/
Kay lagged several yards behind, always the logical one when it came to hiking.
"Hurry up!" Gerda called back, scaling the rock easily. Kay, for all his bragging and logic and math, was not the most physically adept and never showed interest in becoming so. As a result, his frame stayed small, stamina transient and subject to his whim. He was the one who had insisted she wear a giant ruff-hooded coat this morning. The worry was childish: if she hadn't known better, she would have said she was the older, rather than the same age of fourteen.
"Don't rush me," Kay said firmly. "It's a cliff you want to go up and we don't know what's at the top."
"It's a hill with some snow. And there's more snow at the top. What do you think there's going to be, a… ha! You do!"
Kay focused on climbing. The way he avoided eye contact was more than enough of a betrayal. Gerda laughed.
"You think there's going to be goblins like in your dad's stories!"
"He's seen them."
"Not here!"
"In lands he's been to, near here, they're common as coin. And they can walk longer than you or me. Besides, I'd rather look out for a goblin than snow bees."
"Quiet, you!" She scrambled up towards the nearest plateau, intentionally sending showers of snow down over Kay. "I just hate bees!"
"Bzz, bzz, bzz," he mocked from below, despite the buckets of snow falling over her. "I'm a figment of Gerda's grandmother's imagination, what will the realm do—c'mon Gerda, cut it out—ow!"
"Kay?" She pivoted and nearly lost footing herself, trying to peer over her coat's thick ruff. "A rock? You okay?"
No answer. By the time she could see over her coat hood, he had slid to the end of the rope and was clutching the cliff directly, fingers digging into the rock. He didn't respond when she called his name again, pressing his face against his arms. Seconds later, he dropped the six or seven feet to the ground and lay there, pressing his hands to his face.
"Kay!" She was descending as quickly as she safely could, cursing the idea of ever going climbing this late in the year. She dropped the last seven feet, as Kay had, and scrambled to his side. The boy was laughing and crying at once, pressing snow to his eyes.
"You know, it feels exactly like I got stung by a bee in the eye," he laughed, even as he tried to curl up in a ball around the pain.
"Are you all right?" she demanded, almost in tears herself. "You didn't hurt your back when you fell, did you?"
"I'll be fine. My back's fine."
"Stand up and let me see, you probably got something poked in your eye." She held out a hand as she'd seen her mother do in situations like these. Not much like these though. Mother would never have allowed something like this to happen.
Kay stood and, with some hesitation, opened his eyes. He flinched, but made no further comment about the pain. She moved into his field of vision and, afterwards, could never forget the expressions that played across his face.
"I see you doing things," he said as she examined his eye with a cool, calm air.
"Yes, well, your vote of confidence for my future has been noted," she said, putting her hands on his shoulders to get some stability in the uneven snow-bank.
Kay forced a laugh – she could tell because normal people didn't tense like that before they laughed. "No, not future things. Things like… you lied to your mother about us coming out here."
"Yes, I had to."
"And you stole a kitten from the autumn peddler who came through last month."
That one gave her pause and she looked at him, instead of into one watering eye. "What gave me away?"
For a moment, he seemed about to shrug off the question, but he was getting more frantic as the minutes wore on. "I see it happening. Like little… ghosts of you, hovering around your head."
"Did you hit your head?" A mother-type question.
"No, I caught the rope, I didn't bang nearly at all – I can just see things, clear like—they're all of you, doing different things."
"Like what?"
His head dipped into his chest, guilty. "Bad things. I don't want to talk about them."
"Then why'd you bring them up? You're being frustrating!" The thought of him seeing her doing a bunch of bad things made her chest hurt, throat dry. "I haven't done anything bad to you except asking you on this darn hiking trip. What kind of bad things?"
He retreated so quickly, it might have all been a trick. "Just, just little things, maybe they're not all bad. I'm sorry. I'm probably just confused. We can go back now, and I won't say anything."
"Are you going to tell people about the things?"
"No."
/
#
Gerda blinked back to wakefulness, prodded by someone shaking her.
"This is a bad place to sleep. Are you all right?"
A young girl stood over her, face muddied but a fair complexion. She couldn't have been older than nine or ten and was wearing the remains of a nice blue dress over work pants, the dress hiked up to accommodate hobnailed boots. A satchel was slung over her shoulder, hanging a little lower than her waist, logically too big for her.
She was the strangest thing Gerda had seen all day, and she pushed herself up onto her elbows.
"What are you?"
"I am a who. My name is Irene." The girl curtsied sweetly, with an almost regal air.
"Aren't you… a bit young, to be out here alone, Irene?"
The girl's face grew stern. "I wasn't alone before. But Lootie has betrayed the cause and is gone forever and I am the only one left to help Curdie."
"Er," Gerda had the unsettling feeling that she was missing something (or everything) about the explanation. It didn't help that the twenty minute (maybe? Hopefully only twenty minutes had gone by) nap had left her groggy and repetitive. "Who?"
"My nursemaid, Lootie, betrayed Curdie and I to the goblins. She has been working with them all along, and when they had Curdie, they fell on her and ate her. I was hiding."
"They didn't eat… Curdie?"
