Winterkill Read Online Free PDF

vanished. But where did they go? And why?
    When the settlers halted in the woods just shy of the foothills, before the wall of Great Rock, they got an answer.
    The
malmaci
had Taken those First Peoples. And then it came for them too.
    It wiped out more than half those forest-dwelling settlers in a few short months, killed all the beasts of burden too. People would wake to find their loved ones’ bloodied, blistered corpses, and their livestock ravaged the same. Terrified, twenty or so families shored up together in a settlement onthe banks of the river. People who chanced the woods to the west or the plains to the east either never returned or were found torn apart, their eyes and ears bleeding rivers, their spilled-out insides swollen and black.
    A Council of men, led by Brother Stockham’s greatgrandpa, formed to bring order and safety. They built the Crossroads for anyone who defied their rule. Anyone who breached the borders, anyone unwilling to comply with settlement rules was deemed Wayward because they put everyone at risk from what lurked in the woods beyond.
    We survive together, or we perish.
    Those who spoke French called it
le Mal
—the bad thing. Those with First Peoples in their blood called it the
maci-manitow
—the evil spirit.
    Honesty, Bravery, Discovery: these virtues create a strength that keeps the evil—the
malmaci
—at bay.
    I guess my grandma’am didn’t have that strength.
    Every day I ask my secret heart if everyone is right to look at me the way they do—like I don’t have it, neither. Today, sitting across from my pa’s sad eyes, it was trilling
Wayward girl, Wayward girl.
    I can see the Watchtower from where I’m sitting in the trees. It’s supposed to make me feel safe, but suddenly my skin is crawling at the thought of someone up there, watching me with scornful eyes.
    A flash of black at the gates catches my eye. A Councilman is coming out across the flats. Can’t see who it is from the distance, but he won’t be coming to help gather berries or roots; he’d never have to do something so menial.
    My chest gets tight. I don’t want to have to talk to whoever it is, not after being punished with Watch, not after last night.
    I push back into the bramble, away from the flats. I’m still visible, but when the Councilman stops halfway to the woods to talk to a woman headed toward the fort, I dart behind a tree.
    I look around the forest. Leaves shimmer all shades of gold and red. Branches catch the soft breeze and sigh, like the woods are thinking on some fond memory.
    The north-quarter people call these trees
les trembles
, which Pa says speaks to the way the leaves move in the breeze, all trembling. They make a soft tinkling sound that builds to a roar in a big wind. Feels like it’s the Lost People, always whispering.
    They’re whispering real plain right now.
This way
, they’re saying,
this way
.
    I could duck down and keep searching for roots here, hidden from that Councilman’s eyes. Instead, I take a deep breath and head a bit further in, brushing past white birch saplings gleaming in the sun. The forest is quiet and there’s a prickle at my neck, but I go a little further, deep into the poplars.
    Sunlight beams through the branches, tracing patterns on the forest floor. It’s beautiful and dizzying; it coaxes me forward while putting a chill to my spine. I shouldn’t go any further—it isn’t safe. People who wander too far don’t come back. People who wander too far are Taken.
    But heading back means enduring Council’s stares, mayhap getting questioned about last night. Frère Andre might’vebeen testing me after all, and turned me in. And then what? I shiver deep, press into my bad foot to focus on the pain. I can’t help but wonder if . . .
    Pa would be relieved if I didn’t come back.
    I picture that sad crease in his brow, his shame over our Stain.