Foxheart (3 page)

“Would you want to sleep up there, with me?” she asked, pointing to the bell tower. “You can see for miles. And the ground is cold right now, and up by the bell tower, the roof is warm because of the kitchen fires. What do you think?”

She held up a sack she had fashioned from her scratchy bedsheet. If she slung it around one shoulder, it was just big enough to hold the yellow dog close to her stomach while she climbed.

The dog eyed the sack dubiously.

Girl rolled her eyes. “Fine, then. It doesn't matter much to me if you freeze down here in the mud.”

She turned to climb back up to the roof, her eyes stinging with tears that made her so angry she nearly lost her footing. Then, as
she began to pull herself up, she felt something nudge her leg, and looked down only to get swiped with a slobbering tongue.

“You smell,” she told the dog cheerfully, and helped him into her bag for the climb to the roof.

Later, as he lay sleeping beside her on the warm spot over the kitchen, Girl whispered to him, “I should like to call you Fox, for you are so very clever,” and his ear twitched, and he smacked his lips and belched, and Girl took this to mean that was all right with him.

Pig. Witch. Girl. Pig. Witch. Girl.

On stormy days, when the world turned gloomy, something inside Girl cried out for her parents. She could only remember pieces of her past—a tired face, a soft touch, a hard voice. Her name, of course. The name she told no one.

On those days, the insults shouted at her landed like the blows of fists. After everyone had gone to bed, Girl would sneak out of her room and, instead of going to the bell tower, find Fox in his flower bed and retreat with him to the chapel, where she would gaze at the stained-glass windows for hours.

Girl did not possess the patience for prayers, and hymns were even more intolerable, but these windows, the painted
icons, the intricately carved figurines of the doomed saints and the Wolf King protecting the Star Lands from evil—these things she loved. She did not understand them, but their beauty made the lost feeling inside her shrink and fade.

In the windows, the Wolf King chased witches, fanged and warty, with wild hair in unnatural colors—purple, green, blue. Girl tried to feel hatred for the witches; she knew from the Scrolls that she ought to. Perhaps if she did not look so unusual—and almost like a witch—the others would not despise her so much. Perhaps her parents would not have abandoned her and instead would have brought her along on their heroic travels.

But she could never bring herself to hate the witches. So they had strange hair. So did she. So they had irregular faces. Well, and so did she.

Perhaps witches were simply born funny looking and different. And no one understood them. And so they had been deemed evil. It did not seem particularly fair.

On those lonely nights in the chapel, Girl would hug Fox and stare at the Wolf King's golden crown until her eyes turned hot and the chapel became a sea of blurred color.

And this was Girl's life, from the day her parents abandoned her at the age of three until she was twelve years old: Punishments
from Mother Petra. Memorizing the Scrolls when she felt agreeable, and stealing from the sisters or hiding on the rooftops when she didn't. Adele's soft black curls and cruel mouth. Pigwitch Girl! Pigwitch Girl! Pig. Witch. Girl.

Wondering about witches and magic, and about her parents too, and when they would return from the Hunt to find her. Wondering, wondering, with a lonely twist in her chest that she pushed down until it lodged deep in her belly like a stone.

This was Girl's life, until suddenly, violently, it wasn't.

G
irl slipped between the window bars and dropped to the floor. When her bare feet touched the cold stone, her heart kicking inside her chest, she allowed herself a moment to catch her breath and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.

Then, spotting Adele's sleeping face, Girl grinned.

Pulling tricks on Adele, Girl suspected, would never lose its appeal, and the one she had planned for tonight was perhaps her best trick yet.

She hurried to the door and let Fox inside. He padded off into the darkness, the sack around his shoulders rustling.

Girl set to work.

First the patchwork cloak and gown, sewn together from scraps of cloth that Girl had stolen from Sister Veronika's mending bag over several long weeks. She slipped the gown and cloak over her own head, and then donned the hat, a lopsided, pointed affair made from the same materials. Then the false hooked nose—clay, baked on the hot roof at midday. She had already painted clusters of warts onto her hands using ointments stolen from the sisters' stores—would they
ever
manage to find a lock that could stump her?

Her hair, of course, required no alteration. It was strange and witchy on its own.

She adjusted her hat and looked around for Fox, excitement zipping through her body. If she was caught dressed like this, she would be confined to her room forever.

But she wouldn't be caught. She never was, these days.

And when she did get back to her bed without being caught, she would really have to sit down, look over her list, and decide on a proper thieving name for herself. If she was to be the best thief in all the Star Lands, she couldn't call herself Girl, and she certainly couldn't use her real name.

Perhaps the Rogue of Lalunet, or the Silent Shifter, or
Constance Craft, as a sly nod to Sister Veronika, who had tried to call Girl Constance for a six-month stretch when Girl was seven. Or perhaps—

Fox
whuffed
softly, and Girl shook herself. There would be time for choosing a name later.

She pocketed the coins on Adele's bedside table, which was the real point of this excursion.

“Ready?” Girl whispered.

Fox trotted back toward the door, the small cloth sack she had tied around his shoulders now slack and empty. He let out another small
whuff
of air.