"He has made enemies below ground and was taken there to face charges from the goblin king. He will be tortured for his opposition of them but, because he is a miner, he will be used to further the Adversary's causes. He is skilled."
"I'm… sorry."
"Why? He is not dead. And I am going to save him."
"…oh. Yeah, of course, I forgot. But how will you get past the goblins?"
"You have asked me many questions, can I ask you one before I answer?"
"…yes," Gerda said, with some hesitation. The strangeness of it all had made the cursed man and the ravens cross her mind. If it was an odd question, or suspicious…
But Irene merely said, "What are you doing out here? In the open and sleeping. It isn't wise."
"I… was seeking someone too." It beat telling her she was seeking the Snow Queen's castle, complete with giant, of-Fabletown-importance weapon she had to destroy.
"Who? Perhaps I have seen them."
"He doesn't live here, so it's hardly likely."
"Many don't. I don't, you don't. What does he look like?"
Okay, now she would have to substantiate the farce. "Um, he's got black hair, kind of a short man, I would think. And apparently he's blind."
"Was he born that way?"
"No. No. He went blind sometime after I lost contact with him. Also, he might be with the Snow Queen. They know each other."
The girl looked dubious. "I have not seen him, or she, but I've heard of her evil. The goblins made a cursed mirror for her, once. Curdie's father knew about it."
"Oh?"
"It broke."
"I'm sorry." She wasn't seeing the connection, but everything Irene said seemed to be extremely important to Irene.
"Again you are sorry!" Irene looked over her shoulder, not truly frustrated with this conversation but concerned about their exposed location. "Are you trying to get to the Snow Queen's world, then? To find your friend?"
"She's on a different world?" That would explain why none of this one had looked familiar to her.
"She is back at her home. The goblins were speaking of it when they took Curdie. At least that's what I believe, because they spoke of a magnificent lady guest of snow and cold who had left them and gone home only recently to her own world."
This news hit Gerda like a hoof between the eyes. Another world. It had been hard enough to gather a gateway to this one, Frau had made that much clear. Shouldn't they have some kind of locator beacon that could find the damn mirror, not send her all over the worlds? That castle had been empty as a tomb, beyond the still sleeping strangers-and to find it was all a waste of time anyway?
"Well, are you?" Irene asked again, returning the question.
"Sorry. What? Oh, going to the Snow Queen's world, yes. Yes. I need to get there."
"Good! I'm sure Grandmother will know the way, and if you help me, I can get you to her."
"Er, hold on, who's Grandmother?" Again, she was missing something of the conversation. It wasn't her imagination, Irene was piloting this conversational boat and fast.
"Grandmother can open world gates at will and I'm sure she will let you travel them. It is how I came to be here. Shall we move? We're in the open here."
"Oh, sure, sure." Gerda moved hurriedly behind the boulder, stepping into the fringes of the tree line. "My companions should be further down the road. Your grandmother is…?"
"She is back at home. I return to her as soon as I have Curdie and will tell her of Lootie's betrayal. I think we will be leaving this world and we can ask her then."
"And Grandmother's not in danger, where she is now?"
"The goblins are as blind to her as your friend. Come, we should hurry." This said, Irene picked up her pace, forcing Gerda to jog after her. They went about a mile without spotting Kramer and Burke; this concerned Gerda but she wasn't about to let Irene see her panic.
"So, tell me more about Curdie," she said.
"He is a miner."
"A miner needs your help? I thought he was… younger."
"He is merely a year older than me, and I am the only one who can help him because I know the goblins' weaknesses." The girl patted her satchel gently. "Curdie and I have driven them away many times."
"Yeah? What are they afraid of, then?"
"Verse. And eggs. Their feet are tender as well."
That explained the hobnailed boots. Eggs probably filled the satchel.
"Do you know any verse?" Irene asked pleasantly.
"What, poetry?"
"Or songs. The fiercer the better."
"Um, well…" She had learned quite a few in the Mundy world, though their potency was questionable. What made a song 'fierce'? Death metal, or would some alternative rock do the trick? "I can probably pull something together."
"Good. I will venture down into the mines, where the goblins have made their tunnels, and find Curdie. I do not know how long I will be running up and out with Curdie, or where they have stored him. A pair of new lungs to sing the goblins away when we get back would be a gift worthy of a debt, as I have proposed."
"How will you even find your way out?" Gerda exclaimed. Irene lifted a finger, hovering it horizontally as if suspended.
"A thread will lead me home. It always has, connecting me with Grandmother. I swear, this mission shall not take longer than tonight, and then I will lead you to Grandmother."
Gerda had been passing her hand over and around the girl's finger, trying to find the phantom thread. She looked up now.
"And if you don't come back?"
"You can move on. I swear you to no agreement, I have asked you no name, and you owe me nothing. Yet if you agree now, I will expect to find you here and, if you dissolve our agreement after I have left, you may kill both Curdie and I. I must trust you so please, tell me true."
After a moment of hesitation, Gerda nodded. "I'll stay."
They walked another mile or two in silence before Irene paused, said "this is the place," made sure that Gerda had a safe location to stay, and vanished into what looked like nothing more than a cave.