Page 29 of The Light Between Worlds

Angry tears heat the back of my eyes. “Why does this happen? Why are there always people who want to own everything good and bright in the world, and destroy those things if they can’t be bought? Isn’t it enough to just know such things are there?”

“Not for some,” Cervus answers.

I wipe at my eyes with the back of one hand and hiss as the salt water stings my burns. Where the priest’s thistles touched me, I’ve blistered and swollen so I can barely move my fingers. I’ll make a mess of everything tonight—I won’t even be able to hold my own wineglass without fumbling.

Cervus stands for a moment, tall and proud, but not as tall as he seemed when I first came to the Great Wood.

“There’s one ill I can still set right in this forest,” he says, and bows his magnificent head. His velvet muzzle brushes my palms and pain blazes through me. Then, in an instant, it stops. When I pull my hands back to look at them, the skin is clear and unblemished. The pain has already receded from my mind.

“Go,” Cervus says. “Stay with your brother and sister. After today there will be no stepping off the path to war.”

I nod, but I’m sick with fear and rage.

Cervus shakes his head and blinks, and I think the gesture is meant to be a smile. “Gather your courage, little one. Keep it close in the days ahead.”

He vanishes through the trees, leaving only the wind tugging at my sleeves and the wholeness of my hands as a reminder that he was with me at all.

19

I’M AFRAID OF WHO I’M BECOMING. I CATCH MYSELFsinging when I cross the back field, early in the mornings, to visit the cows. There’s something inside me—a glad, bright feeling, fragile and lovely as a dew-spangled cobweb, and I’m terrified.

When I wake, I smile at the frost patterns etched on our windowpanes. Winter is creeping in, and it’s Saturday, and Tom’s coming. I throw open the window and breathe the sweet, cold air, watching fog curl out of my mouth, dragon-like. Georgie’s already up, so I leave the window as it is, enjoying the bite of the chilly air.

I’m halfway through plaiting my hair when a sound drifts in on the frigid breeze, coming from the forest that butts up against St. Agatha’s fenced grounds. It’s low and rough, mournful and utterly insistent, and sends an arrow of hope through my heart. I’d know that sound anywhere.

Somewhere in the wood, a stag is roaring.

I shut my eyes and press a hand to my mouth, waiting.

Nothing. No sudden vertigo as this world fades into the Great Wood. No tug as I’m pulled from one place to another. Familiar asthe sound may be, it isn’t him. It’s only a red deer out in the dawning forest, calling for his hinds.

Nevertheless, that call has split me open. How long has it been since I last thought of the Woodlands? How long since I remembered?

I look into the warped mirror above the vanity and barely recognize the faithless girl who stares back at me. She’s forgotten her people, forgotten her home; gladly let them go in exchange for a bit of happiness and a boy to hold her hand.

The stag roars again and I wrap my arms around myself, but it’s no good. Inside, I’m shattering. Sharp cracks run through me, a spider’s web of breakages, a topographical map of pain. I barely hear the knock at the door.

“Ev, are you decent?” It’s Georgie, calling from the corridor, and when I don’t answer, she steps inside. “What on earth have you got the window open for? Look at you, you’re freezing.”

She slams the casement shut and wraps a blanket around my shoulders. Though I’ve got my school sweater on, I can’t stop shaking. “How long were you in here like that? Your hands are ice!”

I don’t know. I’m not sure how long I’ve stood, listening to the stag and falling to pieces, but I’m cold down to my very bones.

Georgie puts an arm around me. “Ev, you’ve got to tell me if something’s bothering you. I know I’m not Philippa, but I’m here and she isn’t. You need to let me help.”

I sit motionless. Dear, kindhearted Georgie. What can she do when I can’t possibly explain to her the things I’ve seen and done? The lives I’ve lived?

Suddenly she brightens. “Oh! I nearly forgot—Jamie’s here tosee you. He must have started out awfully early, but he’s waiting in the library, and I said I’d let you know. Unless you don’t want to go down?”

“No. I’ll go. Thank you, Georgie.” I stand and push the blanket aside. I’m no warmer, and the pieces inside me prick at the soft places of my soul, but I’ve got to carry on.

Jamie waits at the library’s far end, in one of the armchairs where Tom and I sat and watched the rain. He looks half asleep, but when he sees me, he scrambles to his feet.

“What’s wrong?” I ask immediately. I know him and Philippa better than I know myself, and when he won’t meet my eyes, there’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.

Jamie sighs and scrubs a hand across his face. “It’s Phil.”

“What about her?” There’s not a hint of emotion in my voice, nothing to suggest I’m already carrying a heart full of splinters and that if anything’s happened to my sister, I’ll bleed out where I stand, killed by a thousand invisible wounds.