Faerie Winter Part 9

I very much look forward to seeing your mother again. Karin's glowing stone couldn't keep away all the cold.

"Liza, could you get Kyle to my town by yourself?"

I shook my head. I could, but I wouldn't. I knew why Karin was asking, but I'd not abandon Mom to the Lady, not while my thoughts were my own. My hand went to the chain around my neck. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to bring myself to part with its protection again.

Karin sighed, and the leaves around her wrist fluttered restlessly. "I am willing enough to face my mother alone, and I cannot deny I would feel more at ease knowing you and Kyle were far away from her. She is almost certainly relying on your concern for your mother. She knows we'll follow her to your town, and she has time enough to make plans against us that even the bond between student and teacher cannot shield you from. It may be that the best way to thwart those plans is for you and Kyle not to appear."

Ice tapped more loudly against the metal ceiling. "Karin, why does the Lady hate my mother so?"

Karin turned to me. "Tara did not tell you? When she returned?"

"She hardly told me anything. anything." I hated how my voice sounded, like a whining child who couldn't get her way.

"You don't want this story from me, Liza." By the orange light Karin's face looked less pale-more human. "The storm will not last forever, and we have other matters to discuss."

The ice didn't sound as if it were letting up anytime soon. "How long was Mom glamoured for?" I shivered in my coat. I understood now why Mom didn't want to speak of glamour. I didn't want to speak of it, either. "How long did Caleb-" I stopped abruptly, afraid Karin wouldn't want to hear me speak badly of him.

"I do not know." Karin lifted a stray screw from the floor and rolled it between her fingers. Its threads were thin and precise, as only work from Before was. "I paid little attention, in those days, to the games my brother and his companions played with humans. I ought to have paid more attention. If I had, I might have seen sooner what was happening between Kaylen and Tara, but I was more concerned with trying to be what my mother needed than with protecting my youngest brother."

I didn't need to ask if she thought she'd succeeded in pleasing the Lady. I heard it in her voice. "I was never who my father wanted, either," I said. My voice sounded too loud in the small s.p.a.ce.

"Yet you stood up to him at the last." Karin carefully set the screw down on the floor. It rolled away just the same. "Kaylen told me."

I looked down, ashamed. "I didn't send him away soon enough." Caleb must have told her that, too.

"None of us can change what we've already done, Liza." Karin's hand brushed my shoulder. I flinched, and she drew respectfully away. "That the past cannot be undone was one of the War's hardest lessons. We remain responsible for our actions there, but we have no power over them. We only have power over the thing we do next."

"Even under glamour? Are we responsible then?" I traced a finger through the dust on the floor. Dust from Before-it smelled of oil, too. "Karin, how often did you-" I stopped myself. Karin had fought in the War. No doubt she'd used glamour in ways I could scarcely imagine, and other weapons as well.

"Never as a game." Karin stared at the orange light between us. "And never since the War. Kaylen understood, sooner than me, that your people are not mere toys. I did not understand until I heard their cries as they died. I did not understand until I came to a human town, and began to care for its people, and they for me. I understand now."

Why should it take death to understand such a thing? Yet I hadn't understood until a few months ago that Karin's people weren't all monsters, either. "Karin, Mom says you think she and Caleb started the War. Do you?" Did they? Did they?

Karin laughed, but there was no joy in it. "Tara always did have a way of simplifying things. Fault and blame are complicated matters. Tara and Kaylen played a role, certainly. So did I, and my mother, and Tara's father."

The children of powerful people, nothing more. "Who was Mom's father?" I'd never known any of my grandparents.

"Who people are is never simple in your world," Karin said. "Among your people, position is not defined by birth or strength of magic. Tara's father was neither a wielder of power nor a maker of goods-he was merely a merchant, a procurer and seller of the goods others made, weapons in particular. In my world, such a person would be of little consequence. I did not understand how different matters were in your world until your mother-" Karin stopped abruptly. "I cannot tell this fairly, Liza."

