Alina scampers the rest of the way to us, her ugly gray coat open, her bootlaces undone. Frailer. Somehow, she’s smaller and frailer each day, though she’s the one who should be growing. It hurts to look at her, and so I look past her.
The house the color of a bruised peach looms behind my sister. Snow covers the black roof and makes the white sills even more so. Tabard smokes on the porch, his makeshift cloak barely shifting in the lazy wind. He’s not alone for long. Elise and Captain Janlav join him. Neither our older sisters nor the guards ever let us out of their sight for long.
“Merile, the ghosts…” Icky yellow snot runs down Alina’s thin lips. She sniffs, but it’s too late. She brushes her nose on her sleeve.
“Later.” I nod toward the porch. Our voices might still carry over. “And aren’t you cold?”
Alina glances down at her open coat. She’s wearing her woolen dress, but nothing else to keep her warm. Snow clots her hem up to her knees. “Yes. A little. Maybe.”
“Let me,” I say, swiftly buttoning her coat. My dear little sister, when she gets distraught, she forgets to take care of herself. I don’t know what would happen to her if she didn’t have us older sisters looking after her. “And if you don’t tie the laces, you’ll trip on those icy steps. Here, I’ll do it for you, but just this once. All right?”
But once I’m done, it’s darker already. The sky above the frozen lake is bleak blue and dull yellow. The garden walls cast shadows over the untended orchard. The iron gate has never looked as rigid, the stone steps leading down there as treacherous.
“Maybe we’ll take another path?” Alina offers as if reading my thoughts.
“Yes,” I whisper. We’ll walk a bit along one of the other trails leading down. There’s no reason to go all the way to the gate. We just need to find a place where we can talk.
We stroll in silence on the path that winds down the left side of the slope. The crisp snow cracks under our feet and my companions’ paws. A bird of some sort croaks and cackles. The barren oaks and maples rustle, their shadows taller with each moment. I hold on to Alina’s hand. I need to know what my sister knows, even if it means walking deeper into the darkness.
Soul and shadow. A person becomes a ghost when both their soul and shadow remain behind to sort out unfinished business. What caused these ghosts, Irina and Olesia, to decide to linger? Why are they being nice to Alina and attempting to be nice to me? What do they want from us? Why did Alina say it took her a long time to get them to agree to meet with me? As if we didn’t have enough worries of our own already! Thinking of the things Elise said makes my head ache!
The path turns to the right, and we enter the orchard. My eyes have grown accustomed to the dimmer light, and though the garden wall is high and its shadow thick, I’m no longer that confused or nervous. Not even when I hear the croak. For it’s but a magpie sitting on a branch of the hollow apple tree, right by the gate as black as true night.
“The white-sided one,” I say, even as Rafa and Mufu pause. They lift their forepaws at the exact same moment. They want to give the bird a chase.
I smile despite myself. My companions are getting plump from lack of exercise. Soon they’ll be as round as Sibilia once was. There would be more to cuddle then, but lifting them would become tricky. “Go!”
Alina and I admire them running, a brown and a gray arrow, a flurry of legs and tails. I have to remind myself we came down here for a reason. Alina must tell me everything she knows about the ghosts, for I don’t trust for even a moment that they’d have our best interests in mind.
I’m just about to demand that Alina do so, when something even stranger happens. Rafa and Mufu skid to a halt by the tree, barking. The magpie takes to the air, the white-striped wings spreading wide, the mighty black tail straightening. It swoops toward my companions—no, back toward the apple tree—and between two eyeblinks, it simply disappears.
And then, a hunched shadow of a woman steps out of the hollow trunk.
“A ghost,” I gasp.
Alina giggles. “No, she’s not!”
Where my companions refused to approach the ghosts, they’re not afraid of this woman in black who appeared seemingly out of nowhere. They bounce to her, heads bent low, ears pulled back in joy as if she were a trusted neighbor. And maybe she is something akin to that. “Can that be the Witch at the End of the Lane?”
“Yes!” Alina nods vigorously, and if I weren’t holding on to her hand, she’d run to the witch at once.
“Unexpected.” This is unexpected. Though I can’t remember much of our visit to the witch’s cottage, Celestia, Elise, and Sibilia all insist that the witch helped Alina when she was ill. I’m more prone to believe them than her. Or at least Celestia, because she never jokes.
“Let’s go and greet her.” Alina tugs toward the witch and my companions.
The witch must have heard her, because she turns to wave at us. Her black robes shift, not with the wind or because of her movement, but on their own. Rafa and Mufu poke at her hem, curious of the very same thing.
Should we? I glance over my shoulder, toward the house. Elise and Captain Janlav huddle at the top of the stone steps. They’re not really looking at us, rather at what passes for the sunset here. They talk in low voices, immersed in some topic of their own. I don’t think they have noticed the witch. It’s quite dark already. “Fine.”
But it’s Alina who leads the way, pulling me behind her. And when we reach the witch, my sister speaks before I have the chance. “What are you doing here?”
The witch cackles. Though she’s not much taller than me, she seems much more so as she leans toward us, watching us—no, our feet—down her beaky nose. Her breathing, it doesn’t form clouds like ours do, and her pupils are white as if she were blind. Which makes her next words even more peculiar. “Me come see you.”
Rafa and Mufu fall completely still. They don’t even shift weight, though the ground must still chill their paws. Stop. It’s as if the witch could make time stop for them. I wonder if this is why I can’t remember much of her cottage. That would be unfair, for her to have that much power.
“Why?” I ask because I really don’t know that much about the witch and her motives. People don’t visit these Moon-forgotten lands without a very good reason. And I don’t think anyone would come here voluntarily. Even Captain Ansalov and his soldiers left as soon as they could, and of that I’m very glad indeed.
The witch shrugs. Her bundled gray hair and layered dress shift as if she were caught in between two gusts that don’t know which way to blow. The dress is made of something gray-black and see-through, and yet she doesn’t seem to be suffering from the cold like I do. Which is also unfair. “When me help, me take interest.”
Allies. My sisters and I don’t exactly have that many allies left, not with Celestia’s previous plan going wrong and her seed being left behind at that desolate town to face the consequences. My seed. I don’t know what has become of my seed, whom I miss so very much! Celestia says we have to do with what we have. Since the witch is here now, I might as well let her help us. For I can’t tell my older sisters about what I saw earlier today or they’ll think me as mad as Alina is. “There’s ghosts in the house.”
“Ghosts.” The witch cranes her head toward the hill and the house. She sucks in the air, her pale blue lips pressing tight against her parted teeth. Smell. Can she smell the root cellar and old perfume? “Good? Bad?”
Alina gushes in, “Good, of course! They’re very nice old ladies!”
I think of their hungry eyes, Alina keeping them secret from everyone for who knows how long. “I’m not at all sure about that.”