“Billy!” Rage gasped.
She reached out to switch on the bedside lamp and there he was, blinking at her, one silky, toffee-colored ear curled endearingly back on itself. “Billy, were you with me at the bramble gate and the playground or was that only a dream?”
He pawed at her leg to signal yes.
“And you saw Logan and smelled the firecat?” He scratched at her again.
Rage let out a long breath of air and lay back against the pillows. That meant the firecat really had come to her and told her that the wizard needed help. And from what the firecat had said, she was certain the firecat had convinced Elle to go through the winter door after him. But what had become of Elle if the firecat was still seeking help for its master?
Rage wondered what she ought to do. Even if she could have made herself fall asleep again at once, there was no point in trying to dream herself to Valley, since the witch Mother had said she was not to pass through the winter door. Her thoughts shifted to Logan and the amazing fact that she had summoned him to her in his dreams. She couldn’t help smiling at the memory of the look on his face when Billy told him he smelled of biscuits. It was heady to think she could call anyone to her in their dreams. She could even call Mrs. Somersby and give her a good fright. But she couldn’t do that, no matter how tempting, because Mam always said the only good use for power was to do good.
Outside, thunder rumbled. Rage climbed out of bed and drew the curtains. The sky between the clouds was a pale blue rather than the black she saw when she awoke to the alarm on weekdays. The sheds and fence and the tree that were normally her view were almost obscured by snow. She had not seen the yard in the daylight since the previous weekend, and it was a shock to see how much snow had fallen.
The sound of an engine spluttering to life cut through the tangle of her thoughts. She threw off the blanket and ran to the window, to see the taillights of her uncle’s car casting reddish smears of light on the fresh fallen snow as it pulled away. Rage ran out of the bedroom and down the hall, but by the time she wrenched open the front door, the car had vanished from sight. Instead, she saw heavy black clouds mounding on the horizon; this was the storm the thunder had heralded. Closing the door against the wind, Rage returned to her bedroom and dressed. She went along to the kitchen and found a note in her uncle’s blocky handwriting. “Will be back late.”
Rage wondered why he hadn’t at least waited until she had got up. There was no smell of toast or coffee, so he had gone without eating, too. She turned to the phone and found that the plug had been pushed back in. What if Mrs. Somersby had rung and spoken to her uncle! What if he had gone to town to arrange to have her taken in by a family?
Billy whined and pushed his nose against her leg, his eyes worried. Rage chided herself for jumping to conclusions. She and Billy sat together in the big chair by the fire, Rage nibbling at honey toast and thinking about her dream.
All at once she knew exactly what to do.
“Let’s go look at where the bramble gate was,” she said aloud to Billy.
He cocked his head, and she decided to interpret this as a shrug.
It was almost lunchtime by the time they set out. Rage packed an old rucksack with a lunch for herself, a thermos of hot chocolate, and water and dog biscuits for Billy. Rage left a note alongside her uncle’s saying that they had gone out for a walk. Then, just in case he hadn’t got a call from Mrs. Somersby, she pulled out the plug to the answering machine. Dark clouds were unraveling in great thick strands as she and Billy came out of the house. They had not gone more than a few steps before the clouds parted to allow a bit of thin sunlight through. There was no warmth in it, but Rage felt her spirits lift at the way the snow sparkled.
Thunder rumbled as they passed through the yard gate into the paddocks. Rage ignored it, knowing the storm would be several hours in coming. If it did catch them, they could take refuge in the hikers’ hut at the far end of the dam until it was over. The wan sunlight soon vanished, but Rage’s spirits remained high. It was just good to be outside doing something rather than sitting huddled in front of a fire. Billy looked up at her and barked. His eyes caught the light, and Rage could see that he was enjoying himself, too.
When they reached the highest hill on Winnoway Farm, Rage stopped and looked at the land stretched all around them. Trees, bushes, paths, and most fences became gentle, unfamiliar curves beneath the snow. A half-buried farm gate marked the last Winnoway fence, and crossing it, Rage was struck by how the pristine snow gentled the ragged and unkempt dam area.
