Nine hours later, she heard the chime of the stones. Her cocoon, as thick as three bodies now, and immobile, positioned her so that her back was to the door. She saw sunlight spill across the floor as the door opened behind her. “Father Forest?”
“Yes, my child. How are you?”
She was aching and sweating inside her wooden shell. Her ribs hurt, her bladder pinched, and her skin itched, and he had the nerve to ask how she was? He dared call her “my child,” as if he were some benevolent priest? She was not a child, and she wasn’t his. “You need to let me go.”
He shut the door, closed out the light. “I am sorry,” he said, “but you give me little choice.” She heard feet shuffle. She could not see him. Neck paralyzed, she had to face the carved cabinets.
“You’re making a mistake,” she said.
Father Forest hobbled into view and put a pot onto the stove. “You are reckless. The young often are. In the meantime, it is up to your elders to ensure your selfish behavior does not cause lasting harm. You risk the life of a munaqsri, and that cannot be allowed.”
“Bear is a munaqsri!” Why wouldn’t anyone understand that? She was on their side—trying to help one of their own! She fought to keep her voice calm and even. “If you keep me here, you condemn the polar bears.”
She saw pity in his face. “The bear is gone,” he said gently. “I know it is difficult for you to accept, but he is beyond the world. He is as dead.”
“He is not dead!” Cassie thrashed, and the vines squeezed.
“You have the baby to think of now, and the polar bears are a dying species regardless,” he said. “You must accept his loss, and—”
“I will not. He’s not dead!” Never dead. She couldn’t think it. It wasn’t true. He was a prisoner, waiting to be freed, like her mother years ago.
“Some nice stew will make you feel better. Carrots, potatoes, onions”—he fetched vegetables from the cabinet—“tomatoes. If you truly love him, you will let him go.”
“He promised me,” she said. “‘Until my soul leaves my body.’” A munaqsri couldn’t break a promise. Right? Unless it was countered with another promise. Cassie remembered Gram’s story: The North Wind’s Daughter had countered her father’s promise with her own. Cassie felt despair tighten around her, tighter than the vines.
Father Forest peeled and sliced the vegetables and then added them to the pot. “Is that what your bear wanted? For you to seek your death and your child’s? No one has ever been east of the sun and west of the moon.”
“Not true,” she said. Gail had gone there, blown by the North Wind. The North Wind . . . Cassie cursed herself. She should have gone to the North Wind. He could have taken her to Bear. Stupid idiot. Now she had a plan, now when she was trussed up like a snared hare.
“No, my child, any attempt to reach the castle is doomed to fail. It is best for you to stay here. It is what the bear would have wanted.”
Promise me you will not try. “He didn’t mean it!” If you love me, let me go. “He doesn’t want to be a troll prisoner. He wants to be with me!” She was surprised at the strength of her conviction. When push came to shove, she did believe he loved her. The realization took her breath away.
“Sometimes bad things happen to good people.” Father Forest ladled stew into a bowl. He carried it to Cassie and commanded the floor to raise him up until his face was even with hers. The smell of the stew filled her head. Betraying her, her stomach cried. “Everything will work out for the best,” Father Forest said. “You will see.” He lifted a spoonful to her lips. “Open up, now. You need to keep your strength up.” Saliva flooded her tongue. “Come on,” he said. “For the baby.”
Cassie spat in his face.
Father Forest wiped his eyes. “Foolish child. This is for your own good.”
“I hope you have a forest fire,” she said. She would not let him see her fear.
“You will stay up there until you understand.” At the flick of his hand, the floor lowered him down and the vines jerked her arms. She bit back a scream. He turned his back on her and emptied the stew back into the pot.
Tears pricked her eyes as her arms ached. She blinked her eyes clear.
“Someday,” he said, “you will thank me.”
And he left her alone.
