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Warmth in Winter
January 2012
Table of Contents
Jenna was glad they’d taken Peter’s body back to town to bury. Eerie as the silence was, the moaning of his ghost would have been much worse. Even so, she wasn’t sure how much more of this cabin and this winter she could stand.
She picked up her mother’s letter again. I don’t suppose you’ll have a proper burning tree this year, it read, but maybe you can put this ornament on your fire.
The little straw star was neatly made, with all the ends tucked in, and hung from a scarlet ribbon. The woven pattern was unique to her village, but even without it she would have known the star was from Goldenfield: they made the best solstice ornaments in the country.
She glanced at the fat black stove in the corner. It kept the watch-cabin warm enough, but it wasn’t nearly as comforting as a real fireplace, and no substitute at all for a burning tree. She imagined opening the oven door, putting the little star among the coals, watching it burn there. It wouldn’t do at all.
She had just decided to hang the ornament above the front door, instead, when a loud knock broke the silence. Her heart jerked in her chest. She sat frozen, wondering if she’d imagined the sound.
The knock came again. “Grant!” shouted a muffled voice. “Peter Grant! You open this door right now!”
It was dark outside. Any traveler with sense was off the road—not that there ever were travelers up here, besides the monthly deliveries of supplies from town. And who could have urgent business with old Peter, who’d been dead now for over a month?
The pounding came again, louder this time. Jenna stood. There was no point pretending that she wasn’t there—the porch lantern was lit, and the windows were bright—but she tiptoed to the door and slid the cold brass cover off the peephole.
The person on the porch was tall and thin, hunched in the lantern’s light. He wore a drab wool coat and a threadbare scarf. The lantern’s light cast a shadow from his deep-brimmed messenger cap, so she couldn’t see his eyes, but from his bearing she thought he was young.
He didn’t look too dangerous. Maybe he was a messenger from town—he knew Peter’s name. Although it was strange he wouldn’t know that Peter was dead. She opened the door a crack, letting in a gust of freezing air. “Hello?”
He looked up. His eyes were a startling blue. He was not a man at all, but a girl, Jenna’s age or a little older.
“Where is Grant?” the girl said.
There was something very strange about her accent. Jenna blocked the doorway with her body. “He died last month,” she said. “I’m his replacement.”
“No.” The stranger gasped. “How could he die?”
“Uh... he was old, I guess. He didn’t tell anyone he was sick, so we didn’t know to check on him. We only knew he’d died when he didn’t make his report last month.”
“And you are... his replacement?” The stranger looked unconvinced.
Jenna nodded. She was still trying to place the accent. It seemed familiar, like she’d heard it before, on the radio or—
No.
She stepped back, and tried to slam the door. The stranger caught it easily and slipped inside. Cursing, Jenna ran for the old rifle on its hook across the room. It didn’t work, but the Northerner wouldn’t know that.
It didn’t matter: the girl caught her easily, and pinned her arms to her sides. “Hold still. Look, I won’t hurt you. I only need to use your telephone.”
“Like hell!” said Jenna. She stomped on the other girl’s feet, but her slippers did little damage against the Northerner’s snow-slick leather boots.
“My name is Arica Whitethorn. I worked with Peter Grant when he was alive. I’m on your side.” She let Jenna go so suddenly she stumbled. “See, I’m not holding you any more. I’m not doing anything. I’m only here to pass on a message.”
Jenna took a deep breath, trying to calm her staggering heart. “You’re a... a spy?”
“Something like that.”
“Prove it.”
The Northerner—Arica—scratched her head. “Well, look, did you ever find old Peter’s will?”
“His will? I have no idea.”
“Look over there, in that trunk by the window. Open the lid.”
Jenna crossed the room, keeping one eye on the stranger. She opened the trunk, which she’d inspected already: it was lined with cedar, full of old wool blankets. “It’s not in here,” she said. “I’ve looked in here before.”
“No, inside the lid. There’s a false top. Push by that knot and—there, that’s it.”
Jenna had to catch the lining of the lid as it all fell loose at once. Above it, tacked into the outer shell of the trunk’s lid, was a flat packet of yellowing papers.
“He didn’t have much family,” said Arica, as Jenna pried the tacks loose. “He didn’t like to leave his will in town, so he kept it here. He showed it to me one day, when we were snowed in by a storm.”
