Winterwood Read online

  Jasper flicks something in his free hand, and it catches my eye. It looks like a lighter, silver and shiny-sided. He stares down at the tiny flame before he flicks it closed and pushes it back into his pocket. Like he doesn’t want anyone else to see it, to admire it for too long. “It’s not just at night,” Jasper says, coughing once. “I’ve heard it during the day, too. In the trees, like it’s following me.”

  I step forward, closer to the fire. “What’s following you?”

  Lin shrugs and Jasper takes another drink of the whiskey. Rhett stares down at the flames—his round face a sharp contrast of light and dark shadows. But no one answers.

  Maybe because they don’t know. Or maybe because they’re afraid of something.

  Something they can’t see.

  Or perhaps it’s all in their heads. Snow madness, my grandma called it. The cold can solidify itself in the mind, tendrils of ice scattering all sane thoughts. A buzzing fear that makes the eyes see things that aren’t there. Hear things that don’t exist. The forest playing tricks on you.

  Jasper sways back from the flames, his face bright red. “It’s Max’s fault this happened,” he declares now, each word mashed together, a slurred jumble of sounds.

  “Don’t blame it on Max.” Rhett’s jaw constricts. And this time his dagger eyes are focused on Jasper.

  But my thoughts are stuck on one thing: Max.

  Is he the boy who died?

  “So you think we should blame Oliver?” Lin asks defensively, removing his hands from his oversized coat pockets, like he’s preparing for a fight.

  “It’s someone’s fault,” Jasper counters, puffing out his chest.

  But Suzy steps forward, lifting both hands in the air. “Stop it,” she interjects.

  They all stand with rigid shoulders, like strings that were pulled too tight, about to snap. They eye one another, unblinking, the air tensed in their throats.

  And I wonder: Do they know I found Oliver, that I’m the one who brought him back from the forest? Do they know that he’s been staying in my house, that he says he doesn’t trust them? A part of me starts to doubt that Oliver appeared on my doorstep as a dare. A silly prank. If he was friends with these boys, wouldn’t he be here with them now? At the bonfire?

  “What did Oliver do?” I ask swiftly, my eyes ping-ponging between Jasper and Lin, hoping someone will tell me.

  The strain in the air seems to soften, even if only just a little.

  Suzy lowers her arms and even her gaze, sinking back beside Rhett.

  The air between them has changed.

  They refuse to answer my question, to tell me the truth. Maybe they’re protecting Oliver—they don’t want me to know what he did. And I can feel everyone holding their breath. The seconds stalling around us, waiting for someone to speak, to admit some truth I can’t yet see. What happened that night? I want to scream. What did Oliver do?

  The fire writhes and spits up more smoke, chewing apart the damp wood.

  Jasper rolls his head back, looking up at the trees. “I hate these woods,” he murmurs, staggering to one side, the bottle in his hand sloshing amber liquid onto his reindeer sweater. “Shit,” he cries out suddenly, lidded eyes going wide as he starts to wheel backward, off-balance. He trips on something—maybe his own feet—and he careens back away from the campfire, arms waving in the air, and crashes hard against the base of a broad fir tree.

  Suzy clasps a hand over her mouth, stunned.

  Jasper lets out a small gasp of air and a wheezing moan. Blood trickles from his cheek—where a branch sliced his flesh as he fell—and I watch the drops fall, painting the snow red. My heart stutters in my chest.

  “Fuck!” Jasper exclaims, rubbing a hand over the gash, blood smearing his palm, as pinecones tumble down from the tree, plopping onto the snow around him.

  “You’re so fucking wasted,” Lin remarks, shaking his head.

  Rhett laughs at this, but the trees closest to us bristle, roots turning in the soil. They don’t want us here.

  I take a swift step forward and kick snow onto the fire, dousing it in one quick motion. Gray, ashy smoke spirals up into the sky.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Rhett barks.

  “Told you that you’d anger the trees. You can’t build a fire this close to the forest.”

  Rhett takes a step toward me, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Stupid witch,” he spits under his breath.