* * * * *
Cassie wet herself during the sunlit night. She felt the warmth run down her thighs and pool at her knees, where the vines were a tight ring. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to think about anything but where she was. She thought of the station. Dad, Gram, Max . . . She’d always assumed that if she had a child, they’d be there with her. She pictured herself as a little kid, surrounded by scientists and snowmobiles. She’d been so lucky.
In the morning, she watched Father Forest putter in the kitchen, fixing himself breakfast. She hoped his eggs tasted like urine. But when he brought her some, she ate it. “There’s a good girl,” he clucked. He poured water into her mouth. Most of it spilled down her neck and seeped in between the vines. “Are you ready to cooperate?”
“I don’t want to starve before I rescue Bear,” she said.
He frowned at her. “Perhaps in another day, you will feel differently.”
“Don’t count on it.”
He left her again, and she hung from the ceiling for the rest of the day. It was hard, harder than she ever could have imagined, to not despair. She thought of her mother, prisoner of the trolls for eighteen years. No wonder Gail had nightmares. The wonder was that she had survived as sane as she was.
Father Forest returned in the evening. She heard the door open behind her. She couldn’t move to see him.
“You are evil,” she said flatly.
“Not true, my child. I have your interests at heart.” On his command, the vines loosened. Cassie collapsed to the floor. Her cheek pressed against the wood. She tried to remember how her muscles worked. She heard the munaqsri kneel beside her. “It hurts me to see you like this,” he said. “Please, be sensible. Cooperate, and your stay here will be pleasant. You will be my guest.”
Arms shaking, she pushed herself up. She reeked, and her thighs felt sticky. Blood rushed into her stiff fingers. Her eyes met Father Forest’s.
He had tears in his eyes. “I am not a cruel man,” he said. “All I want is what is best for you and your baby. Please, do not fight me. I am not your enemy.”
In a burst, Cassie scrambled for the door. Her legs failed her. She threw herself at the doorway, and then the vines snapped her back, like a dog on a leash. She sank back to the ground.
Vines lashed her to the floor. Clucking his tongue, Father Forest said, “Another day then.” He stepped over her. She heard the bedroom door open and shut.
Alone, tied to the floor, she watched the shadows from the shutters move across the floor. “Oh, Bear,” she whispered. How could she rescue him now? Who would rescue her? If she were in these vines for another day, she thought she would lose her mind. Anything else she could have endured—any pain, any challenge—but not this horrible helplessness. “I’m sorry.”
She had to be free of the vines.
A small voice inside her whispered that once she was free, she could earn Father Forest’s trust, lull him into complacency, and escape when he least expected it. She tried to convince herself it was a plan, not an excuse.
It felt like she was betraying her husband, betraying her father, and, most of all, betraying her mother. It made her sick to think about it. But her joints hurt, and her muscles burned.
She heard Father Forest enter the kitchen. He stepped over her to put the kettle on the stove.
“Fine,” she croaked. “You win.”
He beamed like a cartoon character. “Release.”
The vines retracted, and this time, Cassie did not run. She lay silently on the floor, telling herself it was part of the plan, but feeling like crying.
TWENTY-FOUR
Latitude 63° 54’ 53” N
Longitude 125° 24’ 07” W
>
Altitude 1301 ft.
CASSIE BIT THE INSIDE OF HER CHEEK so hard that she tasted blood. Meek, she thought, concentrating. Beaten. Using sheer willpower, she lowered her eyes. She could have seared a hole in the wood floor with her stare.
Father Forest beamed. “Good girl.”
How could anyone think Bear was a monster? Father Forest was a true monster.
He handed her a broom. She took it, wanting to snap it over her knee. Last night, after her surrender, he had simply fed her and let her sleep. But this morning, he’d greeted her with instructions. Become a good mother, he had said. Be the woman that Bear would have wanted her to be.
He was wrong. Bear loved her for who she was. She wouldn’t let this gnome poison her mind. She may have doubted Bear once, but never again.
Half her height, Father Forest could not pat her on the head, so he patted her on the elbow. She gripped the broom handle with white knuckles. Just until he’s lulled, she told herself. After she’d fooled him into thinking he’d won, she’d escape.
