Winterkill (21 page)

WE START DOWN THE SLOPE, MOVING FROM TREE
to tree as quick as we dare. The loose carpet of leaves crunches as I move—my bleeding bad foot!—but Kane is far quieter. A lifetime later we reach the last of the trees that will shield us. We stand with our backs to the trunks, about two strides apart.

I risk a look around the tree. We're twenty strides from the cabin; a small clearing of low scrub separates the trees from the front door. There's no way we can cross without being in full view for a good few seconds.

Kane crouches low and grabs a chunk of branch from the forest floor. Then he takes a quick half step around the tree, draws back, and hurls it at the front door. As he darts back to his cover, it hits the door with a thud. I hold my breath.

Nothing.

When I look over to Kane, he's gesturing with his head. We creep out from behind our cover and move quick across the little clearing.

My heart is beating fast, blood thrumming in my ears as we approach. My head aches something fierce, but I can't worry after that now.

There's no light in the cabin and the sun in the forest is waning. Kane pushes on the latch, beckoning for me to stand back. He gives a gentle push and the door swings wide with a soft creak.

Again, nothing.

He tilts his head toward the door. We step inside.

It's one small room, no furnishings. There's a wooden crate in one corner and a half circle of candles, stuck by wax onto the wooden floor, around one side. “Doesn't look like much,” Kane says in my ear, making me jump. When did I latch on to his arm?

I pull my hand away, staring at that box. I have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. This room feels too . . . hot. I'm too hot.

“I'll stay on lookout.” Kane swings the door shut save a couple inches and turns, his eyes trained on the woods beyond.

I make my way to the box and settle on my knees. The candles are halfway burned, but not warm. The lid comes off easy enough. Inside are more candles and a small book, covered in brown leather.

The book's pages are yellowed and dog-eared—like Soeur Manon's books—but instead of drawings and neat lettering, it's full of scrawling handwriting. The charcoal is smudged on the page in places, making parts unreadable.

“Kane,” I whisper, holding the book up.

His eyes leave the woods outside the cabin. When he
sees what I'm holding, he abandons his post and crosses the room. He trips halfway through, and when he rights himself he turns to examine the piece of floorboard that caught his toe. He kneels and runs a hand over it.

“Kane,” I say, impatient.

But he digs into the board with his finger and flips up a large brass ring. It's fastened to the floor. He gives a violent jerk upward and a large portion of the floor lifts and folds back.

I tuck the book under my arm and scurry forward on my knees to get a look.

There is a cavernous hole below. It's too dark to see more than a few feet in, but the air that rushes out is damp and stale.

Kane whistles low and sinks to his knees. “A hideaway of some sort?” There's the seed of an idea in his eyes.

“We don't have a flint,” I remind him. I don't want to admit that I'm scared: the cool air feels like death, and I don't want to go down there, don't want that darkness around me.

Kane chews on his lip and looks around the cabin. The candles are useless without a flint. He nods at my book. “What is that?”

“Somebody's writings.”

He takes it from me and flips to the first page. “It's a letter. It says ‘Dear son.' That's how letters start—‘Dear.'”

“You can read it?”

He frowns as he flips through the pages. “I'm used to the printing in my ma's books—not someone's scribblings. But my ma taught me how to make some letters. Wouldn't be fast, but I could figure it.”

“Who wrote it?”

He flips until he finds the page where the writing stops. “It's signed”—he reads the words slow—“‘Your father, H. J. Stockham.'”

H. J. Stockham.

Brother Stockham's grandpa.

Kane glances at me, his eyes unsure—like he knows what I'm thinking but isn't certain I should think it.

But I have to ask. “Will you read it to me?”

He studies me a moment.

“Kane, please. I need to know what Brother Stockham does out here. If I have to bind to him this Ice Up, I need to know . . .” I can't finish.

Kane's eyes go soft. “Course, Em.”

He flips back to the first page and starts.

“‘Dear son, it is the eve of your sixteenth year. You will take over the settlement soon, and I am certain there can be no better leader for these people. I am proud of the man you . . .'” Kane shrugs. “Smudged,” he says.

This is a letter to Brother Stockham's pa. The first bit is H. J. Stockham speaking on his son's virtues and what it takes to “be a leader.” It
is
slow going, and some words are missing. Often Kane has to pause to sound the word out, but I'm full amazed he can do it at all.

“‘My father founded this settlement. He taught me that our position rests upon the safety of everyone. To that end, Council has been'”—Kane shakes his head; he can't read that word—“‘and often ruthless. We do what must be done; I have always believed this. But I am old and my heart grows heavy. I find myself reflecting on my actions. Praying on it
does not fill me with ease. I seek'”—Kane shakes his head again—“‘and I wish to repent. To that end, I must disclose the matter of . . .'” He stops, frowning at the writing.

“What?”

He looks up. “‘Clara Smithson.'”

My grandma'am. I don't know if I want to hear it—if I want Kane to hear it. Her Waywardness, propositioning the man who wrote this book, being sent off to the Crossroads—it's all right here, in this book.

Kane studies me.

No. I have to know. I swallow the lump that rises in my throat—feels like a knife blade—and nod for him to continue.

“‘You have been told that Sister Clara was an adulteress; that sending her to the Crossroads all those years ago was due her Waywardness. But I know the truth. I know that her death was a sin against the Almighty. My confess'”—Kane frowns—“‘confession will right that wrong. The truth, my son, is something I entrust to your keeping and it is this: I loved her.'”

My mind whirls. Kane and I exchange a glance. He continues, “‘And her death amounts to the worst betrayal. You see, Clara found something in these woods I had not the Honesty or Bravery to re'”—Kane sounds it out slowly—“‘con-cile. She had no chance to speak of her finding to anyone—her death saw to that—but I must share it here, for I cannot allow you to make the same mistake.'”

