Thrice Sworn: A Short-Story Prequel to Winterling (4 page)

One

The girl named Fer edged up to the kitchen door. Overhead, the night sky was spangled with stars, except for a brighter patch where a crescent moon, just as thin as a fingernail paring, hung over the bare branches of the oak trees along the driveway. The kitchen windows shed their light over the wiry brown grass of the backyard. At the edge of the yard, Grand-Jane’s white-painted beehives were lined up, the bees inside them asleep and quiet.

Winter had ended. Fer could feel spring coming in the smell of rich dirt, in the cold, knobbled nubs at the tips of tree twigs. Soon the oak trees would have mouse-ear-sized leaves budding out, and the bees would be stirring. Spring tingled just under her skin, waiting to burst out. But now everything was waiting. It was just this chilly in-between time. Mud time.

Fer shivered and put her hands into the pockets of her patchwork jacket. In the left pocket, she had two twigs and a smooth stone she’d found in a creek that afternoon. In the right pocket, a little cloth bag of herbs, loosestrife and lavender, mugwort and harewort, a protective spell that her grandma made her carry with her always. Protection against what, she didn’t know, and she didn’t bother asking anymore. Grand-Jane’s answer was always the same—a dark, silencing look.

Fer sniffed the air. The crisp smell of toasted noodles and onions; Grand-Jane had cooked a tofu casserole for dinner.

Mmm, dinner. Fer’s stomach growled. She huddled into her patchwork jacket and shivered. She was awfully late. It would be even worse if the principal had called. Fer didn’t mean to get into fights at school, but sometimes they just
happened
and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

When she went in the door, Grand-Jane was going to have a conniption. A really hairy one.

Oh well, might as well get it over with. Fer went up the steps and into the kitchen.

At the sound of the door closing, her grandma, at the stove, turned and glared. Carefully she set down a covered casserole dish. “What time is it.”

It wasn’t a question. Grand-Jane knew what time it was. Fer glanced at the clock that hung on the wall beside the fridge. “Seven thirty-five?”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Grand-Jane muttered. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Fer hunched her shoulders, ready for the shouting.

Grand-Jane released her breath and opened her eyes. “We have been through this, Jennifer,” she said sharply. “It is not safe for you to be outside alone. You must come home immediately after school.”

“I can’t,” Fer said, staying by the door.

“Yes, you can,” Grand-Jane said.

No, she couldn’t, not after being cooped up all winter. House, bus, school, bus, house. The same thing every single day, except on the weekends when it was just house, house, house, because she and her grandma never went
anywhere
. She had to get out under the sky or she got so twitchy, she felt like she might twitch out of her own skin.

Grand-Jane looked her over with sharp blue eyes. “And your school’s principal called. Apparently you had a run-in with that Torvald boy again.”

Not just Jimmy Torvald, but his brother Richie and their stupid friend Emily Bradley.
Jenny Fur-head
they called her. What was she supposed to do? Let them call her that? Her hair did come out of its braid and it did get messy, and sometimes it did get twigs tangled in it, but that was no reason for them to be so
mean
all the time.

“Well, Miss Sullen, tomorrow’s Saturday,” Grand-Jane said. “You’ll spend it with me cleaning the stillroom.” She turned to the stove, put her oven mitts back on, and carried the casserole dish to the red-painted kitchen table. “Take off your coat,” she said, her back to Fer. “And come eat your dinner.”

Fer started to unbutton her patchwork jacket, then paused. All day tomorrow cleaning the stillroom? That meant dusting shelves, sweeping out spider webs, sorting through hundreds of tincture jars and bags of crumbling herbs, and more lessons on herbology and healing spells.
And
Grand-Jane’s sharp eyes watching her the whole time, as if Fer were about to burst into flames and her grandma had to be there, just in case, to dump cold water on her.

Grand-Jane’s warm, red-and-yellow kitchen closed around her. Fer felt like a bird bashing itself against the walls of a box.

Quick as thought, before Grand-Jane could turn around, Fer opened the door and flung herself back out into the night.

She’d never been out this late before. The world felt different under the sliver-silver moon. The fields were more empty. The shadows were deep and mysterious. As Fer ran along the edge of the long driveway that led away from her grandma’s house, her footsteps sounded loud,
crunch-crunch-crunch
-ing on the gravel. The chilly night air went into her lungs and made her feel lighter, almost like she could fly. She ran past the twin rows of oak trees lining the driveway. Then down the road a long way until she got to a stream that cut through a muddy field, slowing down now because the footing was tricky along here. Across another road and through a patch of scrubby forest.

This wasn’t wild forest, it was just a strip of trees and bushes between two fields that, in the summer, would be rustling with head-high corn or dark green soybeans. In the distance, Fer saw the dark outline of a couple of silos and outbuildings, and the porch light of a farmhouse. Far away a dog howled, a lonesome moan that made the night feel darker, wilder.

