The Silver Gate Read online

  The woods had bushes.

  She turned off the road and slid down a hill, her skirts tangling around her feet as the wet leaves and mud coated her legs. There were bushes up ahead.

  Wynn threw Mildred. The hen flapped her short wings, then landed heavily on the ground and sprinted into the shrubs. Mildred was very black and it was dark. No one would find her now.

  Wynn looked back at the road, just in time to see the bad person who threw rocks at her fall into the ditch. He shouted something she didn’t understand, then rubbed the mud off his face.

  Keep running.

  Wynn pushed through the bushes, then ran through the trees. Only the moonlight showed her way, and the shadows under the forest roof were dark.

  Her toes caught on a tree root and she fell hard. Hot tears trailed over her face as she stayed down in the fallen leaves.

  Mildred was gone. Elric was gone. Her whole body shook. She clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering and tried to look around, but she couldn’t see anything except bushes and leaves. Her cloak draped over her like a blanket, and she curled her body up to hide beneath it.

  She felt something gently nudge her elbow.

  Wynn turned her head and gasped.

  Lying beneath a bush right beside her was a young doe. She stretched her neck forward and sniffed Wynn’s cloak. “Hello,” Wynn whispered, but the doe didn’t run away. It blinked at her, then nudged her again. The doe lowered her head, tucking her face into her side. That’s when Wynn understood. She needed to hide. Wynn lay her head down too, pulling her hood over her hair, and held still like the deer.

  She heard the bad man stumble and curse in the woods, but the doe didn’t move, so she didn’t either. The doe would know when to run. Wynn would run then too. The bad man passed in front of her. She could see his muddy shoes. They smelled rotten.

  He moved slowly, searching, his feet crunching in the leaves. He passed right by Wynn, and didn’t see her, or the doe.

  “Half-wit isn’t worth it,” he grumbled as he staggered away.

  Once Wynn couldn’t hear him anymore, she lifted her head. The doe did the same. Slowly the doe stood. Wynn pushed herself to her feet; the mud they had thrown at her was itchy on her skin, and her head still hurt from the rock. She wondered where Mildred was and hoped she was safe. Foxes lived in the woods, after all.

  Wynn swung her sack on her shoulder and began walking toward the village. She needed Elric.

  Turning around to remember which way she had run, she noticed the doe still standing, watching her. In the moonlight, the forest looked gray and the leaves silvery all around them. A soft wind made the trees whisper. In the quiet, danger felt far away.

  Wynn watched the creature. The doe took three steps away, then faced Wynn again, her large ears turning slowly back and forth as she waited for something.

  Did she want Wynn to follow?

  Wynn took a hesitant step toward the deer.

  The deer took another three steps deeper into the woods and looked back, waiting.

  Wynn followed. This was very strange. Deer never stayed close to her before. This one was different, but she lived in the woods and would know where to go. Once the doe seemed sure Wynn was close behind, she walked steadily forward without turning back. She would only twist an ear every few steps to make sure Wynn was still following her.

  They passed through a dark place in the woods, but there was a bright spot ahead. The path opened into a clearing. The trunks of the trees and the shadows between them formed arches, like the doors of churches. The mostly round moon hung at the center of the open gap in the trees. Moonlight shimmered on soft, dewy mosses clinging to the springy forest floor within a perfect circle of rocks.

  A fairy ring. It was just like the one she used to play in with Elric.

  A clear running stream flowed along the edge of the circle to the left, before wandering back into the dark woods. The doe stopped and took a drink, then looked back at Wynn. She blinked once and bowed her graceful neck. Suddenly she bounded through the woods, disappearing into the thicket the way a deer should.

  Wynn stood under the bright light of the moon in the circle of stones. This was a safe place. She had to find her brother and bring him here.

  Slowly she made her way back, looking for her footprints in the soft earth to guide her, while leaving a trail of sticks to mark the path from where she’d been.

  Finally she found the road and hurried toward the town.

  She came near the gate, where the horrible cages were, but the gates were shut.

