As my fire faded, I noticed a pale glow rising in the sky from the east, and after a little while a half moon peeked over the trees, turning everything in the clearing into shadows and milky light. “Time for bed, I suppose,” I said. Adding another branch to the fire, and using my cloak as a second blanket, I lay down on the fragrant grass and fell asleep.
WHEN I WOKE up in the morning, the road was gone, the clearing was gone, and I was completely surrounded by trees.
I untangled myself from my blanket and cloak and sat up amid a rustle of fallen red-brown oak leaves. Pushing straggled hair from my face, I climbed to my feet and looked around.
The air felt strange. The trees were closer together. It was different from the woods I’d been walking through, different from the valley I’d lived in with Shoe. Wilder. More dangerous.
“Ohhhh,” I breathed. This was the Forest. It had offered the clearing as a baited trap, I realized, and it had reached out to take me as I slept. Merry had told me that the Forest was evil, and maybe I should’ve been frightened, but I suddenly felt excited. Ready to go where the Forest led me.
It was, I realized, my story beginning. “Once upon a time . . . ,” I whispered to myself.
I ate a quick bite of breakfast, rebraided my hair, washed my face in the stream—which hadn’t disappeared, like the road—put on my cloak, slung my knapsack over my shoulders, and, ready to start, turned in a slow circle, looking for a way through the trees.
“Once upon a time,” I repeated, “there was a girl who was searching for a path through an enchanted forest.”
The trees were dark and tangled around me, the morning light cold where it filtered through the branches. Off in one direction I spotted a hint of golden sunshine.
I splashed through the stream and fought my way through knee-high ferns and sprays of bramble until I reached the lighter area. As I stumbled into it, I saw that a narrow path started from that spot, winding among the close-set trees. It wasn’t a path that human feet had made—it wasn’t trodden dirt, but soft, springy moss that the trees had left when they moved aside.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the Forest.
It felt like a place where wonderful things could happen, but I wasn’t sure that the Forest really welcomed me. As I walked, I stayed alert, ready. The path went up hills and across streams and through groves of birch trees whose leaves were turning gold as summer gave way to winter. My shoulders ached from the weight of my pack, but my feet weren’t tired at all, thanks to the boots that Shoe had made for me.
In the late afternoon, long after I’d stopped for lunch and gone on again, the path brought me through a stand of huge pine trees that blocked the sunlight. The air under their heavy branches felt stuffy. No ferns or brambles grew here; the ground was covered with brown pine needles that slithered under my feet as I walked along. No birds sang, either; it was dead quiet.
Ahead of me the path turned, and I stopped and stared. A high wall had appeared among the pine trees; the path led beside it for as far as I could see in the dim light. Slowly I approached it. The wall’s stone was weathered; it was very old, I guessed. Something the Forest wanted me to see. I followed the path until it reached a few tumbled square stones, all covered with moss, and a break in the wall large enough to drive a cart and horse through. Stepping quietly, I went closer and peered through the gap.
Across a courtyard covered with swags of brambles and crowded with saplings growing up through the stones was the ruin of a huge stone building, some sort of castle or fortress. It had square towers that had collapsed on one side, and empty, dark windows where glass had broken, and an air of forbidding desolation.
It might have made a good shelter for the night, but something bad had happened there, long ago. Something from somebody else’s story—I could feel it. I didn’t want to step through the break in the wall to go any closer.
The path took a sharp right turn, as if leading me away now that the Forest had shown me what it wanted me to see. Emerging from the dense pine grove, I took a deep breath, glad to be free of the stuffy air. Not long after that, as the sun set, the Forest gave me another clearing to camp in. Even though I was tired from a long day of walking, I lay awake for a long time, watching as clouds crept in to cover the waxing moon, and listening to the wind rustle in the leaves.
Alone, in the darkness, I was a little frightened, but I was excited to go on, too.
That’s the way it was with stories—you went on because you needed to find out what happened next.
