“Depends on the weather,” her uncle said distantly. “I have to go and do some work. Don’t stay up too late.” He noticed the phone was not properly in its cradle and straightened it as he passed. Rage held her breath, but to her relief it didn’t ring.
He had gone out the door before she registered that he had not said good night. Billy gave a whine, and she looked down at him with a rush of affection. “I know you care,” she said softly. Billy wagged his long, toffee-colored tail and pawed lightly at her leg, communicating his own impatience for the night to come.
Rage finished her meal and carried her plate to the sink. She decided to do her homework in bed. Nothing was guaranteed to send her to sleep faster. Her uncle would think it odd that she had gone to bed so early on a Friday night, but suddenly she didn’t care.
Just as she reached the door, the phone rang. She froze, but the fear that her uncle would hear and come made her pick it up. “Hello?” she said warily.
“Hi, Rage. It’s me, Logan.” His voice sounded diffident, and she wondered if he was remembering the last time he had called. “Are you okay? You sounded funny when you answered the phone.”
“I’m glad it’s you,” Rage said sincerely.
“Why? Who were you expecting?”
“Mrs. Somersby,” Rage said, and Logan groaned in sympathy. “She’s trying to tell my uncle about that program.”
“So what?”
“I’m afraid he would want to have me stay in town.”
“Would that be so bad?” He sounded cool.
“Logan, I think he’ll leave if he doesn’t have to take care of me. Then what will happen to Billy and the farm? And he has to stay because I have to make him understand that Mam needs to see him to get well.”
“You really believe that?”
“I do,” Rage said. “Anyway, how come you’re calling? Is everything okay with you?”
“Everything’s fine. I mean, Mrs. Do-gooder made tripe for dinner if you can imagine, and they’re still treating me like a genius, which I could get used to,” he said lightly. “The thing is, I still can’t stop thinking about those things that came after us. I just don’t get it that no one else has seen them.”
Rage licked her lips and made a decision. “Look, I want to tell you something that might be connected to those creatures but not on the phone. On Monday at school I’ll—”
“You mean Wednesday. We have Monday and Tuesday off this week for the teachers to get their act together, remember?”
Rage groaned. “The teacher study days are this week? I forgot!”
“So it’ll be Wednesday before you get to spill your secrets. Unless you want to give me a hint?”
“I…I can’t,” Rage said.
There was a long pause. “Okay,” Logan said with such a jarring cheerfulness that she thought he must be offended. “So what are you doing for the long weekend?”
“I guess I’ll do homework and read and…you know. Visit Mam on Sunday before she gets moved to Leary.” Rage felt depressed all over again at the thought of Mam being taken so far away.
“I guess we couldn’t catch up on Sunday? Maybe we could practice our rehearsal parts.”
“My uncle will be with me the whole time,” Rage said.
“Okay.” Logan sounded suddenly distracted. Maybe one of his foster parents had come into the room where the phone was.
Rage said goodbye, then hung up and stared at the phone for a bit before deciding to pull the plug slightly out of the jack. That way the answering machine would continue to show a green light, and her uncle would only notice the phone was not working if he tried to make a call, and he hardly ever did that. Going down the hall, she made a mental note to remind her uncle about the teacher study days. With a little thrill, it suddenly occurred to her that she could suggest that with Monday and Tuesday off, they could actually follow the ambulance to Leary and visit with Mam in her new hospital. They could stay overnight in a cheap hotel and then come back the next day.
By the time she was in bed with her hair and teeth brushed, the storm had built to a crescendo, the wind howling like a wounded animal. Rage thought that there was probably no need for her to have disabled the phone since the weather was likely to do it for her. She opened her schoolbooks and started reading her notes, meaning to work until she started to feel sleepy. She looked at Billy. He had curled himself up beside her, but his eyes were open and watchful. “You’d better try to sleep,” Rage told him seriously. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. She gave a short laugh, then returned her gaze to her book.