Jenna flipped through the papers. She didn’t know much about wills, but it appeared legitimate: a long list of small bequests, mostly minor sums of money, with a letter to Grant’s lawyer at the end. “All right,” she said slowly. “I’m willing to believe you probably knew Peter. But that doesn’t prove anything.”
“I don’t want to prove anything,” Arica said. “Not to you, anyway. I just want to use your phone.”
Jenna snorted. “Right. Then after that I guess I’ll escort you to Greenwater and introduce you to the Prime Minister.”
“It may come to that, if you don’t help me now! If Peter’s really dead, then I need to get in touch with our next-in-line as soon as I can.” She gave Jenna a speculative look. “I don’t suppose he clued you in? Gave you the code words?”
“I didn’t even know him, really,” said Jenna. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Drat and damn. I guess... look, there’s a plan, all right.”
“A plan. What sort of plan?”
“To bring down the junta.”
“You’re... you’re working against your own government?” Jenna said. “Why?”
“Because they’re destroying us! They’ve taken away almost everything good we ever had. We’re starving—there’s no food, and your allies all have us embargoed. We have no jobs, and we can’t even go to school—only the elite are allowed into the universities. For the sake of all that’s good, we don’t even have witches anymore!”
“How... how many are... in your group?” said Jenna. “I mean, how many... spies... are working with you?”
“There’s a chain that runs from here to your Prime Minister—and then to all your allies, as I understand it.” Arica was pacing. “They’re waiting for information I have about our national defense system—in return, they’re supposed to make the takeover as bloodless as possible, so we can have freedom without too much blood. The information is time-sensitive—the generals know we have it, and the’re already working to change the system. I have to get to the next agent in line before the soldiers catch up with me.”
“Soldiers.” Jenna felt faint. “How’d you get through the border, anyway?”
“We have friends among the border guards.”
“But the soldiers don’t.”
“No.”
Jenna gritted her teeth, thinking of her brother Pauli at his border station five miles to the north. She hoped that wasn’t the way the girl had come. “Well, I can’t just let you use the phone,” she said. “It’s only connected with Goldenfield and the capital, and only certain people are allowed to answer it. If you call, they’ll want to know who you are, and then they’ll send someone to check on us—”
“Then for god’s sake, put it through yourself, and ask for—”
There was another knock at the door.
Arica froze.
The knock came again. “Hello?” called a man’s voice. “Open the door, please!” His accent was the same as Arica’s.
“They�
�re here!” Arica hissed. Her eyes were wide. “I thought I’d have more time...”
“Hide.” Jenna pointed to the bedroom doorway. “I’ll try to throw them off.” Arica looked skeptical, but obediently slipped from the room.
“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice this time. “We wish you no harm. Please open the door!”
Jenna ignored the voices and ran to the telephone. She picked up the receiver—then stopped. The line was dead.
The knocking became a hard, rhythmic pounding, like someone was kicking the door with a steel-toed boot. Whoever it was, they clearly weren’t planning to go away. Jenna crept to the door and slid the cover from the peephole again.
She saw only blackness. Had something blocked the hole? Even if the lantern had somehow gone out, something should have been visible by the moonlight.
“Do not move, friend.” The man’s voice was very close. “You are now looking down the barrel of my pistol. If I hear the slightest sound from you, I will shoot. You will then lose your eye and anything behind it. Do you understand me? Say ‘yes,’ please”
“Y-yes,” said Jenna.
“Now,” the man said, “I want you to lift the latch. Do nothing else, because I will hear it if you do. If you do not unlock the door, then I will shoot you and break it down anyway. If you do as I say, however, then I will not harm you at all. Do you understand now? Please say ‘yes’ again.”
“Yes.” Jenna could see no choice. Very slowly, she slid the bolt open.
The door flew inward, knocking her off her feet. She found herself lying on her back, staring up into the barrel of a rifle.
The woman holding the rifle wore a long wool greatcoat and a thick fur cap. Her stance was entirely military. “Do not move, friend,” she said, “or I will shoot you in the head.” Jenna believed her.
The male soldier crept toward the dark bedroom doorway. He held a cocked pistol in his hand. Jenna wanted to shout, warn the spy somehow, but the staring barrel of the rifle kept her silent. She lay still, miserable, barely daring to breathe.
The man stepped through the doorway. A moment passed in silence. Suddenly there was a shout, a shot, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.
Tears welled in Jenna’s eyes. The spy was dead, and now the soldiers would probably shoot Jenna, too.
