Five Stories for the Dark Months (3 page)

Warmth in Winter

January 2012

Table of Contents

Jenna was glad they’d taken Peter’s
body back to town to bury. Eerie as the silence was, the moaning of
his ghost would have been much worse. Even so, she wasn’t sure how
much more of this cabin and this winter she could stand.

She picked up her
mother’s letter again.
I don’t suppose
you’ll have a proper burning tree this year
, it read,
but maybe you can put this
ornament on your fire
.

The little straw star was neatly
made, with all the ends tucked in, and hung from a scarlet ribbon.
The woven pattern was unique to her village, but even without it
she would have known the star was from Goldenfield: they made the
best solstice ornaments in the country.

She glanced at the fat black stove
in the corner. It kept the watch-cabin warm enough, but it wasn’t
nearly as comforting as a real fireplace, and no substitute at all
for a burning tree. She imagined opening the oven door, putting the
little star among the coals, watching it burn there. It wouldn’t do
at all.

She had just decided to hang the
ornament above the front door, instead, when a loud knock broke the
silence. Her heart jerked in her chest. She sat frozen, wondering
if she’d imagined the sound.

The knock came again. “Grant!”
shouted a muffled voice. “Peter Grant! You open this door right
now!”

It was dark
outside. Any traveler with sense was off the road—not that there
ever
were
travelers up here, besides the monthly deliveries of supplies
from town. And who could have urgent business with old Peter, who’d
been dead now for over a month?

The pounding came again, louder
this time. Jenna stood. There was no point pretending that she
wasn’t there—the porch lantern was lit, and the windows were
bright—but she tiptoed to the door and slid the cold brass cover
off the peephole.

The person on the porch was tall
and thin, hunched in the lantern’s light. He wore a drab wool coat
and a threadbare scarf. The lantern’s light cast a shadow from his
deep-brimmed messenger cap, so she couldn’t see his eyes, but from
his bearing she thought he was young.

He didn’t look too dangerous. Maybe
he was a messenger from town—he knew Peter’s name. Although it was
strange he wouldn’t know that Peter was dead. She opened the door a
crack, letting in a gust of freezing air. “Hello?”

He looked up. His eyes were a
startling blue. He was not a man at all, but a girl, Jenna’s age or
a little older.

“Where is Grant?” the girl
said.

There was something very strange
about her accent. Jenna blocked the doorway with her body. “He died
last month,” she said. “I’m his replacement.”

“No.” The stranger gasped. “How
could he die?”

“Uh... he was old, I guess. He
didn’t tell anyone he was sick, so we didn’t know to check on him.
We only knew he’d died when he didn’t make his report last
month.”

“And you are... his replacement?”
The stranger looked unconvinced.

Jenna nodded. She was still trying
to place the accent. It seemed familiar, like she’d heard it
before, on the radio or—

No.

She stepped back, and tried to slam
the door. The stranger caught it easily and slipped inside.
Cursing, Jenna ran for the old rifle on its hook across the room.
It didn’t work, but the Northerner wouldn’t know that.

It didn’t matter: the girl caught
her easily, and pinned her arms to her sides. “Hold still. Look, I
won’t hurt you. I only need to use your telephone.”

“Like hell!” said Jenna. She
stomped on the other girl’s feet, but her slippers did little
damage against the Northerner’s snow-slick leather
boots.

“My name is Arica
Whitethorn. I worked with Peter Grant when he was alive. I’m
on your side
.” She let
Jenna go so suddenly she stumbled. “See, I’m not holding you any
more. I’m not doing anything. I’m only here to pass on a
message.”

Jenna took a deep breath, trying to
calm her staggering heart. “You’re a... a spy?”

“Something like that.”

“Prove it.”

The Northerner—Arica—scratched her
head. “Well, look, did you ever find old Peter’s will?”

“His will? I have no
idea.”

“Look over there, in that trunk by
the window. Open the lid.”

Jenna crossed the room, keeping one
eye on the stranger. She opened the trunk, which she’d inspected
already: it was lined with cedar, full of old wool blankets. “It’s
not in here,” she said. “I’ve looked in here before.”

“No, inside the lid. There’s a
false top. Push by that knot and—there, that’s it.”

Jenna had to catch the lining of
the lid as it all fell loose at once. Above it, tacked into the
outer shell of the trunk’s lid, was a flat packet of yellowing
papers.

“He didn’t have much family,” said
Arica, as Jenna pried the tacks loose. “He didn’t like to leave his
will in town, so he kept it here. He showed it to me one day, when
we were snowed in by a storm.”

Jenna flipped
through the papers. She didn’t know much about wills, but it
appeared legitimate: a long list of small bequests, mostly minor
sums of money, with a letter to Grant’s lawyer at the end. “All
right,” she said slowly. “I’m willing to believe you
probably
knew
Peter. But that doesn’t prove anything.”

“I don’t want
to
prove
anything,” Arica said. “Not to you, anyway. I just want to use
your phone.”

Jenna snorted. “Right. Then after
that I guess I’ll escort you to Greenwater and introduce you to the
Prime Minister.”

“It may come to that, if you don’t
help me now! If Peter’s really dead, then I need to get in touch
with our next-in-line as soon as I can.” She gave Jenna a
speculative look. “I don’t suppose he clued you in? Gave you the
code words?”

“I didn’t even know him, really,”
said Jenna. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Drat and
damn
. I guess... look,
there’s a
plan
,
all right.”

“A plan. What sort of
plan?”

“To bring down the
junta.”

