Winterkill (31 page)

“What will happen to the Lost People I've found?”

“My father shut out the world beyond, did ruthless things, to maintain his position. I have a choice. I can choose that path, or I can choose the path my grandfather wished he had: opening his heart and mind to the unknown. Opening his heart to desire.” In a sweeping motion he draws me close, drowning me in his cloak. His mouth is inches away. “My path is clear.”

He presses his mouth to mine. Hard. He moves forward, forcing me back toward the willows. I stumble and he catches me, pulls me into his arms, lowers me into a thatch of branches. I am pinned between the ground and his insistent mouth.

Images scream through my mind: the churning Cleansing Waters, Jacob's bulging eyes, that dusty book, hidden for years. He's been waiting for me to become eligible, waiting for me to prove his father wrong . . .

My father had no use for decisions made from love.

Realization knifes through me and with it, cold fear: all of this hinges on his belief that I love him back. I bite back a cry of panic.

He's breathing fast and his hands are inside my cloak now, running all over me. “I could have kept my family's secret,” he says against my neck. “But I chose us.” He kisses me again. All I can smell is the bergamot on his skin. I want to pull away so bad my teeth ache. I try to put my mind to something that takes me away from this moment, but the golden poplars have vanished, so I am reaching, reaching for anything . . .

He breaks the kiss and draws back, eyes raking over my face. “We have proven my father wrong.” He smiles. “Haven't we?”

I nod, every inch of my body crying out. I try to smile, try to match the hope, the excitement on his face.

“I knew that Cariou boy meant nothing to you.”

And now my secret heart betrays me. I feel a pang, so deep, so true, that it near takes my breath. At once, I can tell
something in my eyes has spoken plain. The elation in his is snuffed out. He draws his head back further.

“You accepted my proposal.”

The blood drains from my face. “I did.”

“And yet?” There is a dangerous undercurrent in his voice.

“We are to be bound. When—when
La Prise
comes, Gabriel, we . . .” I can't say it and make it sound truthful, so I raise my head and press my mouth to his, fighting my every instinct to push him aside and scramble away. My skin crawls away from his body, heavy, so heavy, on top of me.

He lets me kiss him a moment more. Then he puts his forearm on my collarbone and shoves me back to the earth.

I try to take a breath, but his weight is closing off the air. I try to speak. “Gabr—” I can't finish. I cough, trying to find my voice. But it wouldn't matter if I could speak, because I can tell by the look in his eyes that he knows. He
knows
.

Pain twists his features as he pushes me aside and jumps to his feet. He spins away from me, his head bowed, hands on his hips.

I gulp air and stumble up onto my bad foot.

The wind blows hard, bending the bare willows like blades of grass. I glance to the woods, then back to him.

His torso heaves with a deep breath as he runs his hands through his hair, smoothing it onto the nape of his neck. When he turns back, his face is calm, but his eyes are stricken.

“You don't love me.” His words are a poison arrow piercing me straight through.

I can't move. Can't deny his words; can't say I do and make it sound anywhere close to the truth.

His next words are so soft I can hardly hear him. “He was right.”

His father. “No. Gabriel, he wasn't right—” But I don't know what to say. He's been waiting all this time, harboring this strange notion that our love is the answer.

“I waited for you to help me prove him wrong.” His voice grows louder. “I took that chance. If you had denied me, if you had never risked the woods or found those people, I would have known to stay the course. To lead.” His face changes, his mouth pulling into a mean line. “But you lied. And you will ruin me.”

He advances on me, his body taut.

“I won't, I—”

“You'll betray me, like your grandmother.” He stalks forward. “You will tell the settlement about the Takings, and I will end up neither leader nor your lover.”

“No!” I stumble backward. I'm right next to the bank, the river is roaring loud at my back. My hands flutter up in front of me. “Gabriel, please! The people I found—they can still be
our
Discovery.”

He stops. His eyes go dull. “The people you found do not exist.”

I stare at him, fear creeping through my hairline. “What do you mean?”

“I will make sure of it. Like my grandfather did.”

I bite back a cry of despair. “But you can still—”

“No!” He stares at me like he's staring down
La Prise
itself. “My father was right.”

I can't get a breath in the wind. His hawk eyes are full of a pain so deep—

He lunges, grabbing me by the cloak and dragging me hard toward him. His grip is strong. I struggle backward, but he spins me around, pins my arms to my sides. Turns so we are facing the river. Huge chunks of ice are catching at the edges of the boulder gate. Some slip through and are dashed to bits as they drop over the shelf. He shoves me forward, moving me closer to the edge of the bank. My moccasins slip as I try to scramble backward.

“This was not the path I hoped for.”

He stops pushing and lifts me. My arms sing with pain as he crushes me to his chest; my feet dangle useless in the air. “But you have shown me the way, Emmeline,” he breathes in my ear. “I will lead. Without you.”

And then he casts me over the bank to the water below.

THE FREEZING WATER SLAPS THE BREATH FROM
me as I plunge below the surface. Everything is black, spinning, squeezing at me from all sides. My feet touch something solid, but then I'm rolled by the force of the water and I can't figure which way is up. Currents grab me with their greedy fingers, chunks of ice bash at my back, my legs. Everything is ringing with a hollow, deafening scream.

I'm back at the surface, bursting through. I have one moment of clear thinking to take a big breath of air, and then the boulder gate is rushing toward me. I claw at the water as I'm spun about. I hit the shelf at the gate, something knocks into me, and then I'm back under in the roaring whirl of water. It blinds me, fills my ears with its howl, grabs at my chest and squeezes tight.

I'm dying. I can feel it.

Kane, my pa, Soeur Manon, Tom—they're here. Their faces loom in the churning waters, eyes so sad and lost.

