Rage hardly heard the exchange, for she was trying to think of a way to ask how the woman had come to age so much. “Has a lot of time passed since I left Valley?” she finally asked.
Rue smiled wryly. “Time has passed, as it is wont to do, even in Valley, but not as much as you may think to look at me. It is three years since you left us by the count of time in your world.”
“Three years!” Rage cried in disbelief. “It’s only been a few months since I left there.”
“You mean since you left here,” Rue said, making a gesture with her long, thin arms that encompassed the forest and the mountains. Rage shivered and Rue looked concerned. “You are half frozen. Puck?”
The little fairy man produced an enormous cloak out of a tiny waist pack, and he flew up to swirl it around Rage’s shoulders. It was a lovely thing: silvery gray as a dawn sky after rain, light as a cobweb, silken to the touch, and amazingly warm. All at once Rage was struck by something that the witch woman had said. “What did you mean, ‘since I left here’?” Rage asked.
“Since you left Valley,” Rue said, a line between her brows. “Where we now stand.”
“I don’t understand….”
“In your world, you are dreaming, but here you are real enough. What you have done is called dream-traveling. Only part of your self is here, and it will remain here until you wake in your own world.” Without waiting for a response, Rue went on briskly. “There is much to say before you leave, but we must not stay in the open like this.” She glanced about before setting off back the way she had come. Rage followed her to a small clearing in the midst of the trees. A small, pale green silk tent was under the branches of an enormous tree. Rage sat beside a small fire that blazed cheerfully. Tapestry cushions lay atop split logs arranged about the campfire.
Three seats, Rage noted.
“You were expecting me,” she murmured.
“Did I not say so?” Rue asked with faint impatience.
Puck fussed with a pot of water that had been suspended over the fire and a teapot. His mistress seated herself opposite Rage. The play of flame-glow highlighted the deep grooves on either side of Rue’s nose as she began to speak. “You asked if this was a dream. Better if you had asked if it is a nightmare. You see this dull gray light? This is day in Valley now, and a time may come when this seems bright. You see, the sun cannot shine through the storm clouds that fill the sky. It is so long since we have seen it that I feel that true sunlight was a kind of lovely dream.”
“But why?” Rage asked. “What has happened?”
“Almost a year ago in Valley time, the firecat opened a world gate to an unknown land and winter began leaking through it. The firecat claims to have created the gateway, which we call the winter door, but it has not the power for such an undertaking. First winter came to the wizard’s castle and Deepwood. Then it flowed to Wildwood. You have just walked upon the frozen heart lake.” There was real pain in her face. “Now the River of No Return begins to freeze, and although Fork resists, its powers are limited. It is weakened by the fear and anxieties of its inhabitants. Wildwood and the castle are resisting, too, as best they can, but Fork is the last stronghold. Once it fails, the magical waters in the caverns beneath the land will begin to freeze. When they no longer flow, Valley will cease to be.”
“Don’t say that!” Rage cried. It was too dreadful to return to Valley, after longing for it, to discover that it was again in danger of destruction. “But where is the wizard? Can’t he do something?”
“He is not in Valley,” Rue said. “He left some time ago.”
Fury rose in Rage’s heart. “How convenient for the wizard that he should decide to travel when Valley is in such terrible trouble. What a fearful coward he is not to stay and try to help!” she said.
Rue shook her head. “You are mistaken, Child Rage. The wizard sought to close the gate using all and many magics, and then one day he said he must go through the gate to learn how it had been created, for the more he examined it, the less it seemed like a proper world gate.”
“The wizard went through the winter door?”
Rue accepted a cup of steaming tea from Puck. “He did.”
“Alone,” Puck muttered hotly, bringing a flowered teacup in its pretty saucer to Rage, who was glad to curl her fingers around the scalding heat of it. “He had to do it alone, did he not? All alone and by himself, though he had agreed to be part of an expedition,” the little man added fiercely. He turned and stumped away. Rue sighed.
