Frost (4 page)

I wondered if the infection would kill him tonight or if it would take days for him to succumb.

His eyes snapped open, and I jerked back. He turned, his gaze searching the darkness before settling on my face. The irises of his eyes were a deep gray-blue, like the sky before a storm, and a shiver that was only partly fear ran down my spine as they met mine.

“Where am I?” he whispered harshly. His hand darted out and snagged my wrist, pulling me forward. “Who are you?”

Ivy touched my shoulder, and the Father’s gaze shifted to her face. He scowled, and I felt her stiffen. His fingers tightened on my wrist, but I pulled away just as he fainted again.

Grabbing Ivy, I dragged her away from him and out into the yard. The cold air shocked me into sudden clarity. What had we done?

“Will he be all right?” my sister asked.

“Go to the house. I want you to stay clear of him. He’s dangerous.”

“What about his wounds?” My sister wriggled free from my hands and looked back at the barn.

I hesitated, weighing her words. “Get the rags, then,” I said, because she was right. "And bring some milk and a blanket, too.

She ran.

When she came back with a quilt, a pitcher of milk, and strips of torn-up old clothes we used for cleaning and stuffing cracks, I crouched beside his unconscious body and ripped his shirt open so I could reach the wound. The fabric tore easily. It was some kind of delicate, silky cloth, completely unsuited to the cold weather and the forest terrain. I tossed it aside and took the wet rag from Ivy.

It was dark in the barn now, the light from the open door fading into blue twilight. I cleaned him up as best as I could, wrapping his shoulder with rags for bandages. I had no medicine to give him, nothing. Ivy hovered at my back, shivering and wincing every time I handed her something bloody.

When I’d finished, I packed straw and the quilt around him. At least he'd be warm tonight. I set the pitcher of milk beside his head.

“Come on,” I said. “It is almost dark, and the storm is growing worse. We need to be inside.”

Ivy looked ready to protest, but she was frightened, too. I locked the barn door, grabbed her arm, and dragged her back to the house before she could try to argue.

Jonn looked up from the yarn as we came in with our flushed faces and wet hair. He absorbed our condition, his expression transforming from relief to concern. “What happened?”

Ivy looked at me and then away. “We have a visitor in the barn,” she said.

My brother’s face wrinkled in confusion. “A visitor? Lia, what is she talking about?”

I licked my lips. I wasn’t sure how to say it. Might as well be blunt. “Ivy found an injured Farther in the woods and insisted we bring him here. He is in the barn. He is dying, I think.”

Jonn was silent. A clock ticked loudly in the stillness.

“A Farther?” he repeated, finally.

“Yes.” What else was there to say? If the village Elders found out, we would be severely punished, perhaps even lose the farm. It was as simple and as stark as that. I threw another look of pure fury at Ivy, but she was shaking the snow out of her cloak and didn’t see it.

“Pick up the laundry,” I said to her. “You’ve left it all over the house.”

She started gathering up the blankets and shirts, and I went into the kitchen and paced. There was an old story in our village lore about a girl who found a baby rock snake and took it in as a pet. When she scooped up the snake to cuddle it, the creature sank its fangs into her arm and killed her.

Sometimes pity was a mistake.

I bit my lip as worry gnawed at me again.

A crack of thunder split the air, and sleet began to pelt the glass like pebbles. I peeked through the window and saw that the world had turned into a wall of white. The storm was here.

I went to the fire. Jonn was bent over the yarn in his lap again, his long fingers winding it into a tight bundle for quota day. Ivy joined me, and we stoked the flames high to drown out the sound of the wind shrieking against the joints of the house. Wrapping a quilt around my waist, I picked up a snarl of fibers and settled in a chair, my fingers twisting the material into long strands of cream-colored yarn. I kept one eye on the door, because a piece of me kept expecting the village Elders to kick it down every time so much as a shingle creaked overhead.

This was a mistake, my mind chanted at me, and I wholeheartedly agreed. But try as I might, I couldn’t forget the way I’d felt when I’d looked at him in the woods, and he’d looked at me, and it had been as if I’d never seen another person before.

