Cinderella Is Dead(43)

“The cart can’t go any farther,” Constance says. “We’ll have to walk from here.”

“And the horse?”

“We’ll bring him with us. If we leave him alone, the wolves will be on him in no time. He can traverse the terrain better than we can.”

The trees are more densely packed than any I’ve seen up to that point. I can fit through if I stand sideways, but I can’t imagine making the rest of the trip that way, and as much as I want to bring the horse, I don’t think he’ll fit.

Constance climbs down from the cart to transfer a day’s worth of supplies, a large book, and several stacks of paper bound together with twine into two leather satchels. I unhitch the horse, preparing myself to push through the massive wall of trees in front of us, even though everything in me is telling me to turn and run. I hold tight to the reins and take a step forward. The horse doesn’t budge.

“It’s all right,” I say to him, rubbing his nose, trying to comfort him with a lie. Just then, my inner ear pops the way it does when storm clouds rush over the mountains. The pressure in the air around me changes, muffling all sound. My skin prickles as the horse rears up, huffing and snorting. I try to pull him back down, but the reins tighten painfully around my hand.

The horse rakes his hooves across the ground and whinnies, eyes wide, puffs of moist air spurting from his nostrils. He jerks his head away, and my hand folds inside the tangled rope. I cry out. Constance grabs her dagger and cuts the rope. Once it’s severed, the horse breaks free.

“Are you all right?” Constance asks as she takes my hand in hers and examines it by the light of the lamp. A ragged swath of skin has come away from the outside edge of my palm, and blood trickles down my arm. Constance rips a length of cloth from the bottom of her tunic and quickly binds the wound. The blood soaks through the makeshift bandage. I steady myself against a tree trunk and take a deep breath. Constance grasps my arm, a look of genuine concern on her face.

The horse circles in front of us, huffing and whinnying. “What’s wrong with him?” I ask.

“Something’s spooked him,” Constance says, an uneasy ring in her voice. “We’ll have to leave him if he won’t come willingly.”

As I pick up the satchel, a long, low, almost sorrowful howl cuts through the air, sending a chill straight through me. I angle my head to the side as another call—this time from a different direction—echoes the one that came before it.

Constance’s hand moves to her dagger, and I kick myself for not insisting on having a weapon before we came into the forest.

“They’ve caught his scent,” says Constance. She turns to me, her brown eyes gleaming in the dark. “The wolves.”

I saw a wolf in town once. It wandered in with a broken leg and was put down in the street. Seeing it lying there, I was sure its paw was the size of my head, maybe bigger. If the wolves in this part of the forest are even half the size of that one, the horse doesn’t stand a chance, and neither will we if we run into one.

Branches snap just off the pathway. Constance brandishes her dagger. I search for something to use as a weapon and spot a large branch that has been broken off at the end, creating a jagged point.

A hulking figure emerges from the tree line to our right. Growling and snarling, it slinks along the ground. It is a wolf, twice the size of the one I’d seen in town. The top of its head is chest height, and even in the dark I can see its mouth open just enough to show its yellow teeth. My breath catches in my throat. I hold the branch up, gripping it with both hands.

From the left, another wolf emerges from the trees. This one is smaller and gray in color. It snarls loudly and the horse rears up. The wolves circle him, snapping and snarling. The smaller wolf swipes at the horse’s leg, opening a gash. He huffs. Clouds of white steam puff out of him; his eyes grow wide. I lift the branch and bring it down hard on the back of the smaller wolf, and it yelps like a hurt dog. It whips around and snaps at my foot. Constance pulls me back, and we tumble between the closely packed trees. She kicks the wolf in the snout as it bears down on us.

The larger wolf has opened a gash in the horse’s side, and blood spills onto the ground. The gray wolf turns and joins the other in bringing the horse down in a chorus of howls and grunts.

“Move!” Constance shouts.

She slings her bag over her shoulder and grabs the lamp as I scramble to my feet. We rush forward. The trees are nearly touching in all directions. Their branches intertwine with one another like interlaced fingers. The thorny, low-lying underbrush scrapes at my ankles and tears at my pants. The snarling of the wolves fades, but I still risk glancing behind every few minutes to make sure nothing has followed us.

Constance holds the lamp up, but it’s constantly snuffed out by strong gusts of wind that come from nowhere. The air smells of rotted leaves and dirt. I try to ignore the new sounds I hear—not from animals or insects, but whispers, so faint that I think maybe I am imagining them.

“Constance, how much farther do you think we have to go?” I say, trying to quell my increasing sense of dread. “I thought I heard—”

“I don’t know. We should be approaching the heart of the forest but—” Constance stops and holds up her hand in a plea for silence. The wind brushes past me, and in it, a faint noise. A melody. I look at Constance, who presses her finger to her lips. The sound comes again, and this time, I hear something like words.