  But Suzy reaches out and grabs his arm, and he looks back at her. “Leave her alone,” she says.

  Rhett’s eyebrows pull together, but his arm relaxes—as though just her touch is enough to calm his temper.

  “I don’t like it out here anyway,” Lin admits, stepping back from the group and moving toward the trees, toward the lake.

  Jasper glances down at the empty liquor bottle lying in the snow. “And I need more booze,” he slurs, before crawling to his feet.

  “Fine,” Rhett says, his tone blunt-edged and irritated, eyes watching me a second more before turning back to Suzy. “We can go back to the cabin.” He slings an arm over Suzy’s shoulder. “You coming?”

  She tilts her head up at him, giving up a coy little shrug, like she’s considering her other options for the night. Other plans. She glances at me and slips free of Rhett’s arm, saying softly so only I can hear, “You should come too.”

  I shake my head. “No thanks.” I have zero interest in spending a single minute more with these boys.

  Rhett slaps Jasper on the shoulder as he stumbles to his feet, laughing, but Jasper shrugs him off. Like he’s embarrassed.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t go with them either,” I whisper to Suzy, keeping my voice low.

  Her eyes sag a little, like she’s tired, or maybe it’s pity I see—she feels bad for me. Nora Walker who has no real friends. “I’ll be back before the sun comes up,” she says, like she wants to reassure me.

  But I don’t nod; I feel only a twinge of unease. “I don’t think you should trust them.” Maybe I’m being paranoid, or maybe it’s only because Oliver said he doesn’t trust them. But I don’t want her to go with Rhett, with any of them.

  She smiles, lifting an eyebrow conspiratorially. “They’re idiots, I know. But they’re fun and I’m bored.” She gives me a wink and reaches forward to squeeze my hand.

  I open my mouth to tell her not to go, but I snap it shut again. She won’t listen to me anyway. And she can do what she wants. She can leave and sleep in Rhett’s cabin and she doesn’t owe me a thing. But it doesn’t stop the gnawing worry that presses at my temples. The hurt at the back of my skull.

  I watch them all march off through the snow, down toward the lake, Jasper staggering behind with the empty bottle in his hand. The fire pit smolders—the air tinged with the scent of ash—and I listen carefully to the trees settling back into slumber. Their roots sinking beneath the soil, limbs swaying softly.

  And I wonder if maybe it’s only the sounds of the trees that have frightened the boys. If that’s what they hear at night when everything is too quiet—the voices they think haunt them at camp. Or if it’s something else. Something worse.

  Something they won’t talk about.

  I feel the sinking weight of the cold, of too many questions, and I suddenly don’t want to be out here in the dark—alone. I turn and start for the house, snow blowing in drifts of white.

  I’m only a few yards into the tree line when I feel the shiver of someone watching.

  My pulse crackles in my ears—like little pops of warning. Someone is out there. I stop short and peer up the slope, through the pines, ready to run. Back toward the lake. To the boys’ camp if I have to.

  But then I see.

  Oliver.

  Spellbook of Moonlight & Forest Medicine

  CEECEE WALKER was born during the winter of a pale alpine moon.

  Maybe it was the soft layer of snowfall muting all sound; maybe it was that her mother never wailed or wept during delivery. Maybe it wa
s that the midwife was deaf in one ear.

  But when CeeCee opened her infant eyes for the first time, she never let out a single cry. Not a whimper or a coo.

  Not once did CeeCee wail for a bottle or for a diaper to be changed. It would be seven years before she spoke her first word: abacus. Much to her mother’s confusion.

  She never uttered another word of English again. When she was nine, she spoke only German, muttering things her mother and sisters could not decipher or understand. When she was eleven, she switched to French and then Russian. By twelve, she spoke Arabic and Spanish and Hindi. From age thirteen to the winter of her seventeenth birthday, she uttered only Portuguese.

  Her mother once refused to hem a dress for CeeCee unless she asked for it in English. The girl would not, and she spent the remainder of that year in dresses that were too long, the skirts tearing wherever she walked.