The woman’s mouth had slid into a nasty smirk. She called something out in a dialect that Jenna had never heard before.
No answer came.
The woman frowned, and started to turn, her mouth open to call again.
There was a second shot. Something very strange happened to the woman’s head. A moment later, she slumped to the floor, and did not move again.
Then Arica walked out of the bedroom, sliding a pistol into the pocket of her coat. She gave Jenna a bemused smile. “Are you all right?”
“Uh.” Jenna sat up, keeping her eyes carefully away from the dead woman beside her. “I... I think so. The... were these the soldiers you were talking about?”
“Some of them.” Arica hurried to the phone. “We have to call now—soon there will be others.”
“The line’s dead,” Jenna said. “Ice on the wires, or maybe they cut it. We can’t call anyone.”
The spy cursed. At least, Jenna assumed it was a curse: she hadn’t heard the word before. “I have to go straight to the capital,” she said.
“To Greenwater? But it’s twenty miles!”
“There’s no choice! This won’t wait.” Arica returned to the bedroom. She emerged a moment later, dragging the dead man’s body behind her. Though the corpse was much bigger than she was, its weight seemed to give her no trouble at all.
Then the spy began to strip the dead man’s heavy coat from his body. “What are you doing?” Jenna said, shocked.
Arica looked surprised. “It’s a very warm coat. Much better than mine.”
“But his ghost will walk!” Jenna became sharply aware that she’d never been in the presence of so much fresh death before. She hoped that both ghosts would remember that she hadn’t been the one to kill them.
“I think we have more important things to worry about.” Arica finished stripping off the coat and let the body fall to the floor. The head struck the floorboards with a heavy thump. “Peter was always talking about ghosts, too...”
“You should have listened. I don’t know what the dead are like on your side of the border, but they’re a serious threat down here. Did Peter tell you about Damned Alina?”
“Damned who?”
“She was the last of our great witches. When you—your people, I mean—invaded, twenty-five years ago, she knew we didn’t stand a chance—we were completely overwhelmed. After the fifteenth or sixteenth massacre, she decided to do something about it. It was supposed to have been the greatest spell she ever did—and it would have been, if it worked.”
“What happened?” said Arica, looking interested in spite of herself
“Well, the numbers were really against us. By the end of the war we had almost no soldiers left—but we had lots and lots of corpses.” She glanced at the two bodies on the floor. It seemed like a rather bad idea to tell this story here, but she crossed her fingers and continued. “So Alina, who thought herself quite clever, decided she’d make an asset out of a liability.”
Arica blinked. Then she gasped. “No—she didn’t!”
“Oh, yes, she did. Her idea was that since we were all about to die anyway, we didn’t really have that much to lose. An army of the Reawakened could have turned things in our favor, you know?”
“But that’s abominable! Reawakening is a crime against nature. That woman should have been burned at the stake!”
“Maybe in your country,” Jenna said. “I heard the junta killed all your witches.”
“That’s... that’s true.” The Northerner’s voice had gone oddly quiet. “Well. Go on, then. What happened?”
“Well,” said Jenna, “of course Alina didn’t have enough power of her own to Reawaken every dead soldier in the country, even as powerful as she was—not nearly. So, deciding that it would be worth it in the end, she put up everyone else’s power, too. She poured all the magic in the country into that spell. It’s why we don’t have witches anymore,” she added, rather bitterly. “And then, to top it all off, she cast the damned spell wrong.”
“Wrong, how?” Arica sounded fascinated now.
“I think her exact words were something like, ‘Let all the glorious fallen rise and fight their living enemies, and drag them down into the grave.’” Jenna smiled grimly. “I guess it didn’t occur to her that if you’re dead, maybe you think all the living are your enemies. Fortunately, she also failed to specify just how the dead were supposed to rise. So instead of a ravening army of the Reawakened, we just have a massive horde of ghosts who won’t lie peaceful.” She paused. “You’ve really never heard all this?”
“No. Peter never went into detail—he was a solitary man, you know, and didn’t talk much. And in my country... well, they don’t really tell us anything useful. All we learn about the war is that your country was the aggressor—”
Jenna hissed. “They dare—”
“I know it’s not true! Now, anyway. I didn’t know before.” She shook her head. “So... anyway, the spirits, they’re just... wandering out there?”
“Mostly they stay in their graves,” Jenna said. “We were lucky—at least our allies had witches left, and they were able to modify the spell after the dead all turned on Alina and killed her in the first hour. So now it’s just when the living happen by that the ghosts all rise and follow—and they fade again when morning comes. If you can keep ahead of them that long, then you’re generally okay.”