When at last she switched out the light, she fixed Gilbert in her mind as clearly as she could while imagining herself and Billy in winter attire.
Rage was standing on the side of a misty, snow-covered slope. She was clad, as she had imagined, in warm jeans, good snow boots, and a thick, fur-lined jacket with a drawstring hood. She even wore mittens and a scarf. The familiar slight tug at her shoulders told her that she was wearing a backpack. Billy was standing a little distance away, grimacing at his boot-shod feet. But there was no sign of Gilbert or of the wizard’s castle. Nor did the country look familiar to her. Through drifting skeins of mist, she could see nothing but anonymous, snow-covered hills.
“I wonder where we are this time,” she sighed.
“It doesn’t smell like Valley,” Billy admitted.
“What does Valley smell like?” Rage asked, wondering if it was possible for a whole land to smell of anything in particular.
“Magic,” Billy said simply. Rage felt goose bumps rise on her skin that had nothing to do with the cold. “Maybe it’s a dream place, like that playground where you first brought me,” he added.
“Maybe.” Rage wondered if thinking about clothing had disrupted her focusing thoughts on Gilbert.
“Let’s walk,” Billy suggested. “I have a feeling about this place.”
Rage stared at him. Then she shrugged. “All right, we’ll walk. But tell me what happened when I disappeared from Valley.”
“As soon as you disappeared, I warned Mr. Walker and Gilbert that I’d probably vanish soon when I woke in our world. But Gilbert said he could put a spell on me to keep me asleep in our world for a little longer, so I could come up to the castle. Before I could say a word, he wriggled his fingers at me. From then on, although I did not wake here, I kept falling asleep there. I was there for three days after you left.”
“Three days!” Rage cried. “So you went to the castle?”
Billy nodded. “It wasn’t really a castle, though. It was just a big house with a sort of little room on top.”
“It looked huge,” Rage said, but she hadn’t seen it properly.
“It changes size,” Billy said. “Gilbert muddled an illusion spell, and the wizard said it could stay that way until Gilbert figured out how to fix it.”
“That’s pretty tough,” Rage said indignantly.
Billy shook his head. “From what Mr. Walker said, I think it was more that the wizard didn’t mind how the castle was, but Gilbert feels guilty about what he did. It was pretty confusing. That first night in the castle, I went to bed in this grand chamber all hung with tapestries and woke on a rush bed in a little one-room shack. Then the next day it was just a small mansion.”
“Did you have a chance to see the wizard’s papers?”
Billy gave her a look. “I saw them, but I can’t read.”
Rage sighed in frustration. “So what happened then? Did Gilbert say anything more about why the wizard or Elle went through the door?”
Billy frowned. “He just said no one should do anything until you came back. But Mr. Walker said we ought to go through because you could dream your way to them. Nomadiel agreed, but Mr. Walker shouted at her that she wasn’t going anywhere except back to Fork. I don’t know what happened then because I fell asleep when they were arguing, and when I woke up, the witch Mother was there and Mr. Walker was insisting that she take Nomadiel back to Fork.” Billy’s eyes widen
ed. “That was what I was trying to remember! The witch Mother said that the wizard wrote in his notes that he had to go through the winter door because it was the work of another wizard.”
“Did Rue have any idea why Elle went through?”
“It’s hard to remember exactly because I kept falling asleep,” Billy said. He thought for a moment, then he shook his head. “She did say the expedition had to set out soon because the wizard wouldn’t be able to close the gate alone. She said that eight had to pass through the winter door from Valley, but the only ones she was sure of were Mr. Walker, one of the witch men, and Puck, because she had seen them going through in her vision.”
“Puck!” Rage echoed in surprise.
Billy nodded. “He came to the castle with Rue. You could see from his reaction that she had not told him before they came that he was to go through the winter door.”
“The wizard, Elle, Mr. Walker, Puck, and one of the witch men makes five, then there will be you and me. I suppose Gilbert must be the eighth?” Rage calculated.
