But Gitta had already thrown herself at Hulda, and the snake had already sunk its fangs into Gitta’s exposed neck. Gitta’s body jerked from the force, then went limp and sank to the earth at Hulda’s feet.
Hulda screeched. “No, Gitta! No, sister! Not you!”
Milla ran to her mother, lifting her up, cradling her head in her lap. Touching her face as she never had. Stroking her hair as she’d always wanted to. Gitta’s lips whitened and her skin chilled from pink-white to stony gray.
“Mamma,” Milla said. She took one of Gitta’s hands in hers. Milla remembered how she’d always loved the coolness of her mother’s hands. But now Gitta’s hands were cold. Too cold. Milla brought them to her cheek. “I’m sorry, Mamma. I’m so sorry.”
Gitta looked up at Milla. “I love you, child. I always have.”
Snake hands and snake arms wrapped around Gitta, taking her from Milla. “Wake up, Gitta. Wake up, Gitta. Wake up, Gitta.” Hulda petted and petted her sister, hiss-whispering, “You are not to leave me, Gitta. Never to leave me. You stay. Sister. My sister. Most beloved. This was not my curse. Not my curse. You stay.”
Gitta’s lips moved, forming words. She looked up at her monstrous sister, eyes open and unflinching. “So much pain I caused you. Please forgive me.” Then she closed her eyes, took one shallow breath, and no more.
For a long moment, Milla knelt by Gitta while Hulda held her, and the only sound in Milla’s ears was Hulda’s weeping.
Then her ears opened to the sounds of the forest. Wind shushing through needled branches. The call of birds.
So quiet otherwise.
Milla felt Iris beside her. Her friend, whom her mother had sacrificed her life for. Unafraid of Hulda, Iris kissed Gitta’s forehead.
Milla set her mother’s hand on her belly and she and Iris stood, backing away from the sisters, one cradling the other. Sverd and Selv settled their heads on Milla’s shoulders.
Hulda’s grief rose from her in waves, replacing the vengeance that had once radiated from her like heat. The girls gathered around Hulda and Gitta in a circle, each bringing their own sadness with them, like offerings. They laid hands on each other, on Gitta, on Hulda. And in the quiet of that clearing deep in the woods, where a monster had long lived while waiting for her vengeance, they wept together.
EPILOGUE
“TELL ME A STORY,” LISS said, her eyes bright with mischief. “The one about the girl and the witch.”
Milla smiled, reaching out for a plump, red apple hanging from a low branch. She took a bite of the apple, warm from the sun, and juice ran down her chin. She caught the drip with a finger, then she wiped the stickiness on her skirt. The sound of a bell chimed in the air. “That’s Mamma,” Liss said. “Time for dinner. Come with us, Milla. Mamma and Pappa are always asking for you.”
“Hm,” Milla said. “Another time.”
Liss sighed. “That means never.”
“Doesn’t.” Milla tugged a chunk of Liss’s hair. “It just means not now.”
Liss took Kai’s hand and picked up her basket of apples. “Mamma’s making applesauce for the baby. I don’t know why. None of it ever seems to make it into his mouth.”
Liss’s memories of the day when the curse found her had mostly faded. Just once, Liss had turned to Milla, a shadow passing over her face, and said, “Tell me about the wasps.”
“It was a blight,” Milla told her. “And it’s over now.”
Milla watched Liss and Kai walk away from her. When they were just two smudges off in the distance, Sverd and Selv untucked themselves from their hiding places in her hair.
Hulda’s curse had lifted when Gitta died. Hulda had withdrawn to her tree, alone, and the girls no longer heard her voice in their heads. Many of the younger girls had returned to their homes, met by families who were happy to know that curses could lift. There were some who didn’t feel they could go home again, though. Those women and girls made new homes for themselves where no one knew what had happened to them, where no one pointed or whispered or wondered if they really were themselves again. Iris was one of those. She’d visited her mother and father, thinking she’d stay. But she told Milla that they kept looking at her, like she might change back at any moment. And anyway, it was stifling living at home. And she was a curious girl.