I WALKED FOR two more days through the Forest. On the second day, as a misty rain fell from a cloud-clotted sky, the path went down a steep hill and ran along a wide, smooth river. On the morning of the third day, the path ended.
“And then,” I said aloud, “just when she was starting to worry that she would run out of food, she reached the City.”
From where I stood at the edge of the Forest, I could see that the City was walled—a high, blank stone wall pierced by only one gate. Between me and the wall lay a wide stretch of blackened stumps and brambles and scorched ground where the trees had been chopped down and the Forest pushed back. Beyond that rose the City; I couldn’t see the lovely castle Shoe had described, and the rest of it looked as gray as the clouds that loomed overhead, threatening rain. The river was there, and the waterfall. It looked grim, cold. Maybe it really was as Merry had said—a bad place.
A glance behind me showed that the path the Forest had given me had disappeared, swallowed up by the trees. The Forest had sent me here; I didn’t really have any choice but to go on. “All right,” I whispered to myself.
There was no road or path leading to the City gate; I had to trudge through brambles, trying not to trip over stumps and old roots. The wall loomed higher as I got closer, and the clouds lowered, until everything seemed gray and dead. The air grew colder and smelled of metal and soot. At last I reached the City gate. I stood studying it. The gate was more a door, really, twice my height, heavy wood, banded with iron, with hinges barbed and twining like thorns, as if to discourage people from entering.
I tried knocking, but nothing happened. I tried calling out, but no one answered. Was anyone in there? Finally I shrugged, put both hands on the door, and pushed as hard as I could. To my surprise, it swung open on silent hinges. “She stepped through, into the City,” I murmured.
And the door slammed closed behind me like a trap.
CHAPTER
6
DESPITE A LONG SLEEP, THE CURSE STILL POUNDED IN Griff’s head as he pulled on his uniform tunic. The physician must have taken the thorns out of his hands and bandaged them the day before, but he didn’t remember it. Just as well, because she’d probably scolded him. She’d replaced the bandage over the sword cut, too, and she must have given him something to make him sleep through the rest of the day and night.
The cold, gray light of dawn seeped into the narrow window of the room. His cohort was getting dressed, a few of them talking quietly to one another, the rest silent, probably half asleep.
Quirk stumped over to him, fisted his hands on his hips, and looked Griff up and down. “You still look terrible, junior,” he pronounced.
Griff picked up his boots and socks and sat on the edge of his narrow bed. With clumsy fingers he put on the socks, then held up a boot to examine it, trying to blink away the blurriness that lifting the curse had left on his vision. Left boot. Went on left foot. He bent to put it on.
“Ready for training this morning?” Quirk asked briskly. “A good long run, some sparring, some extra drill?”
“Sure,” Griff mumbled, without looking up. Had his boots always been this difficult to buckle?
Quirk blew out an exasperated sigh. “No, you’re not.”
Griff frowned. “I’m not?”
“No,” Quirk answered. “Breakfast, then light duty. Cohort leader’s orders.”
Griff let Quirk lead him to breakfast—their ration of oatmeal and an extra piece of bread and cheese that was
going rancid and oily—and then out of the barracks and the citadel gate and into the narrow streets of the City when it was time for their shift to begin.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the young woman from whom he’d lifted the curse. Like an echo in his head, he heard her scream as he’d taken it, as if he had ripped away something incredibly precious. But curses were bad. That’s why they weren’t called gifts.
“Quit your chattering, junior,” Quirk said.
Griff blinked.
Quirk grinned up at him. “You’re quiet, even for you. Got something on your mind?”
“No,” he answered. Even though he did—their dangerous conversation the other day, about weapons for fighting Story. He wasn’t used to questioning the way things were in the City, and now his thoughts were strangely muddled.
