The Sweet Far Thing

We reach the edge of the forest and are astonished at what we see. On a hill is a magnificent ruin of a castle. Its sides are overgrown with a pale, sickly moss and thick, ropelike vines gone tough with age. Tree roots have grown into the stones. They are like bony fingers twisting and turning about the castle, holding it tight in an unwelcome embrace. One limestone tower refuses to be taken, however. It rises majestically from the hill’s grasping hands.



The ground near it is covered in a fine coating of frost. It is like a doll’s castle under a shaking of powdery sugar. It is odd here. Hushed as a first snowfall.



“What is this place?” Ann asks.



“Let’s have a look inside!” Felicity leaps forward, but I pull her back.



“Fee! We’ve no idea where we are or who lives there!”



“Exactly!” she says, as if I have missed the entire point of our excursion.



“Might I remind you of the Poppy Warriors?” I say, invoking the name of those gruesome knights who lured us to their cathedral in hopes of killing us and taking the magic for themselves. As we ran for our lives, they transformed into enormous black birds, chasing us out onto the water. We were lucky to escape them, and I shan’t make the same mistake twice.



Ann shivers. “Gemma’s right. Let’s go back.”



The stillness is broken by the rustling of leaves. A call comes from the forest; it puts a shiver up my spine.



Whoo-oot!



“What was that?” Ann whispers.



“An owl?” I say, my breath coming fast.



“No, I don’t think so,” Felicity says.



We huddle close. Felicity draws her sword. Magic swoops through me, battling my fear. There’s movement to my right, a flash of white amidst the green. Just as quickly, something scurries through the thicket of trees on the left.



Whoo-oot. Whoo-oot.



It seems to be all around us. A sound here; a sound there. A streak of color darts past.



Whoo-oot. Whoo-oot.



Closer now. I hardly know which way to turn. The bushes are still. But someone’s watching us. I can feel it.



“Sh-show yourselves,” I say, my voice pale as a slice of moon.



She steps from behind a tree. Framed in the dusky purple of night, she seems to glow. Her white gown’s gone brown with dirt around the bottom; her skin is the color of the dead. In her matted hair, she wears a crown of flowers that have died and turned to weeds. But we know her all the same. She is the friend we buried months ago, the friend who would not cross the river, whom we thought lost to the Winterlands.



I say her name on a terrified whisper. “Pippa.”



CHAPTER TEN



FELICITY’S EYES WIDEN. “PIP? IS IT YOU?”



Pippa rubs her hands up and down her arms as if trying to warm them. “Yes. It’s me. It’s your Pip.” Not one of us dares to move. Tears streak Pip’s pale cheeks. “Will you not embrace me? Do I mean so little to you now? Have you forgotten me so quickly?”



Felicity’s sword clatters to the hard ground as she runs headlong to Pippa and wraps her arms about our lost friend. “I told them you wouldn’t leave without telling me goodbye. I told them.”



Pip looks at Ann. “Darling Ann, will you still welcome me as friend?”



“Of course,” Ann says, reaching toward the small frail shell of her.



At last Pip comes to me. “Gemma.” She gives me a sad little smile, biting her bottom lip nervously. Her teeth have grown sharper, and her eyes change back and forth from a beautiful violet to an unsettling milky blue with tiny pricks of black at the center. Her beauty has changed, but she is still mesmerizing. Her hair, always long and dark, is now a tangle of curls as untamed as the vines twisting round the castle. She catches me staring. Her laugh is quick and bitter. “Gemma, you look as if you’d seen a ghost.”



“I thought you’d gone to the Winterlands,” I say, uncertainly.



“I nearly did,” she answers, shivering.



“But what happened?” Felicity asks.



Pippa calls out toward the forest. “It’s all right! You can come out! It’s safe. These are my friends.”



A ragged group of girls emerge one by one from their hiding places behind the trees and the bushes. Two carry long sticks that look as if they could do damage. As the girls come closer, I see the singed tatters of their dresses, the horrific burns on their faces and arms. I know who they are—the factory-fire girls we met months ago. We last saw them marching toward the Winterlands, toward corruption. I am relieved to see that they did not meet their end there, but I cannot imagine how they escaped.