“I’d heard this place was rotten with magic,” said Arica, shaking her head, “but I never quite believed it. What happens to you if the ghosts... catch you?”
Jenna smiled darkly. “The nicer stories say they just get inside your head and trap you in a kind of daydream. They want to be remembered, see
, so they show everything they did and were in life, from the moment of birth to the moment of death. You can’t look away until you’ve seen it all—and by that time, of course, you’re usually dead of starvation or exposure or something..”
Arica nodded. “And the... less-nice stories?”
“They rip out your eyes, climb in through the sockets, and eat you from the inside out.”
Arica shivered. “May I never meet one.” She looked down at the coat in her hands, and seemed to hesitate a moment. Then she shrugged. “Well, I guess I’ll take my chances. Odds are I’m not going to live long enough for anything to haunt me, anyway.” She said this almost cheerfully, as if it were a fact she’d had ample time to get used to. “Anyway, I swear I’ve never seen a ghost before. Maybe that witch’s spell only works on you Southerners.” With that, she shook out the coat—ignoring the bloodstains—and pulled it on over her own. “There’s one for you, too,” she said, nodding towards the other corpse.
Jenna turned. She saw now that there was a neat round hole near the center of the dead woman’s forehead. A pool of scarlet blood had spread out behind the corpse’s head, like a flat, ragged pillow. Some of it had spread beneath the body and was soaking through the good, thick wool of the coat. “Thanks,” said Jenna, shuddering, “but I have my own.”
“As good as that one?” Arica said.
“Of course not.” Jenna’s coat was an old, worn hand-me-down—Pauli had given it to her when he’d gotten his promotion and a new uniform. The country could barely keep its regular soldiers supplied, let alone the road-watchers who acted as secondary defenses. “It doesn’t matter, though. We don’t take from the dead.”
“The dead,” said Arica, “would have shot you, may I remind you, if I hadn’t shot them first. Keep that in mind—and make up your mind quickly, because we need to get going.”
Jenna started. “Going? We? Where?”
“Greenwater! The capital! I told you already. You’ve got to come, too, of course.”
“But why?” Jenna’s head was spinning.
“Once these two don’t report back, somebody’s going to come see what happened to them—and they’re not going to like what they find. We’ve already stayed too long, so put on that damn coat—or don’t, I don’t care—and let’s get going.”
There seemed to be no time to argue. Jenna decided, given the events of the last few minutes, that she’d be best off trusting the stranger for the moment.“All right,” she said, “but we’d better go straight to Goldenfield instead. It’s only half as far as the capital, and the phone lines might still be up.” And if they’re not, she thought grimly, at least I’ll be among friends when the soldiers get there.
The dead woman’s coat really was a good one: lined with squirrel fur, and clearly almost new. And it was very, very cold outside.
Nervous and ashamed, Jenna began to strip the coat from the body. The corpse seemed almost boneless, as if death had robbed it of all its solid parts. She fumbled with the buttons, and almost dropped the body several times, but at last she managed to retrieve the garment. She couldn’t quite stand to put it right next to her skin, so she put her own coat on first and draped the stolen one over it.
There was no time to pack. She looked around the room, already mourning her possessions: her hard-won books, her clothes, her letters. She wasn’t very much attached to the cabin itself, but she still felt guilty leaving it here to be ransacked by enemies. She prayed that some of her things would survive long enough for her to come back and get them.
There was no point in thinking about it now. Jenna damped the woodstove and buried the coals, hoping they’d go out without a problem. She took half a loaf of bread and a packet of dried fish from the cupboards, and filled two canteens with water. At the last minute she remembered to bring the matchbox. She hoped they wouldn’t have to stop long enough to light a fire, but it was best to be safe.
She divided the provisions in half and gave one share to Arica, then looked around one last time. Her eye fell on the little straw star that still lay on the table. She picked it up, and her mother’s letter, too—if she couldn’t take anything else, then she could at least take those. Finally, she rolled up Peter Grant’s will and stuck it in her pocket. That would have to do.
Arica was pacing at the door. “Are you finally ready?” she said.
“Do you have snowshoes?” said Jenna, ignoring the spy’s impatience.
“In the bushes outside your house.”
“Would you grab mine from that hook there?” Gloves, hat, scarf, and she was ready. “All right. Let’s go.”
