Stealing Snow (10 page)

The River Witch closed her eyes for a moment, as if my questions tired her. “It happens only once per century, and the next one should occur in just one month.”

So basically I was supposed to fulfill some kind of major destiny in a month. And I had no idea this place even existed until now.

The River Witch continued, “But the three witches—the Witch of the Woods, the Fire Witch, and I—we wanted the seasons back. Our power was contained, boxed in by ice on all sides. So we decided to help fate along by destroying King Lazar’s most prized possession.”

“His family?” I asked.

“His mirror,” she corrected, a look of surprise crossing her face as if she had underestimated the dark places my mind went. “Remember, all his power was amplified by it. He needed to be
stopped. So the Three stole the mirror away and broke it, each sister hiding her piece somewhere that no one else would know about it. We thought we had saved Algid. But we were wrong.”

Now the witch glided across the room. Her voice was mournful. “Somehow King Lazar heard about the prophecy. He had a choice: his crown or his progeny.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a dilemma,” I said.

“You don’t know how power can poison, child. Imagine if the whole world trembled at a touch of your finger. Now imagine losing that power completely. What it means to know that your child will take your crown, to weigh your child’s life against the thing that you think makes you … Well, it is no small thing.”

The River Witch presented both sides as if they were equal—as if it were completely normal to consider killing a child, your child.

“King Lazar chose the crown.”

I wanted her to stop talking. I wanted to close my eyes and open them back on the other side of the Tree. Because this witch was telling me my father wanted me dead.

I felt the floor rock underneath me, and for a moment I thought I was really losing it. But then I remembered we were on a boat.

“When your mother learned of your father’s decision, she knew she had to save you,” the River Witch pressed on. “So while the king was sleeping, Ora took you and carried you to the cliff above the River and jumped.”

As the story unfolded, my old dream came back to me. She was telling me what I had already seen in my mind.

In my dream, I was standing on the edge of a cliff about to jump off, knowing the River was better than whatever was behind me. But what if it wasn’t my vision? What if it was my mother’s? It made sense, but it couldn’t possibly be right.

How did the River Witch know about the dream?
I pushed the thoughts aside and focused on the rest of her story.

“Your mother knew that I would be waiting for her in the water. When she took that leap, she knew that I would save you both. But still, I was surprised she had it in her.”

My mother had saved me? If the River Witch was to be believed, she was still saving me.

“With the coven’s help, your mother opened the door to another land—the land from whence you came—and she secreted you away where you’ve been all this time. Everyone in Algid thinks you’re dead. Even we didn’t know where she took you. She was supposed to come back when you were strong enough or when it was safe. It appears that neither is the case yet. But I can help you with that.”

“And King Lazar? What happened to him?” I asked. I refused to call him my father.

“He has continued to rule Algid like a tyrant. It has been winter for fifteen years. And now that you have returned to us, you can help put an end to it.”

“Right, so you’re saying I am literally an ice princess?”

If what the River Witch was saying was true, I came from a long line of liars and monsters.

“Yes, Snow. Within you lies a great gift. You can control winter and have dominance over frost, over ice and snow. You are
the heir to the throne and the one destined to take away your father’s power … or to raise him to greater heights. Only you can choose your path.”

My heartbeat quickened at that. I had a choice. I never had a choice. Every day of my life at Whittaker had been about other people making decisions for me: what to wear, to eat, to do, when to sleep. Even who I could talk to. Hell, the only reason I was here was because someone dragged Bale through a mirror, and I had
no choice
but to come here to get him back. “How did you destroy the mirror? Where are the pieces now?” I asked.

“What happened to the mirror pieces is a story for another time.”

“And where is your piece … ?”

“I can’t tell you that,” the River Witch said.

“But—”

“I will not tell you!” Her voice was suddenly so loud, it shook the walls of the boat.

She had just unfolded every dark and dirty corner of my alleged history, but she couldn’t tell me about mirror fragments? I didn’t understand.

“And whatever you do, you must NOT let the King know you’re alive and back in Algid. Or what your mother has done for you—what we all have done—will have been in vain.”

I sat quietly—message received clearly. After a few moments the River Witch looked around her dripping houseboat with a critical eye. “You are like your mother in some ways. I hope not in all. Being a witch can be a dirty business, what with the things you have to collect and the things you have to sacrifice. Ora liked
comforts. Being a queen appealed to her more than being one of us. Ora realized almost too late the value of what we were—and the power that we possessed.”

Nepenthe looked at me for a long beat that told me that she was done with her story and was expecting some kind of response. I wondered if she expected gratitude for telling me her version of the truth. This moment was years in the making for her. Meeting me again. The one she thought would save her world.

I had no gratitude to give her. I did not know what to do with what she had given me. She had given me my mother as a hero, but the kind whose heroic act was keeping her daughter locked up her whole life and letting her believe she was crazy. Nepenthe had taken away the father who had disappointed me and replaced him with a new specter of a father who was possibly evil incarnate. And she was asking me to believe that the icy-cold anger I had felt my whole life could actually manifest itself as a physical thing, as a weapon.

“I don’t believe I can control snow, but I …,” I began, sounding a little too much like Dr. Harris for my liking. He always approached the crazier patients with that tone.

“I believe that you believe that you can fly, Wing. That’s what’s important,” he would say. His tone was gentle, but his meaning was unmistakable. He did not believe.

I sat there looking at the River Witch, watery proof that magic was real. But that did not mean that it was part of me—just because she said so.

The River Witch’s face relaxed. “Time and the Lights will prove me right.”

