Ash & Bramble (26 page)

“You could try it and see if Cor's memories are real,” Shoe goes on, “and then we'd know if East Oria is somewhere we can escape to.” He shrugs. “If it's all right with you, Cor, that is.”

“Yes, I'm willing, of course,” Cor says. “How does it work?”

“The Godmother touches the thimble here,” Shoe says, pointing to his own forehead. He shivers. “I don't know how she does it beyond that.”

I give a decided nod. “We might as well try it.” I slip the glowing thimble onto my finger and turn to Cor. He leans forward, then closer and touches his lips to mine. “For luck,” he says softly, and pulls back again.

“Keep still,” I order, but my lips tingle from his kiss. I raise my hand and gently brush aside a curl of his dark hair and place my thimble against his forehead. He closes his eyes.

Who are you, really, Cor?
I find myself thinking.
Are you just a prince, or are you something more?

As if in answer to my thought, the thimble blazes, a flash that scorches through me and into Cor. He flinches back and darkness falls again.

I blink the shadows out of my eyes and ask the thimble for light. As it begins to glow again, I see Cor rubbing his forehead and frowning.

“That was . . .” He pauses to clear his throat. “That was very odd.”

“Did it work?” Shoe asks.

“I . . .” He blinks again. “Yes, I believe it did.”

I hold my breath.

“My name is Cornelius,” Cor says slowly, “and I am a prince of the realm, and my mother, the queen, lives in East Oria.”

“You remembered that before,” Shoe points out.

“Yes. But that is not all.” Cor glances aside at Shoe, and I see that trace of haughtiness again. “I remember being taken from East Oria. I was on a hunt. The Godmother's footmen ambushed me and imprisoned me—and my dogs—in a carriage and brought me to her city. I remember the Godmother using her thimble—she must have ripped away my memory of being taken.”

“She needed a prince for Story,” Shoe says, “so she went and got a prince.”

“Apparently,” Cor says, still looking dazed. “Just as she found a shoemaker when she needed one, and the other servants who do her work for her.”

The thimble's glow is fading. I want to think more about this, but I can't stay awake. I'm weary down to my bones. I slip the thimble into my pocket again and curl on my side on
the pine-needly ground. As I drift into sleep, I catch bits and pieces of Cor and Shoe's conversation, something about the Godmother's half-animal, half-man footmen.

“It's a cruel thing to do to a dog,” I hear Cor's deep voice say. “Dogs are perfectly content and complete in what they are. It's terrible to take that away from them.”

“You know dogs very well,” Shoe's lighter voice says.

“Better than people, I sometimes think.” Cor's voice is rueful.

There is a long pause, and I drift closer to sleep.

Cor's deep voice drags me back to the surface again. “Shoe,” he says formally. “I owe you an apology.”

Shoe makes a sleepy, questioning noise.

“Yes. You told me that you were in love with Pen when she was Pin, and, well, I betrayed your trust.”

There is a silence. When he speaks, Shoe's voice is muffled. “You told her?”

“Yes, I did. It was not . . . well, it was not noble of me. I've been taught better. Again, I am sorry.”

A weary sigh from Shoe. “It's all right, Cor.”

“Thank you,” Cor says stiffly.

Then silence.

A
HAND ON
my shoulder wakes me. It is still dark, and I can tell from my gritty eyes that I haven't been asleep for very long. A blanket is over my shoulders and a coat is under my head, a pillow. The coat is leather—it must be Cor's.

“All right,” Cor is saying from the darkness.

“I'm sorry, Pin,” Shoe says softly. It is his hand that shook me awake. “The forest has given us a path again. We have to go on.”

I sit up, rubbing my eyes. At first I can't see anything, but Shoe's hand bumps my face, and then he gently takes my chin and turns my head so I am looking in the right direction. Something on the ground—like a scattering of pearl buttons on black velvet—is glowing, leading into the darkness.

“Mushrooms,” Shoe whispers. “They're marking the path.”

I gather up my water bottles; I can hear Shoe and Cor packing up the supplies and Cor putting his coat on again. Shoe gets out a rope for us to hold in a line, first Cor, then Shoe, and then me. We are about to step onto the path again when, from far behind us, comes the faint echo of a howl.

“How far, do you think?” comes Shoe's voice out of the darkness.

“At the river,” Cor answers. “They must have found the path.”

My heart gives a stutter of fright, and then the rope jerks and we are off on the mushroom-marked trail.