The wind had died, and the night was silent. The air smelled heavily of pine and fir. Jenna took the lantern from beside the door, and the two girls set off southward down the road.
For a long time there was no sound but the even scuff of their snowshoes across the snow. Though the moon was full, trees crowded close to the road, laying it deep in shadow. It was hard to see anything beyond the lantern’s light.
They had just taken the fork towards Goldenfield when the lantern began to flicker. Jenna moaned. “It’s dying. I didn’t even think to bring more fuel!”
“You have more fuel? Why on earth wouldn’t you bring it?”
“You were pacing at the door!” Jenna felt more than a little defensive. “I had no time to think. Anyway, I thought there was more in the lantern.”
The spy huffed. “What kind of soldier are you?”
“I’m not a soldier! I’m only a road-watcher. The guard stations are all north of here—you must have passed them on your way in.” She thought of Pauli again, and tried to suppress the horrible thought that flashed through her mind. “I guess... I guess some of them are empty, now.”
Arica gave her a sympathetic look. “We’ll get to town as soon as possible. Once your people know about the... breach, they can send in reinforcements.” Jenna nodded, miserable, and pressed on.
They were two miles from the cabin when they passed the first mass graves. “This was the Bluebell Battlefield,” Jenna said.
Arica looked around. “What was?”
Jenna pointed at the great snow-banked berms that flanked the edges of the road. “Do you see those? They’re grave mounds.”
“What, all of them? Is this some kind of cemetery?”
“If you want to call it that.” Jenna frowned. “You never heard of the Bluebell Battle? It was the first battle of the war!”
“I thought the first conflict was the skirmish at Gum Creek.”
“Is that what you call it? A skirmish?” She found herself outraged on the part of her long-dead compatriots. “It was a slaughter! Your full first line of troops against a lot of half-armed villagers fighting desperately to protect their families... Call it a massacre if you want, but don’t call it a damned skirmish.”
“I—I’m sorry.” Arica sounded genuinely startled. “I really don’t know that much about it.”
“It was a surprise attack,” Jenna said. “There was no time to rally the troops, even if we’d had that many to rally. No one had any idea an invasion was coming—we’d always been on good terms with you.”
“It was right after our royal family was murdered,” said Arica. “We—that is, the citizens—thought at the time that Southern assassins had killed them all. The generals must have put it around to cement their power when they took over—and after that we were all too busy fighting the war to question the change in leadership.”
Jenna nodded. It wasn’t something she’d ever heard before, but she supposed it made sense if it was true. “Anyway, there was nothing we could do, and everyone knew it. But of course even the peasants wanted to do what they could, so they took whatever weapons they could find and came out to the road. Even a lot of the older children.” She shook her head. “All of them died, of course.."
Arica was silent. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said after several seconds. “You want me to apologize? You know I’m no more responsible for
what happened than you are."
Jenna shrugged. “Just... wanted you to know, I guess.”
The mounds seemed to watch the travelers from beneath their heavy shrouds of snow. Shadows pooled oddly in the crevices between them, and lingered where the lantern’s light should have driven them off. “Hurry,” Jenna said, walking faster. “This isn’t a good place to be at night.”
But by then it was too late, of course.
The dead rose like mist from their graves: men, women and children, all stunted and gaunt, wearing the wounds they’d died from. Some of them were missing eyes, arms, heads. Others were naked, bruised and bleeding. They had died in springtime, when the bluebells blossomed, and what clothes they wore were ragged and thin, but they did not shiver. They floated forward, murmuring things in voices too soft to hear.
Arica had stopped short, wide-eyed. Though her mouth was open, no sound came out.
“Come on,” Jenna said, taking her by the arm. “They probably can’t get through the light, but I don’t want to take the chance. It’ll be better if we can put them a little ways behind us.”
When they had finally left the grave mounds behind, they slowed down a little. Arica still shuddered. She kept looking over her shoulder to where the dead still followed them, slow and ceaseless.
“You’ve really never seen a ghost before?” said Jenna.
“I mean, I heard stories, but... they’re only legends! Myths! If I’d believed in something like that, I’d never have be able to sleep at night!” She shuddered again. “I may never sleep again! How do you keep them from your houses?”
“Fire keeps them away. Uh... not fire, specifically, you know, but any bright light. That’s why we keep lanterns at our doors.” She looked up at the moon through the fog of her own breath. “And that’s why moonless nights are the worst for traveling. If there had been a new moon tonight, you might not have gotten me out of that house, soldiers or not.”