Fer cut through the scrub, then picked up the stream again, panting now, and brushing hair out of her eyes.

The forest grew thicker. She’d gone this far before, but never at night. The trees were stalking shadows that reached for her with twiggy fingers, snagging her patchwork jacket. She stumbled through long, damp grass and, as the forest grew even thicker, rotting logs and drifts of dead leaves. She ducked around another tree, and the ground disappeared from under her feet.

Down she fell, tumbling through brambles and leafless bushes, bumping her knee on a tree root, grabbing for branches to stop herself, finally coming to land half in a stream.

Catching her breath, Fer climbed out of the water. Her pant leg was wet, and one arm of her jacket. She shivered and looked around. Where was she? The crescent moon had climbed higher in the sky and stood directly overhead. Fer had good night vision; the moon’s thin light was enough to see by. She was in a deep ravine, one crowded with bare trees and bushes, the air cold and damp, as if all the chill from above had gathered here in this low spot.

Might as well see where the stream led. Water squishing in one of her sneakers, Fer followed the stream through the ravine, picking her way over slippery stones. The stream slowed, flowed smoothly over a shelf of rock, and then widened to form a pool in the middle of a clearing.

Stepping lightly, Fer walked around the pool. It was perfectly round, and springy moss grew right up to its edge. She stilled her breath, listening. Something in the air felt strange. Tingly, or twitchy, like a rope stretched too far and about to break. She knew what Grand-Jane would say, in her scoldingest voice:
Come home right now, Jennifer! It’s not safe!
Fer felt in her pocket for the spell-bag of herbs and gripped it, the seam in the fabric rough under her fingers.

She gazed at the still, black surface of the pool. The moon was reflected there, not as the pale crescent in the sky above her head, but as a fat, full, yellow moon. How could that be? She knelt on the moss and leaned over the pool to touch it. The water felt cool and slick.

At her touch, the water grew mirror-still, and a slow tingle started in her fingertips. She held her breath, feeling a sudden, strange power fizzing under her skin. The tingle turned to an electric shock that sizzled up her fingers and through her body. She jumped to her feet. The fat water-moon shattered. Shadows surged from the pool, flinging drops of water that sparkled in the moonlight.

Fer stumbled back, tripping over a dead branch, and fell into a clump of brambles; their sharp thorns gripped her like clawed fingers and wouldn’t let go. She heard snarling, then another sound that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Howling, like animals on the hunt.

Fer tore herself from the thorns and scrambled to her feet. On the other side of the shimmering pool, wolves, their gray fur silvered by the moonlight, circled a lump of shadow on the ground. The shadow snarled—it looked like a black dog—as one of the wolves darted in, its jaws snapping. The other wolves, two of them, swarmed around, and another plunged at the black dog. Fer heard a yelp of pain. The wolf leaped back, smiling with bloody fangs.

Three against one—not fair!

Without taking her eyes from the wolves, Fer groped on the ground for the thing she’d tripped over.
There
. A branch as long as her arm, with a jagged, broken-off end. Gripping her club, Fer raced around the edge of the pool, her feet slipping on the moss.

Swinging the branch like a baseball bat, Fer connected with the hindquarters of one wolf, which whirled and snapped at her; the other two wolves snarled and left the dark thing crouched in the shadows.

The three wolves advanced silently, their heads low, their fangs bared.

Fer held her ground and gripped her branch tightly. “Go away!” she shouted, and with her free hand felt in her jacket pocket for her bag of spelled herbs. She pulled it out and kept it clenched in her hand. One wolf lunged toward her and Fer stepped up to meet it, bashing her club across its muzzle. Fer swung the branch back and caught another wolf in the ribs, then jabbed the jagged end of the branch into the face of the third wolf. Still holding the spell-bag, she shouted, “Go away!” again, then a third time, and the wolves flinched back as if her words had more power than the club she swung, watching her from the corners of their eyes, fading back into the shadows.

Panting, Fer turned to the thing they’d been attacking. It had fallen beneath the branches of a bush; she saw its dark shape huddled there. Carefully, gripping her club in case it tried to bite, she pushed aside the branches, letting the moon’s light in. Fer blinked and set down the club.

It wasn’t a dog at all. It was a boy.

About the Author

Sarah Prineas
lives in the midst of the corn in Iowa City, Iowa, and can usually be found writing fantasy novels on a stealthy silver MacBook Air called Dash. Prineas’s Magic Thief series introduced readers to the irascible wizard Nevery and his gutterboy apprentice, Connwaer. Sarah holds a PhD in English literature and recently taught honors seminars on fantasy and science fiction literature at the University of Iowa. She has an amazing dragon action-figure collection and occasionally bakes biscuits (although she says hers never seem to turn out as tasty as Benet’s do in
The Magic Thief
).

Sarah is married to John Prineas, a physics professor, which comes in handy when she’s writing about magic. They are the parents of Maud and Theo. You can visit Sarah online at www.sarah-prineas.com.

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