Janni Simner - Faerie Winter

“Allie, what are you doing here?” Allie had followed me before, but that had been long ago, before winter.

Her red hair was tangled, and her eyes were shadowed, but she gave me a lopsided smile. “Taking care of you, of course. I’m your healer, remember?”

Caleb stepped into the room, his clear hair falling to his shoulders, a coin from Before hanging from a chain over his sweater. He looked no older than Karin. His silver eyes were sunken with weariness, but he smiled when he saw me. “Liza. It is good to see you awake.” He and Mom exchanged unreadable looks, and I thought of how he’d held Mom under glamour, how Mom had fled when he’d let the glamour go—but when he moved to Allie’s side, I also saw the healer who’d saved Mom’s life. Mom’s hand brushed the leaf she wore, as if for reassurance.

Allie drew the blankets back. I wore a loose nightshirt. A green plastic frog, a yellow duck, and a pink pig were all tucked in beside me. Scar tissue peeked out from beneath the shirt, and I felt more scratches, itchy and half-healed, rubbing against the wool. I reached for them.

My hand wouldn’t listen. Something was wrong—it was too heavy, too stiff. “Oh.” I lifted my arm toward me and stared at the gray stone where my hand had been. My stone fingers were half-curled, as if they still clutched the Lady’s hand. My hand itched, somewhere deep inside, but when I touched it, I felt nothing. I couldn’t hold a bow with such a hand. I couldn’t hunt.

Allie bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Liza. There’s nothing there to heal. It’s stone, but it’s perfectly healthy stone. Maybe one day you can find another changer to fix it, but I can’t. I tried.”

I traced the stone where it softened into skin just above my wrist. I would get used to this. I had no choice.

I shouldn’t even be here. “The plants killed me.” I’d fallen into their green embrace.

Allie laughed then. “No,” she said. “They didn’t.”

“Karinna’s command stopped the plants in time,” Caleb said soberly. “Or stopped them enough that Tara and Elianna could pull you free.” He reached out and ran his hands over my body, not quite touching me, sending a shiver over my skin just the same.

“It is well,” Caleb said. “You’re going to be sore for a long while, Liza, but Allison has healed the worst of the damage the newborn plants did to you, as well as the deeper hurts that came from touching the winter sleep that held them.”

Allie let out a breath and clutched the edge of the bed. “Told you you were going to be all right.” She was shaking, as if she hadn’t been as sure as she’d sounded.

Mom held my good hand tightly. “You’re hurt, too,” I told her.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Not all the plants stopped at Karinna’s command, that’s all. Some of them fought Elianna and me when we wanted the two of you back. They lost. Kaylen can heal me later, once he’s had time to recover.”

I glanced at her splinted wrist, her bandaged arm. Not all Mom’s injuries had come from the plants. More memories slid into place. Karin had broken her wrist, but her arm—I rolled away, unwilling to face her.

“Don’t you dare.” Mom reached out and brushed my hair back from my face. “I will not let you blame yourself, Liza. Not for this.”

I focused on the stone where my hand should have been. “You don’t—”

“I do understand.” The steel in Mom’s voice surprised me. She’d put a knife through the Lady’s heart—I shouldn’t have been surprised. “If anyone understands the effects of glamour, it’s me.”

Allie tugged on Caleb’s arm. “What’s glamour?” she asked. Caleb looked down, as if ashamed, and didn’t answer.

Mom rubbed my back. “I do not blame you,” she said firmly. “I will never blame you. I know what it’s like.”

I knew what it was like now. I knew why Mom had been so frightened when I’d used my magic on her.

“Look at me, Liza.”

I’d once gone through fire and glass to save my mother, but just then, nothing was as hard as turning back to her. “You have my word,” I said, speaking the promise she’d wanted before I’d left. “I will not use my magic to compel you ever again, not without your consent.”

I sat up. Mom drew a shuddering breath and pulled me close. “I had no right to ask that of you,” she said.

“You had every right.” And I would keep my word, even were magic not compelling me.

When Mom drew away, Allie pressed a cup to my lips. The thin meat broth within soothed my parched throat and calmed my stomach. When I was done, I stood on unsteady feet. My stone hand made my balance strange. I let Allie tie a strip of old sheet into a sling to rest my arm in. The pain in my shoulder was gone.

I moved to the window and pushed the shutters open one-handed. Green flooded my sight. The window faced the forest, and beyond the town the trees were in full leaf, so bright and deep they made the gray sky above seem green as well. A cold breeze blew in, and it smelled of wet growing things. I inhaled deeply. Our crops would grow now. I knew it down to my bones.

Allie hovered by my side. How had she and Caleb known to come? “The trees,” I said. “The townsfolk—”

“They’re fine,” Mom said as I turned back to her. “When you called spring, you called them free from the trees, too. Or maybe they would have changed back anyway once spring came—there’s a lot I don’t know about magic.” Her fingers brushed Caleb’s. Forgiving someone for the things they’d done under glamour was one thing, but forgiving them for the glamour itself—I still didn’t understand it.

“Ethan’s holding on, too,” Mom said. “It’ll be touch and go for a while, but turning him into a tree was probably the best thing anyone could have done for him. It slowed his dying enough for Kaylen to tend him, though Kaylen only had power enough left to stabilize him, for now. He’ll do more later.” Mom shook her head. “I wonder what the Lady would think, knowing she’d saved a human life.”

I rubbed my arm in its sling. Just thinking about the Lady made me feel cold.

I heard more talking down the hall, from Matthew’s room—but it wasn’t Matthew I heard. Kyle had sent Matthew away, beyond the Lady’s grasp. Why, then, was I suddenly afraid?

I focused on the voices, pushing the fear aside. “I need to return soon.” Karin sounded terribly weary. “The Wall will be waking, and the plant speaker I’ve left behind is largely untrained.”

“I don’t understand,” Elin said. “You risk everything for them.”

“Then you shall have to settle for simply accepting it.” Karin’s footsteps moved down the hall. Caleb hurried out the door. His steps made no sound—faerie folk never made any sound. Something was wrong. I stumbled as I crossed the room. Mom steadied me as Caleb led Karin inside.

Her eyes were bandaged. “Liza? Give me some sign that you are well, for though Kaylen could not tell me so if it weren’t true, I would know for myself.”

I remembered thorns reaching for her eyes. “Are you—”

Karin moved toward my voice, and I heard the slight hesitation in her steps. “They may yet heal.”

I hadn’t thought I’d made any sound, but I must have, for Karin said softly, “It is all right, Liza. The trees are no longer silent. I hear them all around us, speaking of spring, of rain, of turning their leaves toward the sun. You have done more than I dared hope for, and it is an honor to be your teacher.”

I glanced at Caleb. Surely he could heal this. He could heal so much.

“Injuries involving connections between body and mind are never wholly under the healer’s control.” Caleb’s voice held steady, as if he were delivering a lesson. “I can only repair the pathways the plants damaged. I cannot make the mind decide to follow where they lead. That will happen or not, over time.”