“How long ago did he go?” Rage asked.
Rue’s eyes looked into hers. “Nine months ago.”
“Are you sure he didn’t just go somewhere else?” Rage asked in a voice hard as stone to her ears. “Did anyone see him go through it? Maybe he only pretended to go through and then went off somewhere else.”
“It is not the place of a child, even one who has done as much as you, to judge as a liar and a coward the one who created Valley,” Rue said in reproof. “Since his return, he worked tirelessly to repair the damage that was done here.”
Rage wanted to say that she had every right to judge the wizard, given that he was her great-uncle and responsible for turning his own brother into a monster who had crushed his poor wife and all but destroyed his children. But thinking of her own world brought a new thought, one so awful that it quenched her anger. “Is it possible that this enchanted winter could have begun to leak through into my world?” Rage asked.
The witch woman whitened. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know, but winter in my world is supposed to be over, only it hasn’t ended and everyone keeps saying how freakish and unnatural it is….”
“I must consult with Guardian Gilbert,” Rue said decisively.
“Guardian Gilbert,” Rage echoed, wondering if she had misheard.
The older woman nodded briskly. “He who was once known to you by the name Goaty. He remained with the wizard after their return from the shore of the Endless Sea and became his apprentice. His doubts and procrastinations were the cause of his many errors in the beginning, but in time he became the wizard’s primary helper. Unfortunately, the loss of the wizard seems to have set him back.” She sighed.
“Goaty.” Rage shook her head in wonder. “What about the others? Elle and Mr. Walker?”
“Mr. Walker is now Prince Walker of the little folk. He dwells with them chiefly in the caverns beneath Fork. The little folk guard the waters against those who seek to use them as did the Lord High Keeper, curst be his name.”
“Prince Walker!” Rage tried to imagine Mr. Walker as a prince but could only think of the snappy, high-strung little Chihuahua that he had once been.
“He had to be made a prince so that he could pledge his troth to the king’s daughter,” Rue continued. “Sadly, Princess Feluffeen died a year past in a plague that came through the winter door.”
“Princess Feluffeen?”
“You met her. She preferred to be called Kelpie. She and Mr. Walker were wed.”
“Kelpie died?” Rage murmured. A vivid picture came to her of the tiny smiling woman who had led them to the Place of Shining Waters, with her catsuit, high-topped boots, and cloud of pale hair floating like spun sugar about her delicate ears.
“It was tragic, truly,” Rue said. “The wizard vanquished the plague, but many died first. The old king was among the last, though I believe he died as much of grief as sickness. Prince Walker became the leader of the little people in his stead and by his dying decree.”
Rage was saddened by this list of woes. “He’s not the king, though?”
The witch Mother shook her head. “He refuses the title. He says his daughter will be king someday.”
“He has a daughter!”
“Her name is Nomadiel. She was a babe when her mother perished.”
“Oh, how sad,” Rage said, her thoughts flicking painfully to her own mother. “But surely she would be a queen if she is a girl?”
“The fairy folk hav
e only kings, although these may be male or female.”
Rage shook her head again. “And Elle?”
The witch woman smiled briefly. “The Lady Elle is an elusive soul whose heart leads her most often to the wildest parts of Valley. If she did not visit Guardian Gilbert regularly and attend council meetings, I think we should have seen little of her.”
“Elle goes to council meetings?” It was hard to imagine the impetuous Elle doing anything so tame and rational.
“She attends them in order to take part in the discussions and to vote upon matters concerning all of Valley,” Rue said. “She was appointed to the council because, as an outworlder, she sees things differently than those of us born in Valley.”
“Then I suppose she is wandering in the wilderness now,” Rage said wistfully.