Rage and Billy toiled up the last hill before the one that overlooked the dam. It was very steep, so they were both panting. As they crested the hill, a bitter wind clawed at Rage’s face. Looking back, she was dismayed to see a mist rising from the folds in the hills like a miasma. Worse, the storm was almost overhead. She walked more quickly then, leaning into the wind along the top of the hill toward the final hill they would have to climb. It was a little easier at one point because a section of the path lay clear of the snow, and someone—Uncle Samuel, she supposed—had sprinkled it with gravel.
Time passed, and Rage felt that they had been climbing for hours. Half the time she was on her hands and knees because her feet kept slipping out from under her. It was even harder for Billy because he was staying close by her so that she could hold on to him. It seemed forever before they had gained the crest and started down the other side.
Rage blew through her mitten tips to warm her fingers, which had grown numb with cold. Her nose felt numb, and her toes, too, and no wonder. She had the wrong clothes on, and she had not even had the sense to put on a knitted cap. She just hadn’t expected it to be so very cold. Billy’s footpads must be frozen, too. Certainly his eyes were streaming with cold, just like hers. He hadn’t whimpered once, but animals bore a lot more pain than humans before they would show it. A dog’s pain is a dog’s pain, as Bear had once said.
A misstep sent Rage pitching forward. Fortunately, the hill had flattened out, and she fell only a short way before landing hard and sliding to a halt. Winded, she picked herself up with Billy’s help. His coat was heavy and wet, and some of the strands had matted into icicles. Then it began to snow even harder.
The only safe thing to do now was to find the hikers’ hut. Rage groped for Billy’s collar and they went on down. It was more awkward for them both with Rage holding his collar, but she was comforted by his nearness and hoped he felt the same. She could not help but think of the storm in Valley that had caused her to feel so dreadfully bleak and hopeless.
They finally reached a flat place where they could stand upright without slipping. Rage let go of Billy and sank to her knees. She just had to rest for a moment. She no longer felt so cold, but she was very tired, and it was even a struggle to keep her eyes open. Billy growled at her and worried at her sleeve with his teeth until she gave in and got to her feet, and they went on. She was tired enough now that even the fact that the wind was growing stronger did not dismay her. Dimly she registered thunder overhead, but it was as if her mind was numbed as well as her body. For a time, her teeth chattered hard enough to make her jaw ache, but that passed, too. She fell any number of times. Without Billy to nudge and pull her upright, she would have lain there and fallen asleep. Indeed, the longer she walked, the more alluring sleep seemed.
At last and incredibly, they reached the bottom of the hill. Again she fell, this time because she had trodden too hard, not expecting the jarring suddenness of flat ground. Billy bit her on the hand hard enough to startle her into the realization that she was sitting there with the snow melting under her and seeping into her clothes.
Rage struggled to rise, but her legs wouldn’t seem to work. She slid her fingers under Billy’s collar and he surged forward, hauling her to her feet. She used her free hand to rub at her face and eyes. She could feel neither and understood that if they did not find shelter soon, she would freeze to death. If she did, Billy would freeze, too, because he would never leave
her. Leaning down carefully so as not to overbalance, she put her face next to Billy’s ears and shouted, “We need to find shelter quickly, Billy. Sniff out the hut. The hikers’ hut.”
Billy barked, a flat, hollow thump of sound against the roaring vibration of the storm. Rage braced herself when he pulled forward. His strength alone drew them at first, but as her legs moved, the exertion warmed her slightly. She was so stiff that she fell again and again. Gradually a fatigue rolled over her so great and compelling as to make her wish that Billy would leave her. Then she could lay her head upon snow that felt suddenly as warm and softly inviting as her own lilac pillow, and sleep. The next time she fell, she closed her eyes, thinking that she would just have a little nap before she went on. She would go after Billy in just a moment.