"I'd rather hear it unfairly than not at all." Mom had her chance to tell me fairly Mom had her chance to tell me fairly.

"I know less than you think." The vine around Karin's wrist unwound a little, creeping toward her fingers. "I did not note when your mother first found her way into Faerie. I do not know how she and Kaylen came to care for one another, even through the glamour my people use so easily upon yours that we do not even think of it as part of our magic. I don't know what made Kaylen certain the caring was more than a part of the illusions he wove. My brother did not ask my advice in those days, and if he had, he would not have liked the advice I'd have given. I know only that Kaylen lifted the glamour from Tara at the last and, in doing so, swore an oath to never use glamour against your people again. I have since taken the same oath, though I was slower to do so."

"You thought he was reckless to make promises to humans," I said.

Karin looked sharply up, and I remembered I only knew that from my vision. "If I thought Kaylen reckless for releasing your mother," she said in a level voice, "I had some cause, given what Tara did next. Once her thoughts were her own, once she understood what had happened to her, she grew wild with anger and fear, like the child she was. She fled from Kaylen, back to her human home."

I'd seen that, too. Wind blew ice pellets against the trailer walls. I shuddered, remembering how the Lady had bent my very thoughts to her desires. "Of course Mom ran." How could Karin have expected her to do otherwise?

"You do not understand. Tara told her father everything. She gave no thought to who he was. She thought only of her own pain. Yet she found no comfort in the telling, and so she fled her father as well. She returned to Kaylen, seeking-I don't know what she sought. Love? Protection? A means of forgetting her pain? You'll have to ask her, for I truly do not know. I know only that her father followed after her, and that much grief resulted from that in the end."

"The War resulted from it." My words were nearly lost to the noise of ice and wind. "But Mom couldn't have known what would happen. She wouldn't have gone back, if she had."

"We all would do differently, could the seers read the consequences of our actions more clearly. That doesn't make us any less responsible for those actions, no matter how much we wish it otherwise."

Wind gusted through the hole in the ceiling. Mom had to tell someone what had happened. She hadn't been wrong about that. Maybe her father hadn't been like mine. Maybe she hadn't known he was the wrong person to tell. "It wasn't her fault. Not all of it."

"Nor did I say it was." Karin gazed at the ivy around her fingers. "I know well enough Tara did not move my hands and my voice when I commanded the trees to attack your people. I'm responsible for my actions, too. And so I save those I can, where I can, and will continue to do so as long as I draw breath. Can Tara say as much?"

"Mom's saved people, too. In my town." How many more would have fallen to magic, like Jayce's granddaughter, if not for Mom?

"I know. Kaylen told me." There was no forgiveness in Karin's tone. She brushed her hand over the vine, and it retreated to wrap back around her wrist.

I wasn't sure I forgave Mom, either. She hadn't saved me, after all. Why was it so much easier to hate Mom for her failures, when Mom had never wanted the War to happen, than to hate Karin, who had attacked my people of her own will once it had? "Karin, why did you fight in the War?"

Karin was silent so long I thought she'd decided not to answer. Kyle stirred in his sleep, throwing off the blanket. I got up to wrap it back around him. He muttered something about mean ants and fell back asleep. I put my hand to his forehead. His skin was cool. Which mattered more-the people we saved or those we failed to save? I thought of Ethan, surely dead or near to it by now. I thought of Johnny, still with the Lady. I rubbed my wrist. The skin beneath Matthew's hair tie was red where my sweater had tightened around it.

"I fought in the War because I believed it necessary to protect my people." So quiet, Karin's voice behind me. "And I fought because I wanted to please my mother."

Kyle had flung his frog from the couch. I picked it up. How could anyone fight a war to please someone else? I squeezed the soft plastic in my hand. Once I might have killed for my father if he'd asked it, too. I tucked the frog in beside Kyle and returned to Karin's side, drawing my arms around my knees. "Were things simpler Before?"

Karin laid a hand on my shoulder, and this time, I let her. "Few things were ever simple, in your world or in mine."

