Winterlong Read Online Free PDF

doesn‘t get in my eyes.
    “I hate this junk in my hair,” I grumble. “Next time I make the spells.”
    “You can’t.” Aidan stands on tiptoe and strips another branch of blossoms, sniffing them dramatically before tossing them in a flurry of pink and white. “We need a virgin.”
    “So?” I jerk on the rope leading to Molly’s basket. “You‘re a virgin. Next time we use you.”
    Aidan stares at me, brows furrowed. “That won’t count,” he says at last. “Say it again, Emma.”
    “Here we stand …”
    Every day we come here: an overgrown apple orchard within the woods, uncultivated for a hundred years. Stone walls tumbled by time mark the gray boundaries of a farm and blackberry vines choke the rocks with breeze-blown petals. Our father showed us this place. Long ago he built the treehouse, its wood lichen-green now and wormed with holes. Rusted nails snag my knees when we climb: all that remains of other platforms and the crow’s nest at treetop.
    I finish the incantation and kneel, calling to Molly to climb into her basket. When my twin yells, I announce imperiously, “The virgin needs her faithful consort. Get in, Molly.”
    He helps to pull her up. Molly is trembling when we heave her onto the platform. As always, she remains huddled in her basket.
    “She’s sitting on the sandwiches,” I remark. Aidan hastily shoves Molly aside and retrieves two squashed bags. “I call we break for lunch.”
    We eat in thoughtful silence. We never discuss the failure of the spells, although each afternoon Aidan hides in his secret place behind the wing chair in the den and pores through more brittle volumes. Sometimes I can feel them working — the air is so calm, the wind dies unexpectedly, and for a moment the woods glow so bright, so deep, their shadows still and green; and it is there: the secret to be revealed, the magic to unfold, the story to begin. Above me Aidan flushes and his eyes shine, he raises his arms and —
    And nothing. It is gone. A moment too long or too soon, I never know; but we have lost it again. For an instant Aidan’s eyes gray with tears. Then the breeze rises, Molly yawns and snuffles, and once more we put aside the spells for lunch and other games.
    That night I toss in my bed, finally throwing my pillow against the bookcase. From the open window stream the chimes of peepers in the swamp, their song broidered with the trills of toads and leopard frogs. As I churn feverishly through the sheets it comes again, and I lie still: like a star’s sigh, the shiver and promise of a door opening somewhere just out of reach. I hold my breath, waiting: Will it close again?
    But no. The curtains billow and I slip from my bed, bare feet curling upon the cold planked floor as I race to the window.
    He is in the meadow at wood’s edge, alone, dark hair misty with starlight, his pajamas spectral blue in the dark. As I watch he raises his arms to the sky, and though I am too far to hear, I whisper the words with him, my heart thumping counterpoint to our invocation. Then he is quiet, and stands alert, waiting.
    I can no longer hear the peepers. The wind has risen, and the thrash of the beech trees at the edge of the forest drowns all other sounds. I can feel his heart now, beating within my own, and see the shadows with his eyes.
    In the lower branches of the willow tree, the lone willow that feeds upon a hidden spring beside the sloping meadow, there is a boy. His eyes are green and lucent as tourmaline, and silvery moths are drawn to them. His hands clutch the slender willow wands: strong hands, so pale that I trace the blood beneath, and see the muscles strung like strong young vines. As I watch he bends so that his head dips beneath a branch, new leaves tangling fair hair, and then slowly he uncurls one hand and, smiling, beckons my brother toward him.
    The wind rises. Beneath his bare feet the dewy grass darkens as Aidan runs faster and faster, until he seems almost to be skimming across