Rage woke and sat up, heart pounding at the knowledge that she had almost gone to sleep in the snow. Struggling to her feet, Rage found that she was still stiff but no longer numb. The momentary lapse seemed to have done her good. She went a few steps forward and was startled to find that she was not at the bottom of the slope but on a jutting-out section that offered a little plateau. She frowned, feeling certain that she and Billy had reached the dam level before she fell. Or had she dreamed that?
She began to descend the dark slope carefully, straining her eyes to see the bottom. It was so easy to get confused in the snow and wind. If it hadn’t been for Billy’s help, goodness knows where she would have wound up!
And where was Billy, anyway? Worrying about him kept Rage toiling downhill when it seemed that the slope must be endless. Her legs were aching abominably by the time she finally reached flat ground. It was clearer here, not that being able to see helped much, because nothing was the least bit familiar. She seemed to be in a narrow canyon between hills rather than in a valley. Since the canyon went out of sight in both directions, there was not even any way to suggest which direction she ought to walk to find the hikers’ hut. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and shouted Billy’s name.
Her blood froze when her only answer was the long, ululating howling of a wolf. Rage might have panicked, but she noticed a single, fitful light, like a flashlight with a bad battery, a little way down the canyon. Hoping it was her uncle, she broke into a slow, stumbling run.
“Hello! I’m here!” she shouted.
The light stopped, then it began to bob toward her. Only when the light was close did she realize that it was not a flashlight but a torch like those they had lit in the hut in Deepwood. She stopped, confused, then she saw who was carrying it and her mouth dropped open.
It was Mr. Walker.
“However did you get here?” Rage gasped incredulously. She wanted to throw her arms about him, but instead of smiling, he was glaring at her suspiciously.
“What are you? Some sort of phantom sent out to deceive us?”
Rage wanted to laugh at the melodrama of his words. However, the look on his sharp little face was serious, and his free hand was resting so purposefully on a small silver sword that she sensed he knew how to use it. “Mr. Walker, it’s me! Rage! Did you come here to find me?”
His face cleared. “Rage! It really is you. But how did you get here before us?”
“I…I was here all along. How did you get here?”
“We came through the winter door, of course.”
Rage was too confounded to speak.
The little dog-man twitched his huge soft ears and demanded, “Have you hit your head?”
It was like a repeat of their arrival in Valley through the bramble gate. Mr. Walker had done nothing but scold her and tell her she had been knocked senseless, because it had taken her so long to understand that the dogs and goat had been transformed. “Mr. Walker, listen to me. I have just been out walking with Billy in the hills around Winnoway looking for the bramble gate. But it started snowing hard and the wind got so strong. Anyhow, I fell and Billy must have thought I was hurt and ran off to get help. The next thing, I see your light and now you’re telling me that you came here through the winter door.”
Mr. Walker stared at her. “This is not the world of Winnoway Farm where once we all lived with the Cold Man. If it were so, I would have smelled it. This is the land on the other side of the winter door, which we have named Bleak.” His sharp little eyes widened.
“But how did I get here?” Rage asked softly.
“I do not know,” Mr. Walker said. “But I think we had better go to the others and let them know that you have come. In stories it is always a bad thing for expeditions in dangerous places to split up.”
Rage had no idea what had happened, but it was easier to imagine she had been magically transported to the world beyond the winter door than that Mr. Walker had passed through it and ended up in her world. She noticed that Mr. Walker was looking around uneasily, and remembered the wolf call. “What is it? Can you smell another animal?”
“Not an animal. Something else. Perhaps it is coming from the settlement.”
“A settlement?”
“You can’t see it from here,” Mr. Walker said. “It is farther down that way.” He pointed back the way he had come, then he took her arm and began to walk with her in that direction.
“What kind of settlement?”
“A human settlement, from the smell.”
“Don’t you know?” Rage asked.