Kyle sighed in his sleep. Karin shut her eyes, though her posture remained watchful. "My mother alone would not have acted differently had the seers told her what was to come. The Lady was known for many things, but forgiveness was not among them. The memories of my people run long. My mother will not rest until she finishes the work the War began."

The Realm will be avenged before this is through, and your frail human towns will fall, one by one your frail human towns will fall, one by one. "She won't stop until we're all dead."

"I will do all I can to stop her." Karin's voice was grim. "Do not doubt it."

I looked right at her. "So will I." The words sounded foolish as I spoke them. What could I possibly do against glamour? Even if I held Caleb's leaf close, that wouldn't protect anyone but me.

"There remains a part of me that wishes you would return to my town and be safe." Karin pressed an ivy leaf between her fingers. "And there is the part of me that knows too much is at stake to refuse your help. Even so, I'll not have you face the Lady again without your consent. This began long before you were born. It is not your battle."

She was wrong about that. "The Lady has threatened my town, and my mother, and my-and Matthew. She has threatened all that I hold dear." I was proud of how my voice held steady. "It doesn't matter how this began. It is my battle, and I will not run from it."

Karin looked away from my gaze. "It is hard, sometimes, to believe you are Tara's daughter." She shook her head, as if regretting the words. "I welcome your help on this journey."

"I'll save who I can, as I can, too. I promise, Karin, no matter how-"

"Careful, Liza. Words have power, for faerie folk and humans with magic alike. Even words spoken lightly may shape your actions later."

There was nothing light about the words I spoke. "I will do all I can to protect my people and my town."

Karin gave me a measuring look. Father had looked at me that way sometimes, and had always found me wanting. Karin smiled, though. "Very well. I'll give you what tools I can before we leave this place. Tell me what you've learned of magic since we last met."

I started with the shadows I'd learned to lay to rest this winter, but she had me go back further, to the first shadow I'd called, before I knew my power for what it was. The ice grew quieter. I huddled down in my jacket as I told Karin of my other callings as well, those that had succeeded and those that had failed. I told her of my struggles to control my visions.

"That much is no failure on your part, though it may feel like one," Karin said. "Visions always begin untamed and unpredictable, and trying to fight them only makes it worse. As useful as a seer who could look willfully into the future might be right now, it will be some time before you have such power."

"Mom said I needed to learn to control my visions." I'd struggled with that.

Karin shook her head. "For a seer, control comes only with time. In the meanwhile, it is best to focus on your summoning. Indeed, it is your summoning that would have led me to seek you out even had you not called for my help. Tell me about how you called the quia tree again, Liza."

I told her all I could remember about calling the tree-how I'd brought a seed home from the same gray land I'd called Caleb back from after he'd nearly died saving Mom; how the green within that seed had given me the strength to leave that lifeless place; how I'd tried to call the green from the seed into my world in turn, and how I'd called the reds and oranges of autumn into it instead. "Was I wrong to call the quia tree? Or is this just the way winter was Before?"

My hands were trembling. Karin took them in hers, stilling them. "I don't know. I have spent many hours trying to make sense of the pathways by which your people say leaves fell from the trees Before. Their understanding differs from mine. I was taught that human plants have always looked to the Realm to remind them, in spring, how to grow, and so are but a faint echo of that which is real. Who can say which understanding runs closer to the truth? What I do know is this: what thread of life remains in the Realm is thin. There is little for human plants to look to, if they have lost their memory of greenness and of life."

Wind tapped at the trailer door, as if trying to get in. "So it may be my fault the world is winding down after all."

"I would not go so far as to say this world winds down." Karin drew a winged maple seed from her pocket. "Take it."

I held it by the stem, wary of the fire maple seeds held, but it was cold, as all seeds were this winter. "It's dead."

"Is it?" Karin smiled, a little sadly. "Look closer."