“Set a good example for your little one,” he said.
He went out into his garden of ferns. For an instant, sunlight flooded the kitchen. She saw dust hanging in sunbeams. Then the door shut like a cell door. Her insides screamed. She wanted Bear now.
Follow the plan, she told herself. Cassie swept viciously. She pounded at the floor with the broom bristles. Dust plumed around her. Cassie whacked at cobwebs. “Die, die, die!”
In the doorway, Father Forest sneezed.
Cassie froze midswing.
“Energetic,” he said dryly.
The broom fell out of her hands. It clattered to the floor. Both of them looked at it. Maybe “meek” wasn’t her forte. She swallowed and then plastered a smile on her face. She’d be free soon, she promised herself.
* * * * *
Three nights later, while midnight sun leaked through the shutters, Cassie inched across the bedroom. She saw the outline of her pack. Kneeling beside it, she placed her mukluks inside and packed it all down hard. She could not afford a single sound. Slowly and silently, she lifted the pack and settled it onto her shoulders. She slipped out the bedroom door.
Listening, she stood in the shadowed kitchen like a deer on alert. Her heart thumped in her throat. To her ears, her breathing sounded like a wind tunnel. Father Forest snored.
Barefoot, Cassie crept across the kitchen. She watched for coils of vines. Like sleeping snakes under the cabinets and chairs, the vines were quiescent. She put her hand on the doorknob.
Without warning, wood encased her hand. Biting back a scream, Cassie tugged. Bark spread. It grew over her wrist. She hit it with her free hand. It spread up her forearm. She pried with her fingers. It covered her elbow. Father Forest kept snoring.
Oh, no, please, no. Bracing her feet against the door, she pulled.
She couldn’t be trapped again. She reached behind her. Her ice axe was lashed to the pack’s outside straps. If she could reach it . . . She yanked at the straps with her left hand as the wood oozed over her right arm.
Clasps on her pack clinked as loud as bells. She did not care—the wood was covering her right shoulder. She swung backward and hoped she had good aim.
Cassie slammed the wood with the axe.
Father Forest screamed.
Cassie lost her grip. She caught the axe handle before it fell. He was awake! As Father Forest tore into the kitchen, Cassie hacked at the wood. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Wood chips flew.
Vines stirred. Father Forest shouted. She yanked at her encased arm. Not enough. She chopped as the vines snaked around her body and up her left arm, the one with the axe. She fought them and brought the axe down hard. The wood splintered. Sunlight pierced through the cracks. She wiggled her right hand free.
The vines squeezed her left elbow. Cassie yelled as her muscles spasmed. Her hand opened. The axe fell. It hit the ground. She dove for it. Vines snapped her back.
She swung in the air.
“I can feel it bleed,” Father Forest said softly. Cassie shivered. Vines coiled around her legs. She hung, spinning gently, watching Father Forest stroke the axe marks. “How could you? Have you no heart?”
Hating him, she said nothing.
He ordered the vines to swallow her supplies.
* * * * *
Through the kitchen shutters, Cassie could hear him cooing at his ferns. She wanted to claw the windows. The fact that he hadn’t found it necessary to cocoon her in vines this time only underscored how thoroughly trapped she was. She paced the length of the kitchen. The wood was warm under her bare feet, as if it were reminding her it was alive, as if she were likely to forget. The vines had absorbed her pack, mukluks and all, like an amoeba. She wasn’t likely to forget that. How was she supposed to escape from a living prison when a magical being was the jailer and she had no equipment and no supplies?
Searching for her pack, she tested the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen, the living room, the two bedrooms, and the bathroom. But the drawers wouldn’t budge, and the cabinets behaved as if they were solid wood. The entire cottage seemed carved out of a single tree. Everything—furniture, fixtures, walls—grew out of the floor. She returned to the kitchen. There had to be something here that could help her.