Quirk gave him another cheerful grin. After a moment, Griff gave him a nod in return. Quirk had said not to worry about it, and if he couldn’t trust Quirk, he couldn’t trust anybody. They went on down the street that led from the citadel at the top of the City, passing plain-fronted houses and a few shops that already had lines of people outside them, waiting to get in to exchange tokens for their food rations. The road was pocked with potholes; the chilly air smelled of factory soot and insufficient drains. Clouds covered the sky, gray and heavy with rain.
Their usual patrol was in the warehouse district near the waterfall—aside from the single gate in the City wall, which was never used, the river was the only way in or out of the City, and it was where all of its trade was conducted with the outside world. When on duty there, they had to watch for smuggling and other illicit activities, so they were usually busy. Instead of that, Quirk led them toward the gate in the City wall. It was closed and locked, as usual.
Quirk poked his head into the empty guardhouse. “They’ve left fixings for tea. Fancy a cup?” He dragged a chair out into the small courtyard that faced the locked gate, then nodded back at the guardhouse. “There’s a pallet in there, too, if you’d like a nap.”
Sleeping on duty? No. Griff shook his head.
Quirk shrugged and went back into the stone guardhouse and, after calling Griff in to reach the teapot from a high shelf, and building a fire in the hearth, he set about making tea.
Griff went back out to the courtyard and leaned against the wall. The curse still pounded in his head, but the pain of it had receded a little, and his vision was starting to clear. He wondered how the young woman was doing today. When he closed his eyes, he could see her flowers. The City was gray soot, grim rain, stone. But the violets and roses she had spoken in her sorrow and fury—he’d never seen colors like that.
I STEPPED FARTHER into the City and carefully pulled the hood of my cloak over my head so that it shadowed my face. The gateway opened into a cobblestoned courtyard with a little house at its opposite end, and another arched opening that led to City streets, I assumed.
A young man dressed in plain gray was leaning against a wall of the house with his eyes closed. I reminded myself to be wary. Quietly I stepped closer, studying him. He seemed about my own age, maybe a little older. Taller by a hand than I was, and lean. Short dark hair. He was nice to look at, nothing at all like brutish Tom or Marty from the village.
“Hello,” I said, hoping he’d be nice to talk to, too.
At the sound of my voice, he straightened from the wall and opened his eyes. “What—?” He glanced past me at the City gate, which was closed. “Where did you come from?”
I kept my chin tilted down so he couldn’t see my face. “From the Forest,” I answered. “Well, from a cottage in a valley, really, and after that from a village.” I realized that I didn’t know if Merry’s village had a name or not. “It’s four days’ walk from here,” I added.
Frowning, he rubbed his head; his fingers were bandaged, I noticed.
Another person stepped out of the square stone house. Like the young man, he was dressed in gray, but he was very small, the size of a boy. Seeing me, he stopped and peered up at my shadowed face with bright green eyes. “Well, look at you.”
“You’re not a child, are you?” I didn’t really think he was; his face was too old.
“No indeed,” he answered, and gave me a gap-toothed grin. “My name is Quirk. But you can call me Quirk.”
The young man was looking more alert. “She claims that she came from the Forest,” he said, and I could hear the doubt in his voice.
“I did come from the Forest,” I said. “Or through it, rather.” As I turned my head to glare at him, my hood slipped back, revealing my face.
He stared.
It wasn’t the same kind of look that I’d gotten from Tom and Marty, not hunger, not a desire to possess; no, it was pure astonishment.
The small man—Quirk—whistled. “Oh, she’s a beauty, isn’t she, Griff?”
The young man jerked out a nod, and then wrenched his gaze away from me.
“You’re guards, I guess,” I said. “Will you let me come in? To the City, I mean?”
“Ye-es,” Quirk said, with a glance at the younger man, Griff.
“She’ll have to go to the Lord Protector,” Griff said, still not looking at me.
After a moment, Quirk nodded. “Yes, of course.” And then he added, “I could take her, junior, and leave you here on duty. You could use the rest.” He grinned up at me again. “He’s been ill.”
I smiled back at Quirk, suddenly liking him very much, and he blinked.