“We intended to enter the village at once, but at the last minute we changed our minds. You see, something smelled…not wrong, but not right exactly. Thaddeus said we ought to camp and go into the settlement in the morning. He found us this cave to sleep in.”
Thaddeus was the witch Mother’s friend. He was the renegade keeper who had rescued some sprites when she was rescuing Elle and Billy from the High Keeper’s prison tower. She wanted to ask who else had gone through the winter door, but she thought of something else.
“Have you picked up Elle’s scent?”
Mr. Walker’s face fell into somber lines. “We have found traces of it closer to the village, but she is not there now. That’s another of the reasons we don’t want to rush in.” He changed the subject suddenly in his characteristic way. “I heard you calling Billy just now,” he said. “I thought I must be imagining it.”
“Is that why you came out of the cave?”
“I came out because there was a ground tremor. Didn’t you feel it? There have been several since our arrival. Then you called out. I thought I was imagining that someone was calling Billy’s name until I saw your face. Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Rage said. “Maybe he’s back there while I’m here.” Her heart twisted at the thought of Billy wondering what had happened to her. “Who else came through the winter door besides you and Thaddeus?”
The little dog-man was angling away from the canyon now and moving toward a pile of broken boulders topped with snow.
“Puck, but Billy would have told you about him?” Rage nodded as Mr. Walker led her around a big boulder. There was a cave opening behind it. Rage wondered at the coincidence of a good cave in just the right place at just the right time.
Never trust coincidence, a strange voice spoke in her mind. “Who else came through with you?” Rage asked.
“No one,” Mr. Walker said.
“But Billy told me that eight were supposed to go through. If I count you three and Elle and the wizard, that’s only five. Even if you count me, there would still be two missing. Unless Billy did come through—”
“I would have smelled him,” Mr. Walker said. “If he comes, he will make six, but only if he comes through the winter door. We are not to count you because you did not come through the winter door.”
The cave was quite small but warm and well lit because a fire crackled in a shallow pit at the center of it. Thaddeus, a big, curly-haired witch man, was seated cross-legged by the fire, his cloak lying stretched out beside him to dry. Puck was perched atop a boulder on the other side of the fire, frowning disconsolately into it and flexing his wings. Like all wild thing
s, he wore only a few scraps of tattered cloth because he didn’t feel the cold. He noticed Rage and Mr. Walker, and his exclamation alerted Thaddeus, who jumped to his feet, dropping his hand to a long-bladed sword at his side.
Then Puck’s face cleared and he bowed low. “Child Rage! How good it is to see you! Though I understand that it is less time for you than for us in Valley. How came you here?”
“She doesn’t know,” Mr. Walker said.
Rage sat by the fire and told her story again. When she had finished, Thaddeus pressed a bowl of hot berry juice into her hands. She gladly drank, although the warmth of it did not reach the chill she felt deep inside.
“I cannot think how you came here, unless the storm you mention has opened a rift to this world, through which you managed to stumble,” Thaddeus said, looking interested.
“It would be a pretty big coincidence,” Rage said doubtfully.
“I think it matters less how any of us came here than what we do now that we are here,” Puck said heavily. “The sooner we close this door, the sooner we can go home.”
“Perhaps you are correct,” Thaddeus said with faint reluctance. “Nevertheless, this is a puzzle that I will work at in the alcoves of my mind.”
“There will be many of those, most filled with bats and worms,” Puck said rudely.
“Now, now, little man,” Thaddeus said, laughing. But the sound of his laughter rang strangely hollow in the cave.
“How is it that Gilbert didn’t come?” Rage asked.
“He meant to, but an hour before we were to pass through, he tripped down a stairwell and broke his leg,” Mr. Walker said, exasperated. “He is now convinced that the expedition will fail because of his clumsiness, even though the witch Mother said that he mustn’t be meant to go through.”
“I think you are right that we must forget about who else might come and proceed as we best can,” Thaddeus said firmly. “I would suggest that we all try to get some sleep now, for tomorrow looms large, and it will require all our wits and will to accomplish our task here.”