Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [68]
I thought of dead fields and bare trees, of white bone and gray ash. No one could escape such a place, not for good. All things wound down in the end. I was human. I would die. How could I ever have imagined otherwise?
I tried to think of green things, of living things, but green was only a word, and I no longer remembered what it meant. Winter and death pulled on me. I couldn’t fight their wordless call. I closed my eyes and let dead branches wrap around me. I wasn’t cold anymore. It wasn’t such a bad thing after all to see the worlds wind down.
“Quit it, Liza.” A boy’s voice, from somewhere behind me. Something about that voice made me angry. It had always made me angry.
“Go away.” There was no power in my words—in me.
“Nice try.” The boy spoke in front of me now. “Too bad I’m through with the whole disappearing act.”
I knew him, but I couldn’t call up a name. I curled up small among the branches, not caring as thorns dug into my skin.
“And you complain I hide too much? Seriously, Liza, enough of this. Get up.”
“I want to sleep.” I was warm and I was safe. Why couldn’t this nameless boy leave me alone like everyone else? Dimly I remembered that he’d never left me alone when I’d wanted him to.
“Okay, let’s try it this way.” Didn’t he ever give up? “Open your eyes.”
“Will you go away if I open my eyes?”
The boy laughed at that, though I couldn’t imagine what was so funny. “I’ll think about it,” he said.
“Fine,” I told him. It took a long time—my eyelids were as heavy as if they’d turned to stone, and even once I got them open, I struggled to focus on the boy who stood slouching before me. “Johnny.” He was as colorless as everything else in this place, but he looked real, not like a shadow. That wasn’t right. “You’re dead.”
“And you’re not. So you’re going to get up, and you’re going to get yourself back out there.”
I drew the branches closer around me. “Can’t.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “This is Liza, who went off into the deadly forest all alone and came back alive, who saved her mother even though she wasn’t supposed to have any magic? Do you have any idea how tired I am of hearing about how brave you are? The least you could do is live up to it.”
I wasn’t brave, and I hadn’t been alone. Someone had been with me on that journey, but I’d forgotten his name as well. My chest hurt. I didn’t want to hurt. What was the point of pain when worlds were winding down?
“I know,” Johnny said, though I hadn’t spoken aloud. “Been a rough week for both of us. Come on.” He held out a hand.
He made everything sound so easy—I reached out and took his hand. His fingers were ice; I gasped at the cold that knifed through me. It turned to a painful tingling as dead branches fell away. I tried to burrow back down among them, but Johnny wouldn’t let go.
“Sorry, Liza. You don’t get to take the easy way out.” He smiled sadly. “Only I get to do that. Promise me you’ll take care of Kyle?”
Kyle—there was pain behind that name, too. “I promise.” The words came easily. I already had promised that, hadn’t I?
Something stabbed at my eyes—light? Johnny shrank from it. “Also, tell Matthew it wasn’t his fault, okay? He’s like you and Tara—he always blames himself. Tell him.”
“All right.” I was standing. When had I gotten to my feet?
Johnny laughed softly. “So now you have no choice. You have promises to keep out there. And so I get to go. Thanks, Liza.”
The light was growing brighter. Suddenly I wanted light, wanted color, more than anything. “Come here,” I whispered, and I felt that light pulling on me, as strongly as the gray had. I wanted spring. I needed spring. “Seek air, seek light, seek life!”
Light and color flooded me—too much. I staggered and fell to my knees, but I kept my hand pressed against the quia tree. I was surrounded by color: pink sky, orange dawn, a snaking green thread that yearned toward me. I stood and pulled that thread, pulled it with all the magic I had. For a moment I saw Johnny, a shadow once more, watching me. “Seek rest,” I told him.
“Already planning on it,” Johnny whispered.