The Sweet Far Thing (88 page)

Pip frowns. “I’ve heard nothing.”

“The creatures are on their way here now. If they sacrifice me at the Tree of All Souls, they will have all the power of the Temple and rule the realms.”

“They cannot rule the realms!” She laughs. “They cannot because I am chosen. I hold the magic. It grows in me. The tree told me so! If they plotted, I should know it.”

“You don’t know everything, Pippa,” I say.

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She brings her face toward me until it is inches from mine. Her lips are still purple from the berries. Her breath smells of vinegar. “You’re lying.” A slight smile pulls at her mouth. “Why don’t you use your magic against me?”

“I don’t want to do that,” I say, my voice cracking.

Pippa’s face lights up. “You’ve lost it, haven’t you?”

“No, I haven’t—”

“That’s why you couldn’t stop me—because
I
am the true chosen one!” Pippa thunders.

Bessie grabs me hard by the arm. “Let’s prove it to the unbelievers! Let’s take ’em to the Winterlands!”

“No!” I shout.

Pippa claps. “That is a splendid plan! Oh, yes, let’s!”

Felicity takes Pip’s hands. “Pippa, if I eat the berries, if I stay with you, will you let them go?”

“Felicity!” I shout.

She shakes her head and gives me the tiniest of smiles.

“Will you? Will you let them go?”

A glimmer of recognition flashes in Pip’s eyes, as if she is remembering a favorite dream. She leans down, the black of her hair weaving into Felicity’s blond strands, a tapestry of light and dark. Sweetly, Pippa kisses Fee on her forehead.

“No,” she says harshly.

“Pip, you don’t understand; they’ll hurt you,” Felicity implores, but Pippa is past human reason.

“I am more powerful than they are! They don’t frighten me. I am the way! I am the one! Bessie, we need another volunteer,” Pippa commands.

I am pulled from my seat and up to the altar, where I fear I may meet the same fate as Miss McCleethy.

Pippa forces more berries into my hands.

“Eat, for I am the way.”

The berries stain my palm. I said I would safeguard the magic, but I have no choice: I must use it. We must break free.

I draw deeply on my power and it surges through me with renewed vigor. Pippa locks her arms with mine and we are joined in struggle. The magic feels new and hard and terrifying. My mouth tastes of metal. It’s as if my blood is no longer in my control. It pulses out of time, rushing through my veins till I shake. I feel everything inside Pippa—the rage, the fear, the desire, the longing. And I know she feels what is in me as well. When I find the secret wound, Felicity, a look of terrible sadness passes over her
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face.

“Let me go,” she croaks. “Let me go.”

“Only if you let us go,” I say.

She unleashes her power in full, and I am blown back against the wall of the castle. I fall into a crumple.

“Stop!” I shout. And when I let loose, she falls to her knees. But I can feel the magic turning, and I dare not be without my wits now. I have to rein in my power a bit, and in that moment, Pippa lets hers soar, pinning me against the wall, where the vines begin to crisscross over my hands and feet.

“Pippa!” Felicity shouts, but Pip is beyond caring now.

“I am the way!” she shouts.

Felicity swings the flat of the sword against her, knocking her over. The magic’s hold loosens.

“Fee?” Pip says, eyes wide. And then she sees the gash in her arm, her blood trickling down into the velvety vines. With a mighty groan, the castle shifts and bucks till we tumble one over the other.

“What is happening?” Mae Sutter shouts.

The vines whip about, reaching for whatever they can grab. There is a deafening roar as the ancient stones begin to tumble. We run for the doors in a panicked clump, dodging the falling debris.

“Pip!” Felicity shouts. “Pip, come away from there!”

But Pip’s face is alight with some terrible joy. She lifts her arms to the sky. “There is nothing to fear! I am the way!”

“Pip! Pip!” Fee screams as I yank her away.

We watch, helpless, as the desperate vines find Pippa, pulling her down hard. “No!” she shouts. “I am the way!” But the sky is raining stone. And then the great castle falls in on itself completely, entombing Pippa deep within its broken walls, silencing her forever.

Felicity, Ann, and I barely escape. We are left panting in the grass as the castle sinks back into the earth—the land reclaiming its own, and Pippa along with it. Bessie and Mae have escaped, as have some of the others. Mercy has been buried along with Pippa.

The girls stare at the spot where Pippa was standing.

Mae smiles through her tears. “She meant it to be this way,” she says in utter rapture. “Don’t you see?

She sacrificed ’erself. For us.”

Bessie shakes her head. “No.”

Mae grabs her skirts. “We have to keep doin’ what she told us to do. Keep eatin’ the berries. Follow her ways. Then she’ll come back. Pray with me, Bessie.”

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Bessie shakes her off. “I won’t. It’s done, Mae. Get up.”

“She was chosen,” Mae insists.

“No, you’re wrong,” I say. “She was only a girl.”

Mae will not see it any other way. She grabs handfuls of rotting berries and swallows them, calling Pippa’s name like a prayer after each one. She holds fast to her belief; she doesn’t want to know that she’s been misled, that she’s abandoned here, alone, with no one to guide her but her own heart.

Bessie runs after me. “Can I come?”

I nod. She’s a brawler, and we might have need of one.

I catch up to Felicity.

“Fee…,” I start.

She wipes her nose on her sleeve, turning her head away from me. “Don’t.”

I should leave her to it, but I can’t. “She was gone for some time. You were the only force that kept her from turning completely. That’s magic. Perhaps the most powerful I’ve seen.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

GORGON HASN’T WAITED FOR US TO RETURN. SHE HASsailed after us, and now she waits for us on the river. Kartik takes one look at Felicity’s tear-streaked face and lets well enough alone. He and Bessie size each other up, and she moves onto the boat without a word.

