Echo North(34)

“Echo, why are you asking me so many questions?”

Above us, the dwarves had finished painting the sky, and their white ships were drifting slowly away into the night. “I’m trying to help a friend.”

“And you think your friend might be enchanted?”

The wolf’s words spun round in my head: I do not belong to your world, or your time. I am just another piece of … her … collection.

“I do.”

Mokosh stretched out, leaning backward on the palms of her hands. Her forehead creased in concentration. “Every enchantment is as unique as a snowflake—but none are impenetrable. I’m sure there is a way to break it, if that is what you wish.”

Break the enchantment, free the wolf, and then—what? Would I just stay with him in the house under the mountain forever?

In the curved wall of the tower, a mirror shimmered into being—the library calling me back. I had no idea it had grown so late. I scrambled to my feet.

Mokosh grinned at me. “What’s your rush? Now that you can dance, we’ve a party to get to.” She stood, too, and brushed the dust from her skirt.

“I’m late for dinner,” I told her apologetically.

“Can’t dinner wait?”

I thought about the wolf, alone in the dining room, staring mournfully at a mountain of food he didn’t want to eat. “I’m afraid not. But I’ll be back again soon.”

Mokosh smiled. “More partners for me, then. Goodbye, Echo!”

She disappeared down the tower’s spiral stair, while I stretched my hand out to the glimmering mirror.

Magic curled through me, and the dark tower melted away into the bright light of the library.

I’m sure there is a way to break it, echoed Mokosh’s voice in my mind.

I’m sure there is a way.

But how was I supposed to find it?





CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I DO NOT BELONG TO YOUR world, or your time. I am just another piece of … her … collection.

I’m sure there is a way to break it.

I’m sure there is a way.

I paced through the rain room, where rain grew like plants in various pots, some of the water-plants tiny and hanging from arches in the ceiling, some nearly as big as the living room in my father’s cottage. I stopped at each plant and poured out a little light from my bucket, which I’d collected earlier in the sunroom. The rain plants didn’t make any logical sense, but they were beautiful, and I always looked forward to my visits each morning.

I paused at my favorite plant, a huge vine-y thing that twisted and moved in some invisible wind. Blossoms grew all along the vine; they were made of dewdrops and chimed like tiny cymbals when I fed them their light.

I touched one of the flowers; it was damp and cool against my finger.

I am just another piece of … her … collection.

But what was he? What had the wolf been before the mysterious force in the wood had brought him here, bound him here? I tapped my finger absently against the compass-watch, hanging as always about my neck, ticking down the seconds.

The first time I’d met Mokosh, she’d told me that readers project their preferred versions of themselves in the world of the books, whether they were aware of it or not. I wondered what version of himself the wolf would project, and if it would give me any hint of his secrets.

I wondered if that was why he didn’t want to come reading with me.

I left the rain room, a plan unfolding in my mind that would keep me from having to return to the room behind the black door.



I FOUND THE WOLF CURLED up and sleeping soundly on one of the garden steps, the grass pressed down beneath him and a few bright flower petals clinging to his white fur. Bees buzzed in the blossoms behind him, roses and asters and twists of orange honeysuckle. The air smelled sweet.

I almost hated to wake him. “Wolf?”

He opened one amber eye. “Do you need assistance with the house?” He’d left me on my own more often than not, lately.

I shook my head. “Not exactly. I found a room I’ve never seen before—I want to show it to you.”

He got slowly to his feet, like he ached all the way down to his bones, then stretched, yawned. “Lead the way.”

I turned from the garden, jittery with anticipation. I hoped the house remembered my instructions. “House,” I said as we stepped inside, “bring us to the new room.” The air trembled around us and I thought I heard a far-off breath of laughter—the house was amused.

I climbed a stair made of bare dark wood, the wolf’s nails clicking behind me. Down a hall of whispering shadows and around a corner, then up another stair, this one made of snow, to a red-and-gold door I’d asked the house to invent for me.

The wolf grunted and I glanced down at him. “Wolf?”

“You are right, Echo. This is a new room. I thought I had seen them all.”

I ignored a twinge of guilt and opened the door. There was no disguising the library now that we were inside, but I rushed to the nearest book-mirror anyway, my fingers wound tight in the wolf’s scruff.

He realized what I was about, and tried to jerk away from me, growling, but he wasn’t fast enough.

My hand was already brushing the surface of the glass.

Magic rushed through me.

I stood suddenly in an autumn meadow, the golden grass brittle and tall, seeds sticking to my sleeves. An ominous cloud loomed dark overhead, and the wind was sharp as needles.