“That was where the Lady Elle preferred to be, but since this fell winter began, she bides in Fork. In truth, I think that she is the reason that Fork is able to resist the winter. But even the sunny courage of the Lady Elle will not hold off the drear winter from Fork forever.” The witch woman looked directly at Rage. “But tell me more of this winter in your world. Are you sure that it is not merely an unusually harsh winter?”
“I…I don’t know,” Rage admitted. “I suppose it must be, because how could the winter here go there, since the wizard got rid of the bramble gate?”
“Gates are not the only ways between worlds. There will be many weak places in the matter between Valley and your world. These weak places could act as gateways in the right circumstances.”
“You make the winter sound as if it is alive.”
“I fancy it so,” Rue admitted. “But if you are correct in thinking that it has found a way through to your world, then it is not only our two worlds that are in danger.”
“I don’t understand what you mean. The wizard made Valley out of a bit of my world. He didn’t say he had made any other worlds.”
“Surely you do not think the wizard the only one capable of such world building? Or that this is the only way parallel worlds come into being? There are many worlds and a multitude of bridges between them. But we must learn if the winter in your world is connected to the winter here. I will go to the castle to see if the wizard left any notes about the possibility that the winter here could flow into other worlds. I will learn what I can before your return—”
“My return?” Rage interrupted her. “But I don’t know if I can come back.” She thought suddenly of the three seats. “Unless I came here because of something you did to make it happen. Is that how you knew I would be here?”
“I used soul magic to ask what I could do to save Valley, and I saw you arriving at the frozen heart lake. So I came here to wait for you.”
“Ask what her visions cost her!” Puck commanded in an accusing voice, pointing at Rue’s white hair.
“Peace, Puck,” said the witch woman with a somber look. Puck hung his head.
“What does he mean?” Rage demanded.
The witch Mother ignored the question. “The visions showed me that the answer to ending this winter can be found in the link between you and the wizard.”
“Am I to follow the wizard through this winter door, then?” Rage asked. “I don’t see how I could, even if I wanted to, since I am only here while I dream.”
“Before you think to refuse what has not yet been asked of you, consider the possibility that you yourself have just raised. If the winter in your world is linked to the winter killing Valley, then in time your own world will become the wasteland that Valley has become,” Rue said inexorably. “For now, I suggest only that the next time you come to Valley, you dream yourself directly to the wizard’s castle.”
“I don’t think I can control this dream-traveling,” Rage protested.
“Of course you can. You would not be here otherwise. You need only think of where you wish to go before you sleep. You willed yourself here by thinking of Valley.”
“I didn’t think of Valley,” Rage disagreed. Then she said softly, “I thought about you.”
Rue’s brows lifted. “An interesting paradox. I am here in this place only because of a vision which showed that you came here, and you are here only because you used me as the focus of your dream magic.” She shrugged. “You had better will yourself to Gilbert next time if your dream-travel ability works by focusing on people. He will certainly be at the castle, and I will arrange to be notified as soon as you arrive.” She gave Rage a long look. “I wonder how you have this ability, for it is generally only wizards who possess it.”
Rage opened her mouth to tell the witch Mother about the firecat, but as she opened her mouth, all strength drained from her and she was pulled away.
Someone was joggling Rage’s shoulder.
It was Logan. She blinked groggily at him. “What the heck is the matter with you?” he hissed as Rage sat up. She noticed absently how pale he looked, then she looked around and found that she was in the school library.
“What is it? What’s wrong? I must have fallen asleep.”
“I’ve been trying to wake you for about ten minutes! Are you sick?”
“No…no,” she managed to say. “I…I was…I had a dream.”
His eyes narrowed, but he said more calmly, “You missed the afternoon assembly and I got worried. Luckily, there was no roll call.” He sat down beside her. “Are you sure you’re okay? You really do look pretty weird.”
Rage picked up the book and smoothed the creased pages automatically, saying, “I know. I mean, I feel weird, so it makes sense I look weird.” She looked at him and remembered how he had stormed away. “Logan, how come you can’t read?”
