Thornghost (25 page)

T
he wail from the screaming stone filled the Summerhill woods with anguish. Niklas had no doubt what caused the howl. The border was breaking, and if he could not stop it in time, all the bravery he could muster and all the sacrifice Secret had made would not help Summerhill.

He knew all this, yet when he turned the final curve and Summerhill came into view, he still staggered at the sight of it.

The main house slept, the elm tree didn't stir. A clammy, gray mist hung down the hill, stopping abruptly at the screaming stone like foul water lapping at a cliff. There were dark shapes in the fog, stony and tall, with faces of warped and cruel leather that sliced the mist.

Rafsa's army.

There must be a hundred of them gathered on the hill above the Oldmeadow trail, waiting to slash and kill.

Rafsa herself stood in front of the screaming stone, dressed in her scorched bone armor and hundreds of runes. She had fresh burn marks on her skull and shoulders, but when she turned to greet him, she grinned.

“The boy-enemy, come to bleed!”

The trolls all turned to him. Their eyes glowed like fog lights. Niklas stopped well outside the mist, but he had no doubt the trolls would overtake him in seconds if he tried to run. He took a deep breath. “The Sparrow King is gone. The sparrows took him. Broken is Jewelgard again.”

Rafsa snickered. “The Sparrow King was always a stupid one, too vain, too certain his mind was the sharpest. The sparrows can have him and the whole realm if they want. They don't concern us anymore.”

“The trolls of Broken are dead, too. Petrified by the lighthouse.”

She didn't even blink. “I saw. But I have the Summerhill brood. In these woods, it is humans against trolls. Throat against claw. I like that fight better.”

A small, crisp noise weaved into the keening of the stone. Niklas knew that sound, too. His first thought was of Kepler, and his frantic warning,
It's my task to ring the bell!
But Kepler wasn't here, and he couldn't place the sound. Not until Rafsa hoisted a white armful off the ground, making it chime with terror.

Edith. Mr. Molyk's bell sheep.

What was she doing out of her pen?

Rafsa had bound her legs with troll rope, but still Edith bucked and tossed her not-so-pretty head, trying desperately to run from the creature that had killed her lamb. But of course she couldn't.

“Don't do it,” Niklas cried. “Don't hurt her.”

“No?” Rafsa dumped the sheep on the sandy path, where she struggled and kicked but failed to get up. “Maybe I won't. Not if you do as I say.” She slid out the scythe claw on her right hand. “I thought I had to cut you to break the stone, but now I think you had a point. You made the border, boy-enemy. You can break it with the magic I gave you. I made the rune on your arm to destroy the stone. Just touch it and make it so.”

“How did you catch Edith?” Niklas edged closer, trying to buy some time. “You can't go past the stone.”

Rafsa threw her head back. All the bones in her armor clattered. “Easy! Molyk has better things to do than watch over his sheep. I found this one wandering in Oldmeadow. You couldn't have pulled a better prank on him yourself.”

Edith rolled her eyes with fear. She had given up trying to run now, but she trembled so hard her bell stuttered. “Please, Edith,” Niklas called to her. “Pretty, pretty Edith. Don't be scared. I'll bring you lots of sugar, I promise, sugar and green grass . . .”

Rafsa watched them, heavy-lidded and smug, until Niklas ran out of things to say. Edith was too terrified to hear him anyway.

“That's how it is with you, boy-enemy. You're so eager to sacrifice yourself. But someone else? That's a choice you're too scared to make.” Rafsa ran her claw along Edith's side, shearing off a ribbon of tangled wool. “Tonight you will choose. What will it be? Break the border stone or kill your friend?”

Niklas closed his fists. “I won't do it.”

“No?” Rafsa clicked her tongue. “For someone who claims to love animals, you leave a lot of dead ones in your wake. Maybe you don't care as much about sheep as you do about dogs or lynxes. But this one . . .” She kicked at Edith, who bleated miserably. “This one you could
save.
If you want to.”

Niklas looked around for help, for an idea, for anything that could spare him this decision. He couldn't measure poor Edith's life against his grandmother and uncle and every soul in Willodale, he knew that. But if he let Edith die, it would be Rag all over again. And Secret. Sebastifer. Even poor Marcelius, sinking and so afraid. Worse even, because this time it would be on purpose. It would be his choice. “Pretty Edith,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. “Don't be scared.”

He rolled up the sleeve of his wet shirt. He had kept the
break
rune hidden for so long that the wound had not fared so well. It rose from his arm in angry welts. Rafsa licked her cracked lips, already tasting the triumph. She held Edith by the scruff and put her claw against the
sheep's throat, and Niklas could tell from the troll witch's glittering eyes that she knew she had won.

