Frost (19 page)

The wind whispered around us. The shadows were still. We were alive and unscathed.

I sank to my knees because my legs weren’t working anymore, and Gabe crouched beside me. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” he gasped. “Did you see the necks? The claws? What kind of beasts were they?”

“Big ones,” Adam said.

“They didn’t hurt us...” Gabe continued, glassy-eyed. He looked at me. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice shaky. I touched the edge of the net before Abel tugged the fabric off me and wrapped it into a bundle. “What are these devices you used?”

“Thorn materials. They won’t cross the blossoms, as you know,” Adam muttered as we turned our attention back to him. “The Thorns have only bits of information about them, smuggled down through the years—the creatures have specific instructions from long ago, although I don’t know what or why. That knowledge has been lost to us. We only know that they watch, and guard. And they respect the snow blossoms.”

“The Watcher we saw before wasn’t nearly as big as those ones,” I said, remembering.

He frowned. “Apparently the closer you are to the ruins and Echo, the bigger the Watchers. The ones that roam close to the village are smaller, more agile, more easily warded off.”

Gabe struggled up to his feet. He and Adam offered me a hand up at the same time, and I accepted Gabe’s help. Adam turned to look at the gate.

“Hurry,” he said. “The gate is primed, and those Watchers will return before long. It’s time.”

We turned. The eye had opened—glowing seams of red and orange bathed us in a spiderweb of light. The air throbbed with a low current of sound, like a great heartbeat.

Gabe and I faced each other. He looked at me like I was made of unbearable light and I was blinding him.

“I won’t ever forget you, Lia Weaver,” he said softly.

“And I won’t forget you.” I realized I didn’t even know his last name, and I opened my mouth to ask. But he kissed me fiercely before I could get the words out. I forgot them as he touched his forehead to mine, and then he stepped away from me and toward to the gate, our hands sliding apart until we were touching only air. A sob caught in my throat.

“May you have clear skies home,” I whispered, choking on my tears.

He nodded gravely.

Adam stepped beside me. “It will be quick, I’ve heard,” he murmured. “Prepare yourself—”

“Wait,” I shouted. “Gabe, I—”

The gate snapped shut, covering Gabe like a flower folding up on itself, and a wind rushed over us.

He was gone.

THE REST OF the words lay on my tongue, unspoken. I hugged myself, closing my eyes. Grief was already seeping into my veins, but I couldn’t process anything I was feeling yet.

“It gets easier,” Adam said. His voice was surprisingly gentle.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He stood a few feet away, his hand on the panel that had made the gate spring to life, his hair blowing in the wind. Abel stood beside him. They looked so alike, and I was struck by the nobleness in their eyes as they drew back a few paces, giving me space to feel my sorrow.

After another moment of breathing in and out, I straightened and approached them. I might be head over heels for a boy, something I’d never foreseen happening to me, but I hadn’t turned wholly stupid. It was dangerous here.

“We should go,” I said, and he nodded.

We headed back for the horses.

~

We returned to the house. Ivy and Jonn hovered, curious but quiet, as I stepped inside with Adam and Abel.

“The Farthers will be very angry when they can’t find him,” Adam said to me. “And I suspect that they won’t clear out as quickly as the Mayor is promising. You might want to lay low for a while.”

Coldness gripped me. “Do you think they’re going to try to extend their reach to the Frost?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Before now, fear of the Watchers kept them out. But they’ve grown bolder. I don’t know what will happen.”

I nodded. “Thank you for your help.”

I fumbled for the brooch I’d pinned to my cloak. It had been nonsensical to wear it, perhaps, but I’d felt stronger, closer to my parents with it resting above my heart. I held it out to him. “Here. I guess this is yours.” It almost hurt to relinquish it. My hand trembled.

But Adam didn’t take it. “No,” he said. “You’ll need it.” He met my eyes squarely. “We may have saved one life tonight, but there are many more who’ll need assistance in the coming months, more now than ever if the Farthers are expanding their reach.”