We stumble along for the rest of the night. The air grows icy, and my hands are too numb with cold to grip the rope. After I've dropped it for the third time, Shoe takes my hand and pulls me behind him. In my other hand I hold the thimble, drawing strength from it. I consider using it to show our way, but its light could betray us to our pursuers, so I keep it
clenched in my fist. On and on we go. I look back and see that the mushrooms marking our trail go dark after we have passed.

At last the sky grows pale with dawn. The forest takes shape around us—dark pine trees with moss clinging to every branch, more ferns and bushes. My legs feel heavy and sore as we crest a ridge. Cor keeps going, leading us. Shoe and I pause and, panting, we look back in the direction we've come. Behind us, dense white fog is flowing down the hill, slithering among the trees, gathering in the valley below.

Shoe's face is drawn and pale, his eyes smudged with weariness. I probably don't look any better. I dredge up a grin. “I suppose the fog will confound the trackers, don't you?”

“For a little while, maybe,” he says.

As if in answer, a howl echoes from the valley. Another one answers, and then another. My stomach clenches. “That was closer than last night.”

Shoe nods. He still has my hand in his. He steps closer. “Pin, if we don't—”

“But we will,” I interrupt. He wants to say one last thing before we are captured, and I can't bear to hear it.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You thought—when you were Pin, I mean—you thought there was something Before the Godmother's fortress, and you thought we could escape back to it. But I don't think we can. It's like . . .” He shakes his head. “Circles within circles. You climb over one wall, only to find yourself in a new prison.”

“What?” I blink. “Are you saying this is all pointless? All this struggle, this pain?” Suddenly I am angry with him. “Are we just supposed to let go? To give up hope and let it take us?”

“I don't know,” he answers. “We have to figure some way out that isn't escape.”

“There is no other way,” I insist. “We have to keep going. At least we know that East Oria is real—it's out there. And . . .” I don't know why my heart starts pounding. “And I want you to stop calling me Pin. I'm not that girl anymore. My name is Pen.”

He gives me a searching look. “Yes, all right,” he says quietly. “Pen.”

I think he understands what I mean by this.

A
LL DAY, THE HOWLS OF THE TRACKERS GET CLOSER.
C
OR
pauses and pulls cheese and apples out of his pack, and they eat while walking. Shoe feels his shoulders hunching with every echoing howl, and he can't help but think about the ending that is waiting for him when they are caught—and if they keep trying to escape to East Oria they
will
be caught, he doesn't have any doubt about that. It will be the icy wind, the post, the pig-snouted guard taking practice swings with the whip. The Godmother waving a languid hand, her smile of triumph as they begin. And then trying to count how many lashes he's had so he'll know when it is over, and losing the number in a haze of blood and pain, realizing that this time they're not going to stop. Not until he is dead.

For Pin it will be just as bad. No,
Pen
. He shakes his
head and trudges on. The Godmother will take her memories again, he guesses, and Cor's, and she will become the blank-faced bride of an equally empty-headed prince. She'll be chewed up by the relentlessly turning gears of Story, and the shimmering, sharp flame of a girl that he knows will be no more.

Ahead of him Pen trips over a root, going to her knees. Two shuffling steps and he catches up in time to help her to her feet.

“Drat this dress,” she says. Her face is stark white; her eyes are so shadowed they look bruised.

Ahead, Cor pauses and looks back. “Come on,” he shouts. “They're coming.”

“Yes, we noticed,” Pen mutters, and this time she doesn't smile.

Without speaking Shoe takes her hand and they stumble on.

Cor's confession last night had shaken him—Pen knows that he loves her. But he can't bring himself to speak to her about it; it's like a loud, silent thing hanging between them, his keen awareness of her every breath, her every glance at him. With every step, he feels the urgency of their situation, and of needing to tell her.
Pen, you are Pin too, and I love you
.

But he can't. It wouldn't fair to burden her with it, not now. Pen thinks she doesn't know him; to her, he's practically a stranger, still. Doubtless she thinks much more about handsome Cor than about him.

So he'll have to love her—and stay silent until their ending catches up with them.

Overhead the sky is covered with dense gray clouds; the air gets colder until they are breathing out puffs of steam with every step. The clouds lower, hovering just above the tops of the pine trees, and it begins to snow, fat white flakes that fall so thickly that he can hardly see Cor's dark shape ahead of them. Within a few minutes the path is covered; a layer of white covers the trees. Blinking snowflakes from his lashes, Shoe checks the way they've come. Their footprints look black against the snow, a clear path for the trackers to follow.

Pen sees it too. “Oh, curse it,” she says wearily. The shoulders and hood of her cloak are dusted with snow, and she is shivering.

