Winter's Dream (The Hemlock Bay Series) (11 page)

Martha let a ragged sob loose and sagged against Hazel.

“It’s all right,” she murmured in her ear. “It will be okay.” I doubted Martha could hear her over her sobbing.

My heart caught in my throat and I knew what I had to do. “Martha,” I said. She was oblivious in her despair and fear. “Martha!” I said again, grabbing her by the shoulders.

She looked up at me finally, her eyes a red mess.

“You have to promise to look after Minnie,” I said.

“What?” Martha and Hazel asked at the same time.

I swallowed around the dry lump in my throat and squared my shoulders. “She doesn’t really belong here but please watch out for her. She’s my only—well, first friend.”

“What are you saying?” Martha whispered.

I turned toward the Ash lookalike. “I’m a Gatekeeper. I’ll go with you.”

My skin crawled as her blank face turned towards mine but I couldn’t trace her completely colorless eyes. She beckoned me forward and Viola jumped to her feet.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

I shrugged, refusing to show my fear. “I’m going instead of Martha.”

Viola looked from me to Martha and leaned in to whisper in my ear, “She will take you back to their lair and chain you like a dog.”

I couldn’t believe she would leave Martha to a fate like that. But I knew what it entailed. I looked past her towards the strange girl. “It’s okay. I’ve gotten out of it once before, I can get out of it again.”

“Come then,” the girl’s voice boomed out unnaturally.

I looked at each of the women in the room, all looking back at me in unmasked horror. “It’s okay,” I weakly tried to assure them as I followed the strange girl, or jinn, out the front door.

Hazel hurriedly threw a heavy coat over my shoulders and pulled a wool cap down over my head. A ragged sob broke from her chest. “They never come back, Bixby, never.”

I wanted to promise her that I would but there was no more time. The girl was out on the porch and starting down the stairs. I could already see the bubble protecting her from the storm extending out from under the porch and felt myself gently pulled along. It seemed I was going to be trapped in that bubble with her.

My mouth dried as I began to wonder how long it would take to get wherever we were going. Would I fall asleep? That was how I had always gotten to Jordan. I wondered if he had anything to do with my new predicament and decided that maybe for once he didn’t.

Neither snow nor wind penetrated the bubble around the strange girl and me but neither did it disturb the snow already on the ground. I watched her back as I silently followed and took in her woolen coat and long strawberry blonde braid. She said nothing, didn’t even look back to see if I was following. I tested my theory about the bubble and stopped walking. Sure enough when the girl got a few paces out I was gently pushed from behind and my legs could not resist. I ground my teeth, eager to get where we were going so I could let yet another jinn know I wasn’t some toy to play with, some pet to chain up.

I followed the girl all the way to the back of the property and into a narrow trail between the tightly packed trees I hadn’t noticed before. If the storm was calming I couldn’t tell. Dark trees pressed in and down on us and all I could hear was the crunching of our feet over the frozen ground.

“So how long do we walk?” I asked after we had been in the woods for at least a half an hour.

She didn’t respond. I sighed and wished I had taken a minute to put socks on before shoving my feet into shoes. Not that I had had much warning.

The woods imperceptibly began to thin. It didn’t get lighter as the storm wasn’t over but snowflakes gradually began to find enough space between gnarled trees to fall just above our heads before sliding away.

Nervousness and nausea clenched my stomach. I didn’t know how I knew, but we were getting close. For all of my anger and determination to save Martha, I had no idea what I was up against and no plan how to get out of it.

The girl didn’t answer but I had no choice but to continue trailing behind.

As the forest cleared I began to get lightheaded. Lights began bursting in tiny pinpricks between the limbs of the ugly trees and for a moment I thought I was getting ready to pass out. But it was real light, not a trick of my mind and finally we stepped through the last of bare trees.

A gaping, snow dusted lawn stretched out to every horizon and far out in front of me, perched on the very edge, was a castle. Lights not unlike decorative street lamps lit a very wide path up to and surrounding the stone building. The lights illuminated everything in a dark and solemn glow. Even the rounded turrets and built-in terraces could not cheer the place up. I expected a moat and was disappointed, but garden beds stretched up and out and surrounded the place in a failed attempt to soften the exterior of the palace. It wasn’t that it was foreboding or creepy, it was just sad. Dark and sad.

