“Please,” he begged. “Stop.”
Cassie hugged her stomach. She’d be a good parent, better than the North Wind, better than the North Wind’s daughter, better than Dad. She’d make sure her baby didn’t grow up missing a parent. “Good thing I didn’t learn about being family from you.”
“I love my daughter!”
Again, she felt her stomach squeeze, sending shudders down her legs. Leaning against the wall of the cave, she caught her breath. “Did you love her enough to respect her wishes, or did you blast her off the face of the earth for leaving you? If you really loved her, you would have let her choose her own life.”
He sobbed. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“You owe her,” Cassie said flatly. “You owe me. Take me east of the sun and west of the moon.”
“Granddaughter…”
More gently, Cassie said to the North Wind, “It’s not too late to make it right. Please, Grandfather, take me there.” She didn’t add, Before it is too late.
He hit her with gale-force winds.
CHAPTER 29
Latitude 63° 04’ 01” N
Longitude 151° 00’ 55” E
Altitude 16,573 ft.
Screaming, cassie tumbled like a rag doll out of the mouth of the North Wind’s cave. She spun head over heels. The other winds shrieked, and she whipped into a tornado spiraclass="underline" She faced the sky, the ground, the sky, the ground. Boulders and debris spun with her. She was going to be pulverized. “Grandfather!”
The North Wind shot through the whirlwind of rocks and ice. Scooping her inside his muscles of rain, he skimmed over a snow-crested peak with inches to spare. In his wake, the peak toppled and a dragon roared. Cassie hurtled through the air. Bones rattling, she burst out of the mountain range.
Tracts of forest were mowed flat.
She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, she was over the ocean. Her stomach seized. Waves were tossed forty feet into the air. Ships floundered. “Slow down! Please, slow down!” People were on those ships. He had to slow!
“Building momentum,” he said like thunder. Cassie slammed her hands to her ears, but her whole body shook from the vibration of the sound. She felt her stomach tighten and release, another contraction. Bile rose in her throat. She choked it down. He tore on and on.
The North Wind drooped, thinning into streaks. She slipped through the dissipating wind and clung to the empty air. Black water churned beneath Cassie, and she grasped for bits of cloud as they disintegrated around her. He sank so low that the crests of the waves dashed only inches below her.
“Are you afraid?” he whispered.
“No!” she said.
Her toes dipped into the ocean. She hissed, tucking her feet under her skirt. The torn hem trailed in the roiling waves. “How far?” she shouted. If he lost much more strength…
“There,” he said in barely a whisper. She squinted through the roaring gray to see a massive shadow, a smudge on the horizon, then it was swallowed by the storm. Hungry waves licked her legs. She kicked at the water.
Without warning, her legs plunged into the ocean. “Grandfather!” He pushed in a burst, and she skimmed fast along the wild surface. When she looked up next from the churning depths, blackened rocks raced toward her, and the mountainous shadow blocked the sky. Waves broke around her, and he heaved her onto the shore.
She slammed down into the breakers, slicing her knees on the rocks. Waves crashed into her neck. Salt water in her face, she crawled, choking, up onto the rocky shore. She hoisted herself onto a boulder. Shivering and shaking, she stroked her stomach. “I’m sorry, kiddo. You all right in there?”
One wave crashed into her, knocking her sideways. She spat salt water as she clambered out of the swells. Slick seaweed coated the rocks, and another wave crashed into her legs before she managed to pull herself up to the first tree. Black and leafless as if burned, it did not seem to be alive. Shivering uncontrollably, she clung to it. “Grandfather, are you okay?”
The whole sky looked bruised. He stirred the sea, and she felt the wind. She took that to be a reply: He was alive. She pushed her hair out of her face. “Are we here?” she asked. Sea, wind-flung, sprayed her, as if in answer, and she flinched. “All right, all right.” She turned.
Black as basalt, the troll castle loomed over the shore like a nightmare.
“Oh, God,” she breathed. Suddenly, she was more afraid than she had been diving into the frigid ocean, hanging from Father Forest’s ceiling, or falling from a dragon. She stared up at the monstrosity. It loomed over her, frighteningly silent.
Using the trees, she climbed toward the castle. Branches creaked and then cracked. Seaweed oozed between her toes. As she reached for the wall, her stomach tightened like a fist—hard. She doubled over, and for one terrible instant she thought, The baby is coming now.
Sweat popped out on her forehead as she strangled the nearest tree. She whispered to her stomach, “Be good, and I swear I will never again storm a castle while pregnant.” For an instant, her eyes blurred, pricked with tears, as her insides squeezed.
Her breathing was as loud as the crashing waves. As the contraction passed, she realized that the waves and her breathing were the only sounds on the rock island. There were no gulls in the sky and no voices in the castle. It was as if the island were dead. “Please, Bear,” she said. “Be all right.” She put her hand on the damp wall. After all the miles, only a wall stood between them—the wall and the trolls, who were somewhere inside. She gulped. She could do this. She’d come so far. She wasn’t going to be stopped now.
She tilted her head back. The wall rose incredibly high. She saw no windows or doors, only shadowed arrow slits. “Scaling the wall is out,” she said, forcing lightness into her voice. She patted her stomach. “I know you wanted to.” The crash of waves on the rocks swallowed her words and left her feeling even more small and alone. Holding the wall for balance, she started around the perimeter.
Storm clouds filled the sky, and it felt as if the world were hovering between day and night. She moved in and out of shadows as she made her way across the slippery rocks. In eerie semidarkness, she rounded the first corner.
Glistening with sea spray, the second wall could have been a mirror image of the first. It stretched unbroken to the end of the island. Black rocks led down to the sea. The same twisted, lifeless trees protruded from cracks between the rocks. Cassie felt her stomach tighten again—the contraction stealing her breath—and she waited it out, leaning against the chilled wall. Her skin cringed from her cold, wet clothes. When the pain subsided, she hurried across the rocks and turned the second corner. The third wall was also featureless stone. Three walls, no doors. She scrambled over the rocks and turned the third and final corner.
The castle had no door.
She leaned against the stone and wanted to cry. Cheek pressed to stone, she banged on the wall. “Hello? Let me in. Open up, damn you! Please, open.”
Her stomach squeezed, and she bent over it with a groan. Bent, she saw the rock melt inward into the shape of a door. Surprise overwhelmed pain. She turned her head sideways. Instead of standing beside black basalt, she was standing beside a wooden door. How… Magic, she answered herself. She thought of Bear’s castle.
She laid her hand flat on the door—warm and dry, it was untouched by sea spray—and pushed. She heard it clink, latched shut. She tried the latch. It rattled loosely in her hand.