Thrice Sworn: A Short-Story Prequel to Winterling Read Online Free PDF

sliver-silver moon. The fields were more empty. The shadows were deep and mysterious. As Fer ran along the edge of the long driveway that led away from her grandma’s house, her footsteps sounded loud, crunch-crunch-crunch -ing on the gravel. The chilly night air went into her lungs and made her feel lighter, almost like she could fly. She ran past the twin rows of oak trees lining the driveway. Then down the road a long way until she got to a stream that cut through a muddy field, slowing down now because the footing was tricky along here. Across another road and through a patch of scrubby forest.
    This wasn’t wild forest, it was just a strip of trees and bushes between two fields that, in the summer, would be rustling with head-high corn or dark green soybeans. In the distance, Fer saw the dark outline of a couple of silos and outbuildings, and the porch light of a farmhouse. Far away a dog howled, a lonesome moan that made the night feel darker, wilder.
    Fer cut through the scrub, then picked up the stream again, panting now, and brushing hair out of her eyes.
    The forest grew thicker. She’d gone this far before, but never at night. The trees were stalking shadows that reached for her with twiggy fingers, snagging her patchwork jacket. She stumbled through long, damp grass and, as the forest grew even thicker, rotting logs and drifts of dead leaves. She ducked around another tree, and the ground disappeared from under her feet.
    Down she fell, tumbling through brambles and leafless bushes, bumping her knee on a tree root, grabbing for branches to stop herself, finally coming to land half in a stream.
    Catching her breath, Fer climbed out of the water. Her pant leg was wet, and one arm of her jacket. She shivered and looked around. Where was she? The crescent moon had climbed higher in the sky and stood directly overhead. Fer had good night vision; the moon’s thin light was enough to see by. She was in a deep ravine, one crowded with bare trees and bushes, the air cold and damp, as if all the chill from above had gathered here in this low spot.
    Might as well see where the stream led. Water squishing in one of her sneakers, Fer followed the stream through the ravine, picking her way over slippery stones. The stream slowed, flowed smoothly over a shelf of rock, and then widened to form a pool in the middle of a clearing.
    Stepping lightly, Fer walked around the pool. It was perfectly round, and springy moss grew right up to its edge. She stilled her breath, listening. Something in the air felt strange. Tingly, or twitchy, like a rope stretched too far and about to break. She knew what Grand-Jane would say, in her scoldingest voice: Come home right now, Jennifer! It’s not safe! Fer felt in her pocket for the spell-bag of herbs and gripped it, the seam in the fabric rough under her fingers.
    She gazed at the still, black surface of the pool. The moon was reflected there, not as the pale crescent in the sky above her head, but as a fat, full, yellow moon. How could that be? She knelt on the moss and leaned over the pool to touch it. The water felt cool and slick.
    At her touch, the water grew mirror-still, and a slow tingle started in her fingertips. She held her breath, feeling a sudden, strange power fizzing under her skin. The tingle turned to an electric shock that sizzled up her fingers and through her body. She jumped to her feet. The fat water-moon shattered. Shadows surged from the pool, flinging drops of water that sparkled in the moonlight.
    Fer stumbled back, tripping over a dead branch, and fell into a clump of brambles; their sharp thorns gripped her like clawed fingers and wouldn’t let go. She heard snarling, then another sound that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Howling, like animals on the hunt.
    Fer tore herself from the thorns and scrambled to her feet. On the other side of the shimmering pool, wolves, their gray fur silvered by the moonlight, circled a lump of shadow on the ground.