I didn’t say anything at first. I couldn’t convince her any more than Dr. Harris could convince Wing.

“Perhaps, but I want to thank you for saving me,” I said, meaning it, as she turned to go.

The River Witch blinked hard at me, her eyes narrowing in confusion, and then she left without saying another word.

Was she drawing another comparison between my mother and me? Were thank-yous the domain of Ora as well, or had no one ever thanked the River Witch before? I was tired of people knowing things before me. Of knowing things about me. Destiny wasn’t exciting or romantic or epic. It was annoying.

I could not stay in this strange place and learn whatever she thought I needed to learn. I had to find Bale. I would give her time to sleep or return to the water or whatever it was that witches did, and then I would make a run for it. She wanted me to make a choice? Damn the prophesies. That was my choice.

The next day, sunlight streamed through the oval window in my room. There was no sign of the River Witch. No sign of Kai or Gerde, either. My Whittaker wear was now dry and sitting in a pile on the table in the center of the room. Next to it was the witch’s cloak. Perhaps it could offer me some protection from the forever winter that the River Witch had described.

I slipped it on. It felt exactly how it looked: scaly and slick, but there was something else, too. It felt warm. I felt half-guilty taking something from the witch who had helped me, but something told me that she could make another one. I looked around
the place one last time, and just as I moved for the door, I heard the slithering sound again. The rustling was coming from every corner of the boat’s room, both above and below. Slimy, scaly, larger-than-life tentacles came at me from the walls, floor, and ceiling. The hissing noise they made sounded like “Stay.”

Turning the doorknob, I ignored the sound and made a break for it. My mind was cloudy. My stomach churned uneasily. I had no idea if I was making the right choice or not, and I had no idea where to go other than away from this boat and all the weirdness inside it.

The boat was moored. It was surrounded by giant chunks of ice at the River’s end. There was no dock. The boat was held in place by two icebergs that were inexplicably anchored at the hull of the boat. I jumped down onto the ice and landed ungraciously on my butt. Worried, I looked up at the boat but saw no sign of the witch. My feet slid over the ice as I made my way back to the solid, snowy shore.

Back on my own again
, I thought.

But I slipped and fell flat on my face. Feeling suddenly weaker, my chest constricted and I gasped for air. If I had been at Whittaker, Dr. Harris would have dosed me again. I was a wreck.

A pair of boots came into my view. I looked up and saw Kai, the boy from the boat.

He picked me up in his arms. I was so surprised I did not move a muscle. I found myself staring into his eyes a beat too long. They were big and blue and somehow distant. I didn’t blink until he focused on me.

It wasn’t like on TV. I didn’t feel light as a feather in his arms.
It was almost an embrace. I could feel my weight against his chest, and the balancing act of his holding me up and pulling me into him.

“Your instinct to run was the right one,” he said in a whisper as he cradled me in his arms and headed back onto the ice.

“What … what are you doing?”

“I’m taking you back.”

“Why?” I asked as Kai went suddenly rigid.

He somehow belonged to the River Witch. Of course he was taking me back. I struggled against him.

“Let me down,” I demanded. “Look, I appreciate your help. But I need to be on my way. Give my regards to the River Witch.”

Was I being saved or kidnapped?

“You can give them to Nepenthe yourself,” he said, not letting me down.

I considered kicking him or biting him. But since he had just saved me from the River, I wanted to resolve this with words, not teeth.

“Stop moving,” he said in a whisper.

But I craned my neck in time to see a giant fissure in the ice coming from the direction of the boat. Kai took a deep breath and then jumped for the shore with me in his arms.

He managed to deposit me on solid ground, but he couldn’t make it himself, slipping into the water and disappearing under the surface.

I screamed and rolled over and reached for him just as his hand came back grasping for land. His head popped up, eyes blinking hard and wildly searching for the way up and out.
I grabbed his hand. I would not let him go. Not like Bale. Not again.

“Hang on to me.”

He managed to put his other hand on the shore, and I pulled back with all my might, hoisting him up.

He lay on the ground beside me for a moment breathing heavily. I watched his chest go up and down, concave and more concave. While I was making sure that he was still breathing, he opened his eyes suddenly and caught me staring at him. For the briefest of seconds his face wasn’t scowling at me. Instead it was relaxed. He was almost smiling, just relieved to be alive. Then his face darkened again, but this time it wasn’t at me—he was looking past me at the sky.

“We have to get inside. Now!” he said, leaping to his feet with energy I did not expect him to have so soon after his narrow escape from the River. He yanked me to my feet as well.

I looked at the River where the boat no longer had an ice path to get to it. “But how are we—”

He pulled me in the other direction, toward the tree line.

“What is it?” I demanded as I let myself be dragged along.

“There’s a storm coming. And not just any storm. There is only one person I know who can create something with this much power: the King.”

I didn’t see anything. There wasn’t a cloud or lights in the sky. It was perfectly clear and a pretty rosy pink.

Somewhere I heard the sound of a bird cawing. But I couldn’t see it.

“Listen to that,” he explained, still not making any sense to me.

“The birdcalls?” They were piercing and strange, but did he really think the bird was telling him that there was a storm?

He nodded, then began moving toward the blue woods next to the River.

“Hey, come back, Kai…”

He didn’t stop. I had no choice but to catch up. What was it with the boys in this world? But unlike how I felt about Jagger, I actually think I trusted Kai. Maybe it was because he clearly didn’t want me there, or maybe it was because he just saved my life. Either way, I had decided to follow him for now.