I stared at the seed as hard as I could, but I saw only brown. I closed my eyes and reached for it with my magic, just as I had with so many seeds this winter, but nothing reached back. "They're all dead." I fought to keep the despair from my voice.

Karin took the glowing orange stone in her hand. It cast its light onto the seed, giving it a faint tint that reminded me of autumn. The color wasn't real, though. Only the brown within the seed was real.

"Look at the shadow," Karin said.

The orange light cast a faint maple seed shadow onto the floor. I stared at that, but it was an ordinary shadow, no more alive than the shadows cast by sun and candles. Karin moved the light directly overhead, and the shadow disappeared.

I looked at her, not understanding, not wanting to admit I didn't understand.

Karin nodded, as if I'd done nothing unexpected. "Keep trying." She moved the light about. I watched as the shadow shifted on the floor, as it disappeared, reappeared, and disappeared again. Outside, trees creaked as the wind blew through them, but I didn't look away from that moving patch of darkness, seeing again and again the moment when it disappeared entirely.

My eyes grew weary. I blinked, trying to keep my focus. For just a moment, the shadow seemed to cling to the seed before it disappeared. I forced my eyes to stay firmly open the next time, but I didn't see it again.

I softened my focus instead. There-a hint of inky darkness, clinging to the seed. The shadow cast by Karin's light shifted about, but the darker shadow held fast to the seed, so close-so much a part of the seed-that I wasn't sure how I saw it at all. I drew the seed nearer to my face. I wasn't imagining it.

Karin set her stone down beside her. I squinted to see in the dimness. The seed's shadow held even without light.

"So you see," Karin said. "All things that live and grow have shadows, from the smallest seed to your people and mine."

I looked at Karin, keeping my focus soft. I looked at Kyle, tangled in his blanket. I looked at my own hands. I saw no shadows there.

Karin brushed a strand of hair from her face. "We can work on human shadows later, if you like. Those will be harder, for my magic is only with plants, much as Kyle's is only with animals. I cannot see human or faerie shadows, though I can guide you toward them. Only a summoner can perceive the shadows in all things-and if the price of greater strength is lesser subtlety, well, it's strength we're going to need to call back spring."

"I can't call anything back. I keep trying, and I always fail." I let the seed slip from my fingers. It twirled toward the floor, shadow clinging to it still.

Karin caught it in her cupped hands. "Try again, only this time, call to the shadow, not the seed."

I kept my soft sideways focus on the shadow. I felt-not growth, not life, but a sort of lingering sleepy existence that told me sleep and death were not the same thing after all.

I reached for that. "Come here," "Come here," I whispered. I whispered.

The seed shuddered in Karin's hands. A pale white root shot out from it, and a brown stem followed. Something arced between me and the seed, a thin thread shivering with the faint will to grow. Two brown leaves pushed through the seed coat-and then with a sigh the small plant fell limp, and the thread dissolved to shadowy dust. The dust drifted off, leaving no shadow clinging to the dead plant Karin held.

I sighed. "I'm sorry."

Karin laughed at that. "Liza, those two leaves are more than I've been able to call all winter." She let the seed fall from her hands and touched the vine around her wrist. "My power is much diminished, in this season of dying trees. Even the leaves I wear cling to life only because I did not allow them to slip into sleep when autumn came, and because I speak to them of growing often enough that they do not have the chance to forget it. It is a great deal of work. My magic is with living plants, not with shadows that hover at the edge of death. I cannot call back a sleeping forest, but what you've just done tells me that, just maybe, you can, if we find a way to hold the life you call into this world once it begins to grow-and if you are willing to try, for it is not without risk."

Outside, the wind was dying, but in the trailer I shivered. If this gray winter was my fault-if it was-this might be my one chance to make it right. It seemed too much to hope for. "Of course I'm willing."

Karin let out a breath, as if she'd doubted it. "We need not act right away. It may be that spring will yet find its own way back into this world, as your people expect, heeding the call of light and warmth and requiring neither summoning nor the memories of the Realm to help it return. We have time yet to summon spring. More time than we have to stop my mother."