“He’ll call for me anyway,” Griff said.
Quirk studied my face intently, as if he was becoming more interested in me. “What did you say your name was?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” I answered. “But I’ll tell you. It’s Rose.”
“Ah. Rose.” He stared for another moment, then turned to Griff. “She’s under a curse, you’re thinking?”
“Yes.”
I blinked. “How can you tell that I’m cursed?”
Griff’s only answer was to shake his head.
“He knows curses,” Quirk explained, and gave a resigned shrug. “At any rate, I can see that we haven’t any choice in the matter.” He nodded at me. “You’ll have to come along with us, Rose.” He pointed at my face. “Best if you hide that away again.”
I pulled my hood up and they led me out into the City. It was absolutely nothing like what Shoe had described, and a lot more like the bad place that Merry had warned me about. As we walked up a steep street, the clouds lowered even more, and a misty rain started to fall. A dank chill seemed to rise from the cobblestones. I shivered. “It’s awfully grim and gray, isn’t it?” I asked Quirk. He was walking along beside me; the other one, Griff, was a step behind.
“What, the City, you mean?” he asked. When I nodded, he said, “It’s because of Story.”
That answer didn’t make any sense. “Because of stories?” I asked.
“No. Not the same thing. Story,” Quirk said, as if that explained it.
“I don’t understand,” I told him.
“Well, let’s see,” he said, and went silent for a few steps, thinking. “It was about fifty years ago, I’m thinking—”
“Once upon a time,” I put in, which was how all stories should begin.
“No, not at all,” Quirk said, startled, and glanced over his shoulder, as if worried that Griff was listening to our conversation, which I was sure he was. Quirk was the nice one, I decided, and Griff was the grim one. “Right, well,” Quirk went on, more carefully. “Almost exactly fifty years ago, as I was saying, Story rose to power here.” He waved an arm to encompass the rain-gray street we were on, and the City beyond it. “It had a Godmother, who created the City itself and collected all the people. They were under Story’s sway, and they became like clockwork gears, serving only its will. Story forced people to play certain roles that led them through one of its plots to an ending that added to its power. In the end, the Godmother and Story were defeated, but . . . ,” he went on seriously, “if Story had not been stoppe
d then, it would have spread farther, into other lands. It was a near thing, and, by all accounts, a very bad time. Then, almost twenty years ago, a new Godmother appeared and again served Story, and again she was defeated. Because this is its City, Story is always watching, always plotting. It could rise again, if we’re not careful.”
“So this Story,” I asked. “It’s something different from . . . you know, the tales we tell when we’re sitting at the hearth after dinner? Because those stories never hurt anybody, did they?”
“We-ell,” Quirk answered with a shrug. “There’s some disagreement about that.”
“No there isn’t,” Griff put in from behind us.
“Ah.” Quirk glanced over his shoulder. “I should say that rational people agree that stories of all kind are dangerous. The City is different from the rest of the world, Rose. It was originally created by Story to serve it. The theory is that any story told here, even the common tales we tell around the fire after dinner, adds to Story’s power and enables it to arise once again. To stop this from happening, we live here according to a rule of rationality. Strict, austere reason. That’s why it seems grim to you,” he finished.
“You tell no stories here at all?” I asked, astonished.
“None at all,” Quirk confirmed.
“That’s terrible,” I pronounced. “Without stories, how do the City’s people know how to make sense of their lives?”
“Yes, well.” Quirk reached up to take my elbow, to steer me around a group of drably dressed people who were waiting in a line. Then he went on in a low voice, so that only I could hear him. “There are some who would agree with you, Rose, people who tell stories in secret. Breakers, they’re called; they are a kind of rebel group. They think they can tell their own stories—new stories—and use them to make sense of their lives, as you say, and by doing so, fight Story’s power in a different way. They use words instead of swords. But listen.” He lowered his voice even more, and I bent to hear him better. “It’s best if you keep quiet. Don’t mention anything having to do with stories.”