“You’re... you’re
working
against
your own government?” Jenna said. “Why?”

“Because they’re
destroying us! They’ve taken away almost everything good we ever
had. We’re starving—there’s no food, and your allies all have us
embargoed. We have no jobs, and we can’t even go to school—only the
elite are allowed into the universities. For the sake of all that’s
good, we don’t even have
witches
anymore!”

“How... how many are... in your
group?” said Jenna. “I mean, how many... spies... are working with
you?”

“There’s a chain that runs from
here to your Prime Minister—and then to all your allies, as I
understand it.” Arica was pacing. “They’re waiting for information
I have about our national defense system—in return, they’re
supposed to make the takeover as bloodless as possible, so we can
have freedom without too much blood. The information is
time-sensitive—the generals know we have it, and the’re already
working to change the system. I have to get to the next agent in
line before the soldiers catch up with me.”

“Soldiers.” Jenna felt faint.
“How’d you get through the border, anyway?”

“We have friends among the border
guards.”

“But the soldiers
don’t.”

“No.”

Jenna gritted her teeth, thinking
of her brother Pauli at his border station five miles to the north.
She hoped that wasn’t the way the girl had come. “Well, I can’t
just let you use the phone,” she said. “It’s only connected with
Goldenfield and the capital, and only certain people are allowed to
answer it. If you call, they’ll want to know who you are, and then
they’ll send someone to check on us—”

“Then for
god’s
sake, put it through
yourself
, and ask
for—”

There was another knock at the
door.

Arica froze.

The knock came again. “Hello?”
called a man’s voice. “Open the door, please!” His accent was the
same as Arica’s.

“They’re here!” Arica hissed. Her
eyes were wide. “I thought I’d have more time...”

“Hide.” Jenna pointed to the
bedroom doorway. “I’ll try to throw them off.” Arica looked
skeptical, but obediently slipped from the room.

“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice
this time. “We wish you no harm. Please open the door!”

Jenna ignored the voices and ran to
the telephone. She picked up the receiver—then stopped. The line
was dead.

The knocking became a hard,
rhythmic pounding, like someone was kicking the door with a
steel-toed boot. Whoever it was, they clearly weren’t planning to
go away. Jenna crept to the door and slid the cover from the
peephole again.

She saw only blackness. Had
something blocked the hole? Even if the lantern had somehow gone
out, something should have been visible by the
moonlight.

“Do not move, friend.” The man’s
voice was very close. “You are now looking down the barrel of my
pistol. If I hear the slightest sound from you, I will shoot. You
will then lose your eye and anything behind it. Do you understand
me? Say ‘yes,’ please”

“Y-yes,” said Jenna.

“Now,” the man said, “I want you
to lift the latch. Do nothing else, because I will hear it if you
do. If you do not unlock the door, then I will shoot you and break
it down anyway. If you do as I say, however, then I will not harm
you at all. Do you understand now? Please say ‘yes’
again.”

“Yes.” Jenna could see no choice.
Very slowly, she slid the bolt open.

The door flew inward, knocking her
off her feet. She found herself lying on her back, staring up into
the barrel of a rifle.

The woman holding the rifle wore a
long wool greatcoat and a thick fur cap. Her stance was entirely
military. “Do not move, friend,” she said, “or I will shoot you in
the head.” Jenna believed her.

The male soldier crept toward the
dark bedroom doorway. He held a cocked pistol in his hand. Jenna
wanted to shout, warn the spy somehow, but the staring barrel of
the rifle kept her silent. She lay still, miserable, barely daring
to breathe.

The man stepped through the
doorway. A moment passed in silence. Suddenly there was a shout, a
shot, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Tears welled in Jenna’s eyes. The
spy was dead, and now the soldiers would probably shoot Jenna,
too.

The woman’s mouth had slid into a
nasty smirk. She called something out in a dialect that Jenna had
never heard before.

No answer came.

The woman frowned, and started to
turn, her mouth open to call again.

There was a second shot. Something
very strange happened to the woman’s head. A moment later, she
slumped to the floor, and did not move again.

Then Arica walked out of the
bedroom, sliding a pistol into the pocket of her coat. She gave
Jenna a bemused smile. “Are you all right?”

“Uh.” Jenna sat up, keeping her
eyes carefully away from the dead woman beside her. “I... I think
so. The... were these the soldiers you were talking
about?”

“Some of them.” Arica hurried to
the phone. “We have to call now—soon there will be
others.”

“The line’s
dead,” Jenna said. “Ice on the wires, or maybe they cut it. We
can’t call
anyone
.”

The spy cursed. At least, Jenna
assumed it was a curse: she hadn’t heard the word before. “I have
to go straight to the capital,” she said.

“To Greenwater? But it’s twenty
miles!”

“There’s no choice! This won’t
wait.” Arica returned to the bedroom. She emerged a moment later,
dragging the dead man’s body behind her. Though the corpse was much
bigger than she was, its weight seemed to give her no trouble at
all.

Then the spy began to strip the
dead man’s heavy coat from his body. “What are you doing?” Jenna
said, shocked.

Arica looked surprised. “It’s a
very warm coat. Much better than mine.”

“But his ghost
will walk!” Jenna became sharply aware that she’d never been in the
presence of so much fresh death before. She hoped that both ghosts
would remember that
she
hadn’t been the one to kill
them.

“I think we have
more important things to worry about.” Arica finished stripping off
the coat and let the body fall to the floor. The head struck the
floorboards with a heavy
thump
. “Peter was always talking
about ghosts, too...”