Girl squinted in the dim light, saw the shiny black beetles scuttling across Adele's bedcovers where Fox had dumped them out—a trick that had taken
weeks
to teach him. She smiled and approached the bed, her shoulders hunched, her fingers bared like claws. She was ready to pounce, a wild cackle building in her throat—when Fox started growling at the door.

Girl froze.

“What?” she whispered.

The hair on Fox's back stood up in a bristly line. Girl heard the creak of the main gate downstairs as it opened and shut.

No one ever came to the convent at this hour.

Girl crept to the window, stood on her toes, and peered out. A cloaked figure swept through the courtyard, Mother Petra herself hurrying alongside it. Shapes Girl couldn't quite make out swirled above the cloaked figure's shoulders.

Shadows?

With another low growl, Fox darted into the hallway.

“Fox!”

Adele shifted in her sleep, smacked her lips. A beetle plopped to the floor.

Girl hesitated. She didn't want to miss Adele waking up to discover herself covered in beetles with a “witch” hovering over her—but Fox had never behaved like this before.

Girl hurried after him, down the hallway lined with the somber portraits of dead sisters, down the stairs, past the kitchen, and across the small stone yard to the classrooms.

Fox stood at the end of the hallway, a few paces away from Mother Petra's office. The door was ajar, letting out lamplight. Girl slipped behind the loose wall panel and crawled into her eavesdropping spot, Fox at her heels. After she'd pulled the panel shut behind them, she crouched and, through a small brass grate, peered into the office. She saw Mother Petra, her desk, and the cloaked figure.

“This is most unusual,” Mother Petra was saying. “If Lord Aapo wishes to bring my students to see the capital, then I'm certain he would not send a
messenger
, if that is indeed who you are, to retrieve them in the middle of the night. Now, come. Tell me your full name.” Mother Petra arranged pen and paper. “You can find a room in town, and I'll send a letter to Lord Aapo first thing in the morning, and we will get this sorted out. Until then, I'm afraid I will have to ask you to leave.”

A low murmur of words then, but Girl could not quite hear. Fox started growling once more. Girl pressed a finger to her lips, and Fox obediently fell silent.

“I beg your pardon?” said Mother Petra, in a shocked voice.

“I said you are a fool, old woman. I tried to approach this as a human might have done, following human rules and courtesies. But you have exhausted my patience even more quickly than I had anticipated.”

This new voice was strange, distorted. Girl could not quite fix her ears on it. Was there just the one person in the office speaking with Mother Petra, or were there many?

“Fool?” Mother Petra rose, tugging her dressing gown straight. “You are impudent, young man. That is no way to speak to Mother Petra of the Convent of the White Wolf!”

“Wolf?” A soft spill of unkind laughter. “Old woman, you know nothing of wolves.”

Seven sharp, lean creatures slunk into Mother Petra's office from the hallway. Fox backed away from the grate, his tail between his legs. They were wolves. Seven wolves, each a different color: White, black, brown, gray, red, blue, and gold.

Understanding came to Girl slowly.
I know those colors,
she thought.
I have memorized them.

Mother Petra fell to her knees. “It's you! I am so sorry. Forgive me, I didn't realize!” A wondering smile spread across her face. “I have dreamed of meeting you!”

“I doubt you have dreamed of this,” came the reply—clear now, and cold.

The wolves lunged over the desk. Papers scattered; claws scraped wood. Girl could not look away. Mother Petra's screams rang in her ears.

The wolves . . . they were no longer wolves at all.

They were streaks of light, howling and hissing. Girl felt their heat through the grate as though she were crouched beside a crackling fire.

She caught flashes of animal shapes—a tail here, a snout there—but mostly she saw fire, and light, and the cloaked figure
standing still as stone. They
had
been wolves, though, hadn't they? She had seen them with her own eyes. But now they were most certainly not.

Fox tugged at the hem of her cloak, whining.

Girl couldn't move. Her heart pounded, her stomach churned. The fiery wolves swarmed over Mother Petra, turning her papers to ash and scorching her great black desk.

And the cloaked figure, dark and terrible, stood watching.

Who was he? He couldn't be who Girl
thought
he was. That wouldn't make sense. The Scrolls, they said—

Fox nipped her leg, hard.

She turned, kicked out the wall panel, clambered to her feet, and ran, Fox right behind her. Heat and howls trailed after them. Down the hallway they raced, through the small yard, past the kitchen—out, out,
out
. They had to get out.

Out through the gate, down the lane, along the garden wall. Girl's bare feet pounded the rocky ground. The autumn wind bit her face and hands. Her witch's cloak caught on a briar, and in her terror, she thought it might be someone grabbing her. She cried out, turned, kicked blindly. Dislodged the cloak, reached for Fox. There was the rough scruff of his neck, his floppy ears. She ran and ran.

Behind her, she heard the screams of the other girls, of the sisters. Adele's scream—she recognized it, high and piercing—was loudest of all.

They were all waking up to find . . . what? What had
happened
? Was the Wolf King hurting them as he had hurt Mother Petra?

Girl did not stop running, stolen coins jangling in her pocket and her heart ablaze with fear.