Frost (11 page)

I found this incredible. “How do the Farthers make clothing, then?”

He laughed. “I don’t have the slightest idea. Factories, I suppose.”

“Factories?”

“You know. Where they make things. Each person does a tiny part, and it goes much faster.”

I sat down on the hearth. “And different families run these things, these factories?”

He shook his head. “No. People from hundreds of different families work there. It’s a business. They get paid money. There isn’t a family quota, not like here.”

I knew what money was, of course. Merchants that came through in the spring carried it, and children liked to find dropped pieces on the road and play with them. We’d even learned about it in school, but we didn’t use it here. “No quota? Not even your family?”

“Certainly not my family,” Gabe said, blushing slightly.

I blinked. Even the Mayor’s family had to meet quota, however small and frivolous their contribution might be. “Everyone contributes here in our village. What did you family do all day? Work in a factory?”

He cleared his throat. “My, ah, my father was a wealthy man. We had servants, money... The people in my family spent most of their time at parties and balls. Or riding—we had horses. Land.”

Had
. I wondered what the state of his family’s things was now.

“Are they safe?” I asked, softly. I didn’t know how to ask delicately if they were in as much trouble as he was.

“I don’t know.” I could see the pain that flickered in his eyes. “No one told me anything about them. The last time I saw them was the night I was seized.” He paused, considering his words. “I was taken by the soldiers in front of my sister. I remember when they dragged me out. She was crying, but she wasn’t making any noise. There she stood in her ball gown. It was her birthday. One of the soldiers hit me across the face with the butt of his rifle—he smashed my nose in—and some of the blood got on the fabric when she tried to help me.”

He broke off and swallowed hard. “The whole thing was like a dream. I was so certain I was going to wake up, but...life is a nightmare now.”

Taken by soldiers from his sister’s birthday party? Beaten in the face? I touched his arm gently, wanting only to comfort him. He turned his head, meeting my eyes, and then together we looked at my hand against his arm. I withdrew it, embarrassed, but he reached out and caught my fingers.

“Thank you,” he said. “For staying with me while I was sick. I don’t remember much from that night, but I remember you were there. You treated me with kindness.”

I wanted to say that it was nothing, but that wasn’t true and we both knew it. The air grew thick around us, and my heart throbbed with the kind of sweet pain that comes with wanting something you aren’t sure you can even dare to ask for.

In that moment, we were not a Farther and a Frost girl. We were just two people, and I was astonished at how easy it was to forget that there were any other barriers between us.

THE DAYS PASSED slowly. We worked at quota while the snow fell outside, because there was nothing else to do in the winter months but work at inside projects and hope the Watchers stayed away. I continued to see tracks across the path into the village and around the perimeter of our yard, but no more claw marks breached the unbroken field of white between the house and the barn, for which I was grateful. The snow piled up in drifts, and Ivy and I struggled to clear a path before the farmhouse door and the barn. Snowshoes became necessary for trekking across the fields and around the edges of the farm.

Gabe grew stronger every day. Soon his injury began to heal into an ugly pink scar, and he stopped screaming in his dreams as his fevers ceased completely.

Another week, another quota due, and I took the sack of thread and yarn into town. I avoided Cole because I didn’t know how to dissuade his interest in me and I didn’t have the energy to argue with him about it. I tried to speak to Ann, but every time I went into town she was either missing or surrounded by friends. I wasn’t able to get her away from the others, but it probably didn’t matter anyway. Even if I had managed to have a private conversation with her, I didn’t know what I would say.

In every Assembly I attended, I stared hard at the back of every head in front of me, trying to imagine who could be working with the Thorns. Such outside contact—with Farthers, no less—was strictly forbidden. Who would have dared to risk it, and why?

One day I returned home to find Gabe showing Jonn how to walk with the help of what he called
dual crutches
, which worked far better than Jonn’s pitiful single crutch that he occasionally used to hobble around. Jonn demonstrated his new freedom by traveling to the kitchen and back, and when he finally plunked down in his chair by the fire we all burst into enthusiastic applause at his efforts.

