Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [18]
In my hands the light went out, leaving me in the dark.
My hand clenched the dead stone. How could I refuse Mom, after all she’d been through?
How could she ask such things of me, after all I had?
I felt my way down the dark hall to my room. I pulled the coverings off my bedroom windows and took two nightgowns from my dresser, one for me and one for Mom. They smelled faintly of smoke, but there was no helping that. I added clean sweaters, pants, underwear, and socks to the pile. I went back downstairs, pulled on my hat and scarf and gloves, and headed to Kate’s.
The path through town was silent now, with just a few faint stars piercing the clouds. Lantern light spilled out around the shutters of the houses and made their tacked nylon glow.
“Sorry about your house, Liza.”
I dropped the clothes and spun around, only to find Kyle’s brother, Johnny, standing right behind me. He laughed. At fourteen he had a wiry build that made him look taller than he was, along with the wispy beginnings of something no one but him called a mustache on his upper lip.
I hadn’t heard him coming. I never did. “Don’t do that,” I said darkly.
Johnny shrugged. His magic was stalking, meaning he was the only human I knew who walked as silently as faerie folk did.
“Don’t go spooking the caller, Johnny.” Hope’s steps crunched toward us through the snow. “That can get you in all sorts of trouble. Almost as much trouble as spooking me.”
Johnny slouched down in his fur-lined denim jacket. “I’m not afraid of a little wind.”
“You should be.” Hope helped me pick up the dropped clothes. She sniffed at a sleeve. “We’ll find better for you and your mom,” she said to me.
“I don’t mind.” As I folded the clothes, Johnny disappeared the way he’d come, without a sound.
“Everyone else will, if you walk around smelling like this.” Hope laughed, and acorns clattered around her face. “Seriously, it isn’t any trouble. I was already planning to come by later to check on the firestarter.” She walked with me halfway to Kate’s house before peeling off for her own.
Johnny appeared again at my elbow. “I really am sorry about the fire.”
I flinched but kept walking, as if I’d known he was there all along. Johnny stopped to scratch at the leg of his pants. Kyle’s ants, I thought, and wasn’t sorry. I hoped the leather kept them warm. I hoped they stayed a good long time.
As far as I could tell, Johnny didn’t follow me any farther. I glanced into Kate’s backyard as I neared her house. Light glowed from within the shed, and tools and scraps of wood and metal lay on a tarp beside it. They must have already gotten Ethan inside.
I’d head out there soon, too, but first I crossed Kate’s front porch and entered the warmth of her living room. I set the damp clothes down near the fireplace, where a pot of water boiled above the coals. Kate’s walls were covered with bright wall hangings; I glanced at the one that hid her mirror. Most mirrors had been destroyed during the War, out of fear that the faerie folk could step through them into our world, but this one was a family heirloom, so Kate had secretly kept it. No faerie folk had found their way through the silvered glass, but I had used the mirror to bring Mom home from Faerie.
I heard voices from Kate’s kitchen.
“What he really needs is a burn clinic,” Kate said. Adults were always wishing for medicines and facilities from Before. The way they talked, it used to be that any hurt could be cured, no matter how severe.
“Well, we don’t have one.” Matthew’s voice was quieter—angrier. “That’s why I have to go.”
I put my hat and gloves in my pockets and joined them. “Go where?” Matthew and I drew each other into a quick hug. He smelled of smoke, too.
“To Caleb and Karin’s town,” he said as we drew apart. “Ethan—it’s bad.”
Kate drew a jar from a cabinet. Ground valerian root—it was a sedative, used when pain became too much to bear. “Bad enough I was debating between this and something