“Maybe not,” Shoe realizes. “The trackers won't smell as keenly in the snow. Can you use the thimble?”

She looks blankly at him; she's too tired to think.

“To erase the trail we're leaving,” he explains.

She blinks. “I suppose I can try.” She pulls the thimble from her pocket, puts it on her finger, and crouches. With a pale, shaking hand, she reaches out to touch one of her footprints. She closes her eyes. “It's as you said. It likes warmth better,” she murmurs. “Cold is for the Godmother.” She is silent for another long moment. Snow sifts down around them. “I think I can make it work,” she says at last.

As he watches, a faint, warm wind swirls out from the tip of the thimble, brushing over the ground like an invisible
broom. Where it touches, their footprints melt away. The wind sweeps back along their path, erasing their trail.

Pin plucks the thimble from her finger; Shoe bends and helps her stand. “That should help,” she says, and casts him a brief smile. Seeing the grimness in his face she adds, “I know, you think we don't have a chance.”

“We didn't last time,” he says.

“I wasn't there last time,” she reminds him.

Yes, Shoe decides. It's definitely better that he stays silent.

C
OR COMES BACK TO URGE US ON.
“P
EN,
”
HE PANTS.
H
IS
black hair is dusted with snow. In the gray light, his eyes look pale, like ice.

“Yes, we're coming,” I say. Scraping up the last of my strength, I straighten my spine.

“You need food,” Cor says, and shares some dried apples. Without speaking we eat them and then drink ice-cold water from the bottles I've been carrying.

We turn to continue down the forest path when a creature, wraithlike and gray in the snow, appears on the path before us. It is man-shaped, with a dog's muzzle bent to the ground, sniffing; on its paw-like hands and feet it wears leather booties.

“Tracker,” Cor says, drawing his knife. “Stay behind me.”

Seeing us, the tracker freezes. Its muzzle sniffs the air. It is wearing a sort of rough woolen jacket buckled over its belly.

“Wait,” Shoe says from beside me. “I think—”

A second tracker appears. It halts and cocks its head, alert.

Cor steps forward to meet them, his whole body tense, ready to fight; it is clear he's had training and knows what he's doing. His knife glints in the gray light.

“No,” Shoe says more loudly. “Stop, Cor.”

“What are you doing?” I ask, and try to grab Shoe's arm.

He twists out of my grasp and pushes past Cor. “Put the knife away,” he says, and goes to the trackers, who pant up at him, their hot breath turning to smoke that wreathes their heads. “Jip, Jes,” Shoe says. He peers down the path. “Where's your master?”

The trackers seem to grin up at Shoe; if they had tails, they'd be wagging them.

Shoe glances back at us. “They're friends,” he says. He opens his mouth to say something else, when another dark shape looms out of the snow.

It is a huge man with a bristling mustache crusted with snow and ice, a knitted cap on his head, and an ax slung across his back. Without hesitation, he seizes Shoe's hand and shakes it, then claps his other hand on Shoe's shoulder. “I thought it must be you,” he says in a deep, gravelly voice.

A friend?

Shoe turns back to me and Cor. “It's the Huntsman.” He
sees my questioning look and explains. “The one I told you about, who has the hideout in the forest.” He turns to the big man. “I didn't think we'd find you.”

“Well, we've been keeping an eye out,” he says. Both of the trackers are grinning up at him; he pats their heads. “This your girl? Pin?”

To my profound lack of surprise, Shoe flushes. “No,” he says shortly. “Her name is Pen.”

The Huntsman gives him a searching look, and then nods to me, then to Cor. “A prince, I'm thinking?”

Cor nods back and sheathes his knife. “You may call me Cor,” he says.

“Right, well,” the Huntsman says. “The forest isn't happy about them that are tracking you. We've got a clear line out if we go now, and they'll not be able to follow. Do you have another few hours in you?”

“Yes,” I answer. I can find the strength somewhere if there's a promise of rest and rescue at the end of it.

“Yes, of course,” Cor adds.

The Huntsman nods at Shoe. “He's not running into trees yet, is he?” he asks me.

“No,” I answer, not sure what he's talking about.

“Not yet,” Shoe answers.

“Stubborn, your lad Shoe,” the Huntsman says to me.

“I've noticed,” I say, and as Shoe turns an even more interesting shade of red, the Huntsman gives me a beaming smile.
Suddenly I like him enormously and give him a wicked grin in return. Because Shoe is wrong—there
is
escape, and we have found it.