Gabe caught me smiling and said I looked very nice when I smiled, and that made me disinclined to smile, and I told him so. He replied I was a difficult girl to understand, and I told him that maybe if he weren’t such a simpleton he wouldn’t think so, because everyone else in the village seemed to make perfect sense of me. Ivy broke in to our bickering and said that our flirting was making everyone else uncomfortable, and that shut us both up, although I swear I saw Gabe smile before he turned his head. And even though I was partly angry at him, I
wanted
to smile, too.

It was madness.

I was no closer to deciding what to do about Gabe, either. (“You’ve stopped calling him ‘Farther,’” Ivy noted aloud one afternoon.) I knew he couldn’t stay here in the Frost, although thinking it made me restless and unhappy. Twice again I went into the village with the intent to tell the Mayor, and twice more I lost my nerve. Once I even ran into Adam Brewer in the streets, and he opened his mouth to say something to me, but I put my head down and passed on quickly before he could.

At the house, Gabe was growing increasingly restless as he began to heal. He kept asking me questions about the mysterious gate, questions I couldn’t answer. I forbid Ivy to ask them in the village. But my mind kept returning to the map I’d seen in the Mayor’s study. If only I’d gotten a better glimpse.

By the three week mark, Gabe had grown well enough to move cautiously around the house and yard. Having him around had increased our quota, which thankfully had afforded us extra supplies with which to feed him. Now he was helping with the barn chores, too. Of course, I was in no way becoming accustomed to or even happy about his presence. Absolutely not, because that would mean that I liked him.

But for some reason I kept finding excuses to stay around the house.

“Did you find anything out about the Thorns contact?” Gabe asked me one day as I closed the door behind me. I’d just returned from the weekly Assembly. He was stretched on his pallet by the fireplace, reading a book that must have belonged to my parents. I’d never had much use for books—never had enough time.

“No.” I crossed the room with a sigh, glancing around. “Where are my brother and sister?”

“Jonn said he’d see to the horses tonight, and Ivy wandered off.” He put the book face-down on his chest and folded his hands over it. “Have you been asking around the town about them?”

I went to the window and peered out. I hadn’t seen either of them when I’d returned. Worry pinched my stomach, but I brushed it away. I worried a lot, and it never helped anything. There was still daylight yet. “What am I supposed to do? March into the square and ask if anyone is working with them? I have to be cautious.”

He frowned. “Pretty soon I’ll be healed, and then what will we do? I can’t hide here forever. You can’t keep feeding me forever, either.”

I turned away from the window, restless. The conversation was making me irritable, and I didn’t know why. “What are you reading?”

He looked down at the book. “I found it upstairs in the attic. It’s called
The Winter Parables
. Mostly love poems so far.” His expression turned devilish. “Maybe you could read a few to Cole Carver.”

My cheeks flushed. What lies had Ivy told him? “Poems are stupid, sappy things. I don’t even know why my parents have that book.”

Gabe’s eyes followed me as I crossed the room to the kitchen. I think he was suppressing a smile behind that little smirk of his. I wanted nothing more than to wipe it off his face.

“Why are you reading love poetry, anyway? Thinking about Lakin?”

As soon as I’d said the name I regretted it. Gabe’s eyes darkened. I put a hand over my mouth and leaned against the wall. “I—I’m sorry—”

“Where did you hear that name?” His tone was tense, quiet.

My heart thudded. “You said it in your delirium. You thought she was me.”

“Did I say anything more?”

“Not really.” A horrified blush covered my cheeks. Why had I brought this up?

He waited.

I relented. “You mentioned something about a promise. You said you were sorry. But you didn’t say much more than that. Not that I could understand, anyway.”

Gabe frowned and looked down, and I felt ten kinds of horrible for bringing it up at all. Was this Lakin someone who had betrayed him?

After a moment, he lifted his head and saw my consternation.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel like you’ve done something wrong.”

“Who was she?” I whispered.

“Lakin is—
was
—my betrothed.”

“Oh. Your betrothed.”

Why did I feel so sick to my stomach? And then I realized he’d said
was
. I felt even sicker. “Is she—I mean has she…?”