He left the question unspoken.

I hesitated, then closed my fingers back over the broach.

Adam’s mouth curved slightly in a smile.

~

After they slipped out into the night again, I hugged my siblings goodnight and went to my room. I didn’t really feel like talking. All the words were still bottled up inside my chest, threatening to burst loose if I let them. My mind traced the moment of Gabe’s disappearance again and again, and each time I revisited the scene mentally shivers ran over my skin and a sick feeling twisted inside me. What had happened? Where had he gone? He could be anywhere now. He could be dead.

I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.

I lingered in the doorway, my cheek against the cool wood frame of the door and a thousand fragments of emotion swirling in me. I’d allowed myself to feel love—yes, love—for another person in a way I’d once sworn to myself that I never would. I’d become completely vulnerable, and now I’d been torn apart with hurt and catapulted onto a path I might never have taken otherwise. I’d risked my life for an outsider. For a stranger. Worse, I had a feeling I was going to do it again.

My fingers brushed over the Thorns brooch, which was still clasped in my right hand.

Was it worth it?

A dark shape lay on my pillow. A book. I picked it up, recognizing the volume at once as the one Gabe had been reading,
The Snow Parables
. I opened to the first page, and a sheaf of paper fluttered to the bed.

A letter?

I retrieved the paper with trembling fingers and held it to the light. Gabe’s handwriting, straight and perfect, scrawled across the page.

My dear Lia
, it began.

I put a hand over my mouth. It was an unexpected remnant of him, and it was so precious to me.

I do not know where I am going. I do not know how this night will end. But I just wanted you to know you are the strongest, bravest woman I’ve ever known, and that I will never fail to think of you wherever I am. You have inspired me to fight, and to keep fighting.

There was his name, Gabe, scrawled at the bottom. And then below it, as a postscript, one final thing.

In answer to a question you asked me not long ago, a question I didn’t answer at the time...it is worth it. Love is a perilous dance too, you see. And if we stop dancing, we’ll die.

Don’t ever stop dancing.

**Look for book two,
Thorns
, coming summer 2012!**

Many thanks to my wonderful husband, who reads every draft and listens to every idea. Thank you for insisting you enjoy my stories, even though I know they contain far too much talk of emotions and far too few executions and fight scenes for your taste. Thank you for your friendship, patience, support, and for your infectious enthusiasm with this book and with all the books. I love you more than I know how to express.

Vic, Emily, Dawn, and Yosh, for offering support, friendship, and critique. You guys rock!

Julie from A Tale of Many Reviews for working with me on behind-the-scenes stuff in preparation for launch day. You’re doing a wonderful thing for authors everywhere, and I appreciate it so much.

H. Danielle Crabtree, for her wonderful proofreading services, as well as her kind words and enthusiasm for this book.

My family for telling random people everywhere about my books, badgering them to read them, supporting my dreams, and being so proud of my scant accomplishments. I never anticipated the extent you would go to support me. You guys are wonderful. I love you all.

And to everyone who reads and loves this book—thank you! You are the reason I write.

Kate Avery Ellison lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband and their two well-fed and spoiled (but extremely lovable) cats. She loves fantasy, dark chocolate, fairy tale retellings, and love stories with witty banter and sizzling, unspoken feelings. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys watching NBC comedy shows, playing video games, and eating ice cream cake. While it’s true that she’s currently writing a zombie novel, don’t let that fool you. She is decidedly Team Unicorn. You can find more information about the rest of her books online at
http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/
.

My father drove me through the woods in his truck, the wheels shuddering over the dirt road while the air hummed with all the unspoken words between us. The tears wriggled down his wrinkled cheeks only to get lost in his beard. The mark on his wrist burned at the edge of my peripheral vision, as if it were glowing.

I sat silent and immobile, a statue, a paper doll, a frozen thing of stone.

When we reached the gate I drew one shuddering breath and let it out, and my father put his hand on my shoulder. His fingers dug into my skin.

