Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [21]
“She’ll be fine,” Kate said, but Kate had kept secrets from me, too. Once Caleb was through healing Ethan, I’d ask him to look at Mom. He’d know whether she was really all right, and, unlike Mom, he wouldn’t be able to lie about it.
In Kate’s house, as in mine, the downstairs rooms were warmer than the upstairs ones, so in winter everyone slept by the fire. Kate slept in her oversized armchair, while I wrapped myself in blankets on the floor. I kept drifting off only to wake whenever I thought I heard Matthew’s paws on the stairs. It was a long time before I slipped into deeper sleep.
When I did, I dreamed of flames roaring around me, of skin melting from my bones. Burning ash clogged my throat, choking my screams. “All human things must die,” a stranger’s voice said, and I knew I had no choice but to let the fire consume me.
I couldn’t let it consume me. I ran, and blistering heat gave way to a cold gray winter forest. A dark shadow lifted its head, and it wore my mother’s face. “Liza,” the shadow whispered.
I ran harder. I knew if I looked at that shadow again, Mom would be gone, and only the shadow would remain.
“Liza!” Mom called me again and again. “Liza, wake up.”
My eyes shot open. I bolted upright, blankets tangling around me. Mom sat beside me—she was real, not a shadow. “You’re all right,” I said.
Mom reached for me, her eyes seeking mine to make sure I was awake. We’d learned that if she touched me—if anyone touched me—before I fully woke from a nightmare, I’d lash out with my magic, not hearing those around me.
I threw myself into her arms, and she held me close. “I don’t want to lose you.” I choked on the words and began to cry.
“I know, Lizzy.” Mom sounded near tears, too. “I know.” She stroked my hair, as if I were still a child, and I let her.
The front door opened. Kate’s footsteps crossed the room. Pale light crept in the cracks around the windows.
First light. I was suddenly as wide awake as if someone had poured snowmelt down my back. I pulled away from Mom.
“Where’s Matthew?” I asked her.
He hadn’t come back. I knew it even before Mom said so. Kate thought maybe he’d waited to return on foot with Caleb and Allie after all, but the shadows around her eyes told me she was worried, too. Matthew could no more lie than I could. He had to have meant it when he’d said he would run ahead of the healers.
While Mom tried to talk me into waiting longer, Kate helped me pack. Hope had left clothes for us. I rolled up the sleeves of a borrowed sweater and the legs of a pair of pants, and I packed another set of clothes in the backpack Kate gave me. I also packed dried meat, flint and steel for a fire, a couple of water skins, and oil and cloth for a torch. I stashed more meat in my coat pockets.
“At least take someone with you,” Mom said. She’d not complained when Matthew went alone. Matthew hadn’t given her the chance to.
There was no one for me to take. Hope shouldn’t be traveling too far, on account of the baby; Seth had three younger siblings he was looking after; and Charlotte couldn’t keep the pace I intended to set. I wouldn’t risk any of the younger children, not when I didn’t know what danger we might face.
Mom stirred the coals with a metal poker. “I can go with you.”
“No!” The word came out with more force than I intended. I tied my pack firmly shut. “Not when you’re ill.”
The words hung between us as the coals burst into flame. Kate pressed a square of cornbread into my hands. I ate it, not wanting to take too much from her rations but knowing I’d need energy for the journey.
“I’m well enough to travel,” Mom said.
The fire’s heat burned against my face as I buttoned my coat, tied my scarf, and put on my hat and gloves. “It didn’t work out very well the last time you decided to travel, did it?”
Mom drew a sharp breath. “Why not dig the knife a little deeper, Liza? You always were good with knives.” Mom carefully set the poker down by the hearth. “I know well enough all the ways in which I’ve