Echo North(25)

“Don’t they get exhausted?”

“How should I know? They are the singing bears. That is what they do.”

Behind the flower door lay a venomous garden. Roses bloomed purple, dripping poison. A wicked-looking vine grew up from the center of a crumbling well. The sky was mottled with dark clouds, and the air stank of mold and decay. The vine turned toward us, reaching out with dark tendrils.

“House!” cried the wolf, “Axes!”

And then an axe appeared before each of us and we grabbed them (the wolf with his teeth) and started hacking away at the vine as if we had done it a hundred times before. When the vine was cut down to a stub, oozing black, horrible-smelling sap from its wounds, we hurtled back into the hallway. I gladly took out my needle and bound that door tight. “We have to keep an eye on the vine,” said the wolf. “Binding or not, it’ll seep through and devour the house.”

On we went, down dusty hallways and leafy ones, up some stairs that seemed to be formed from dragon scales, others of paper. Monsters beat against one door, thudding, hissing, wailing. The binding was fraying; I used the needle and thread to knit it back together. There was a door made of silver that shimmered and sang. Behind it lay a whirling, twisting something that I didn’t comprehend. “A gateway to another world,” said the wolf. “But we cannot go there; the journey would rip us apart.”

There were more normal rooms, too. We passed through an armory, where racks of weapons, chain mail coats, and shields lined the walls, all emblazoned with a white bear on a blue field. There was a treasury, countless parlors, a storeroom, a small conservatory lined with windows and filled with perfectly ordinary plants. There was even a laundry.

Every so often, I saw evidence that a young woman had once lived here: a wooden-heeled shoe, discarded in the hall; the loose beads of a bracelet gathering dust in a wall niche; a spilled bottle of perfume in front of one of the doors that smelled of sunshine and wildflowers. I wondered where the owner of these things had gone, and if the wolf had brought me here as her replacement. But every time I opened my mouth to ask him about it, we were somehow at another door, with another binding to check, another task to do.

The day spun away, and the infinite, terrifying, wonderful house began to weigh on me.

“You are tired,” said the wolf, concern in his voice.

I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. I had just bound a room that randomly grew or shrank with no warning, and had nearly been trapped behind a door the size of my thimble. The wolf had dragged me out just in time. “I don’t know how you’ve lived here for so long all alone,” I said, wheezing. “The house is—the house is—”

“Unwieldy?” the wolf supplied. His teeth flashed in a smile. “That is why I am glad you are here. It is very hard to hold a needle in one’s mouth, you know.”

I laughed—I’d been wondering how he’d managed binding the doors on his own.

He nudged my hand with his white muzzle. “I want to show you one last room.”



BEYOND THE DOOR LAY A tall, sparse chamber, with wooden floors and a window looking out over the forest; the sky was deepening toward twilight.

I gasped. In the center of the room was a dark mahogany grand piano, the lid lifted to reveal gleaming strings. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

“I thought you would like something to practice on, while you are here.”

“I don’t really know how to play,” I replied, wondering how he’d think to bring me there. But I paced toward the piano anyway, sank onto the blue velvet bench. I pressed a few keys. Notes awoke from the heart of the instrument, echoing all the way up to the ceiling like embers in an underground cavern.

The wolf came to sit beside the bench. He tilted his head at me, as if debating something. “The last mistress of the house was a musician. I could teach you what I learned from her.”

I thought about the shoes and gowns and discarded bracelets. I wondered who the former mistress of the house could have been, and why the wolf had told me the night before that I was his only guest. Whatever the case, I very much wanted to learn. I touched the smooth wood of the piano, and couldn’t stop my smile. “I would like that.”



I HAD A BATH AFTER dinner, in a copper tub filled with magically heated water, then pulled on a soft nightgown and thick knitted socks. It was only after I climbed into bed that the wolf trotted in. I was about to ask him where he’d been since dinner, but the blood in his fur made it clear he had visited the bauble room.

“My lady, it is almost midnight.” His voice was rough, distant, as he curled up in his customary spot on the floor. “You had better put out the lamp.”

He sounded like he was in pain, and my throat constricted. I blew it out.

Darkness flooded the room. I pulled the blankets up to my chin, listening to the steady sound of his breathing.

“Good night, Wolf.”

“Good night, Echo.”

I woke a few hours later to a quiet chattering sound. I realized it must be the wolf, his teeth clacking together as he shuddered with cold on the floor.

I half sat up in bed. It was warm under the coverlet, but the air outside the bedclothes was icy sharp. For the first time, I noticed the room had no fireplace.

“Wolf?” I blindly tilted my face to where he lay shivering.