Page 41 of Echo North
I left the rain room, a plan unfolding in my mind that would keep me from having to return to the room behind the black door.
IFOUND THE WOLF CURLEDup and sleeping soundly on one of the garden steps, the grass pressed down beneath him and a few bright flower petals clinging to his white fur. Bees buzzed in the blossoms behind him, roses and asters and twists of orange honeysuckle. The air smelled sweet.
I almost hated to wake him. “Wolf?”
He opened one amber eye. “Do you need assistance with the house?” He’d left me on my own more often than not, lately.
I shook my head. “Not exactly. I found a room I’ve never seen before—I want to show it to you.”
He got slowly to his feet, like he ached all the way down to his bones, then stretched, yawned. “Lead the way.”
I turned from the garden, jittery with anticipation. I hoped the house remembered my instructions. “House,” I said as we stepped inside, “bring us to the new room.” The air trembled around us and I thought I heard a far-off breath of laughter—the house was amused.
I climbed a stair made of bare dark wood, the wolf’s nails clicking behind me. Down a hall of whispering shadows and around a corner, then up another stair, this one made of snow, to a red-and-gold door I’d asked the house to invent for me.
The wolf grunted and I glanced down at him. “Wolf?”
“You are right, Echo. Thisisa new room. I thought I had seen them all.”
I ignored a twinge of guilt and opened the door. There was no disguising the library now that we were inside, but I rushed to the nearest book-mirror anyway, my fingers wound tight in the wolf’s scruff.
He realized what I was about, and tried to jerk away from me, growling, but he wasn’t fast enough.
My hand was already brushing the surface of the glass.
Magic rushed through me.
I stood suddenly in an autumn meadow, the golden grass brittle and tall, seeds sticking to my sleeves. An ominous cloud loomed dark overhead, and the wind was sharp as needles.
I took a breath, turned.
The wolf stood there, unchanged. His back leg was crooked and scarred. There were bits of dried blood in his fur from his latest visit to the bauble room.
I reached inquisitive fingers to the left side of my face, wondering if that particular book-mirror didn’t work like the others. But my skin was as smooth as the day I was born.
I had changed.
The wolf had not.
We stared at each other, the wind whipping wild between us. His sorrow was so heavy I could nearly taste it.
He didn’t say anything, just looked at me for a long, long moment, his amber eyes piercing down to the darkest parts of me.
And then he turned, and vanished, and I was alone.
I sank to my knees in the grass, guilt squeezing so sharp I could hardly breathe. I had been so sure he would be different in the books, so certain his true self would be revealed.
Instead, I felt like I had betrayed him.
Hoofbeats thudded across the ground, and I lifted my head to see a rider hurtling fast toward me. As the rider drew near, I recognized Mokosh, her silver hair and voluminous split riding skirt flapping madly in all that wind.
“Echo!” she cried, pulling up in a cloud of dust and grass. “I’m so glad I found you—why do you look so miserable? There’s a princess who’s about to fight an evil sorceress using only theweather,and it’s sure to be loads of fun. Coming?” She leaned down in her saddle and offered me her hand.
I couldn’t face the wolf after what I’d done. Not yet.
So I took Mokosh’s hand, and let her sweep me away on an adventure. But the whole time, I couldn’t stop thinking about the look in the wolf’s eyes. The look that said he was ashamed of me.
IDIDN’T SEE THE WOLFagain until I climbed into bed that night and was about to turn down the lamp. The door creaked open and he padded in, but he didn’t look at me. There was more blood in his fur than I’d ever seen before. Guilt and hurt writhed inside of me, but I blew out the lamp without saying a word.Coward,I told myself.
