Chapter Six

The Stone House

A groan seemed to crawl from Wulf's lips as he dropped to the floor in a heap, shivering as if wracked with chills. Sweat suddenly popped out on his forehead. The veins in his eyes stood out blood red against the whites. Moaning, shaking, he tried to haul himself to all fours, panting for breath. Hans seemed bespelled, unable to move an inch, and neither could I. We could only watch as Wulf groaned and shook, gasping for air as if drowning.

Suddenly, with a series of vicious popping sounds and a scream that should have ripped his face in two, the flesh of his hands split. But there was no blood... only thick, black fur. With a cry, he scrambled to his feet, running until he slammed bodily into the red painted door, and staggered out of the wooden house and into the night. For a moment, I could only try to remember to breathe. Then Hans bolted after him.

I tried to rise, but my ankle gave way beneath my weight and I fell in a graceless heap. Tears poured from my eyes. The weight of what had happened settled over me like a shroud. Cursed. The water was cursed. Now Wulf was cursed as well. He would become... some beast, I knew not what kind. Even as I thought this, a keening echoed through the cabin, and I realized it was coming from me. My heart pounded, and my blood roared in my ears. My friend had been cursed.

"Margaret, it's all right," Hans called.

Fighting the urge to laugh hysterically at the idea of anything being all right, I looked up and realized I'd had my head hanging down, my eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling down my face. And standing in the door, silhouetted against the light from the fire against the darkness outside, stood Hans and a great, shaggy, four-legged animal. As it stepped into the firelight, I saw what it was: a huge, black wolf with eyes like blue crystals.

Wulf.

The wolf padded toward me on silent paws bigger than my splayed hands and came to stand before me, tail low to the ground, whining like a sorrowful dog. Trepidation in every movement of my body, I reached out to the beast with one trembling hand. It - no, he, this was my friend - he held completely still, letting me run just the very tips of my fingers over the smooth, black fur of his muzzle and face, over the pointed ears and thick ruff around the neck. Then he moved a pace closer and licked my arm with a warm tongue, leaving a cool trail of saliva on my skin.

"What do we do now?" I asked, not knowing who I spoke to, the wolf who was my Wulf or to Hans. "How do we fix this?"

"I don't know," Hans replied. "I don't know a lot about magic, other than it has a lot to do with balance. But my grandmother might. And at least in this form, we'll have more protection than if we were just three travelers alone."

"Why not you?" I asked then, feeling horrible for even thinking it, but I had to know. Did Hans have some sort of protection against dark magic? Was that why only Wulf had fallen prey to the cursed water?

"I don't know that either," he said. "I don't wear my clothes inside out or anything like that. That only works on Faeries anyway, so it does no good against witchcraft and other sorceries."

After that, it seemed like there was nothing more to talk about, so I tried to fall back asleep. We did have to travel in the morning, and I knew Hans was tired, still.

Wulf the wolf curled up next to me, sighing and whining. I laid my hand on his neck, feeling a sense of desperation as my fingers brushed the fur. I remembered what Lily had said of my brothers, trapped as swans without their souls. Was the same curse laid on Wulf? Would he lose more and more of his humanity as the curse stayed upon him? Could I break this curse as well as the one on my brothers, or was I in way over my head? With a sigh, I tried to close out these thoughts by closing my eyes, but it was a long while before I found sleep again.

* * *

A scream and a snarl wrenched me violently from sleep. Gasping, I scrambled upright and stared, uncomprehending at what I was seeing. Wulf the wolf was snarling and snapping, writhing around on the floor, and Hans... what had happened to Wulf last night was happening now to the town boy. The skin on the back of his hands split open, and instead of blood, thick russet fur showed through. Muscles contorting, with those cruel popping noises shattering the stillness, Hans scuttled out the brilliantly scarlet door right as a human form sprang out of the black fur of the wolf.

Where Wulf the wolf had been now lay Wulf the human, shivering and gasping for breath, flesh slick with perspiration, eyes clenched tightly shut. And on the stairs of the wooden house, coming towards the door, silhouetted against the gloomy dawn light, was a wolf with a reddish brown coat and mint green eyes.