The girl led me straight to the thick beamed and barred doors in the center of the front and they opened of their own accord for her.

I warily followed her into a small rounded entry. We took several steps down into a large great room. It stretched easily half the width the building had appeared from the outside and a pair of twirling, stone stairs decorated each end. An open walkway a story up spanned the entire wall across from me and the ceiling was again twice that height. But directly in front of me was a wide, darkened doorway and that is where I couldn’t help but return my gaze too. I was so focused on that I ran into the girl who had stopped short.

“My lord,” she boomed out, “may I present your lady.”

I peered into the darkness she addressed and saw no one but heard a faint sigh. My eyes strained but still I almost didn’t notice the face emerging from the darkness.

“Thank you, Emma,” a deep, gentle voice said, carried out from the doorway. The owner walked out further into the light. He was nearly as large as David and shared the same haunting, alien features of David and Jordan both, but his hair was golden and twirled almost to his wide shoulders. Despite how large his eyes were and the eerie glow from them, I couldn’t tell if they were green or blue. He could have been handsome but there was nothing joyful, nothing kind about him. He seemed as cold as the building that housed him.

She in no way acknowledged him, just floated past through the doorway he had come from. The doors behind me slammed closed and I jumped, too late to see the hand that had shut them. When I turned back around he was right in front of me. “You know why you’re here?” he asked, he voice barely a whisper.

I took a deep breath and let my temper take control—better than bursting into frightened tears. “Of course I do,” I snapped.

His eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. “They don’t always know why they are here.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Well I do. And the sooner we get this whole curse thing started, the sooner I can get out of it, so let’s get going.”

He reached for my arms, his hands circling around my wrists and I panicked. I knew it was coming but to let another one of
them
chain me up again …

“Too late to run,” he whispered, not even noticing my full out attempts to pull my arms from his grasp.

I changed tactics and tried to shove him but he didn’t move and really, neither did I. He held my wrists still as if I weren’t twisting and jerking and pushing with all my might.

“Until my blood is satisfied,” he intoned and a familiar icy fire engulfed my wrists. He let me wrench them back but it was already done. Each wrist was sporting its own new bracelet almost identical to the ones I had been tricked into letting Jordan put on me. Instead of smooth, seamless bangles with smoke chains dripping from them they were braided, seamless bangles with smoke chains dripping from them.

My mouth gaped open and I tried to rein my emotions in as this horrible new jinn watched over my reactions. I closed my eyes and forced my fear and anger down.

I was chained—again.

Surprisingly he let me have the moment to myself and was still gazing at me with same dead expression when I was able to open my eyes again.

I fought my fear but embraced my anger. “So what now?” I asked.

He cocked his head. “Now I go to bed.”

My shoulders bunched in painful tightness. “Now you go to bed? Are you kidding me? This night is a freaking nightmare for me and it’s just regular, chain-a-girl-up night for you and you’re ready to hit the hay?”

His eyebrows gathered together at that. “I see she picked one with manners this time,” he said under his breath.

I snapped my fingers under his nose, having to reach up further than I had expected. “Excuse me, she didn’t choose me and if you want to talk about manners how about all the evil kidnapping you do? Don’t think I ever seen that in Miss Manners book of behaving well.”

“And she speaks like a lady,” he said, also under his breath.

My temper boiled over and I was so glad for it. “I’m
not
a lady,” I seethed, “I am pissed off. And I don’t exactly know what weird game you have going on here but, but you had better believe I am not here to play. You think you’re so big and scary? You’re not—I’ve seen bigger and scarier jinn than you. Think you’re going to keep my chained up like some pet? You’re not—I’ve already been in manacles like these and gotten out. This isn’t going to last long,” I promised.

He said nothing for several minutes, the expression on his face not changing from his creepy blank one as he slowly took in my face. Finally he mused, “Emma doesn’t usually bring me redheads.” Then he turned on his heel to leave me standing alone in the hallway.

“Wait,” I forced out.

He turned back around, a hint of curiosity in his eyes.

“Am I sleeping?”

His eyes changed back to dead disinterest. “This isn’t a dream.”