Surely I was going mad to be thinking such things, especially about a Farther.

After what felt like hours of weaving, Ivy made a sobbing sound and tossed down her yarn. “It’s too much,” she said, her eyes shiny. “I’m exhausted and cold.”

I opened my mouth to reprimand her. But Jonn put down the yarn in his lap and pulled out his flute from beneath his chair. Putting it to his lips, he began to play.

The first few notes shivered in the air. They broke the silence like droplets of water splattering against the hearth.

Ivy’s shoulders drooped as she succumbed to the beauty of the music. I kept weaving, but my ears were tuned to the notes. The melody dipped and danced, coaxing us to relax before stirring us to smile. My soul soared along with the song as it reached a crescendo.

This was my brother’s greatest strength. This was his true calling.

If only there was a quota for beauty, instead of function.

The song ebbed and fell into silence, and we were left breathing in the lack of it. Jonn wiped his lips, smiled gently at me, and began another.

He knew how much Ivy needed it. How much
I
needed it.

His music revived us like water revived a plant. Slowly, I let myself feel the ache that still throbbed deep inside me at the loss of our parents. Our mother had taught him to play after his accident. Now it was one of the few pieces we had left of her.

When he’d finished, we all breathed. Ivy’s eyelids began to close. Jonn leaned back and put the instrument away, picking up his yarn again.

Feeling sorry about my earlier harshness toward my sister, I got her a quilt and tucked it around her thin body. She made soft noises like a kitten, her eyes cracking open for a second to look at me. “Love you,” she murmured, and my heart melted a little.

I went back to my place, and Jonn and I worked silently into the night as the storm lashed out, and my baby sister fell asleep.

THE WIND WHISPERED through the slits in the shutters and beneath the cracks in the door. Jonn slept, his body curled up like a cat’s and his head on his folded arms. Ivy was also asleep, her body leaning against Jonn’s chair. I sat before the fireplace, a blanket around my shoulders and my father’s pistol in my hand.

Outside, the wind howled and moaned. But as always, I loved the sound of it, because it drowned out the worse sounds.

The screams.

They were inhuman, those sounds—high and keening, like birds of prey. Shivers ran up and down my skin as I listened to the calls that echoed through the night, a horrible song played in time with the fury of the wind, calling and answering each other. These were the sounds
they
made. Watchers. The screams were proof that they existed and not just in my nightmares.

I winced as another shriek tore through the night. Terror dried up my mouth and made my bones feel soft. I burrowed deeper into the blanket and gripped the gun tightly. It was old and didn’t work, as far as I knew—I’d never seen my father use it. But holding it made me feel safer, so I cradled it in my lap and counted the seconds.

The Watchers only screamed during storms. Otherwise, they were utterly silent as they crept through the forest.

I thought of the meager row of blossoms dangling over our door and shuddered again as a shrill shriek lacerated the silence before dying off like a wounded animal. All the hairs on my arms prickled. And when the door shuddered as if something was clawing it, I jumped to my feet and lifted the gun. Jonn stirred in his sleep.

I waited, ready to shoot if anything tried to enter. Sweat slid down my back. The wind moaned again, sounding like the injured Farther in the barn. I gritted my teeth and kept the gun pointed at the door, even when my arm began to ache. I stayed standing until the storm calmed in the early hours of the morning. When I finally slumped to the floor in utter exhaustion, I slept.

~

Morning light touched my face, waking me.

“Lia?” It was Jonn’s voice.

I sat up with a start, brushing my hair from my face. The room smelled like sweat and ashes. The fire was almost cold, and my nose was chilled. My gaze darted around the room—to the fireplace, where the ashes had grown cold, to the shutters, streaming with sunlight, to the door, still barred shut.

I zeroed in on that last detail, and I felt myself over to be sure I was truly alive and whole. And I was.

“We’re all right,” I breathed aloud. With every scream-filled storm that came, a part of me feared that we would not be alive in the morning. And every time, the relief was sweet.

The Watchers had left us unscathed.