Now I knew why Hans had not transformed last night. He had said magic was about balance. Wulf would be a beast by night, and Hans the beast by day. As soon as I thought this, I knew it to be true. And now I knew that despite the differences between us, I cared as much for Hans as I did for Wulf.

Fresh tears came, but I hastily dashed them away. We didn't have time for me to start bawling. Dawn was here, and if I knew my father, he was already looking for me.

"Marz... Marzipan...." Wulf moaned. I crawled to him slowly, awkward with my lower leg in its makeshift splint. My hand found his skin burning hot, almost feverish, wet with sweat. Fear made my heart pound hard. Had the transformation made him sick?

"It's all right," I murmured inanely, knowing nothing could be all right in a world where brothers were cursed to be swans, friends cursed to be wolves, and shadows baked into cakes. But I had to say something. I couldn't think of anything else, and Wulf's shivering and moaning scared me to death.

As if to back me up, Hans came over and nuzzled Wulf's sweaty face with his nose.

"See?" I said. "Now, come on. We need to get you in some clothes before you catch a chill."

Wulf shivered his way into a fresh pair of black trews and un-dyed wool shirt, which helped him to stop shaking so badly. I managed not to look at anything other than his face as I helped him, or my own face might have caught fire from my blush. When he was dressed, he only sat there by the fire for a long time, staring into the flames. My heart grew cold in my chest. I could count each beat, and it felt like an eternity. Time, the still, small voice inside my heart whispered to me. You are running out of time.

I know, I told it. I know. But I don't know what to do with him.

"Ride Hans," Wulf said suddenly, as if I'd asked him a question. My inner dialogue ground to a halt and I turned to stare at him, unsure I'd heard him correctly.

"What?"

"Try to walk," he said, which I know had not been his previous statement. Without even bothering to shift my bad leg, I replied, "I can't. Even with the splint, my ankle won't hold my weight, and the forest floor doesn't exactly have the nicest manners when it comes to crutches or walking sticks."

"Then you gotta ride. We don't have a horse, so you can ride Hans during the day and me at night."

I looked from the farm boy to the town boy, now in wolf form, and realized something I'd been too tired to notice before: Hans was bigger than a pony! He really was big enough to ride on. I wasn't very tall - just shy of five and a half feet - and I weighed less than two hundred pounds (at least, I thought so) so there was no reason really why the wolf couldn't carry me. But still... ride a wolf? A wolf?

I half-opened my mouth to protest and caught those mint green eyes staring at me. I blinked. What was he looking at me for? For the first time, I realized that spoken language was very useful. Not being able to pester Hans about his thoughts was going to be very difficult to deal with.

The russet wolf whuffed softly and put his head on his paws. I glanced at Wulf.

"He agrees. We have to go now. Lily's probably looking for us, and so is your father, I bet. We need to get going."

I sighed, knowing he was right and hating to admit it. But leave we finally did, after I ate an apple for breakfast. Wulf said he wasn't hungry, and Hans was anxious to go, as well. With my friend's help, I managed to get onto the wolf's great, shaggy back. With Hans taking care not to spill me off, we left the wooden house with the red door and the cursed water.

* * *

Hans led us to his grandmother's house. Nothing else happened on the trip. It seemed as if Fate had decided that two curses in less than a full day was enough for three young people to deal with at the moment. Still, this itch between my shoulders refused to go away. I knew something else would happen soon enough.

The cottage where Hans' grandmother lived - the famous, magical grandmother who had at one time been able to transform herself into a water fowl - was one story, and made of stone blocks heavily whitewashed. There was a well with a whitewashed awning and wooden cover, and a whitewashed bench in a little garden in front of the door. The door, too, was whitewashed. Everything about the place was neat and tidy and cozy. The roof had been recently thatched, and smoke rings puffed out of the stone chimney. It reminded me, in fact, of my own house, except this cottage stood in a small clearing, not a meadow, and had only one story, not two. And of course, there were no sheep.