“It’s done,” I tell him. “Gorgon, steer us toward the Winterlands.”

Fowlson hurries to my side. “Wait! What do you mean? Where’s Sahirah?”

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

I’m afraid he might scream. Howl. Curse us. Hit something. Instead, he sinks silently to the floor of the ship, his head in his hands, which is somehow so much worse.

“What can we do?” I whisper to Kartik.

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“Let him be.”

Gorgon guides us along the river. Small fires burn upon the water. They blaze brightly in their smoking bowers. The flames leap and crackle, threatening us with their heat. The wind blows, peppering us with a choking ash. It is like entering the mouth of hell.

Lightning pulses behind the twisting, churning red clouds over the Winterlands.

“We are near,” Gorgon says.

Ann gasps, puts a hand to her mouth. She’s staring at the water, where the lifeless body of some unfortunate soul floats past, facedown. It bobs there for a moment, a grim reminder of our task, and then the current carries it away. But it will stay in my memory forever. The rest of us fall silent. We are crossing out of the Borderlands. We are entering the Winterlands, and there is no turning back.

Gorgon eases into the pool where we first met the army of the dead. Upon the tops of the craggy cliffs, blazes have been set. I do not want to know who set them or what might be used as fuel. The forest folk and the Hajin have pulled their boats ashore. Philon turns those cool eyes to the cliffs, searching for something.

“Which is the way to the tree?” the creature asks, shouldering a shimmering ax.

“There is a passage that way,” I say.

“Where is the teacher?” Philon asks.

“We lost Miss McCleethy to the Borderlands,” I say.

Fowlson has taken off his belt. He sharpens his knife against the leather in faster and faster strokes.

“I fear that is just the beginning,” Philon answers.

Weapons in hand, our ragged band sets off for the narrow passage that leads to the heart of the Winterlands. I plead with Gorgon one last time.

“I wish you would join us. We could sorely use you.”

“I cannot be trusted,” she insists.

I lean closer to her than I ever have before, as if I might embrace her. One of the snakes rubs over my wrist, and I do not pull away. It flicks its tongue and moves on. “I trust you.”

“Because you do not know me.”

“Gorgon, please…”

Pain shows in her eyes and she closes them to hide it. “I cannot, Most High. I shall await your return.”

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“If I return,” I say. “We are outnumbered, and my magic is unreliable.”

“If you fall, we are all lost. Destroy the tree. That is the only way.”

“Will she come with us?” Ann asks when I catch up to them.

“No,” I say.

Philon glances at the unmerciful landscape—the clouds streaked with red, the unforgiving passageway ahead. Harsh, cold winds kick gritty sand into our faces. “Pity. We could use her warrior strength now.”

We crowd into the narrow canyon. A slick, pale creature slides its slimy hand from behind a rock, and I have to place a hand over Ann’s mouth to silence the scream there.

“Just keep walking,” I whisper.

Kartik squeezes back down the ranks. “Gemma, I don’t think we should come out as we did before.

We’re exposed then. There’s a small tunnel that leads to a ledge behind the cliffs. It’s narrow, not easy, but from there, we can watch them, protected.”

“Agreed,” I say. “Lead the way.”

We creep along a crumbling ledge with a severe drop into nothingness. It makes my blood pound, so I keep my eyes trained on Philon’s ax glimmering just ahead. At last, we push out of the tunnel, and Kartik is right: There is a spot behind the cliff where we might hide.

“Do you hear that?” Kartik asks.

In the distance is the sound of drums. They echo off the mountains.

“I shall see,” Kartik says. He scrambles up the craggy mountain as if born to it. He pokes his head above the cliff ’s edge, then hurries down again. “They’re gathering on the heath.”

“How many?” Philon asks.

Kartik’s face is grim. “Too many to count.”

The pounding of the drums resonates in my bones. It fills my head till I think I shall go mad. It is easier not to see their numbers, not to look on the horror of them and know. But I must know. I must know.

Gripping tightly to the rock, I pull myself up and peek over the rough crags that protect us for now.

Kartik did not lie. The Winterlands army is vast and terrifying. At the fore ride the trackers in billowing black capes that flap open to reveal the souls trapped inside. Even from this distance I can see the glint of their jagged teeth. They tower over the others, nearly seven feet tall. The Poppy Warriors in their matted chain mail transform into enormous black crows and circle over the fields. They caw with a chilling persistence; more and more of them rise till one patch of the sky is a blur of black and the air crackles with their cries. I pray they will not fly in this direction and spy our hiding place. Behind them is an army of corrupted spirits—the dead walking. Their eyes are hollow and unseeing or the disquieting blue-white of Pippa’s. They follow without question. And in the center is the tree, taller, mightier than the last time I saw it. Its limbs stretch out in all directions. I swear that I can see the souls slipping under its bark like
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blood. And I know that in its dark heart hides Eugenia Spence.

Drummers bang out a thundering rhythm.

“How will we fight them?” Ann asks, and I feel her fear within my own heart.

“Look, down there,” Felicity says. One of the Poppy Warriors pulls Wendy along with him. She stumbles, exhausted, but she is intact. Eating those berries damned her to a life here, but it must have saved her from being a fitting sacrifice. The Poppy Warrior licks her cheek, and Wendy recoils. I hate to think of her chained to such a horrible beast.

The drums stop, and the silence is almost more terrifying.

“Wot are they about?” Fowlson asks, his knife already in his hand.

“I don’t know,” I say.

The tree speaks.
Have you brought the sacrifice?