“We'd best get on, then,” he says, and takes the water bottles from me, and both Cor's and Shoe's packs, and slings them over his broad shoulders. “By night you'll have a hot fire and dinner in your bellies.”

I
WAKE UP
in the morning and lie still, savoring the comfort of being warm and relatively safe, with the prospect of a good breakfast ahead of me. Far overhead is the rugged ceiling of a cave, the stone pale, like sand. Natural light is coming in from somewhere, and there are torches, too, the flickering flames making shadows dance against the cave's rough walls. I can hear the crackle of a fire and the murmur of voices. And I can smell sausages cooking.

I only remember snatches of the night before, trudging with my head down through the snow, the Huntsman and his trackers leading us on, Cor's strong arm around my shoulders toward the end, helping me along. Then a climb, my fingers numb against the rungs of a ladder, and the cave and a wooden bowl full of stew that I can't remember actually eating, and then nothing else. I must have fallen asleep.

“She's awake,” says a harsh-sounding voice.

Stiff in every muscle, I sit up, pushing tangled hair out of my eyes.

Crouched next to my blankets is a young woman whose
face matches her voice. She is sturdy and short and has pockmarked brown skin and straight black hair pulled back into a braid; a jagged scar runs across her cheek almost to her ear; her dark eyes are narrowed, assessing me. She wears trousers, a close-fitting leather vest, and a shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Her bare arms ripple with muscle. “I'm Templeton,” she says, and stands. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “That's Zel.” The girl she is pointing to nods at me, and I blink. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, blonde and blue-eyed, and taller than her friend, slim, and smoothly muscled. Her hair is shaved short, revealing the cool poise of her head and her long, slender neck.

“Breakfast?” Templeton asks.

“Yes indeed,” I answer, and scramble out of bed. The floor of the cave is made of sand that feels soft under my bare feet.

Templeton looks me up and down. “Expect you'd like to clean up first.” My dress is ragged around the hem and stiff with dirt and pine needles.

But
breakfast
. . . ! My stomach growls.

Templeton grins. “It'll still be there when you're done. Come on.” She leads me into a corner of the sleeping area—which is curtained off from the rest of the cave with blankets pinned to a rope—where there's a wooden bucket full of water. Zel hands me a cloth and a cup full of slimy soap, and I strip down and wash, even sticking my head in to do my hair. “You're about Zel's size,” Templeton says, coming
up with a pile of folded clothes in her arms as I'm toweling myself dry. I put the clothes on—a shirt with cloth thin from washing, a leather vest like Templeton's that comes halfway down my thighs, and trousers, which I like, though I don't ever remember wearing them before, only dresses. I lace up my boots again, comb my fingers through my wet hair, and feel ready for anything.

They lead me into the rest of the cave. I can see now that the natural light is coming from a wide, flat opening high in one wall; a ladder leads down from it. In the middle of the cave is a bright fire with smoke drifting up to a natural chimney, a crack in the ceiling. People, all strangers except for Cor and the Huntsman, are sitting around the fire on sawed-off logs for chairs. The trackers are there too, curled together with another dog; all three look up alertly as I come in. Some of the people are drinking something hot from tin cups; others are eating sausages and thick slabs of toast with cheese. My stomach growls again.

“Good morning, Pen,” Cor says, coming up to me, taking my hand. He looks hardly affected by our long flight; even his curly hair is neatly combed.

“Good morning,” I say, looking past him. “Is there breakfast?”

The Huntsman gets up from his log chair. Now that he's not wearing his woolen cap, I can see that his head is completely bald—except for his eyebrows and his drooping mustache. “There is,” he says in his deep voice, and hands
me a plate of sausages and toast slathered with jam.

“Thank you,” I say through a mouthful of toast. “How did you know I like jam?”

“Who doesn't like jam?” the Huntsman asks, and sits down again.

“I don't,” Cor says. “I prefer butter.”

While eating and listening to the Huntsman and Cor talk about toast, and about the dog and the trackers, I look around. The other people are watching me. None of them are Shoe. I open my mouth to ask where he is, but the Huntsman beats me to it.

“He's out with Tobias having a scout around,” he says. “He'll be back soon.”

“Come and sit down, Pen,” Cor says, and guides me to a stool.

I sit and give my breakfast the attention it deserves. The sausages are delicious. The jam is raspberry. I eat every crumb, and the Huntsman hands me a cup of something hot that is not tea. I take a sip. Coffee. Mmm. I can't remember the last time I had coffee. I take another sip and finally pay attention to the others in the cave.