Sighing, I tried to slide off of Hans' back and nearly fell when my good leg buckled. I'd been on wolf-back since dawn, and dusk was nearly here. Twilight's gloom pressed against my skin, cool and damp with the threat of spring rain. But before I could fall, Wulf had me in his arms until I'd managed to seat myself on the grass.

"It's time," he whispered, looking at where the sun was kissing the treetops. "I can feel it."

"I can wait," I said, hating the look of panic flickering across his face like flames. "It's probably best if Hans is... himself again, before we knock on the door, anyway."

"Yes," Wulf replied woodenly, and started to trudge towards the tree line. "Yes...."

It was the same as at dawn, only reversed. Within moments of the sun sinking beneath the trees, the black-furred Wulf came bounding out of the trees, a bundle of cloth in his mouth. Unlike last night, he'd thought to strip before the transformation shredded the few clothes he had packed. And beside me, Hans was now a shivering, sweating, half-feverish mess trying to drag on his own clothes. He was thinner, much thinner, than he had been this morning, and his face was gaunt and white.

"Well," he wheezed when his clothes were in place and he had helped me to my feet. "Let's knock."

When we knocked on the whitewashed door, a slender woman with silvery-streaked hair had answered. Hans' grandmother was not what I'd expected. For one thing, she wasn't very old-looking. My grandmother was almost sixty. His was the same age as Lily the witch, though I could tell that her magic had aged her. Her face was a mass of tiny, delicate wrinkles, like the kind in bread dough while it's kneaded, and her hair was streaked with haphazard silver stripes. Dark spots covered her hands. But she stood as straight and tall as any young girl, and her eyes twinkled.

Upon seeing Hans, she'd gasped and ushered both of us in. She put Hans by the hearth and me in a rocking chair with a stool for my ankle. What was odd about the arrangement was that upon seeing Wulf, she bade him welcome, as if he were a lord, and let him sit beside Hans at the fire.

"Well, young lady, I'll have your name," she said.

I glanced at her, surprised. Her eyes were bright green, like elf stones, and her thin lips were tilted in a smile. Her face was wrinkled like a winter apple. Her expression made me relax, but I wondered why she did not speak to Hans.

"My grandson is in no shape to gossip," she said. "What he needs is to warm up a bit before he freezes. I don't know what you two and that wolf have been up to, but I want as much of the story as you can give me. You can start with your name."

"Margaret," I said, and Hans' grandmother shook her head.

"You can lie to others," she said, "and you can even lie to yourself. But no one can get a lie past Scarlet Woodman."

I blinked, confused. Then I said, "My parents named me Margaret."

"Good for them," Scarlet replied. "What's your name?"

I opened my mouth with no idea what to say when Hans whispered something.

"What?" His grandmother asked.

"Marzipan," he said, louder this time, and cleared his throat. "Her name is Marzipan."

There was nothing for it: my jaw dropped. In the almost five years that I had known Hans, he had never, ever called me Marzipan. He loathed that name, he said. He hated all things sweet, he said. Almond paste that really was only good for making something you couldn't eat, he said. And now he was offering up my name to his grandmother like a token or toll of some kind, and I realized that that name was the one she wanted, though I couldn't have told you why.

"Ah. Marzipan. In a kingdom like Kuetas, that kind of name has power. So, Miss Marzipan, do you want to tell me how you came to be traveling with a wolf and my grandson, who happens to look like death warmed over?"

Hans gave me a barely perceptible nod, and I told her everything: the curse on my brothers, Lily the witch and the shadow cakes. When I said this, Scarlet started in surprise, and her face registered her shock. When I went on to talk about the wooden house and the cursed water, she held up one wrinkled, dark-spotted hand.

"Did the house have a red door?"

"Yes," I replied slowly, unsure of the significance of that. Looking back, I had thought the color odd - no other plank of wood on that building had been anything other than wood-colored - but the fear in the old woman's eyes gave me pause now. "Why?"