Milla’s pale green scales had faded away, leaving fresh skin behind, but her snakes remained—perhaps because she wanted them to. Life would have been easier without them, she supposed. But they were a part of her now. She could tuck them away in her hair when she needed to, but that never felt right. Sverd and Selv were restless creatures; they kept her honest. She couldn’t pretend to be what she wasn’t—or at least not for long.
When Milla had returned to the farm to tell her father and Niklas that Gitta had sacrificed herself to lift the curse, her father blamed Milla. He said she wasn’t welcome in his house, that she’d as much as killed her mother and was just like her aunt: strange. Niklas had protested and said it was Milla’s home just as much as Jakob’s. Their father grew so angry he turned a shade of purple as dark as a bruise. His anger didn’t frighten Milla the way it used to, though. She hugged her brother good-bye and told him not to worry: She would make her way. She hadn’t wanted to stay there anyway, not really. The only hardship in leaving the farm was how much she’d miss Niklas. She’d been crying nonstop for a good two miles when Niklas came riding up behind her and said he was coming with her. “My home is with you and Iris,” he said. Then she cried harder.
When Niklas, Milla, and Iris rode up to Otto and Katrin’s farm, Liss spotted them first. Her squeal of delight split the air. Otto’s and Katrin’s smiles were wide and genuine. They didn’t believe that Milla had caused the strange blight that descended upon them one day and lifted the next, and hadn’t understood why Milla thought she had to leave. They never would have blamed Milla for such a thing, Katrin said. Milla thought of Hel and Hulda and Gitta, of vengeance and curses, and she smiled. People blamed other people for all sorts of things.
Katrin thought it odd that Milla hadn’t mentioned having a brother, but was too polite to ask why. Otto’s and Katrin’s delight in having help with the farm and the children was so great that Otto offered to give Milla, Niklas, and Iris a plot of land and to help them build their own log cottage. Such a shame, Katrin said, that they were all orphans. She wanted them to know that they were always welcome at their dinner table. Niklas, Milla, and Iris responded gratefully, then chose a plot too far from Otto and Katrin’s cottage to allow for casual visits.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to live closer?” Katrin said.
Niklas shone his sunshine smile on her. “No, thank you.” And in Niklas’s usual way, he made it all right.
Milla was happy. She and Iris and Niklas made a companionable home together. When they weren’t working on the farm, they took long walks in the woods telling stories about witches and lost children and demons. Well, Milla and Iris told the stories. Niklas mostly listened and laughed and criticized the endings.
Some nights, long after Iris and Niklas were asleep, Milla stepped out into the moonlight, alone. Sverd and Selv stretched themselves and tasted the night air.
Milla walked deep into the woods, ferns brushing her legs. She settled herself in the soft, pillowy moss at the base of a tree. Then she tapped her fingers on a tree root.
Tap. Tap tap tap.
On the fourth tap, the snakes emerged from their hiding places to gather around her. Green and brilliant yellow. Beetle-black and blood-red. Some wrapped themselves around her ankles and wrists; all raised their heads to look at her.
“Now,” Milla always said to them, “from where we left off last time. Tell me your names.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peternelle van Arsdale is a book editor, essay and short story writer, and the author of The Beast Is an Animal. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is at work on her third novel. Visit her at PeternellevanArsdale.com.
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Margaret K. McElderry
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Also by Peternelle van Arsdale
The Beast Is an Animal
MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Peternelle van Arsdale
Jacket illustration copyright © 2019 by Miranda Meeks
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: van Arsdale, Peternelle, author.
Title: The cold is in her bones / Peternelle van Arsdale.
Description: First edition. | New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, [2019] | Summary: When Milla, sixteen, who has lived a sheltered life on a farm near a cursed village, finally makes a friend, she learns of her connection to the curse’s originator.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015760 (print) | ISBN 9781481488440 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481488464 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Blessing and cursing—Fiction. | Demonology—Fiction. | Snakes—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Farm life—Fiction. | Fantasy.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.V3583 Col 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015760
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