“No, no,” he said. “She’s fine. We broke off the engagement months ago, although we remained friends. Her connection to me when I was arrested was tenuous at best, so I am sure she is safe from being associated with my new criminal status.”

We smiled awkwardly—it wasn’t funny, but when everything was a disaster you had to find humor somewhere. Silence fell between us.

“So you were betrothed,” I said aloud, testing the word out. “You seem young for it.”

I didn’t really know if he was too young to be married or not—I knew little about the marriage customs of his people, and I didn’t know his exact age either. I was mostly just fishing for information, quite shamelessly so.

He rubbed his forehead, looking abashed. “It was arranged when we were barely older than children, you see, but neither of us minded the arrangement. We were friends.”

“Why’d you break it off?”

As soon as I’d asked, I felt breathless. Was I being too forward?

He ran one finger up and down the spine of the book on his chest. “There was trouble between our families. It had nothing to do with us, really, but we couldn’t marry after everything settled.”

“Were you sorry?” I spoke the words so quietly that I didn’t know if he’d heard them.

He had heard. His eyes searched mine. “Yes and no. I cared for her, but it was not passionate glances and stolen kisses, you see. I think we each would have wanted more than the other could give, in the end.”

When he said
stolen kisses
, I felt hot and cold. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

The door behind me burst open and Ivy rushed in, her arms full of fresh snow blossoms. Gabe and I moved apart.

“I saw that we were running out of dried ones...” She scanned our faces and broke off, smiling slyly. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Let me have those,” I said. “Where’s Jonn?”

She handed me the snow blossoms, still grinning. “He’s coming.”

I avoided Gabe’s eyes after she went back outside. The mood had shattered, leaving awkwardness in its wake. I went to hang the blossoms from the drying rack in the kitchen.

“Lia?” Gabe asked.

I turned.

“What I said about Lakin and kisses. I wasn’t...I mean I’m not...” He blushed again. “That was very direct. I’m not trying to be improper.”

“I need to make supper,” I said, and went into the kitchen.

Leaning against the sink, I covered my eyes with my hand. What was wrong with me? I moved away from Cole’s advances, but when Gabe mentioned kisses I melted inside.

Sometimes I didn’t understand myself in the slightest.

~

We were struck with unseasonable warmth for a day, and the sun warmed the snow until it softened. The freeze the next night turned the snow into a crunchy shell that encapsulated the landscape in a sleek white crust. The whole world looked encased in glass.

It was a quiet day on the farm. Ivy was visiting a friend in town, and Jonn was playing his flute indoors, the sound of it like birdsong. Gabe had volunteered to help with the barn chores, insisting that he was healed enough to pitch in with the rest of us.

I lingered by the door, plucking a handful of fresh snow blossoms for my pocket when I heard a shout.

Gabe
.

I scrambled across the snow, my snowshoes hissing as they skidded and slid over the icy crust. I spotted him by the paddock, no Watchers or villagers in sight. My heartbeat slowed, and I almost laughed at the panic that had gripped me.

“Gabe?”

The wind blew his hair across his face, so I didn’t see his dismayed expression until I got close.

“What...?” I looked past him and saw. The fence, which had been in a state of disrepair since my father died, had toppled over. The horses had escaped.

I spun in a circle, my eyes scanning the yard. One grazed on tufts of grass that stuck out above the snow beside the barn wall.

The other was missing.

And his tracks led straight into the forest.

I wasted no time catching the first horse. His lead rope dangled off his halter, and I crept up beside him and snagged it. He just looked at me with his big brown eyes and shook his mane. I led him inside and put him in his stall before returning to join Gabe, who had hobbled to the fence and crouched down to examine it.

I knew what must be done. I strode to his side and faced the woods.

My hands felt stiff and tingly as I stared at the shifting shadows and evergreen branches. I hadn’t been in the forest since we’d found Gabe. Memories of the encroaching darkness, the slick swath of blood on the snow flashed through my mind in little lightning bursts. Just the thought of returning made my stomach sick.