Cassie tugged on a cabinet under the kitchen sink, and to her surprise, it popped open. She shot a quick look at the vines (the vines were sleeping like coiled ropes) and at the shutters (Father Forest was just outside, humming an Irish jig). She knelt and peered into the cabinet.
The cabinet held cleaning supplies. Her heart sank. “Subtle,” she said to the shutters. He must have known she’d search the cottage. He had wanted her to find this.
Cassie weeded through the cabinet, in case it miraculously held anything useful. She emptied out Comet, Pledge, Lysol . . . until all that remained was the sink plumbing. It seemed strange to her that the cottage had ordinary plumbing and that such a powerful munaqsri owned everyday cleaning supplies. Couldn’t the magic do it? Maybe he preferred it not to?
Cassie shook her head. To think she had come to a point where plumbing and Lysol surprised her more than magic. She remembered back to when she’d first met Bear—She squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Concentrate on escaping. She rocked back on her heels, considering the cabinet. She didn’t see a single crack large enough to lose a paper clip, much less a backpack. She would have to escape as she was, barefoot and without her supplies. Dad would help her. He had prepared her for this. He’d taught her to forage—she could eat berries, bird eggs, and bark. She’d do her best to avoid giardia, dysentery, and the other joys of Mother Nature. She’d drink from running streams. But first she had to escape this cottage.
Cassie stood and looked around. The only part of the cottage that she had not explored was the vines themselves. Gathering her courage, she poked the vines. They were as inert as an ordinary plant. She picked up one end with her thumb and forefinger and held it at arm’s length. It dangled, as limp as a garden hose. Braver, she uncoiled it. She traced it back to its source.
The vines had grown from the floor, walls, and ceiling. She stretched them across the room to the other side of the stove. There was no place the vines could not reach. As long as she was confined inside, she would never make it past them—or the doorknob.
She had to return to her original plan: Lull Father Forest into complacency and convince him to trust her enough to let her outside. From there . . . She peered through the shutters at the trees beyond the picket fence. If she could outdistance the vines, she could disappear between the trees.
It could be weeks, though, before he trusted her enough. Or months. She did not want to think about the possibility of never.
She could do this, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she were afraid of work. She knelt again by the kitchen sink, tore open a package of sponges, and began scrubbing the kitchen floor.
After three hours, her knees, back, and shoulders ached. She was
sweating, and her stomach felt like a furnace. Cassie sat up and rubbed her neck. She looked around her. For some reason, the kitchen had seemed larger while scrubbing.
She had to be patient, she told herself. She had to be more patient than she had ever been in tracking polar bears. She had to sneak up on her freedom. As she took her sponge and Spic and Span (pine-scented, of course) into the living room, she thought of her mother surviving for years in the troll castle. She wished she’d asked her mother more about it. She wished she’d talked to her more in general, about real things, “feelings” things, instead of the conversations they had had about station minutiae. She promised herself she’d rectify that someday—if she ever made it out of here. Gingerly, Cassie got back down on her hands and knees. She winced as her back twinged.
Father Forest hovered in the doorway. “Good girl,” he said.
TWENTY-FIVE
Latitude 63° 54’ 53” N
Longitude 125° 24’ 07” W
Altitude 1301 ft.
THE LONG AFTERNOON OF SUMMER slipped away. As the autumnal equinox crept closer, the stars appeared earlier, the sun rose later, and the aurora borealis rippled like a closing theater curtain over the northern forest.
Cassie pressed her cheek against the window shutters and peered up at a sliver of sky. She wrapped her arms around her broad stomach and felt her skin roll as the baby shifted inside her. Bear had said she was due in the fall. She was nearly out of time.
As she watched the sliver of sky lighten from deep blue to rosy pink, she tried to keep from screaming. She’d lost the summer to pointless chores. She was sure that Father Forest could have commanded his cottage to do them. His reliance on man-made plumbing and Spic and Span was an odd quirk, as if he’d forgotten a munaqsri’s powers could affect ordinary chores. But she had done it all without complaint. Still, she was trapped inside this wooden cage and was no closer to rescuing Bear.