There is the Huntsman, talking quietly with Templeton and Zel by the fire. I see four redheaded girls who must be sisters—“there used to be twelve of us,” one of them tells me—and a little hunchbacked old man with crooked fingers sits next to an old woman with a creased, smiling face. Another woman with a dress cut very low and tousled hair as
if she's just gotten up from a long sleep bends over the fire, pouring herself a cup of coffee. Farther from the fire, two men are sitting shoulder to shoulder, their knees touching. One of them is ordinary-looking; the other has a wide, ugly mouth, a flat nose, a collection of warts on his chin, and a twinkling smile in his eyes. As I look at them, the ugly one gives a welcoming nod. There are a few others, too, and they all look . . . confident, somehow. Sure of who they are.

“He says they're people who have escaped from Story, or were hurt by it,” Cor says to me in a low voice. “They are rebels, and the forest hides them from the Godmother.”

“And now we're rebels too,” I say, and drink more coffee.

“I am a prince,” Cor corrects gently, “and I will make my way to East Oria.”

“Story's not going to let you escape that easily, Cor.”

“Nevertheless,” he says. “I will go, and you should come with me. My mother, the queen, must know of these happenings.”

I don't answer. At the mouth of the cave, two figures are climbing inside and down the ladder. They are both wrapped in warm coats with hats and scarves over their faces; I can tell which one is Shoe by the quick competence of his movements. He and the other young man come to the fire, pulling off their hats and unwrapping their scarves.

Shoe's face is bright with cold; seeing me with Cor, he nods. “Good morning, Pen. Did you sleep well?”

“I don't remember,” I say, and smile at him. I am strangely glad to see him.

He blinks and swallows. “Um, this is—”

“I'm Tobias,” says the boy who came in with him. He is taller than Shoe, and broad, with straw-colored hair and brown eyes. “Marya was my girl. A seamstress, like you.”

I give my head a little shake.

“I told you, she doesn't remember,” Shoe says to him. “Marya was another Seamstress in the Godmother's fortress,” he explains. “Pin knew her.” He glances aside at Tobias, who looks away.

Over by the fire, Templeton claps her hands loudly. The others around the fire stop talking; we all turn to face her. The Huntsman gets up from his seat and folds his arms.

“Well now,” he says. “You've all seen our newcomers. Pen, there”—he points at me—“and you've met Shoe and Prince Cor.” The others nod.

“The Godmother is tracking you,” Templeton adds in her harsh voice. “Any sign of them?” she asks Shoe and Tobias.

“Nothing,” Shoe answers. “It's cold out there, and quiet.”

“Forest has taken care of 'em for now,” Tobias adds.

“For now,” Templeton repeats. Her eyes narrow and she studies me and Cor and Shoe. “She doesn't come after somebody that hard unless she's got a good reason. Actually, we've never seen her this keen on a hunt. Even when she was searching for past storybreakers.”

“What do you mean—storybreakers?” Cor asks.

Templeton gives him a look of strong dislike. “Those who break the story they're in,” she says disdainfully. I can almost hear the
you idiot
tacked on to the end of her sentence.

“The storybreaker must be me,” I say. I pull the thimble out of my pocket and hold it up. It glimmers in the firelight. All of the others stare at it. “I can use it to do magic.”

“Interesting,” Templeton says. “But it's not you.” She points at Shoe. “It's him.”

Shoe, who has been studying the sandy floor under his feet, looks up, startled.

“There aren't many of us,” Templeton goes on. “Not that survive it, anyway. We're the ones who mess things up, and the Godmother hates mess, doesn't she? We get into Story and jam up the wheels. When the wheels get caught, they grind. We usually have scars to show for it. Right?” she asks Shoe.

To my surprise, he nods.

“We do it for love, mostly,” Templeton says. “But there are other reasons, too.”

“I don't quite understand,” Cor puts in. “Despite the amazing clarity of your explanation.” His voice is sharp enough to cut glass. “Can you give us an example?”

“Well, like you,” Templeton says. “The pattern was set. You and Pen were supposed to fall in love at first sight, right? Girl gets prince, turns into princess? Happily ever after? And Shoe here got in the way of it.”

“It wasn't—” I start to interrupt.

“We are—” Cor says at the same time.

Shoe is looking intently at the floor again.

“Never mind,” Templeton says, waving her hand. “I'll give you a better example.” She nods at Zel, who, I realize, has not yet spoken a word. “Zel is gorgeous, as you can see. From birth, like an affliction. The Godmother took her away from her family, brought her here, did the thing with the thimble, you know what I mean?”