“He promised he wouldn’t hurt you, Bee. He
promised
.”

I shifted. His hand fell limply on the seat between us. He didn’t try to touch me again.

Dad turned off the engine and we sat wrapped in the silence. I heard him swallow hard. I slid my fingers up and down the strap of my backpack. My mouth tasted like dust. The car smelled like old leather and fresh terror.

Nobody knew if the legends were lies, myth, or truth. But they all talked about the Beast that lived in the house. Some said he ate human children, some said he turned into a vicious creature in the night, some said he looked like a demon, with flames for eyes.

A trickle of sweat slipped down my spine.

“You don’t—” My father started to say, but he hesitated. Maybe he’d been hoping I would cut him off, but I didn’t. I just sat, holding my backpack, feeling the crush of responsibility slip over my shoulders and twine around my neck like a noose.

Through the gate I could see the house, watching us with windows like dead eyes. Trees pressed close to the bone-white walls like huddled hags with flowing green hair, and everything was covered with a mist of grayish moss. I’d heard the stories my whole life—we all had—but I’d never been close enough to see the cracks in the windowsills, the dead vines clinging to the roof.

Magic hung in the air like the lingering traces of a memory. I could almost taste it. Voices whispered faintly in the wind, or was that just the trees? The knot in my stomach stirred in response.

My father tried again, and this time he got the whole sentence out. “You don’t have to do this.”

Of course I did. Of course I must. I wasn’t doing this for him. I was doing it because I had no choice. With the mark on his wrist, he was a dead man. Our whole family was doomed. He knew it and I knew it, and he was playing a game of lame pretend because he wanted to sooth his own guilt. Because he wanted to be able to look back at this moment every time it crossed his mind in the future and feel that he had offered me a way out. That he’d been willing to rescue me, but I’d refused.

Instead of responding, I opened the door and climbed out. The gravel crunched under my shoes as I stepped to the ground. I shouldered my backpack and took a deep breath.

The gate squeaked beneath my hand. I crossed the lawn and climbed the steps to the house, feeling the stone shudder beneath my shoes like the house lived and breathed. The door didn’t open on its own, which I had half-expected, but when I put my hand on the knob I could feel the energy humming inside it like a heartbeat.

My father waited at the car. I looked over my shoulder and saw him standing with one hand on the door, his shoulders pulled tight like a slingshot.

All I had to do was step inside. One step inside and the mark would disappear. And I could run home. I could outsmart this house. Couldn't I? I sucked in a deep breath and rolled my shoulders.

Maybe I believed that. Maybe I didn’t. Why else had I brought a backpack full of clothes, toiletries?

“Bee,” my father called out, and his voice cracked. I paused, waiting for more. Maybe he really was sorry. Maybe he really didn’t want me to do this...

“Bee, I just wanted to tell you how thankful your stepmother and I—”

My throat tightened. He wasn't going to stop me, was he? I shook my head, and he rubbed a hand over his face and fell silent.

When he’d come home two weeks ago at three in the morning, the sleeve of his work uniform torn, his lip bleeding, and his eyes full of fear, my stepmother had cried. Really cried—wrenching sobs that made her double over and clutch at her sides. She almost looked as if she were laughing. I’d looked at him, and I could smell the magic on him. I’d known exactly where he’d been.

And there was a tiny part of me that knew then too that I’d be the one who would pay the price for his foolishness.

All I had to do now was step across the threshold. Then the mark on his wrist would vanish, and he would be free. Everything would be okay. That was all we’d promised, right?

I pushed open the door and stepped into the house. I held my breath.

Across the lawn, my father made a sound like a sob.

Was that it? Was the mark gone?

“Daddy?” I choked out, not daring to move. “Is it—?”

“It’s gone, honey!”

I started to turn, but I wasn’t fast enough. The door snapped shut like the jaws of a hungry animal. I grabbed the handle and twisted, throwing my shoulder against the heavy wood. I shrieked, wrenching the handle harder.