He scowled and grew red again. Then he gave a weary shrug. “I dunno. It was because of being shuffled around, I guess. Everyone thought someone else taught me, and then there was this rotten teacher that made fun of me. Anyway, I started covering it up. I mean, I can read a bit, but slowly like some little kindergartner. So I don’t bother.”
“But what about signs, and what about schoolwork?”
“Signs are okay and I’ve got a great memory. It helps with school stuff as well. And with homework, I either didn’t do it or I got other kids to do it for me. I think some of the teachers might have guessed, but they’re just happy if I don’t disrupt the class, and they pass me to get me out of their hair.”
Rage thought about Mam reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to her, and then she was crying. “My uncle says they’re moving my mother to Leary Hospital on the weekend. They want to find out why she isn’t getting better….”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, maybe they’ll figure it out,” Logan said.
Rage shook her head and more tears fell. “She’s too sad to get better. If only my uncle would go and see her, I think that might help her.” She stopped because she could no longer speak, for the tears.
“Why doesn’t he, then?” Logan asked.
She shook her head, struggling to control the tears. Then she said in a stuffy voice, “The doctors won’t let him. They say the shock of seeing him after so long might be too much for Mam….” She blinked back afresh fall of tears and glared out the window for a long moment. Still turned away, she said, “Don’t be nice to me, because it will only make me cry again.”
“I could bash you, if you’d rather,” Logan offered. Rage turned to give him a startled look and found him smiling sheepishly at her. She laughed, and some of the tight hurt inside her dissolved. “I’m sorry for howling like that. I wasn’t even thinking about her and then suddenly I was.” He nodded and wisely said nothing. After a bit, Rage rubbed at her cheeks with both hands to ease the stiffness of the dried tears.
At that moment, one of the library monitors came round the stacks and gave them a long look. Rage knew her face must look as if she had been crying because the monitor approached to ask if anything was the matter. His eyes flicked suspiciously at Logan, who immediately stood up, bristling. “What are you looking at me for?
”
“I wanted to know if everything was all right,” the monitor said evenly, though Logan towered over him.
“Everything’s fine,” Rage said firmly. “Really.”
The monitor hesitated, but then he shrugged. “If you say so.” The minute he was out of sight, the aggression faded from Logan’s features. Rage thought that Logan was as trapped by his bully form as much as Billy was trapped by his dog form.
Logan stopped at the door to the next class, but Rage persuaded him to go in. Everyone, including Mrs. Gosford, gaped when they walked in and sat together. Rage had to look down to stop from laughing aloud.
Mrs. Gosford began to speak, and Rage forced herself to pay attention. The teacher announced that everyone in class was to read the same piece aloud, one at a time, so that they could get the feel of the language. There were groans, a few from kids who had joined their class because of the shortage of teachers and who were supposed to be silent-reading.
They started. Some of the kids read badly, stumbling over the words, hesitating, and making mistakes, so if one hadn’t already heard it seven times, it would have been incomprehensible. Bit by bit, Rage saw the point of the exercise and so could most of the class. The repetition forced everyone to think about the meaning of the lines, even the dullest students. When the first student in the back row began to read, Logan shifted restively in his seat. Rage knew that he was about to make a fuss that would get him kicked out of the class.
She elbowed Logan, and when he leaned closer, she whispered, “You can do this just like everyone else.”
He glared at her. “Are you crazy? You know why I can’t,” he hissed.
“Yes you can!” she insisted. “You said you have a really good memory, and even I can remember the lines because we’ve heard them so many times. Now just pretend to read them.”
“Rage Winnoway, perhaps you would like to share your news with all of us?” Mrs. Gosford said. She hated students to be inattentive to a student who was reading.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gosford,” Rage said penitently. The teacher’s eyes shifted to Logan, and fearing that she might suggest Rage’s behavior was degenerating because of the company she kept, Rage said quickly, “Logan forgot his book and I was just offering to let him use mine.”