“I, Niklas Summerhill,” he began, but the words got lost in the wail of the screaming stone and the tinkling of Edith's bell. He raised his voice. “I, Niklas Summerhill, made this magic. Now I, too, call this rune to unmake it.”

He paused. The troll brood whispered and moaned as they slid their claws out, and the fog gathered and grew behind Rafsa like a wall. She leered at the screaming stone, rattle-boned and hungry.

“All of it.”

Rafsa wrenched toward him, forgetting both the stone and Edith, who twisted around and rolled out of reach. Too had not been able to remove the troll rune from his skin, not without cutting it off. But she had improved it.

All Brokeners are thieves,
the little cat had said.
I just happen to steal runes.

The
&
rune curled through the corner of the rectangle, taking the rune's power away from Rafsa and making it Too's. But hooked onto the end of the
&
, Too had made an extra mark, an
N
surrounded by swirls and dots.
I made this mark for you,
she had explained.
If I'm right, the rune should now be yours to do with as you will.

A howl broke from Rafsa as she understood his plan. Niklas screamed at the top of his lungs to drown her out. “All of it! I unmake all the magic in these woods!” His arm seared as if it had caught fire, his legs buckled and he
fell to his knees. He dug his nails into the troll rune and yelled, “Break!”

With a tremendous crack, the screaming stone split in half. The pieces toppled. One half fell toward Summerhill, the other toward Sorrowdeep. The first half would have smashed Rafsa into the ground, except she was no longer there.

The troll witch had ceased to be, along with her bone armor and hundreds of runes. Niklas could see no trace of her or of the troll army in the coils of fog that twirled away from the stone, unraveling. Where their giant feet had stood, the moss showed footprints and claw slashes. But already they smoothed out and filled in, erasing Rafsa and all her brood from the memory of the land.

A sigh swept through the woods, ruffling the leaves as it blew up the hill. From the mountains came the sound of distant thunder, except there was no storm coming in. Dust puffed up above the treetops, hiding the face of Buttertop, and Niklas knew in every bone that there would be no going back to the avalanche tunnel. That the troll caves were gone and the gate to Broken locked away forever. He lifted his hand to his medallion. No electric sting. No pulse. Just soft wood against his fingers.

The magic had broken, and with it his stupid cub heart.

But the Summerchild whispered in its dell, clean and no longer tainted, and Edith's bell rang as she dashed down the Molyk trail, free of the troll rope and free to find
her lambs. And somewhere under a different moon, in a garden full of jewels, his Secret was probably eating apple cake and telling Kepler he didn't know how to sneak.

“You were right as always, Secret. It had to be done.” Niklas slipped the lynx medallion inside his shirt and turned to go home.

J
ust one more thing, he told himself as he latched the Summerhill gate shut behind him. Just to be absolutely sure. Instead of continuing into the yard, he turned left and followed the path down to the stream.

The graveyard slept in its crook of the water. The birds hid in the willows, the raspberries drooped with dew. Erika's grave seemed undisturbed beneath its cover of grass, the headstone untainted by moss. And though the Summerchild filled the meadow with whispers and splashes, Niklas couldn't hear any words in its voice.

The crypt lay dark and silent under the chapel ruins, but Niklas didn't go in. He had seen enough of ruins and crypts for a while. He shoved the hatch into place, to wait for another time and a brighter day.

He was leaving when he saw the new stone, a pretty, flat one with rounded edges and a faint sparkle in the
grain. Three lemon-yellow letters had been painted across the top. While Niklas was away, someone had made a gravestone for Rag.

He decided he would put one up for Secret right next to Rag's, and one for Sebastifer, too. He was sure they wouldn't mind one another's company.

• • •

T
he first thing he noticed when he entered the yard was how worn it was. Even in the moonlight he could see the marks of many car tires crisscrossing the dirt. The second thing he noticed was a dark streak that shot out from the barn and headed straight for him. It didn't stop until it had him trapped.

Apart from Secret, Niklas had never heard anyone purr quite so loudly.

“Tobis,” he laughed. “That's not very catlike of you.” Tobis, being a cat, didn't care. He continued to weave around Niklas's legs, rubbing his head against the damp trousers, sounding like a broken engine. Niklas bent down to scratch his chin. “If you don't stop soon, I'll start to think you missed me.”

Tobis reared up on his hind legs to sniff the lynx medallion, then rubbed against that, too, lifting his lip to make sure he left his scent.

“I know,” Niklas whispered. “She's quite something.”

The door to the main house opened, and Uncle Anders stood in the doorway, hair pointing every which way. The flashlight painted his cheeks hollow. “Niklas,” he said. “You stupid, reckless, dear boy. You're home!”

