Echo North(17)

I peered at a few of the description plates, which said things like: The Monster of Montahue: In Which a Prince Slays a Beast Only to Find it Within Him and The Doorway to All Things: In Which a Magical Hat Causes Much Havoc and The Soldier’s Gift: In Which Heaven Fights for the Emperor, a Firsthand Account.

Were these mirrors books? Had I stumbled into a library? Wild house and unpredictable wolf aside, I didn’t care where I’d promised to stay for a whole year, as long as there was something to read.

Beyond the blue door at the back of the hall was an even bigger chamber. This one was lined with a maze of ebony shelves stretching out of my sight line, all chock-full of mirror-books, hundreds upon hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.

I stared, my mouth hanging open, and retreated into the first room, overwhelmed.

How did one read a mirror-book? It seemed foolish not to try—if I left the library I might never be able to find it again in the seemingly infinite, ever-changing house. And I still didn’t want to face the wolf. The library was a welcome distraction.

I selected a mirror at random and stepped up to it. The nameplate read: The Hidden Wood: In Which a Princess Confronts the Queen of Fairies.

I thought perhaps the story would parade magically in front of my eyes as I watched, but nothing happened. My reflection stared back at me, my scars stark in the light from the chandeliers. I wished I could scrub them away, leave them like so much dirt in the bottom of my washbasin. My jaw hardened, and I stretched my hand out to touch the mirror.

The glass—if it was glass—wavered, rippling out like water in a pond, and a sensation of coolness washed through me.

The next instant I was standing at the edge of a tangled, overgrown wood, briars curling up tree trunks and cutting into rough bark. Horrid black blossoms peered at me from between the thorns, and they reeked of death. A cold wind soughed through the trees; a bird with black wings squawked overhead.

A pale-haired girl came along the forest path, a basket mounded with mushrooms swinging from her arm. The bird flew down and settled on her shoulder. She ran one finger along its glossy head, singing a note that the bird echoed back to her. She laughed and fed it a mushroom.

The girl passed out of sight among the trees, and without even thinking about it, I stepped into the wood and followed her.

The forest enveloped me, the scent of moss and sap and a hint of those horrible black flowers cloying and sticky in the air. Leaves crunched under my feet. The wind coiled icy around my neck.

The girl walked quickly—I nearly had to run to keep up with her. She followed a deer path through the wood, singing and feeding the bird mushrooms as she went. After a while she came into a clearing, where a little stone cottage nestled among the trees, wind flapping cheerily through bright, flowered curtains. To the side of the house a garden marched in neat green rows; a hedgehog sat in the midst of it, munching noisily through the lettuce.

I blinked, and was suddenly inside the cottage, watching the girl make tea and sit down to drink it at a tiny, narrow table. The bird never left her shoulder, and I thought its eyes flashed green, though I couldn’t be sure.

“Where … am I?” I asked carefully, not wanting to startle the girl but needing answers.

She smiled at me, not startled in the least. “The House in the Midst of the Wood, of course. My mother left it to me, after she died.” A shadow of sadness crossed her face. “I’m a Guardian, just as she was.”

I squeezed into a tiny chair across from her. “What do you guard?”

“The wood. It was made as a prison for the queen, you know, but she’s powerful. She can find cracks. I can’t let her loose—she would devour the world.” The girl ran her finger around the rim of her mug and offered the bird a handful of cake crumbs. “So I tend the forest. I cut down the blossoms that grow from her poison, and care for her creatures who managed to escape. And I plan how I might defeat her, when the wood can no longer keep her at bay.”

“And how—how do you plan to defeat her?”

The girl’s eyes caught mine, a fathomless sea-green. She shook her head, sorrow weighing heavy on her thin shoulders. “The only thing that can stand against her is the old magic, and it’s all gone. I gather what ragged bits of it I can—the wood sheds it, here and there. But the weavers of old magic left this world long ago. They imprisoned her here. They didn’t think she could ever get free.”

The bird squawked and flapped suddenly to the window. The girl flung her head up. “She’s here. She’s coming.”

“But—”

And then the world changed around me. I stood with the girl in an ink-black forest, the wind whipping her hair about her shoulders. She held a torch in front of her, outstretched like a sword, and a tall spiny creature that looked like the black-flowered briar come to life shrank back from the light, hissing through thorny teeth.

“A sentinel!” cried the girl. “A vanguard! The queen is coming. We stand against her now.”

The bird flapped its wings and grew in front of my eyes, until it stood as tall as a man. It wrapped one wing around the girl like armor, and its feathers glinted iron silver in the torchlight.

But then the spiny creature plunged its arms into the earth, and a hundred creatures in its exact image sprang up to stand beside it. They dripped black petals onto the ground like blood. I choked at the stench.

The girl hurled the torch into the air and somehow it ignited, sending a wall of flame toward the thorny creatures. She dropped to her knees while the enormous bird stood guard, his iron wings shielding her. From her pocket she drew a spool of shimmering thread, which she began to unwind. Using only her hands and one of the bird’s metal feathers, she wove a glittering net that grew and grew and grew, until it was large enough to encompass the queen’s army. The spool ran empty of thread, and the girl stood to her feet with a great cry. She cast the net at the creatures.