  Her heart raced. “Elric?” she called. The wooden pikes that made up the wall seemed so big.

  She heard a groan.

  She looked down the embankment beneath the horrible cages. In the filthy ditch, a lump moved.

  “Elric!”

  Wynn scuttled down the embankment and grabbed him by the arm, and he cried out in pain. Oh! He was hurt. His face was covered in blood. The things in his sack had been scattered near the filthy water.

  “Wynn?” His voice was weak.

  “Here I am,” Wynn said. She lifted him up carefully, and he managed to stagger to his knees. She pulled him up the steep bank and laid him in the road.

  She slid back down the bank to gather what things she could see. She gathered them out of the foul water and shoved them back in his sack, then looped it over her shoulder until it pressed against her satchel.

  Elric managed to pull himself to his feet. He was bleeding badly. Wynn felt her tears coming. They had to leave this place. It wasn’t nice. She lifted her brother’s arm, placed it over her neck, and held him tight around his waist. He winced, and his head hung low, but he walked with her.

  It was a good thing she was strong.

  They stumbled down the bank and into the forest, but she found her first twig. Wynn kept herself bent, pretending Elric’s arm across her shoulders was nothing more than a big bundle of sticks. She could carry sticks a long way. She would carry him, too. She walked in the direction the twig trail was pointing.

  “Wynn?” Elric moaned. He coughed, and held his stomach. His eyes puffed up until he could not open them. She would have to see for him.

  “I know the way,” she said, adjusting the weight of him against her side. Her back hurt, but that didn’t matter. It would stop hurting when they reached the fairy ring, so she could bear it now.

  She found another twig, but Elric stumbled and she had to lift him up. The forest seemed darker here, and she wished she had the doe to follow. It was hard to see the sticks in the dark. She looked ahead, but couldn’t find one.

  Now she was afraid.

  “I can’t—” Elric tried to pull away from her, but she held on.

  There! There was the stick. She led him to it, and then another. A hill rose before them. She had to use her hand to push along the ground as he leaned more of his weight on her against the steep slope.

  Finally, the clearing opened up before them.

  “We’re here,” she said, her throat dry and tight. “It is safe. I can take care of you.” In the moonlight, she could see how dirty he was. Dirt wasn’t good for cuts. Mother used hot water to clean. That is what she would do too.

  She needed a fire.

  She eased Elric down on the soft moss-covered ground near the center of the ring. “Don’t worry,” she said.

  Pulling both sacks off her shoulder, she searched through his, but it was muddy, and it smelled bad. In the bottom, she found Elric’s flint wrapped tightly with his steel. The tinder was soggy.

  Wynn gathered as many sticks as she could and cleared a place in the center of the ring. She set stones around it, and one in the middle she could put her pot on. On the stones she arranged the little sticks, then pulled the bark off of twigs and pulled some dried grass. It was difficult with her fat thumbs, but she managed.

  Her hands fumbled with the flint. She struck it, but nothing happened. Her tears rolled over her cheeks. They splashed on the stone. She wa
sn’t good at starting fires.

  Elric moaned again. He was still hurting. He needed her. If his cuts stayed dirty, he could die.

  She tried again.

  There was no spark.

  With her voice wobbling, she began to sing. She was afraid, and the song made her feel safer.

  “My queen, my queen, I seek the path,

  To the land Between.

  With your power great and fair,

  Show me what’s unseen.

  Please grant to me your silver branch,

  And through the gate I’ll find you.”

  Wynn tried one more time, and this time the stone sparked. The spark caught on the dried grass and grew into a tiny but beautiful flame.

  Wynn squeaked as she jumped up clapping her hands. The little flame flickered, and she quickly fell to her knees to blow on it.

  The fire grew.

  “I did it,” she said, turning to Elric. His eyes were closed and he didn’t answer her. He was very sick, but she would care for him. She wouldn’t let the fire go out this time.