  CeeCee fell in love with a hero in a book instead of a real boy, and she dreamed of sailing the globe with him in his ship made of glass and pearls. Her nightshade allowed her to speak any language she liked, yet she remained in the forest, surrounded by those who spoke only one language. The one she disliked the most.

  Later in life, she preferred the way Chinese vowels curled off her tongue, and she spoke it while walking through the autumn aspen trees reading from her favorite book.

  But in her final moments, she stared up at the loft ceiling, her younger sister at her side, and whispered one last word: abacus. For reasons, still, no one understood.

  How to Conjure a Language:

  Cut a wild onion into thirds, then hold below the eyes until they water.

  Shake tulip pollen onto a white cotton cloth, then place beneath your pillow on the last night of Lammas.

  Before you sleep, speak three words in the language you wish to know while holding your tongue with your index finger and thumb.

  Eat only oats and radishes for one week.

  By the next quarter moon, the language will reside beneath your tongue.

  OLIVER

  You scared me,” Nora says, striding into the house, then turning on her heels to face me. Her hair is coming away from its braid, black strands trailing over her neck, and her skin is flushed from the cold—strawberry cheeks and bone-white eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She raises her eyebrows at me, like she needs more of an explanation, like the softness she felt for me the night she first found me is now gone. Replaced by something else: doubt. And maybe even fear.

  Perhaps I am becoming the villain after all.

  “What were you doing out there?” she asks.

  My hands shiver, and I curl them into fists so she won’t see. “I saw Rhett and the others sneak away from camp,” I tell her. The truth. Only the truth. “I followed them.”

  “Why?” she asks, the space between her eyes punctuated by tiny lines.

  “I don’t trust them.” I repeat what I told her last night. A puddle of melted snow collects at my feet, but I don’t remove my boots. I don’t know if she’ll let me stay. If she wants me here at all. If she trusts me. “I saw the bonfire, and you, and I wanted to make sure you were okay,” I admit.

  Her eyes narrow, and she looks stricken by something, a pain I can’t quite see. “You don’t need to follow me,” she says. “Or protect me.”

  “I know.” And I do know. She’s not weak, she’s not frail or breakable or scared of much. She is the storm that tears away roofs and knocks over trees. Yet, I needed to be sure she was safe. I needed to be nearer to her. She is the only thing that dampens the feeling of the cold, the memory of the forest always at the nape of my neck. She mutes the darkness always looking for a way in.

  Nora blows out a breath and crosses her arms. “Where did you go this morning?” she asks, eyebrows slanted down at the edges.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  Her mouth comes together in the shape of a bow, like she doesn’t believe me. “I followed your footprints around the lake,” she confesses. The wolf lifts its head from the floor and sniffs the air, like he smells something unfamiliar, before resting his chin back on his paws. “Why did you go to the cemetery?”

  I divert my eyes away from her for the first time, away from what she wants to know. I don’t know how to explain what I remember, what I felt. They are only shards of memory that slice and sting when I try to focus on them. “I think I was there that night,” I say—the only thing I can be sure of.

  “And you stood over Willa Walker’s grave?”

  A white-hot pain begins to pulse behind my eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Why hers?”

  “I don’t know.” The pulse turns into a thud, slamming between my ears, an ocean spilling out from the cracks in my skull. “But I don’t think I was alone.”

  “Were the others there, the boys who were at the bonfire tonight?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “And Max?” she asks, the question like the sharpened tip of a blade.

  Max.

  I feel myself wincing at the sound of his name.

  “Do you remember him?” she prods.

  I shake my head, and the heat from the fireplace is suddenly too hot, the air too thick, my lungs tightening in my chest. “No,” I say aloud. A lie. Quick and easy.

  “He died, Oliver,” she says, shaking her head, and I want to tell her that I wasn’t there, that I had nothing to do with it. But I can’t because I don’t know for sure, and the cold look in her eyes hurts worse than anything else. It hurts because I might be the villain. Heartless stare and wicked laugh and secrets to hide—stuffed deep, deep down inside.

