Echo North(40)

I waited for him to go on.

“My mother had gold hair. She liked to sing in the snow, and her favorite food was honeyed biscuits. She always put out seeds for the birds. Watched them from the window.”

The sun sank lower, fading into a cerulean twilight and a chorus of crickets. Down in the valley, campfires flared orange.

“I had six brothers and four sisters—I was the youngest of them all. I was spoiled. There were chocolates at Christmas, days skating in the winter, fireflies in the summertime.”

“Do you remember what happened? Why you’re trapped here?”

He shook his head.

The darkness made me bold. “Come home with me. Back to the house under the mountain. Maybe you’ll remember more.”

“I don’t think I can, Echo.”

I chewed my lip. “In the real world, my face is covered in scars. People cross themselves when they see me. My stepmother would be happier if I was dead and my brother and father would be better off without me.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

I stood, something raw opening inside me. “Because I want you to know me, the real me. The me I am when I’m not here.”

Hal rose, too, his eyes never leaving my face. Gingerly, he reached out a hand and touched my arm. The points of his fingers felt like fire. “I don’t know who I am when I’m not here. I think I’m just a shadow, a wandering spirit. I’m not sure I even properly exist outside of the books.”

I wanted to lean in to him, to wrap my arms around his neck and never let go. I wanted to kiss him, and the thought scared me and thrilled me all at once. But I just stood there.

He stepped closer. He slid his hand into mine. I felt the print of every finger where they touched my skin. “Thank you,” he said. “For telling me.”

The night was full above us, stars winking into being. “Do you imagine me very hideous now?” I whispered.

“You could never be hideous.”

My heart wrenched. A shooting star streaked across the sky, and I almost couldn’t bear the beauty of it.

And then a mirror shimmered before us, the library calling me home for dinner.

“Do you have to go?” Hal’s voice was warm and quiet in my ear.

I would have stayed there forever, if not for the wolf. I squeezed Hal’s hand. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

His eyes searched mine. “Promise?”

“Promise.”



I STEPPED THROUGH THE MIRROR into a dark and unfamiliar valley, not the library as I had expected. Rain fell strangely upward; flowers grew sideways. Something like clouds floated past my knees, only they had ears and tails and wore tinkling bells around their cottony necks, giving the impression they were some kind of cat-cloud hybrid.

Mokosh, suddenly beside me, gave a delighted squawk and snatched at my sleeve. “Echo! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I’m so glad you stepped through my mirror. My mother has given me permission to bring you home for a few days! We can go riding and fishing—I can show you all the secret passages in the palace. We can eat sherbet and stay up late into the night and oh it will be just wonderful, what do you say?” She seized my shoulders and whirled me around, the rain plastering her silver hair to her smooth forehead while the cat-clouds purred about her ankles.

I was more than a little irritated that she had taken me away from Hal. “Mokosh, I—I can’t.”

She let go of me. Her whole face fell. “Why not?”

“The wolf needs me, and the house is shedding rooms, and I’m already nearly late for dinner—” That wasn’t quite the whole truth, of course, but I wasn’t about to tell her she’d interrupted my moment with Hal.

Mokosh waved an impatient hand. “That’s all you’re worried about? I’ll just have my mother bend time for you, a little, and have you back the moment you leave.”

The rain was warm on my skin and tasted sweet as candy. I hated to see her staring at me with such drooping hope. But I could still feel the prints of Hal’s fingers, still see the haunted sorrow in the wolf’s eyes. I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mokosh.”

She sagged in the rain, whispered a word to the sky. The outline of a mirror shimmered into being. “Just for an evening, then? An hour? I swear to you it will be like you never left. Please, Echo. You’re my only friend.”

The word pierced me, more powerful than Mokosh could have known. “An hour, then. But I must be back before midnight.”

Mokosh squealed with delight and grabbed my hand, pulling me through the mirror.

We stepped out onto a wide terrace, the last glimmers of a sunset tracing lines over a glittering sea. Behind us loomed a huge white palace. Below us, endless ocean.

Far below us—there were no waves lapping against the shore.

“A floating island,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s one of the twelve wonders of the world.” Mokosh beamed. “My mother made it.”

“She made it?”

Mokosh nodded. “When she was younger than I am now. I haven’t even half her ability. I’m hoping I grow into it.”

I was too awed for words.

“I’ll show you my room. Come on!”

And then she was tugging me across the terrace, through a tall green door, and into a grand hall. We traipsed up stairs and down a corridor—I felt like my whole life had narrowed to stairs and corridors—then into an airy suite, its windows flung wide.