Arica was scanning the sides of the road, as if expecting to see more of the dead wandering between the trees. There might well have been more, but Jenna certainly wasn’t going to mention it. One wanted a cool head on one’s traveling companion.
They passed through three more cemeteries in the next hour. Each time, more spirits rose to join their ghastly retinue. The dead moved slowly, and the girls’ pace wasn’t too punishing, but stopping to rest was out of the question.
After a while, Arica pulled the half-loaf of bread from her pocket. “Shall we eat?”
“All right.” Jenna took out the fish, split it in half, and handed one share to Arica, accepting her half the bread in return.
Arica raised her ration in sardonic salute. “Eat well.”
Smiling, Jenna returned the gesture. “You know, tonight’s the solstice. We should be having sun cakes and wine.”
“You have sun cakes, too?”
Jenna nodded. “Filled with honey!”
“Really? We use blackcurrant jam.”
Jenna wrinkled her nose. “That sounds awfully strange.”
Arica was peering through the trees again. “What do you use for your burning tree?”
“Fir, usually. And you?”
“The same!” Arica seemed delighted by the similarity.
“I’m surprised you’re allowed to have burning trees,” Jenna said. “I heard your government is completely godless. No offense,” she added.
“No, you’re right. They don’t generally approve. Sometimes they send out soldiers to harass the people who keep the old feasts. They don’t mess much with our town, though. We’re peasants, so it doesn’t matter what we do.”
Her tone was light, but there was real bitterness under it. Jenna remembered what little she had learned about Northern society. “I thought there weren’t supposed to be any peasants in your country. Isn’t everybody supposed to be equal?”
“Supposed to be, yes. That’s the grand theory.” Arica sneered. “Funny, isn’t it, how things never quite work out the way you plan them to?”
“Yes,” Jenna said softly. “Funny.”
They were silent for a long time after that. Occasionally Jenna dared a glance back at their dead following. She kept her eyes low, hoping to avoid any ghostly gazes. The light was so dim that she saw almost nothing, but she never doubted that the whole procession was still behind them.
They were halfway through their ten-mile journey when the soldiers came.
At first the sounds were very faint, barely audible over the creaking of the branches: the distant jingle of harness, the puff of hooves through the snow. When Jenna finally made sense of what she was hearing, she froze, and pulled Arica to a stop. The girls listened, horrified, as the sounds grew unmistakable.
“They’re coming,” Arica whispered, her face a frightened mask. “We have to put out the lantern!”
“We can’t! It’s the only thing keeping the ghosts away!”
“Well, then what do you suggest?”
“Maybe...” A shout from behind cut into her thoughts: they had been spotted. The jingle of harness grew louder.
Jenna tried to focus. “If we go into the trees...” She peered into the black wall of woods beside the road. “You can’t take horses through...”
“So? They’ll dismount, and then they’ll catch us.”
“We have snowshoes...”
“I’m sure they do, too.”
A thought struck. “Would they know about the ghosts?”
“I... wouldn’t think so,” Arica said.
The idea grew, sparks kindling flames in Jenna’s mind. “If they were to chase us through the woods,” she said, “they’d have to stop and put on their snowshoes.”
There was a brief silence. “Yes,” Arica said. “I imagine they would.”
Jenna chanced a look back. Outside the circle of light, the ghosts swirled and wavered like mist. If one didn’t know they were there, one might not see them at all. “Do you see a lantern back there?” she said.
“No.” Arica’s voice was strangely cheerful. “No, I don’t believe I do.”
They exchanged looks, then started walking again, much more slowly.
The wait was nerve-wracking, but necessary: they could give the soldiers no chance to realize their danger. Arica was as tense as a bowstring, clearly poised to run. Jenna felt both sick and excited.
At last, in a blur of snow-muffled hoofbeats, the riders tore around the bend. “Go!” Jenna shouted, and the girls plunged into the pitch-black woods.
The lantern swung wildly, sending crazed arcs of light around them as they wove between the trees. Behind them, Jenna heard the riders wheeling to a stop. She heard curses, then shouts, then the cocking of guns.
She knew the very second the soldiers saw the dead. The shouts abruptly ceased, giving way to frantic orders and then to a storm of gunfire. Suddenly hoofbeats rose and faded: panicked horses, leaving their riders behind.