Kane pauses and looks at me again. My head spins. There is a fluttering in my heart—it wants to burst from my chest and fly from this room. My grandma'am's death wasn't on
account of her Waywardness . . . My grandma'am wasn't Wayward. I'm not truly Stained.

“Read on,” I whisper.

But then, a sound off in the woods—like a herd of sheep being driven across the Watch flats.

Kane and I freeze, staring at one another.

“What is it?”

He shakes his head, his eyes wide. It's coming closer, louder and louder.

A coldness settles in my throat. Bison don't group together in the woods, so it can't be a herd—doesn't sound to be that many, anyhow. Whatever it is, it's laboring up the rise on the far side of the gully, about to crest the hill behind the cabin.

No windows on that side to see what it is and no time to hide in the woods; we'd be halfway to the trees and in full view when it got here. But suppose whatever it is finds us here?

Kane drops the book, jumps up, and pushes the cabin door closed.

We look at the trapdoor.

The noise is getting faster and louder as it comes toward the cabin.

Un homme comme l'elephant.
Andre's voice whispers in my ears, mixing with the noise outside and conjuring bulbous eyes, a long trunk, hoofed feet . . .

We scramble for the opening in the floor. There's a decrepit ladder that empties into a small cavern of hollowed earth. I grab the book and go down into the darkness blind,
Kane follows, his body sealing out the cabin's light and the trapdoor banging after him.

In a heartbeat we are encased in the black damp and that tightness in my throat is back. Kane's hand finds mine and he pulls me to him, wrapping his arms around me. We huddle in the dark, slowing our breath. In a few short moments I can make out the ladder in front of us. Tiny cracks of light seep through the cabin floor above us. It's cool and dank in this cellar, but my skin is red hot.

The noise outside the cabin stops. Then: a breath letting go, like a rush of wind. Any shred of hope this is another common forest animal dies right then and there.

There's a thick silence.

The door creaks. I wait for footsteps, but none come.

And then! Then the floor whines directly above us and I can tell the thing is crossing the floor where the trapdoor lies. Mayhap it doesn't know there's a cellar. I hold my breath and pray to the Almighty that the ring in the floor fell flat so it doesn't discover it. There's a whistle above us, soft but familiar. I can't figure why; it's not a birdcall . . . And then I know. It's that sound I heard in the woods the other day, the one Brother Stockham followed. There's a soft rustling above and the trapdoor creaks again. Things are entering the cabin, but they're not moving like anything I know. They're ghosting across the floor, barely touching the surface.

I feel dizzy and press into Kane, feel his heart beat wild against mine.

I am Honesty. I am Bravery. I am Discovery.

And then sounds, low and muffled. Voices? I can't figure
the words. The language is clipped, has sounds in it I've never heard.

It stops.

There's a soft rustling and the door creaks shut. I strain to hear outside the little shack. After a moment comes the same rush across the forest floor. It fades. We stay frozen together for a long while. My head pounds, my skin burns and feels cold at once.

“Let's go.” Kane's voice is so loud in the silence I near cry out. He pulls me toward the ladder and goes up first, pushing the trapdoor back to climb through. It makes a horrid loud noise and then blessed light shows the way out. Kane reaches for me, and I'm about to head up the ladder when the look on his face stops me cold.

His mouth hangs open, eyes wide with alarm. He's looking over my shoulder, looking at something behind me.

I turn. The bones are dirty, yellowed; they near blend into the shadows.

They're jumbled in a row on the far wall of the cellar. Skulls stare at me, slack jawed. There are shackles on the floor. Some bones remain in the irons, detached from the rest of the skeletons.

A hot flush courses through me. And then . . . then those bones are reaching out, talking to me in garbled whispers.
Find us,
they say.

I lose my senses, spin about, and dive for the ladder. Scrambling up, I find Kane's hands and grab tight, and then he's pulling me up into the cabin, away from the brittle bones and poison air.

I want to collapse on the floorboards, but Kane keeps me on my feet and kicks the trapdoor shut with his foot. I'm gasping, trying to form words as Kane pulls me toward the door.

We stumble from the cabin and up the hill. Kane's eyes are wide, his jaw working like he's thinking hard. I trip twice. The light is fading fast and I'm starting to misjudge my steps. It's near dusk; surely my pa will be wondering where I am. He'll have to make dinner himself. He's a terrible cook.

Someone laughs out loud. I look at my hands: they're shaking. I'm so hot, but it's so cold out here—something's wrong. I want to tell Kane, but I can't get a breath to do it.

I swipe with my right hand, find Kane's arm and clutch at it.

“Em?”

Les trembles
are dancing before my eyes, swaying in a waltz rhythm. I open my mouth.

“Em?” I can hear panic in Kane's voice. I imagine his dark, beautiful eyes full of worry. Beautiful Kane.

His arms are around me now. Are we going to dance?

I want to tell him there's no music, but the forest floor lurches up at me and the trees shatter into a thousand pieces.

And then everything is black.

THE RIVER CHURNS BELOW MY FEET. I SHIFT THE
cold bundle to one hand and tie the cloth tight around it so it won't unravel when I toss it in. My grandma'am's ring flashes on my hand. Brother Stockham stands beside me.

“Our salvation lies in Discovery,” I say, and throw the baby at the frothing waters below.

As it leaves my hands the bundle shifts, comes alive.
No!
My fingers scramble for it back, but it is beyond reach, plummeting to the river below. It falls, writhing, its cry echoing along the riverbank . . .