Page 11 of Echo North
“I have come to ask you something. Something I have not had the memory or the courage to ask you until now.”
Too cold, too cold. I put my ear against my father’s chest, listening for his heartbeat. I fought back my burgeoning panic.
“You must answer quickly,” said the wolf. “I do not think I could get through again, not this way. It isherwood. She does not like me to leave it.”
I flicked my eyes up to him. I didn’t understand what he was saying, and I didn’t care—I had to get my father warm. “What do you want from me?”
“A promise.”
“To do what?”
“To come back through the wood to my house. To live with me there for a year.”
My voice shook: “Why would I do that?”
“Because if you do, I will save your father’s life and send him safely home. He’s been trapped in the wood for weeks, maybe months. I found him, led him out. If not for me he would already be dead, or worse—he would be at her mercy.”
My head was wheeling.I had to get him warm.“I don’t understand.”
“The power to save him is in your grasp,” said the wolf. “Choose. Come with me now—or let your father die.”
The bluish tint to my father’s skin looked darker than before, and his pulse grew erratic under my fingertips. Something twisted hot and sharp beneath my ribs—there was only one choice I could make.
“I’ll find my way back to you, Papa.” I bent to kiss his forehead. “I’ll find my way back.”
I forced myself to stand, forced myself to look the wolf in the eye. “I promise to come with you. Now save him.”
The wolf dipped his head. “Follow me.” He paced to the edge of the clearing. I tore myself away from my father and went after him.
“You said you’d save him!” I looked back to the halo of lamplight where my father lay crumpled in the snow, his life ebbing away. Horror and hope woke wild inside of me, along with a strange unwavering conviction I didn’t understand. Snow fell wet and cold against my cheek, evaporating in the heat of my tears.
The wolf stepped in front of me. He raised his white muzzle to the sky and barked a sharp, harsh word I didn’t recognize.
The wind rose wild, tearing at my furs and my hair, spitting ice into my face sharp as glass. And through the howling wind, came the sounds of a jangling harness, barking dogs, a man singing in the snow. I knew that voice—it belonged to old man Tinker.
My heart jerked.
The wolf glanced back at me. “Get out of sight.”
I ducked behind the trees and held my breath.
Tinker’s sled drew close, barreling between the trees. The dogs yapped and a lantern bobbed from a pole. He pulled up next to my father in a spray of white and climbed down, assessing the situation with a single shrewd glance. He hefted my father onto the sled and piled furs on top of him. Then he uncorked a bottle of what could only be brandy and tipped a few swallows down my father’s throat.
Tinker stepped onto the sled again and called to his dogs and then they were all of them gone, hurtling away into the snowy dark.
I ran into the clearing, shouting after them, but they didn’t hear.
And the wolf was at my knee.
“I have kept my promise, my lady. Now you must keep yours. We must go quickly—she senses already that you are here. We will have to run. Can you?”
Another gust of wind tore through the clearing, knocking me backward. The trees began to groan and wail, and I thought they must be dying, breaking in pieces, splintering inward.
“Run!” barked the wolf above the roar. “Don’t lose sight of me!”
He sprang away into the darkness and somehow I leapt after him, my lungs already screaming out for air.
I ran, the wood and the wind and the dark wheeling round me, my eyes fixed on the white flash of the wolf. He was ever ahead, just out of reach. There was nothing but gnawing, bitter cold, the burn of my lungs, the bursting of my heart. Somehow, the snow didn’t hinder me.
