“See!” the South Wind said. “Listen to her. She’s already family!”
“Yes, yes, I’m family! Gail’s daughter!” Cassie cried into the rising storm. “Stop it! Don’t storm! Please, stop!”
Instantly, the gray dispersed, and the breeze calmed to a whistle. “Did we hurt you?” the South Wind asked. “We don’t wish to hurt you. Your mother was our favorite child. We adored her.”
“She was a mistake,” the East Wind said.
Cassie bristled. “Excuse me?”
The South Wind said soothingly, “It’s an old argument. My brother did not approve of North’s adopting your mother.”
The East Wind growled like a rumble of thunder. “It was kidnapping.”
“Adoption,” the South Wind said.
“Kidnapping.”
In a reasonable tone, the South Wind said, “If Abigail did not love us, she would not have sent her daughter to live with us.”
Twisting in the air, Cassie tried to see the source of the voices. “I’m not here to live with you! I’m here to ask you to take me east of the sun and west of the moon!”
The air shuddered around her. “Oh, no, kitten. You cannot go there,” the South Wind said. “It is not a nice place. Not a nice place at all.”
“Not for living things,” the East Wind agreed.
“Besides,” the South Wind added, “it is too far. Much too far for us.” He sounded pleased. Streaks of cloud zipped past Cassie like silver minnows in a river.
“But you’re wind,” Cassie said. “Wind goes everywhere.”
“It’s beyond the ends of the world,” the East Wind said, and the sky darkened as he spoke. Deep gray stained the white clouds and spread.
Cassie felt a fat drop of rain hit her cheek. “The world is round. It doesn’t have ends,” she said. “Besides, Grandfather made it there. Can you take me to him?”
“Oh, kitten, you do not want to see him.”
“He has a temper,” the East Wind explained.
“Once, he was so angry he scattered us into hundreds of pieces all across the globe.” The air trembled. “It took us weeks to reassemble.”
He scattered his own brothers? She shivered. And these were the creatures that her mother had grown up with, that Gail had called family. “Just take me to him.”
“Absolutely not,” the South Wind said firmly. “He’ll tear you to bits.”
Cassie opened her mouth to argue, and her stomach squeezed. She clutched her stomach. Her baby! Not yet! She was so close to Bear! “For Gail’s sake, take me to him!”
“But…”
Her stomach loosened, and she sucked in air. “Please! If you cared about Gail at all, take me to the North Wind!”
In answer, wind rushed around her. Her skirt whipped and twisted around her legs. As she went spinning through clouds, she cradled her stomach.
“You may want to close your eyes,” the South Wind said to Cassie. “Some find this… distressing to their worldview.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Cassie said. “I married a talking bear.”
Enveloping her in empty air, the winds swept over the forest. She felt her stomach contract again as the two winds sandwiched her. She spun through the air like a pinwheel.
Clouds rocked underneath her, and she clenched her teeth, concentrating on not being sick. Faster and faster, she flew into the snow-toothed mountains. She slalomed between peaks. Veering close to one, the winds drove her toward the sheer face of the mountain glacier. “Watch it!” she yelled, and she sailed up the slope, bursting through clouds.
“We are here,” the South Wind whispered. As the winds slowed, Cassie saw a massive mountainside. A jagged cave cut open the side of the ice-coated mountain like a wound.
Snow spewed from the mouth of the North Wind’s cave as Cassie, carried by the two winds, flew toward it. Cold slammed into Cassie, and she catapulted backward through the air. She was caught in a sweep of wind as the North Wind roared: “BLAST YOU ALL. WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
Swirling around her, the South Wind whispered, “It is one of his bad days. Do you wish to leave now?” She felt the wind quivering. Tiny droplets of moisture beaded on Cassie’s skin.
She wanted to say yes, to run as far from this new monster as she could. “No,” she said. “This is what I came here to do. Bring me closer.” As the winds lowered her to the cave, she called, “North Wind, I need to talk to you! I’m Gail’s—”
“NEVER SPEAK HER NAME!” Howling, the North Wind tore out of his cave. He whipped around the peak at a hundred miles per hour. Mom called this monster “father”? Awed, Cassie watched boulders sail off the slope in showers of hail and ice. One of her uncles whimpered as the debris hit the mountainside in a mushroom cloud plume of dirt and ice. The crash sparked other rockfalls.
Far below, she heard a dragon roar as the avalanches cascaded. For an instant, hearing the dragon, the North Wind slowed. This was her chance. She thought of her mother rushing out of the station to protect her baby and her husband. If Mom could confront him for the sake of her family, then so could Cassie. She cupped her hands like a megaphone. “You have to take me east of the sun and west of the moon!”
“GO AWAY!”
“Now she’s done it,” she heard one of the winds whisper.
Hail hit her skin. Moaning, the winds huddled around her, suspended beside the mountain. She shielded her face. “Stop it!” Cassie cried.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!”
“Like hell I will!” she shouted back. “You have to help me!”
“LEAVE ME TO MY MISERY!” Rattling the mountain, the North Wind dove into his cave. A glacier cracked. Thundering, it slid down the mountain.
“Push me closer,” Cassie told the winds.
“I do not think that would be a good idea,” the East Wind said.
Clouds swaddled her and thickened into gray. “Oh, no, kitten, no,” the South Wind said. The mountain faded from view. “Don’t ask this of us.”
“As a favor to Gail,” Cassie pleaded.
On the trembling breath of the winds, she rose to the opening of the cave. Closer, the resisting wind increased. She felt a contraction, as if the baby were protesting. Cassie shouted, “I’m your granddaughter!”
Abruptly, the North Wind deflated. Cassie barreled into the cave. She cycled for footing, and her toes brushed rocks. She landed like a shaky bird. Carefully, she straightened. In the corner of the cave, she saw a dark patch of swirling cloud. That was him—her breath quickened—her grandfather, Mom’s kidnapper, the one who had been responsible for her mother’s imprisonment and, indirectly, for Bear’s fate. She began to feel an old anger build up inside her, and she latched on to it. “Hello, Grandfather.”
The other winds bolted out of the cave.
“You come to torture me in my grief,” he said.
“Your grief! For my whole life, I had no mother!”
Wind pooled around her feet and breathed through her hair. “Oh, my poor, sweet Gail. Lost to the world. Lost!”
He was so caught up in his own self-pity that he didn’t even know his own daughter had been saved. “She’s home.”
“You lie!” He roared—air shot through the cave, and rocks tumbled. Pressing into a cleft in the cave wall, Cassie shielded her stomach from the wind. Her hair whipped her neck and her skirt pulled at her legs. She squeezed her eyes shut until the howling subsided into sobbing.
Her head throbbed, and her ears rang. She shook her head, and rocks rained out of her hair. “While you were busy feeling sorry for yourself, my husband sacrificed his freedom to save your daughter. He’s trapped at the troll castle right now! And it’s your fault. It all began with you. You are the worst parent—”
He moaned. “Cruel child. Leave me alone,” he pleaded. “Please.”
Gravel skittered, and cold air pricked her arms. “No, Grandfather,” she said. “I won’t.” She felt her stomach contract again, and she doubled over. The North Wind howled, but this time, it was a short storm. Tucked in the rock cleft, Cassie waited until both the contraction and the winds abated. “For my whole life, I thought my mother was dead,” she said. “My mother became a stranger to me because of you.”