Echo North(12)

And then the wolf was beside me, pressed up warm against my knee. “Another moment and we’ll be through.”

We walked together, wind and blackness clawing all around, and passed into what felt like a cool, echoing hall. The howling stopped and the wind seemed to vanish. A door shut behind us, a key turned in a lock (who or what turned it? Not the wolf, surely) and then a lamp flared, banishing the dark.

We stood in a long, low corridor, with stairs at one end and a wooden door at our backs. The lamp was set high on the wall, where the wolf couldn’t have reached it even if he did have hands, which pointed to something—or someone—being with us back there in the dark. I shuddered.

I stared at the wolf, noticing as if for the first time the enormity of him, the power in his white frame, barely contained. The danger. There were nicks in his ears, ropy scars on his back left leg, and places on his flanks where his fur didn’t lay smooth, evidence of more scars I couldn’t see. His power of speech made him seem almost human, but he wasn’t human at all. He’d manipulated me with my father’s life hanging in the balance—I wasn’t about to forget that.

The wolf glanced back, amber eyes and bone-white teeth flashing in the lamplight. “Welcome to the house under the mountain, my lady.” And then started up the stairs.

For all my tangled fear and anger, I had no desire to be left with whatever lurked behind that door, so I followed him.

His nails clicked on the stone steps, my felted boots whispering behind. I focused on the white flag of his tail, trying not to feel as though I was marching to my death. “What was that back there, outside the door?”

“The gatekeeper—the North Wind, or what’s left of him.”

“The North Wind? What does that mean? Who are you?”

He looked back briefly, but kept climbing until he passed out of sight.

I stood gaping for a moment, then yelped and leapt up the stairs after him. I caught up just as he came to another door, which swung open by itself and closed quietly behind us.

Beyond was a grand hall that might once have been a ballroom. It had high paneled ceilings, formerly elegant wainscoting, and intricately patterned wallpaper that was faded and torn.

The wolf walked faster and I matched his pace, wooden floors creaking beneath our feet. “I abandoned my father to come with you. Why won’t you answer me?”

His words were clipped and cold: “Not here.”

A yellow gown lay puddled in the corner, ribbons ragged, one worn shoe discarded beside it. I thought I heard whispers, rustling gowns, tinkling laughter.

But then we stepped into another corridor, and silence closed around us.

The wolf drew a breath and flicked his eyes up at me. “I do not like that room.”

“Why?”

“It reminds me of something I lost.”

On we went, down more halls, around corners, up stairs. We passed countless doors, some plain, some carved, some wavering impossibly, like they were made of liquid glass. Lamps flared to life just ahead of us, casting eerie shadows over the floor.

“Wolf. Please—tell me who you are. Tell me why you brought me here.”

He sighed, as though he was weighed down with an impossible burden he could no longer carry. “I am the keeper of this house—I am bound to it, and it to me. I am old, my lady. I am dying. At the end of the year I will fade, and if the house does not have a new master by then, it will fade with me.”

Whatever I expected him to say, it wasn’t that. “You brought me here to … take your place?”

“If you choose the house. And if the house chooses you.”

“But I have to get back to my father—my family!”

“And so you can at the end of the year, my lady, if you so choose.”

“Will you give me a choice?”

“There is always a choice.”

“You didn’t give me a choice tonight—I couldn’t let my father die.”

The wolf shook his white head. “Tinker would have come, whether you made your promise or not. He was never in any danger.”

And then he stopped in front of a red door, carved beautifully with lions and birds and trees. “Your room, my lady, for the duration of your stay. Dinner will be ready as soon as you are settled.”

“But—”

He was already gone, the tuft of his tail showing around the corner, leaving me to reel with the knowledge I had abandoned my father and sacrificed a year of my life for absolutely nothing.



I HAD NO INTEREST IN investigating the room behind the red door. I paced the corridor after the wolf instead, but he was nowhere to be seen. Frustration twisted through me. The wolf had tricked me, and for what? To trap me in this strange and terrifying house? I could have been home with my father. I could have been safe.

But I blinked and saw my university acceptance letter crumbling to ash. If it weren’t for my father, would I even want to go home?

Down the hall to the left, lamps flared suddenly to life, stretching out of my sight line. I walked that way, hoping they would lead me to the wolf.

I passed countless doors and wandered up seemingly infinite hallways and staircases. Icy currents of air whispered past my neck. Laughter and music echoed faintly from behind some of the doors, while from others came the scent of wine and honey and autumn flowers, or the winter tang of a crisp starry night after a snowfall. The whole house seemed to brim with memory and sorrow, with lost dreams and forgotten joy. I ached with a sadness that wasn’t my own.