My thoughts spun back to the Lady. "We should go." I glanced at Kyle. He slept soundly, and I didn't look forward to waking him. I didn't look forward to carrying him through the wind and the dark, either. He needed rest, but the ice had stopped and the wind was letting up, which meant the Lady could set out for my town anytime.

"Tell me of the other children in your town," Karin said. "If we can find any the Lady's glamour has not touched when we get there, will you speak with them? Can we rely on their help?"

Afters stick together. "They'll help us."

"All right, then. I can teach you little more of magic, in so short a time, that will make you any more effective against the Lady. But I can at least give you this much: I can take your oath before we leave."

I stared at the vine that nuzzled Karin's wrist like an affectionate cat. I'd heard Karin give the oath before, in her town, to a child who had just come into his magic. The words had angered me then, with their easy promises to do no harm with magic. They made me uneasy now. "I'm not sure I can."

Karin's eyes narrowed, and the leaves around her wrist went still. "Do the words trouble you, Liza?"

I met her level gaze. "No one can promise not to do harm with magic, least of all me." I already had had done harm with my magic: to Ethan, and perhaps to Mom as well. Magic was merely a weapon, no worse than the one who wielded it-but weapons slipped in the hand, arrows went astray, blades were blunter or sharper than expected, the wielder proved too weak for the task. "And if the Lady gets hold of me again-" I drew an unsteady breath. "Anything could happen then." done harm with my magic: to Ethan, and perhaps to Mom as well. Magic was merely a weapon, no worse than the one who wielded it-but weapons slipped in the hand, arrows went astray, blades were blunter or sharper than expected, the wielder proved too weak for the task. "And if the Lady gets hold of me again-" I drew an unsteady breath. "Anything could happen then."

Karin looked at me thoughtfully. "I think perhaps you do not understand what the oath is for."

"Tell me, then." There was a challenge in my words.

"Very well." Karin rested her chin on her hands. "The oath cannot protect against the error in judgment, the failure of knowledge, or the lack of skill. Avoiding harm is not so simple as flipping the switch linked to a human generator, knowing that light will always follow. What the oath demands is that you always choose with care, with the intent of not doing harm-and that when you cause harm in spite of these efforts, you do all you can to mend it. The oath may also provide some small protection against those who would sway your thoughts toward harm, but that has never been tested."

"Wait-the oath is protection protection?"

Karin stroked her ivy leaves, and one by one they curled up. "It is no promise of safety, only of mindfulness. Yet mindfulness is a sort of protection, too."

"There are no promises of safety," I said.

"Even before the War, this was true. Will you give me your oath?"

I nodded slowly, knowing that once I spoke the words, I had to mean them. "All right."

I thought of the child who'd taken the oath in Karin's town, surrounded by family and townsfolk who'd known him all his life. Here there were only Karin and I, the soft creaking of wind through trees, and the softer sound of Kyle's breathing. Karin spoke, her voice quiet and sure, and I repeated after her: Blessed are the powers that grant me magic.I promise to use their gift well.To help mend my world,To help mend all worlds.And should I forget to mend,Should I refuse to mend,Still I will rememberTo do no harm.

My voice trembled at first but grew steadier as I went on. Something inside me shifted, not the terrible twisting of my thoughts I'd felt with the Lady, but the steadier feeling of having found level ground on an uneven slope. I would do all I could. I'd always done all I could and thought it was never enough.

It was enough. That was what the oath meant. I would mend where I could, fight what I could, and put everything I had into both the mending and the fighting. If I failed, it would not be for lack of courage or action.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"You are welcome, Tara's daughter." Karin squeezed my hand. "I will do all I can to be worthy of your trust."

Through the hole in the ceiling, the night wasn't quite as dark as before. It was time to go. I stood, stretching stiff legs, and walked to Kyle's side. Outside, the wind had stopped. A hawk cried out, and Kyle bolted upright on the couch, throwing his blanket aside.