Kane!
I shout in my mind.
I'm sorry
.

But they're spinning away down a dark hole, and new images wash toward and over me: Matisa and her family in chains, starving to death. My grandma'am's gaping skull, her skeletal hand holding the ring.

Death screams toward me in an icy, black cloud.

But now . . . now the battering of the waters calms and it feels real peaceful. Feels like I'm back in the cool of the woods, where I belong. Feels like the Lost People are here, fluttering down from the branches of
les trembles
. They're opening their arms to me, cradling me, telling me it's all right. They're talking to me from far off, but I can hear their voices like music, feel their shadowy fingers grasping at my clothes and skin. They brush my hair from my forehead.

The spinning stops. My mouth is full of water. I gag and spit. And feel blessed hard ground against my back.

“Emmeline!” Matisa is over top of me, shouting. She takes my face in her hands. “Emmeline, stay awake!” A whirl of faces swims before me: Matisa, Nishwa, Isi, Kane . . .

Kane?

They're hollering, moving around me in a blur. And then someone hoists me up, throws me over their shoulder. Moves me through the air. I'm tossed higher again, across something broad and earthy-smelling. I cough a painful cough and then we are moving through the woods. Branches blur and deadfall whips by, fast, like in my dreams. It sounds like the thunder of a great herd of bison all around me. Hoofbeats pound hard on the earth, filling my senses.

Every inch of my body has been wrung with ice-cold hands; little pinpricks bite at me everywhere. The forest screams by. It goes on forever, it goes on a heartbeat.

And then I am back on the forest floor, my feet crumbling beneath me.

“Hold her!” I'm grabbed under the arms, held upright.

I stumble forward, let those arms guide me. There's a bright space in the coulee ahead of us—a cave, lit from within. My eyes can't focus proper, but as we push inside I see a yellow glow. “Emmeline!” Matisa's shouting again. “Hey!”

What does she want? I want to tell her to stop shouting, but my tongue's gone numb. I can't get any sound out.

There's a ruckus beside me: people moving about and talking a language I can't figure. And then Kane's face is before my eyes. I'm real glad to see him. I need to tell him something.

“Em, can you hear me?”

I try to nod my head, but I'm shaking hard, trembling like birch in a windstorm. I want to clench my hands together to try to make it stop, but they won't move, neither.

“Trust me?”

I trust him. I trust him now. But that's not what I wanted to say. I've forgotten what I want to tell him . . .

He's taking off his cloak, his shirt, his leggings . . .

Hands pull at my wet cloak, strip it from me. I'm grateful; I want it off. The weight is so heavy it's hard to breathe. More of my clothes are stripped away and then hands are pushing me toward a mound of blankets. I'm shoved inside, my head spinning, everything awash in that yellow glow.

Kane is next to me, wrapping me in his arms. Everything is soft, like a bison calf's velvet skin. And suddenly I remember. I want to tell him
I'm sorry
. But I'm heavy now, so heavy I
can't move. I let my eyes seal shut. Let a cloud of dark swallow me whole.

My dream self is moving though the woods. Soft leaves brush at me from all sides. My feet are my own—not perfect—but though I limp, I move steady and sure. The smell of woodsmoke wraps me in warmth. I find a poplar tree and put my head against its trunk, close my eyes tight and breathe in the smoky air.

I'm staring at someone's legging-clad thigh. I rub at my eyes, raise my wooly head, and find Kane. He's sitting beside me, his hand on my brow, gazing down. I put out a hand to touch his smooth forearm to make sure he's real.

I raise my head to look about. I'm wrapped in blankets in a corner of a cave. The glow of a smokeless fire bounces off the smooth walls. Matisa and the boys sit on the other side of the flames, talking quiet. A wave of relief surges through me. I go to push the blankets aside but stop dead.

I haven't got a stitch on.

I grab the blankets tight, my eyes flying to Kane's face.

“Afternoon, Em.”

My throat feels full of ice shards; I can't speak around them. I look wide-eyed to the blankets and then back at him.

His brow creases. “You were so cold. We were worried you'd fall asleep and wouldn't wake up.”

It comes back in a rush: The river, Brother Stockham throwing me to the icy darkness, Matisa and Kane appearing. They brought me here, to this cave. I remember them stripping off my clothes. But before that . . .

Before that, Kane took off
his
clothes.

My face flames red hot.

Kane rubs his jaw and looks away.

He must've seen my foot, probably felt it against his . . . I squeeze my eyes tight, feeling a wash of shame. But the truth of his words hits, and a rush of gratitude floods in. He saved my life.

I am here, with him, and my bad foot is nothing.

I sit up, wincing with the effort. Tucking the blankets around myself, I notice a large purple bruise along my left arm. I'm too shy to look with Kane so near, but it feels like it goes a long way down my body. My hair is a tangled mess and damp, but the cave is as warm as Soeur Manon's kitchen, lit by the fire and a lamp that stands on the floor, whining quiet. There are large packs in the corners of the cave.

Matisa and Nishwa are drying clothes over the fire. Isi looks over and measures me with his hard eyes, but there's a smile tugging at his lips, like he's relieved I'm all right.

Kane reaches forward and touches my face, trails his hand to my bruised shoulder. And then I remember him standing in the courtyard before I was locked away.

My voice is raw, like I haven't used it in weeks. “How—?”

He puts his hand on my brow again and smoothes back my hair. “I figured something wasn't right when Stockham told me not to follow you to the river. Said he didn't ‘need' me watching you anymore. Then I saw you with the Councilmen. Came straight to the cabin for that book.” He nods at Matisa and the boys. “Got way more than I bargained for.” He smiles. “There was a bit of a scuffle before I figured they weren't interested in harming me.”