But Billy shook his head. “Not you. The witch Mother said that although you were supposed to help shut the winter door, you weren’t to go through it.”
“But I don’t understand. I thought I had to go to the wizard….” Her voice trailed off because she realized that the witch Mother had not said that. “Did you tell them about me dreaming of the firecat?”
“I tried to but I fell asleep, and when I tried again later, I woke up.”
Rage frowned. “I wonder if the firecat did something to stop us talking about it.”
“Like last time,” Billy agreed. “It would be just like it to not want anyone talking about it.” Abruptly Billy stiffened and looked around with a strange expression. “I know where we are,” he said in a soft voice.
Rage looked around. They had reached the top of the hill they had been climbing. Below them lay a flat, long plateau covered in snow, bare except for one or two dead trees rising up above the whiteness.
“It’s the dam near Winnoway,” Billy said, and then Rage saw it, too. The flat plateau was the frozen surface of the dam, covered over in snow, and they were making their way down the hills on the opposite side of the dam to Winnoway Farm. The higher mountains that they had been looking at from the other side of the hill were the rest of the range.
“We’re near the bramble gate,” Billy reminded her.
“Where it used to be,” Rage said.
“Maybe it’s still there if this is a dream,” Billy pointed out, looking excited.
Rage felt her pulse quicken as Billy took the lead, cutting across the face of the hills around the dam. Once they had reached the side closest to Winnoway, they climbed up and over the ridge to where the hills folded and curved away under a pristine white blanket of snow. Billy sniffed the air and then entered the secretive fold between two hills where they had once been led by the firecat to the bramble gate. Snow was mounded over the blackberry clumps, but Billy wove through them until they reached the wall of brambles where there had once been a gateway to another world.
Rage stopped dead at the sight of the arched gateway cut through the brambles. She felt the thrilling fizz of magic against her cheeks and neck. The foliage about the opening was frosted with white, and the spiderwebs that sewed the leaves together were strung with glinting ice beads. The opening was blocked by long, impossibly slender spikes of ice that hung from the very top of the archway to the snow mounded beneath it.
“It’s a dream bramble gate,” Billy murmured. “I wonder what would happen if we went through.”
Rage sucked in a breath of icy air. Was this the meaning of Rue’s cryptic words? Maybe they were meant to reach whatever lay on the other side of the winter door by some other means than through the winter door.
“What are you doing?” Billy asked.
Rage had drawn closer to the bramble gate. The feel of the magic was strong enough to make her skin itch, and her ears felt as if they were about to pop. “I think we should try it,” she said. “The witch Mother told me that the way to close the winter door was between me and the wizard. If I’m not to go through the winter door, it must be that I’m meant to get to the world beyond it in some other way.”
“Maybe this won’t lead us to the same place,” Billy said.
“I think it will,” Rage said. She took a deep breath and shouted, “Firecat! I know you’re here!”
But there was no answer.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rage said. “The firecat said it had a way to get me to the wizard, and I’m sure this was it. Let’s go.”
Billy reached out at the last minute and caught hold of her mittened hand. She looked back at him in surprise. He shrugged. “We don’t want to get separated.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Together, then,” she said. She reached out to push at the icicles, expecting them to snap, but they were surprisingly strong. She pushed harder, then she let go of Billy’s hand and pushed with both hands.
“Let me try,” Billy said. He shoved at the icicles with his strong shoulder. But not even one icicle cracked. Billy took off his mittens and touched the bars of ice. Then he looked at Rage. “Maybe the dream is reflecting the fact that the wizard didn’t get rid of the door but only blocked it,” Billy said. “If it were closed, I couldn’t have smelled my way here.”
“But this is a dream door,” Rage murmured. She stopped because the mist about them had thickened so much that she could no longer see Billy. “Billy?” Her voice sounded flat and small, as if the mist had sucked the power out of it.
“I’m here,” Billy said, but he sounded strange, too, and farther away than he ought to sound.