“I know that,” I said more sharply than I intended to. “I mean, am I asleep somewhere? Is my body out there in the forest somewhere? If I fall asleep here—”

He interrupted me with a shake of his head. “You aren’t dreaming. You are here, your body is here. And this is where you will stay.”

“Where exactly is here?” I asked. My shoulders where starting to tremble and again I hunched them painfully together to keep them still.

“You’re in my world now. Emma brought you through from yours.”

The gleam from the surrounding lights had almost left his shining hair before I remembered to ask, “Wait, what’s your name?”

“Luka,” came the response from the shadows.

And then I was alone in the cold room. My eyes traced the cold marble floors and walls and up the winding mahogany staircases. I wrapped my cardigan and jacket tighter around me, fighting the shaking that was soon going to bring me to my knees.

“Screw this,” I muttered with tears in my eyes. The only reason I had let Jordan bind me was to get my brother back. The only reason I had let this jerk bind me was to prevent him from doing it to Martha. And she was safe back at the farmhouse, which was where I was going. I backed towards the door, turning around only long enough to open it. No one came, no alarm sounded as I eased between the door and its frame and gently shut it again.

The storm was dying down but I wouldn’t have cared if it had been raging. With my shoes laced tight and my hat firmly over my ears, I took off down the path from the front door. Light melted into darkness sooner than I thought it would have but I kept running for the path in the forest.

I expected a shout of alarm or to be jerked back by my bracelets or an unnatural gust of wind to push me back. But I ran unfettered to the thin path in the trees. I didn’t pause as I passed into the woods and the trees shrouded me from any eyes looking out from the castle. My breath came hard and even, freezing in my chest. Pulling up the flap of my coat helped a little and I kept running. My feet slid in the snow a little, pulling at me knees painfully but I didn’t care. Around me the forest brightened just the tiniest bit and I pushed harder.

The pathway ahead shimmered and gave of the faintest glow. An excited gasp burst out of me and I surged forward. This had to be the veil or whatever between our worlds. I jumped through it and kept running on the other side. Trying to calculate how long it would take me to get back to the farmhouse was impossible so I just kept running, forcing one foot in front of another.

A sharp pain in my side where Clint had kicked my side was twisting and bunching but I ignored it, determined to be in the farmhouse before I stopped running. I had to slow down but kept moving.

My breath had turned to a deep, painful wheeze by the time the forest began to thin again and I could make out imperceptible light. With the last bit of energy I had I surged forward and burst from the forest onto … a perfectly manicured, if snowy, lawn. No upturned rows of dirt, no farmhouse.

With my arm wrapped around my aching ribs I limped forward, not believing what was in front of my eyes.

The girl, Emma, waited for me at the edge of the light from the decorative lamps. The cold, sad castle loomed behind her.

“Sorry,” she said apologetically. “Those bracelets act like—”

“Tethers,” I gasped. “Yeah, I know.”

“Everyone tries to run their first day here. You can run any direction you want but when you hit that shimmery wall, you’re just headed back the way you came.”

“Neat trick,” I muttered.

She ducked her head and made her way back to the castle. She didn’t even turn around to see if I was following. After all, what choice did I have?

Chapter Eleven

E
mma made no mention of
her previous zombie state. I followed her back inside and when she turned to shut the door behind me I could see her eyes were regular brown eyes instead of a blank white. She cowered as she led me up the left stairway and across the walkway. There was a large arched doorway on the second floor as well as the first and I followed her through it. As much as I wanted to punch her in the back of the head and try running again, I knew it wouldn’t help. And it almost seemed as if she felt bad, as if she were waiting for me to fly into a screaming rage. Little did she know I was reserving that for someone who really deserved it.

The castle she silently led me through was so pale and cold, so different from where Jordan lived. It felt so empty by comparison and I wished I were with him instead. I slapped the thought away, annoyed with myself. This was his fault.

She—Emma, I reminded myself—led me down another wide, echoing hallway and up more stairs.

The dark hallway finally led out into a brighter, massive room. It was a perfect square and we were three stories up. Looking over the solid railing I saw armchairs and ottomans spread out over the floor of the great room. Looking up I saw great square skylights. It was lovely and I hated it.