  Wynn took her little pot to gather some water, singing the whole way.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Elric

  ELRIC DRIFTED THROUGH A HAZE of darkness and agony. He couldn’t move. Even if he tried to, his body wouldn’t obey his thoughts. Pain flowed through him like water, and he didn’t want to open his eyes because they stung so badly. He could taste blood and bile in his mouth. Something hot pressed against his temple. He wanted to struggle away from it, but struggle was beyond him.

  In the distance he could hear voices singing. A woman’s voice rose above them, but he couldn’t understand the words. The tune seemed familiar, though. He should know it.

  It hurt too much to think.

  Still, the song was beautiful, and as he listened to it, his dreams drifted to a place of dancing lights and mysterious shadows playing near a forest dark and deep. The colors seemed brighter there, but he didn’t trust such visions.

  The song continued and in the mists of the strange grove, a woman appeared. Her skin was as dark as the rich harvest earth, and white hair floated around her like a soft cloud in a clear winter sky. She wore a dress made of ice woven with the new blossoms of the first warm days of spring. Her eyes blazed as green as the fair golden days of summer, then turned gold like ripe fields of wheat. They glowed in the dim light as she watched him from her place atop a throne carved from stone and the roots of a living tree.

  She stood from her throne and walked closer to him, her expression mildly curious as the singing voices grew hushed. He could hear another voice now—one he knew too well, singing her same song over and over again. It was Wynn’s voice, as off-key as it ever was, and his breath seemed to come easier as he heard it. She was safe, but where was she? He couldn’t see her.

  The regal woman knelt beside him and spoke. “You have grown since I last saw you,” she murmured, a sad smile touching her lips. Confusion swept through him. He had never seen such a woman in his life. But then a vague memory of snowflakes muddled his vision. He could picture clearly a tall woman dressed in ice, holding a newborn baby. It lasted only a moment, and the vision was lost. The queenly woman bent over him and placed a motherly kiss on Elric’s forehead.

  His eyes flew open, shattering the illusion, but he still could not see. A damp cloth lay over his eyes. The clean scent of strong herbs overwhelmed him, clearing the stench of the ditch he had been laying in from his nose and mouth.

  He ripped the cloth away and pried his eyes open as much as he could, but found himself squinting into soft morning light as he lifted his head. Birds chirped in the branches overhead to greet the new dawn that had not quite broken. The cool chill of night still lingered in the air.

  Mildred roosted on his chest, clucking softly in contentment. The fluffy feathers beneath her tail tickled the tip of his nose.

  “Gah, Mildred! Get off!” He shoved the bird from his chest and pain lanced through half his body. Lifting his hand to his head, his palm came away sticky. What was all over his face? Was it blood? He stared at his open hand, squinting through his swollen eyes. No dark smudge stained his palm, and he could faintly smell something sweet, even through his busted nose. Was it . . . honey?

  “Elric?” Wynn hunched over a small but bright fire, stirring her little pot. She noticed him moving and hurried to his side.

  He struggled to sit. His ribs hurt. He held his side and realized he wasn’t wearing his tunic. When he looked down, his chest and stomach were covered in dark bruises.

  Wynn brought him a curled piece of bark. She’d cleverly tucked a broad leaf into it to make it hold a swallow of clean water without leaking. He took it gratefully, washing the blood from his mouth. Gently he ran his tongue over his teeth to see if they were all still there.

  “You’re awake!” Wynn beamed at him, tucking her legs under her as she sat on the soft moss beside him. Her skirt had been cut short, and she wore the extra pair of leggings from his bag. She’d gone and ripped up her dress. Elric tried to focus, but whatever he was thinking about flew out of his mind.

  Where were they, and how did they get to this place? The last thing he remembered clearly was returning to the town after they had been turned away from the cloister. He blinked as he looked around. Spongy moss covered most of the ground, and they were surrounded by the bare branches of trees. The spring buds on the tips of the branches gave the trees a yellowish-green tint with his blurred vision. Around the edges of the clearing, he could see mossy caps on dull gray stones.