“We’d better hold hands again,” Rage said, trying to see him.
“Rage?” Billy called, as if he hadn’t heard her.
Her heart speeded up. “Billy?” Her voice sounded frightened.
No answer.
“Billy!” she screamed. For a moment, the mist thinned, and there was no sign of the bramble gate and no sign of Billy. There were only snowy hills and dark shapes that she hoped were trees or bushes. But she couldn’t help thinking of the creatures that had chased her and Logan, and as if her thought had conjured them up, she heard a low growling.
Her heart almost leapt out of her chest at the knowledge that this time she would have to face them without Logan. Then to her astonishment, she saw Logan standing in front of her looking bewildered.
“Rage?” He was squinting as though he could hardly see her.
“Logan—” she began, then they both heard the growling again.
“Oh Jesus, this is a nightmare,” Logan groaned.
Rage didn’t know what it was, but they had to get away. She pictured the playground, and just like that, they were both there. But it was night again, and she sensed the nightmare beasts wouldn’t be far behind them. Logan was staring about in a dazed fashion. Rage wondered where Billy was, and abruptly he appeared at her side.
He stared at Logan and then smiled sweetly at him. “I remember you. You smell of biscuits.”
Logan’s mouth dropped open, and he switched his green gaze to Rage. “What kind of dream is this?”
“Sssstupid ragewinnoway,” a voice hissed.
Rage’s heart leapt. “Firecat! I’m so glad you have come back,” she cried quickly, searching for the confusion of air that would reveal the presence of the firecat. But there was nothing. “Listen, I’m really sorry I was so rude to you before. Won’t you tell me your message?”
“Wizard needing help,” the firecat spat. “Maybe too late for him now. Your fault!”
“Firecat, did you go into Elle’s dreams and tell her that the wizard needed help?”
“Ssstupid elle not helping wizard,” the firecat snarled. Rage could see it was on the other side of the swings.
“Is Elle all right? Where is she now?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” the firecat retorted.
Rage thought of what Billy had
told her. “Did your master go to see the other wizard? The one who lives on the far side of the winter door?”
“Ragewinnoway musst coming!” the firecat howled. There was a spluttering of light like a wet firecracker and then a soft, popping sound. Then silence.
“It’s gone,” Billy said.
“This is a hell of a dream,” Logan said, staring from Rage to Billy.
On impulse, Rage pointed a finger at him. “Wake, Logan!” And just like that, he disappeared.
Rage felt a surge of elation at her power. Maybe if she had such power, she could call Mam to her. She could tell Mam about Uncle Samuel. Surely a dream wouldn’t hurt her.
Rage…
She gasped because it was Mam’s voice. Had she called her by thinking about her?
“Rage?” Billy asked, and his voice was sharp with concern.
“Billy, I can hear Mam! She’s here!” Rage saw a flash of pity in Billy’s eyes and anger coursed through her. “I did hear her, and why couldn’t I have brought her here just as I brought you and Logan? I’m sure he wasn’t just a dream.”
“He smelled real,” Billy said doubtfully. “But—”
Rage…
It was Mam’s voice again, but how thin it sounded. Rage turned toward it and began to run.
“Rage, be careful, this is not the real playground….” Billy’s voice followed her, sharp with alarm, but the sense of his words was lost in her desperation to find Mam.
Rage? The voice called again, and now it was no more than a whisper of sound.
“Mam!” Rage called back in despair. “Mam, where are you? I can’t find you!”
Billy’s voice behind her rang out. “Wait! I can’t smell her! Do you hear me, Rage? I can’t smell her!”
Rage stopped in confusion, knowing it couldn’t be her mother if Billy couldn’t smell her. Then it was snowing heavily again. Snow slithered down her neck when she looked down to see that her boots were sunk to the ankles in a fresh fall of powder snow.
“Billy?” she called, looking around. A wind-driven flurry of snowflakes blinded her. She stepped forward and found that there was nothing under her feet….