  She’s scared of me—of who I really am, of what I might’ve done.

  And maybe she should be.

  “I wish—” My voice feels like a razor in my throat, the line between truth and lie slicing me into halves. “I wish I could remember,” I say at last.

  But Nora presses her palms to her temples, her ring shivering in the firelight—she doesn’t know what to believe.

  I shouldn’t be here. In her house. She shouldn’t trust me.

  I reach for the door and pull it open, letting the wind lash against the walls, the curtains, Nora’s long, whispery hair. I don’t say goodbye.

  But from behind me, I hear her say, “Wait.”

  When I look back, she’s moved across the room, only a couple of paces away. “Where are you going?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  She bites her lip and looks to the floor. I don’t want her to tell me to leave, but I know that she should. She should push me outside and lock the door and ask me to never come back.

  Her eyes lift, hazel dark, and even though they give away a rim of uncertainty, she says, “You can stay here. You can stay as long as you want.”

  I shake my head. But she cuts me off before I can protest.

  “It’s my house.” She swallows. “And I want you to stay.”

  The thud of my heart is too loud—loud enough to break my chest open, loud enough for her to hear.

  And when I look at her, an ache forms inside me, a nagging itch I try to ignore. I should tell her the truth: that I remember just enough from that night to know that she’s right to be afraid. That nothing good happened that night, in the cemetery, beside the lake. That there are lost memories buried inside me that frighten me—that I never want to see.

  I should tell her these things, but I also want to stay—more than anything—I want to stay here with her. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want the crack inside me to widen, for the ocean of loneliness to creep in. I don’t want to drown.

  And I don’t want her to drown either. To suffocate on the same thing: the hurt we both keep stuffed deep inside.

  So I keep my mouth shut.

  I close the door, and the curtains settle back against the wall; her hair falls back to her shoulders. My hands tremble just a little, and I step toward her. My breathing hitches, claws, scrapes against my ribs. My fingers want to reach ou
t for her, touch the palm of her hand, the long line of her forearm, the curve of her collarbone, where her skin is pink and flushed. I want to disobey the beating of my own heart, telling me to leave.

  I want to let myself feel this thing I don’t understand. The wings in my throat and the itch at my fingertips.

  I don’t want to be the villain.

  But then the front door swings open and someone brushes past me into the house, smelling of booze and rose perfume.

  NORA

  Suzy strides into the living room, coat zipped up to her chin, snowflakes dusting her shoulders and hair.

  “It’s so damn cold,” she proclaims, slamming the door shut and brushing past Oliver to the woodstove. Her cheeks and nose are red, and she holds out her hands, warming them over the fire.

  I look to Oliver, but his expression is slack.

  “What happened?” I ask Suzy. “I thought you were staying at the camp?”

  “Rhett’s a jerk,” she says, brushing the hair from her forehead with a flick of her hand, and I can tell she’s been drinking. Maybe they found another bottle of alcohol in the camp kitchen, and they’ve been taking shots back at the boys’ cabin. “He said I shouldn’t trust you.” Her eyes tick to mine, bloodshot and watery. “He said we’ll get in trouble because of you, because you know too much.”

  The room feels suddenly airless, vibrating along my periphery. I glance at Oliver again, but he’s taken a step back. He barely even looks my way—like his own thoughts are clouding his vision.

  “I don’t know anything,” I tell Suzy, facing her again.

  But she continues talking, like she doesn’t even hear me. “I told him he’s an asshole and he can sleep alone tonight.” She waves a hand dismissively in the air, her head rolling to one side, like she can barely keep herself upright. I’m surprised she stood up for me—surprised and grateful. Maybe she does think we’re friends. And for a moment I want to reach out and hug her.

  “Men are jerks,” she blurts out, and her eyes swivel around the room, blinking on Oliver. I wonder if she’s going to say something to him—call him a jerk too, say that he’s just like all the rest. But then her gaze wheels back to the woodstove, like she’s going to be sick.