"Then you were lucky to get out of that house alive," Scarlet told me, and my jaw went slack again. "A witch lives in that house, a very, very bad one. Powerful, too. I've done my best to keep her at bay in the forest, but I'm old and can't do as much for myself against a young one like her anymore. This Lily you've told me about, she might have learned her magic from that one. Baker's magic is tricky to learn, unless you come by baking naturally, like the Lady Claire. But blood magic is an easy thing to dabble in, and a power a chit like you should stay far away from. Blood is what poisons baker's magic and twists it into something dark and cruel. That's where cursed things like shadow cakes and gingerbread cages come from - blood-poisoned baker's magic."

"What's a gingerbread cage?"

"It's a cookie, but a big one, the size of a small child. It's used to trap a person's heart, just as a shadow cake traps a person's spirit. Without the spirit, a person loses their humanity, the very thing that makes them who they are. But a person's heart... that contains all their potential, all their power, and their hopes and dreams and feelings. It's a wicked thing, to cage someone's heart."

As Scarlet had explained gingerbread cages, something began nibbling on the back of my mind, anxious to get my attention. But try as I might, every time I focused on it, it slipped away. Finally, it leaped into my brain with such force I jumped.

"Polichinelles!" I cried.

Hans' grandmother stared at me.

"What on earth are you talking about, child?"

Quickly, I told her what Lily had said to Wulf about turning Lady Claire's Polichinelles into gingerbread cookies. All the time I spoke, a look began darkening her features. By the time I was finished, I thought steam might pour out of her ears like a tea kettle.

"The Polichinelles," Scarlet told me gravely, "are Lady Claire's daughters, from her first husband. I'd heard rumors," she added, "of the Polichinelles trapped in some kind of curse, but now I know the truth of it. No witch would boast of a thing like that unless it had already been accomplished. Lady Claire must be told."

For the third time, my mouth dropped open. So they had been cursed, too, like my brothers and Wulf and Hans.

"This is madness," Scarlet said softly. "Before the King's death and the Prince's disappearance, the good magic of the royal family kept the wicked sorcery in the land at bay. But the Prince has been gone too long, and his sisters, too. Kuetas needs its rulers back."

"Well," I said. "I can't do anything about that. That's up to the Regent. But I have to help my brothers and the lads." I gestured to Hans. "I'm worried that this curse has more to it. When he became human tonight, Hans looked awful. And this morning, Wulf looked as if he'd been ill with the summer sickness or some other horrible thing. I'm afraid this curse might kill them if it's not broken in time."

For a long time, the old woman studied the black wolf and shivering boy in front of her fire, saying nothing. I waited, trying not to fidget.

"It's not the curse," she said finally, and I let the air whoosh out my lungs. I hadn't even realized I'd been holding my breath. "At least, not the curse from the water. I don't know... I'm not sure... it can't be just an illness. There may be something more... Hans," she said sharply, and he turned to her. "Come here for a moment."

With shuffling, tired steps, the town boy approached his grandmother in her large, redwood rocking chair, and she brushed the edges of his reddish brown hair with her fingertips. Frowning, she touched the ends again. The tip of her tongue poked between her teeth.

"Have you had a haircut recently?"

"No," he said. His own trembling hand reached up to touch the tips of his hair.

"Hmmm.... She's a clever one, that Lily witch. She's cursed you good and proper, my buck, no question. A lock of your hair was all it took, poor thing. I've never given you anything against sorcery. I saved them all for your sister. I see now that was foolish of me."

"Why would she curse Hans?" I cried, and the look that Scarlet leveled on me left me feeling as dumb as an ox.

"Probably, she keeps all such curses ready to be laid on the folks in your house. Witches, even the good ones, tend to be paranoid about enemies and keep little things on hand. And since Hans left with you, she cast the spell to slow you both down. But no worries, dear. I can break a little old curse like this, I promise you that. It's those big things, transformations and the like, that can shake of my magic like water. I'd warrant she's cursed Wulf in the same way. As for you... if she believes you are her child, as you heard her say, she'll not harm you unless things become a lot more desperate than they are now."

Of course. I ought to have thought of that myself. But I was tired, and my ankle was throbbing red-hot....

"You need to take to your bed, child," Scarlet told me when a yawn threatened to crack my face like a plate. "Three days I'll need to break these little spells. I can give you some protection against enchantments into the bargain. But for now, bed for all three of you."