  She helped him sit up straighter, then she ran to the edge of the clearing and picked up a length of cloth that had been drying on a branch of a large oak. It was a piece of her skirt cut into a long strip.

  She placed the end on his bruised stomach and wrapped the rest around his body until she had his ribs bound tight, but she couldn’t tie the cloth at the end. He did it for her.

  “Now all the dark marks are gone,” she said. He realized his arm had been wrapped loosely as well. “All better.”

  He touched his forehead, still sticky with honey. His hair was damp and clean. On other branches, the clothes and supplies he had packed, even the sack, hung drying in the sheltering trees. Whatever she was boiling in the small pot smelled like Mother’s garden. “What happened? Are you hurt?” he asked, though he winced and gasped on the last word. It even hurt to breathe.

  “I’m taking care of you.” She walked over to her sack and pulled out a handful of the weeds she had stuffed inside, then dropped them in the bubbling water.

  “You cleaned all this?” All the spare clothes he had managed to stuff into his sack fluttered in a slight breeze. The cuts on his knuckles shone under the honey she had spread over them, but the wounds were scrubbed beneath the sticky golden substance.

  “It was all dirty.”

  The only thing dirty in the glen now was her. Dried mud still caked in her long and matted braid. He shuddered with a sudden chill. Wynn brought him his clean tunic and helped him lift his arm so he could struggle into it. By the time he was dressed, he was out of breath and shaking from the pain.

  Now that he was awake, he was starting to remember what happened.

  “All we wanted was some fun.”

  “Why are you protecting a stupid half-wit?”

  “If she’s not going in the pigpen, you can go in for her.”

  “You’ve slaughtered him. Better throw him in with the other carcasses.”

  There was laughter, so much laughter. He had never been beaten so badly. And it was because of her. If she had just stayed near him. If she had just not talked to anyone. If she were just invisible.

  “Are you hungry?” Wynn offered him a piece of the bread that the young nun had given her. He took it, but he didn’t eat. His jaw hurt too much.

  Not even the convent would take her in. It was the only place that would have been safe for her as a girl, but there was simply too much wrong with her, too much the world could easily see as
a weakness.

  Elric tried to stand, but the pain took the wind out of him. He had intended to hurry home after reaching the convent. He’d have arrived home this morning, and few would have missed him. Now, going back without punishment seemed impossible. He had abandoned his flock and run off.

  Cuthbert wouldn’t let that go unpunished, and another beating could kill him.

  Wynn was a mess, and everywhere they went, people would stare at her and her ripped-up dress. There was no way to avoid unwanted attention now. It would only lead to more disasters like this one. He tied the strip of the skirt she had used to bandage his arm tighter and the limb throbbed. The sticky honey was getting all over everything.

  “Why is there honey all over my hands?” he demanded, once again struggling to stand and finding his feet. His head spun, but he closed his eyes against the dizzy sensation until he felt steady.

  “Mother puts honey on cuts,” she said simply, bringing two more strips of cloth. She tried to wrap one around his hand, but ended up twisting it wrong.

  “Give me that,” he said, pulling his hand away and tying it himself. “What good could honey do?” he grumbled, mostly to himself. “All it does is make things sticky.”

  “I don’t know,” Wynn answered.

  “You don’t know anything,” he muttered. Like the fact she shouldn’t speak to strangers.

  Wynn blinked at him, her downward-slanted eyes wide with confusion. “I know things.”

  Elric let out an exasperated huff. “That’s not what I meant. We’re in trouble. We can’t go back home, or we’ll be punished. We can’t stay at the convent, and we can’t stay here.” He tried to take a step but a sharp pain stabbed through his ankle and he almost fell back down again. “Father will never forgive this, Cuthbert will demand we’re punished, and you’ve ruined your dress.”

  “I made bandages.”

  “That’s not the point, Wynn!” he shouted. It made his head and jaw ache. He placed his head in his palms, but touched the honey again. If she stood out before, she’d only stand out more now that her kirtle dress looked like a boy’s tunic.