …” She gave a slight shrug. “Time will tell.”
Around midmorning the snow started again and fell steadily all day, a wet, heavy snow that soaked their clothes. Page sat with Annie in the back of the wagon, her skirts pulled tightly around her so that not even her cloak touched Rinka’s body. Occasionally, he would shudder or sigh and they would all hold their breaths, but he remained in the deepest of sleeps.
When at last they rolled up to the twins’ house, the air tasted of nighttime and they were all cold, weary, and thoroughly miserable.
“Girls, why don’t you start a fire and set out the supper things,” Serena said. “See what you can find in the pantry. Between the four of us …” She looked over at Rinka, then at the cats. “Between the seven of us, I imagine we’ll just about clean it out.”
When neither Page nor Annie moved, she sighed, hands on hips. “Listen, you two sprouts. I’ve seen more strange things in my life than you can imagine. This ranks among them, but it hasn’t curled my hair yet. Now run along and get supper going; I’m ready to devour the table and chairs without salt.”
They dined on flatbread and a hunk of very old, very pungent cheese. Beatrice got up from time to time to tend a stew bubbling over the fire. As they prepared for bed, Annie offered to sleep on the hearth to keep an eye on Rinka. She thought Page might object, but her sister followed Serena upstairs without a word. To the room with the bird quilt, no doubt.
Annie lay down with her back to the fire, facing the wolf. He smelled of fever. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again the fire had died and the room was cold. Rinka had rolled onto his stomach. He was panting and his eyes were bright.
Annie filled a bowl with the stew Beatrice had made, still warm in its iron pot. She slid the bowl across the floor with her foot. The wolf sniffed at it, whined, and turned his head away. Annie felt a stab of something like hurt.
“There’s nothing wrong with it. You should eat. Look.”
She picked up the bowl and lapped at the stew. The wolf kept his head turned away but his ears, she saw, had swiveled toward her.
“Mmmm, what delicious stew! How good it tastes! I think I’ll eat it all up.”
“Annie, what’s going on?” Page stood at the foot of the stairs, looking like a child in one of Serena’s nightgowns.
“Nothing. I was trying to get him to eat. I think he has a fever.”
“Good. I hope he dies.”
“Page! Sharta said—”
“I know what he said. But this wolf … you don’t know anything about it, Annie.”
“Then tell me!”
“Lower your voice!”
They glared at each other across the room. Page rolled her eyes and pointed to a chair.
“Sit down.”
Annie sat. The wolf watched them out of his bright gold eyes.
“I am going to start two hundred years ago, with Howland’s first king.”
“Terrance Uncton.”
Page looked surprised. “Yes.”
Annie nodded, pleased with herself. “He discovered the first great cache of ringstone. The palace is built on top of the old mine.”
“It is. But do you know what was there first, before the palace and before the mine?”
Annie’s pleasure vanished. “Does this have to be question and answer?”
Page smiled a real smile. “Go get the almanac. I saw it in the kitchen. Bea appears to be using it as a stepstool to reach the sink.”
When Annie returned, Page had spread a piece of paper out on the table. It was a map, an old map, drawn on the same soft yellow paper with the same gilt edges as the page from the Compendium of Creatures. One of the edges was furred where it had been torn from the binding.
Page followed her gaze. “It’s awful to tear them up. But I couldn’t carry the whole thing with me. An
d there are so many, many books in the Royal Library, Annie. So very many beautiful old books that no one reads.”
Like most people, Beatrice and Serena kept maps at the back of their almanac. Page opened the map of Howland and laid it next to the old map.
“You see here, where Magnifica is today? Now look at this.”
Annie followed her sister’s finger to a pale circle in the middle of a vast, inky patch on the old map. Across the circle were written the words “Uncton Mine.”
“What is all this black ink around the mine?”
Page tapped the map. The word was barely visible against the dark background, the letters blurred with age: Dark-wood.
“The forest, Annie. It was all forest. You see here, to the east of the mine? Most of that was sand and marsh. The ringstone was easy to find there, and mostly above ground. But the rest, all of this”—she trailed her finger over the map to the West Sea, marked by stylized waves and a monstrous-looking fish—“all of this was forest.”
Annie chose her words carefully. “The wolves lived in Magnifica before the king. Before it was Magnifica.”
“Yes. The miners needed roads to reach the coasts. They needed houses and shops. They built the palace and then the city. The forest was in the way of all that.”
“And the wolves—they moved?” Annie looked at the one big dark patch still left on the modern map of Howland. Dour County.
“Most of them died. But yes, the survivors moved.”
“But so did the mine! I mean the new mine, the Drop.”
Page shook her head. “The Drop meant more roads and more people, but it wasn’t so bad for the wolves. Better the cliffs than among the trees.”