* * *

Three days exactly is how long it took. Three days, we stayed in the stone house with Scarlet Woodman, Hans' grandmother. Three days while the lads became sicker and sicker, and the pain and swelling of my ankle went down. In that time, I only saw the older woman once, for she made the lads bring me meals and refused to let me out of bed except to pee and dress.

But that one conversation was enough to give me more hope than I'd had since Wulf had transformed that first night.

The third night we were there, Scarlet herself brought me my food on a tray. It was simple fair, the kind of things I liked - a little wheel of cheese, a couple dinner rolls, a few of the silvery-tinted thumb plums that grew on bushes instead of trees in the forest, and a cup of milk. I thought she would leave after handing me the tray, but she didn't. Instead, she sat on the bed, her fingers smoothing over the quilt that covered my legs.

"Marzipan," she said, as if savoring my name. A blush rose up in my face, but I had no idea why. "That is, indeed, a very powerful name in Kuetas."

"I don't see why," I replied, a little irritated. I liked Marzipan better than Margaret, but I didn't see what was so wonderful about either one, really. "I'm named after almond paste."

"Did you know there is a legend about marzipan?"

"Um... no." She had to be joking. About marzipan? That was absolutely ridiculous.

But Scarlet replied, "Oh, yes. I'm surprised your father or your friends never spoke of it to you. It's very, very old, and it's only a small part of a bigger story, but I remember the beginning quite well, actually. It goes,

"Sweet is the peace of the kingdom

Where subtlety doth fly

Where the Prince rules in dreams

And the wolves guard the sheep by night

Almond trees dance in her footsteps

Day and dark lope by her side

Sweet is the peace of the kingdom

Where marzipan doth reside."

"You made that up!" I cried, trying to ignore the shivers running up my spine. My heart thumped hard and painful in my chest. That still, small voice inside me was no longer so small or so still. A burning filled my chest. Suddenly, tears were rolling down my face. I didn't know why.

"I assure you, child," Hans' grandmother replied, wiping a trail of tears from my cheek. "I did not. Do you know why I asked for your name? And why I called it a lie when you said 'Margaret?' I'll tell you why. Your parents may have given you the name Margaret, and some might even call you that. But for good or ill, your name is Marzipan. That is who you are. Names define us in very special ways. The name you call yourself tells others much about who you are. Marzipan. Beauty, subtlety, strength, sweetness, wonder. Do you see, my girl?"

I shook my head. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. It was just a confectionary tool, that was all. Nothing special.

"Well, that's all an old witch like me can say about things like that. Perhaps you're not old enough to understand. Perhaps your father has kept you in that cage too long, and you've yet to discover yourself. I don't know either way. But I also know that there's information you want that I have."

At this, I perked up, scrubbing at my face. I hated to cry, especially if I didn't have a good reason. Trying to wipe away the evidence of my tears, I looked at Scarlet expectantly.

"The four winds."

My heart froze for a long second. Then, with a thunderous whump! It began to beat like a drum being pounded by a small child. I had forgotten to ask, that first night. Hans must have said something.

"Well," the older woman began. "I know you know that they like human foods. Don't ask me why, but the Avatars love mortal food."

"Avatars?"

"The human forms of the winds, dear. Now, luckily, we are in the easternmost part of Kuetas, so the East Wind is nearby. In fact, he comes to my back door every morning at dawn."

I blinked.

I stared.

I gaped.

I admit it.

"What? What do you mean?" Could it really be that easy? Was the East Wind really so close? How was that even possible? Surely something like one of the winds wouldn't just be loitering around some old woman's cottage in the middle of the forest. So why would the wind come here? Unless she had something to entice it....

"I met the East Wind a long time ago, when I was young, when I had to...."

"When you turned yourself into a duck," I finished for her, and was rewarded by her look of pleased surprise. "Hans told me about it," I added. "What was that all about, anyway?"