At last, the gunfire gave way to clicks as chamber after chamber ran out of ammunition. Then came screams—then moans—then silence.
Jenna tried to peer back through the darkness towards the road. She could see nothing beyond the circle of feeble light. She supposed that was a blessing. “I almost feel sorry for them,” she said. “If I didn’t know they were coming to kill us...”
Arica didn’t answer. Turning, Jenna saw that the Northerner was looking the other way, deeper into the woods. Her face was very still.
Jenna felt a chill. “What’s wrong?” she said. “What do you see?”
Arica pointed.
At the very edge of the dwindling light stood a multitude of the risen dead. As Jenna watched, more filled in around the circle, until the girls were completely surrounded.
“No,” Jenna groaned. How could there be so many?
“There must have been a battle here,” Arica said softly. Her face was still blank.
“I don’t know of one,” Jenna said, but she knew that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The war had been a bloody,
chaotic time, and thousands of people had been reported missing and never found. “There might be another mass grave somewhere nearby,” she said. “We might even be standing on it, for all we know.”
They both looked uneasily at their feet.
The lantern flickered again. It seemed about to die.
“What are we going to do?” Arica whispered. The ghosts were pressing closer now, as if they knew that they had almost won. “Do you think we can make it to town?”
Jenna shook her head. “It’s five miles, and we might not have five minutes.” She thought longingly of Goldenfield—the neat rows of houses, the little grocery store, the wide town square where her mother had taught her to snowshoe. Everyone would be gathered there tonight, singing bright songs in the light and warmth of the—
Oh.
Oh.
“What?” Arica hissed, as Jenna’s expression changed. “Did you think of something?” She looked desperate enough to go along with almost anything.
“Look for a dead tree,” Jenna said urgently. “Dry as you can find.”
“How would I know? They’re all bare!” Arica said. Panic was edging into her voice.
“Look at the bark! If the bark is peeling... or if there’s a fir with dead needles—”
“Oh!” Arica cried, and pointed triumphantly. “There—look!”
The tree was perfect: a broad, brittle brown fir, at least ten feet tall and tapered like a lady’s gown. It wore most of its needles, and so couldn’t have been dead for long, but Jenna thought it might be just dry enough. “Come on,” she said, and carried the light forward through the whispering circle of ghosts. “If we can keep a fire going until dawn—it should be only a couple of hours—then they’ll go back to their graves and we can go home.”
“What if more soldiers come?”
“It won’t matter either way if we’re dead.”
The light dwindled lower as the girls pushed their way through the ranged ranks of the dead. The ghosts seemed to realize that they were about to lose their prize, for they began to murmur and moan, reaching out with tatter-sleeved arms as if they could break through the light and seize the living. Jenna thought she could almost feel their icy fingers on her skin, even through her borrowed coat. It took every scrap of nerve she had left to make it to the fir tree.
“Quick,” she said, “a song!” A manic energy was pulsing through her veins. “A burning song, the best one that you know!”
“A—!” Arica caught on, and started to laugh (only a little hysterically). “You’ve got to be joking!”
“I am entirely serious.” Jenna pulled the little straw star from her pocket and hung it on one of the dry brown branches. The ornament was slightly bedraggled, and it looked rather sad all by itself among the needles, but it was as much as they had and much better than nothing. “Go on,” she said, “sing! And you’d better still have those matches.”
Now Arica was really laughing. “You are insane,” she said—but she pulled out the matchbox and handed it to Jenna. “You know we don’t really need a song.”
“True,” Jenna said, “but I want one. I think we deserve one after all this, don’t you? And anyway, it’s supposed to make the wood burn longer.”
“But why do I have to sing?”
“I brought the ornament!” She made shooing motions with her hands, glancing at the circle of vengeful ghosts. “And you’d better hurry, before the lantern runs out and they all tear our eyes out. Go on!”
So, with a last nervous glance at the frustrated spirits, Arica began to sing a solstice hymn. Her voice was low and rough, hoarse from the cold and shouting and probably sickness—but the song she sang was beautiful. It rose and fell along an eerie scale that Jenna had never heard before, and the words were in the dialect the soldiers had used—Arica’s home tongue, she realized with a start. Jenna couldn’t make out much of the language, but even so the themes were clear: friendship, safety, home and family, light in darkness, warmth in winter. Feeling safer than she had any right to, and happier than she’d ever thought she would, Jenna smiled, struck a match, and lit the star on fire.
Five Stories for the Dark Months Page 2
