Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [56]
Kyle’s father had shivered to death when he’d held a shadow too close. Yet I’d carried a shadow once, too, when there had been need. Kyle only held Johnny’s hand now; he hadn’t tried to hug his brother again. Perhaps he knew what was right better than either Karin or I. He was happily babbling to his brother: about the ice storm, about how he’d hidden in the rocks, about how I’d taken care of him in the trailer, about how he’d used his magic to keep Elin away.
I pressed on through slush that was giving way to mud. The sun was sinking, gold light reflecting off dripping ice.
Matthew watching as Johnny took my knife to his chest. His wolf’s eyes showed little interest as steel pierced skin and blood bloomed around it. The Lady moved to Matthew’s side, and Matthew leaned into her touch—
Matthew—a younger Matthew, who’d just turned into a wolf and back again for the first time—looking small and lost as he stood naked at the edge of our town, his skin crisscrossed with ragged cuts and his wrist punctured by blackberry thorns—
Matthew running, running away on swift paws as I called his name. His shadow trailed behind him, dissolving like dust in the sun, and I knew I’d lost him, lost him beyond recall, for all that I kept running after him—
I stumbled, caught myself, and walked faster. I’d failed him. I’d lost him. I brought my wrist to my face. Matthew’s hair tie still smelled faintly of wolf. He wasn’t lost yet. “Karin, are visions always true?”
Karin didn’t slow her pace as she turned to me. “What have you seen?”
Karin was the one who’d taught me that visions had less power if put into words, yet I feared speaking this vision aloud would only turn it true. “Matthew’s in trouble.”
A dead sycamore leaf fell from a branch. Karin caught it in her free hand. “The seers did not expect me to survive the War.” She stared at the leaf’s brown veins. “No future is entirely fixed, though neither are visions easily or often averted.”
I had to avert this. Wind began to blow, with a wet, bitter edge that cut through my jacket. I couldn’t fail Matthew like I’d failed Johnny. Not Matthew.
The world didn’t care what I needed or wanted. It knew only that some people could be saved and others couldn’t, and that all we could do wasn’t always enough.
Kyle kept talking to Johnny. His voice and the wind were the only sounds in the forest. Kyle bent into that wind, but Johnny didn’t seem to notice it.
The road narrowed as we turned to follow the river outside my town. Snow and ice were nearly gone, and the sun dipped below the horizon, making it glow. Soon the light would be gone.
Elin shifted restlessly on Karin’s glove, as if she knew that as a hawk she didn’t belong out at night. Kyle fell silent at last, but he didn’t let Johnny’s hand go. I slowed my steps, watching for any sign of a trap that had been set for us. The trees grew thicker. A grove overflowed the forest onto the path.
That wasn’t right. I knew this path. I’d followed it on hunts. There should be no trees here. I looked at the oaks and maples, willows and birches, poplars and dogwoods. Some of them were river trees, some slope trees, some trees of the forest flats. They didn’t belong together.
Karin stopped, letting the sycamore leaf slip from her fingers. There was something strange about these trees’ shadows. I softened my gaze, trying to see more. Karin put one hand to the bark of a brown locust tree.
The shapes of the shadows; that was what was wrong. Within each tree shadow I saw something more, something human, a rough outline of arms that pressed against wood, of legs that turned to roots and disappeared into the earth.
Karin drew a sharp breath. “Jayce?” she asked softly. She touched another tree. “And Kate. You know these names?”
A chill ran down to my sodden feet. Karin walked among the trees, whispering the names of more townsfolk. Their clothes were scattered among the dead leaves, as if they’d been carelessly discarded.
The Lady