"My step-mother tried to kill me," Scarlet replied, "but I managed to trick her. She ended up killing my step-sister instead. But she came after me, so during the night we traveled and during the day I would use my magic to hide myself. Once, I turned myself into a duck. My step-mother tried to lure me with bits of bread, but I had strong magic, especially when I was young. I had kept enough of my humanity to remember not to go to her.

"But then she called a hunter to her, and he would have shot me, so I tried to fly away. I wouldn't have made it, but suddenly the wind picked up. Leaves and grass and even small stones and earth flew everywhere, blinding the hunter and my step-mother. Nothing touched me except the wind. It blew me upwards, lifting me high into the sky, to safety.

"When I finally landed and returned to my true form, I met the East Wind. As payment for his help, I agreed to give him whatever he wanted - within reason, of course."

Intrigued almost against my will, I leaned forward, cupping my chin in my hands. Hans had not told me any of this! Even in Kuetas, intervention from any sort of power like one of the four Winds was, if not completely unheard of, at least extremely rare. Anxious to know more, I scooted closer.

"What did he ask for?"

At this, Scarlet laughed, and I realized I'd never heard the sound before. It was like green velvet or the sound that wet glass makes when you run your finger over it. My Aunt Clarissa had shown me how you could make music that way, though I'd never been able to do it.

"Of all the silly things, he asked me to make him tea and sticky buns every morning at dawn to go with his breakfast. Can you imagine?"

The idea of something like the East Wind making a request more probable in a small child made me laugh.

"When he comes tomorrow," she said, "I will ask him to take you to the castle."

"But we could walk to the castle," I protested, and the older woman shook her head.

"No, child. Not the provincial castle. I mean Castle Kuetas itself, in the heart of our lands. There is where the West Wind resides, in the Garden of the Golden Lilies, where she can dance. Now, Marzipan, go to bed. You must be up, packed, and ready to travel at dawn. Your ankle is well enough now," she added, "that if you continue to ride for the next week or so, with my magic in the bargain, it will be well enough before you reach Mount Scaelos. Now, sleep."

But I couldn't sleep. So instead, I looked out the window from where I lay in bed, watching as the Winter Star winked into brightness. Ice cold, the color of sunlight on snow, the Winter Star burned in the sky so bright you could see it even through the clouds. It hung directly above Mount Scaelos, the X on my celestial map. But it hurt my eyes to look at it for too long, so I closed them and relaxed, trying to find sleep.

My mind drifted to the East Wind. What was he like, the Lord Eastern? There were four Winds, all told: Lord Eastern, Lady Westernesse, Lord North, and Lady Southerly. What were the four of them like? I had never met a denizen of Faery before. I had never even seen a member of the nobility before. How would they be different from other people? Would their otherness show to my common eyesight?

Tomorrow, I would meet the East Wind.

This thought, and all my questions, revolved around and around in my brain until they dragged me down into a restless sleep.

* * *

"She makes them with honey."

"What?" I jumped, surprised, at the soft, lilting voice behind me. I turned around and there stood a little boy in a yellow jacket and black short-pants, barefoot. His black hair was cut short, and his skin was the color of cinnamon tea. Eyes like two little black buttons twinkled in his face. The boy stood in the back door of Scarlet's kitchen, grinning. He had a gap between his two front teeth. The rising sun, just barely peeking over the tops of the pines, turned his dark hair to shiny silk. Gold threads glittered on his yellow jacket.

"Scarlet makes the rolls with honey in the morning, to make them sweet. Aren't they tasty?" He casually strolled in, grabbed one of the rolls glistening with butter, and took a pert bite. He smiled around the mouthful. "I always come for her food. She's wonderful."

I stared at him, suddenly struck by a suspicion blooming in my mind. This child in the shiny, yellow jacket with the button-bright eyes... he couldn't be... could he?

"Are you... you can't be...." There was no hope. The words were so ludicrous they were hiding from my tongue.

The voice of Hans' grandmother broke the silence.

"Meet the East Wind."

Despite my rising suspicion, the confirmation of my thoughts struck me dumb. The East Wind seemed delighted by my surprise and giggled happily while munching on honeyed bread and sipping warm tea and milk.