W
hen Niklas woke, the strangest sound thrummed up through his bedroom floor. A violin. Uncle Anders was playing in the bird room. Not the sorrowful lullaby of the Summerchild, but a happy, lilting folk tune to stomp around to. By the loud thumps that came with the music, that's exactly what Uncle Anders was doing.

Niklas looked through his windows. To the north, the screaming stone lay broken in half in the moss. To the south, the yard shimmered with sunshine.

He washed his face, found fresh clothes, and rushed downstairs. Underneath the bench in the hallway, the chocolate cake tin felt promisingly heavy.

Still, he waited a moment before he opened the door to the kitchen. They hadn't woken Grandma Alma last night because Uncle Anders said she needed her rest these days. Niklas hadn't said anything, but he worried. The last time
he had seen her, she lay tucked into her tiny bed, so frail, it felt like she was gone already. But when he went inside, he found her busy at the kitchen counter, dressed in her splotchy flower apron and smacking her lips. Making tea.

She turned to him. “Well, don't just stand there and gawp. Come over here!”

He crossed the floor and hugged her, and there was certainly nothing frail about the squeeze she gave him. “Grandma!” he said into her white curls. “You look so much better!”

“Well, I feel better.” She let him go and returned to the task at hand. “That was some fever. I had the strangest dreams. I dreamt my grandson went into the woods and disappeared.”

Niklas waited for some sign that she was joking. He had been gone for five nights, Uncle Anders had told him. If she wasn't going to ask where he had been, he would at least expect some sort of punishment. But as she got the milk jug out of the fridge and set it next to the sugar, she wore her regal face, perfectly pleasant but somehow impish underneath.

He decided to stick to the play.

“Me too. I dreamt Uncle Anders woke all of Summerhill playing the violin.”

She snorted as she strained for her mug above the kitchen counter. “More like a nightmare, that.”

Not really, Niklas thought. Not even close.

He hadn't dreamt at all last night, but a chill curled down his back, and he supposed it would be that way whenever he heard the word
nightmare
for a very long time. But in the sun-warmed kitchen, dreams were easily shaken off. He fetched the mug down for her, and she dunked it in the big pot of tea simmering on the stove. Judging from the bitter smell, it had been steeping all morning. “Would you like some? I've made extra, from a bottle as per your instructions. Turns out Mr. Molyk has a nose for good, strong tea.”

“No, thank you,” Niklas said. “Wait, did you say Mr. Molyk?”

“I did.” Grandma Alma peered up at him. “Now sit down so I can tower over you when I speak, like a proper queen.”

Niklas sat down.

“Mr. Molyk has been here a great deal since you disappeared. He's been searching for you day and night. With the other farmers, with Uncle Anders, and when the others had to rest, alone. Always searching.”

“He has?” Niklas picked some sugar cubes out of the bowl and turned them over in his hand. Rafsa had said that Mr. Molyk had other things to do than watch his sheep. “Why?”

Grandma Alma tilted her head. “You know, just because it was someone's secret once doesn't mean you're not allowed to guess.” She plucked the sugar out of
Niklas's hand and dropped all of it into her tea. “You've got a passable head on your shoulders, young prince. You figure it out.”

Niklas thought of the twelve-year-old Peder Molyk in Oldmeadow and of Mr. Molyk leaning on his shovel by Erika's grave. With the smallest slant, the memory shifted so that Mr. Molyk didn't look angry anymore, just sad and full of regret. Everything had changed after Broken: the stream, the screaming stone, and most of all, his mother.

He had a thousand questions for Uncle Anders, when he stopped playing, and for himself, too. But for now there were just too many muck tricks between him and any sort of sensible reply. So he said, “Can I have some chocolate cake?”

Grandma Alma laughed. “For breakfast? Certainly not. But I may have something else for you.” She glanced up at the kitchen wall clock. “Yes, I'd say it's about time. Go outside and wait.”

He padded barefoot down the steps. The ground felt cool where the elm tree spread its shade across the yard. He headed for the edge of the netherfield, where Tobis lay basking in the sun on a flat stone, and they sat for a while in companionable silence, watching the butterflies flit across the golden grass.

Of course Tobis heard the noise first. He was too lazy to get up, but he cocked an ear toward the road at the bottom of the field. A plume of dust rose where a dented
red car appeared between the trees. As soon as it came into view, it stopped. The passenger door flew open, and a girl hopped out and ducked under the fence, running through the knee-deep grass toward him, grinning like crazy.

Lin.

Niklas felt his breath fasten.
The Greenhood let slip a little secret from the Book of Twistrose,
Secret had told him before they parted.
A name.

Even across the field, he knew that Lin had changed. Her hair grew as wild as ever, and she still wore the grubby old cardigan. But there was something behind that smile, an inkling of adventures most serious and true.

Niklas walked into the field to meet her.

T
HE
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