Jonn watched from his chair as I stood and stretched. Amusement touched his mouth, making him look devilish. “Did you spend the whole night awake and ready as usual?”

“No.” I did not mention that while I
had
slept, it had only been for a few hours. I did not mention the gun, either.

He smiled his disbelief. He was able to sleep through the storms, his faith in the blossoms’ power to keep out the Watchers strong. I was the one who could never shut my eyes for fear that we’d be eaten while we dreamed.

“I slept, Jonn,” I said, and my voice was a little sharper.

He raised one eyebrow, annoying me. There was little humor in the situation, although Jonn would milk it for any amusement he could find.

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have time to argue with him. We had quota to meet. We had yarn to spin and bundle into balls, not to mention the animals to tend and the—

The Farther.
Anxiety dropped onto my shoulders like a heavy quilt as the memories of the night before swept over me.
The Farther was in our barn
.

I scanned the room. “Where is Ivy?”

Jonn looked at the window without speaking, and I hissed a curse and grabbed my cloak. Shoving open the door, I pounded through the freshly fallen snow for the barn.

~

She was already inside, her back pressed to the door and her eyes wide. I went straight past her for the hay, my heart squeezing tight and my mouth suddenly dry.

Had he died in the night?

His eyes were closed and his face was pale. He was not dead, though—I saw the shallow rise and fall of his chest beneath his strange shirt and coat. Something in me loosened at the confirmation of his survival, like I’d been holding my breath.

Ivy reached my side. “He was moaning,” she said. At her words, he made a sound of pure agony that made my heart ache even if he was a dangerous Farther.

“He is probably full of infection.” I needed to step closer, to look him over, but I wasn’t sure if it was safe. I remembered last night and his expression when he’d woken in the barn. He had not looked grateful.

“His wound...” She pointed at the place where the blood had blackened his torn shirt and arm. “Shouldn’t we clean it again?”

I pressed my lips together. There was no way I was letting her within three feet of this Farther, not when he was awake. “Bring me some warm water and soap, and an extra shirt of Jonn’s. And some of the stew left over from last night’s supper. He’s probably hungry now.”

She hesitated, wanting to argue. The nervousness I felt rose up in me like a wave, and I snapped, “Go.”

She went.

With her gone, I could really examine him in the light of day. Last night it had been too dark to really see anything. His groaning was loud now, almost a keening. I’d heard the sound of my grandfather dying from stomach-sick years ago, and it was much like this. I crept closer, my midsection churning.

He was barely visible under the straw that covered him. His eyelids cracked open when I approached, and he rustled beneath his blanket of hay. I faced him without smiling or cowering. I wanted him to know that I was not afraid of him. Or at least, I wanted him to think that I wasn’t.

“You,” he whispered. His breath hissed between his teeth as the pain seized him again, and he shuddered. “You are one of those Snow People, the ones who live in the Frost.”

He was young, I supposed, probably not much older than me. But his voice had a strength in it that made him sound older than that. His hair was thick and dark, like every Farther I’d ever seen, and his skin was tanned darker than my pale Frost complexion. He had a thin, sharp face and lashes as long as a girl’s. They fluttered as he squinted at me.

“Yes,” I said, because the term
Snow People
was accurate enough when describing my village, although that was not what we called ourselves.

He took in my expression, and his eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do to me? Let me die? Or give me back?”

“Give you back?” I asked. What was he babbling about?

He sighed, and I realized that he had passed out again. His face turned the color of gravel and perspiration dotted his forehead.

I moved closer. My skin tingled at my nearness to him. There had been malevolence in his eyes—what if he sprang forward and grabbed me? What if he tried to hurt me? But he was unconscious and sick, and as my fears lessened, I grew bolder and leaned in to study his wound.

The blood had dried, leaving a sticky river of brownish-black down his shoulder and arm. The strange clothing on his back hung in tatters, exposing the torn flesh, and bits of rock and straw studded the wound. I could see from the severity of it that he would be dead before long.

The skin around his wound was swollen. I probed it gently.

He jerked awake at my touch, and his eyes flew open as he cried out. I staggered back, startled. Our eyes met.