Into The Icy Dark (The Wish Cycle Book 1) Read online

  That was when I realized I could no longer hear voices.

  I heard the front door open, and then close once more. The voices did not pick up again after. What was going on? I wanted to go out and see who had left, but the thought of facing either parent made my belly clench like a vise. There was a yawning black pit in my chest, filled with a nothing that nonetheless ached, as if the edges of it were eating away at my soul. I wrapped my arms around myself, to hold my body together. I thought I might fly apart. As if it wasn’t enough for us to wait for my father to die, now they might have to watch me succumb, too. How could I have caused them more pain?

  And I would be leaving soon, not some day in the distant future. Ever since my father had been found here, sketching hyper-realistic portraits with no training, the other Artists on rotation had made a point of stopping by once a year to see if any of the local children had evidenced budding Artistic talents. They always came late in the year, on their way back to the academy for the winter, when it would be too cold and dangerous for travel. It was just around the corner; the weather had been cooling for weeks, each night leaving glittering trails of frost on the ground. Not cold enough for snow; not yet, but it was cold enough for the scarf and knit hat hanging on the pegs at the end of my bed. Whoever the academy had sent would be arriving any day now, and when they did, they would find me.

  I forced myself to look up, toward the window over my dresser. If I thought about something else, the pain receded slightly, so I peered through the glass. The scene outside the window was the same as it had always been; the pine trees spearing up, toward a sky that sat over the world like an upturned bowl. Today, the gray clouds were dark, piling up in the sky like a stack of dirty laundry. The wind picked up, and the tallest pine bent; if I’d been outside I would have been able to hear the creaking, and the rushing of the wind. A few drops of rain splattered against my window with a sound like thrown rice.

  I couldn’t afford to feel this pain. It was too much, far too much, and it was threatening to suck me under. In my mind, I kept an imaginary box. It had vague borders, and a lid that I couldn’t always control, but it was always there, buried deep. I didn’t know if anyone else had a box like this, or if they could feel the sharp edges of their pain the way I did. I knew where the borders of it lay, and so I could scoop the pain into the box, and slam the lid shut. It left an empty space, but at least it didn’t hurt. Happiness and relief were a dim presence, tied inexplicably with the pain, but at least that pain was nothing more than dull ache in the very back of my mind.

  I heard the slamming of the door once more, and the murmur of voices. Then footsteps.

  I scrambled to my feet, in the grip of some plan to face my fate standing, as if I was facing my very death, and not one of my parents.

  And then, there he was.

  He was hunched over from his long hours in the book shop with Gort, and he had scraps of paper stuck to his trousers. He had a perpetual squint from looking at the tiny print of books that needed fixing, and his eyesight was as bad as Mother’s, though his eyes were dark. His dusky hair, which was thinning with age, was windblown from his walk outside, and in one long-fingered hand he held a book. I could see from the way his jaw was set, and how tightly he held the book in his hands, that he was trying hard to keep his own feelings under control.

  “Mizna,” he said, and then paused to clear his throat. “I’m…I’m sorry.” He refused to meet my eyes, instead looking at a spot on the floor in front of me, almost as if he was afraid to acknowledge my existence. Like if he got too attached to the idea of me being there, it would hurt worse when I left.

  “For what?” I asked. My voice sounded dead and lifeless, even to my own ears.

  “That you have to live with this, too. I know it’s…not what any of us wanted. But now that we know, it’s best to face it. Over the years we’ve only ever really talked about the bad there is in being an Artist.” He moistened his lips with his tongue, and continued. “But there is good, too,” he said. His voice took on some life, a slight bounce, and his expression lifted, though it couldn’t quite mask the shadow in his eyes. “Artists are great people, mostly. Masterpieces are incredible – I know you haven’t seen one in person, but they’re…” he shook his head, as if words had failed him. “There’s a collection of them at the academy, the biggest collection in the world.”

  “Do you want me to be happy about this?” I asked. I had spent all of my life under the specter of impending death for my father, and now that I was facing the same, did he expect me to suddenly be upbeat and excited? A tiny flicker of anger lit in my chest, but it dulled immediately into a smoldering coal. I lacked the energy for it to fan into flame, and didn’t mourn as it died.

  My father sighed, and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Mizna, I’m not telling you to be happy about it. I’m trying to tell you that there are good things about it, too. There are good and bad sides to everything in life, and I feel like you’ve only ever heard the bad about this particular one.”

  I looked away from him, out the window, back at the tossing pine.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to give you this.” I turned back to him, and looked at the book in his outstretched hand.

  “A book?” I asked, looking up again to meet his eyes.

  “Yes. The…the Artist will be here soon. You’ll go to the academy, and…you’ll be one of the older students. Twenty-three is…old enough to be finished with your training entirely, had you started on time.”

  He paused for a long moment, as if he expected me to immediately understand, and save him the trouble of explaining it. But when I said nothing, he pressed on.

  “I wanted to give you a chance to start your training early, so maybe you won’t feel like you’re so far behind. So that you’ll – maybe – be a little ahead. It’s part of an exercise the Artists have you do to work on your writing,” he explained. “Here.” He flipped the book open, and showed me the blank pages. “You write in it. Anything you want.”

  I stared at it for a moment, and then held out my hand, since it was obviously what he wanted me to do. He set it in my palm. It seemed heavier than a small book should be, and I wondered if it really was heavy for its size or if I was just being dramatic.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. He stood awkwardly for a moment, and then turned to leave.

  I looked down at the blank, creamy pages. For writing? I couldn’t write. Yent could write, but he was long gone. He wasn’t even living in some far-off city, where I could still send him letters asking for advice. He’d told me about this exercise, once.

  His housekeeper had ushered me into his sitting room, and told me that he would be there shortly. When he’d arrived, he had a book in his hand and ink stains on his fingers.

  “Sorry,” Yent said, looking embarrassed. He waved his book, the ink still drying. “I was writing in my journal.”

  “You keep a journal?” I asked, curious.

  “Yes,” he said. “I didn’t always, but one of my instructors gave all of his students empty books. He wanted us to write in them. I can still remember the exact tone of voice he said it in: ‘Every one of you has a story that’s worth telling.’ He said it very seriously. But I didn’t know what my story was, so I asked him after class. My instructor said that even the worst writers have a story to tell, that they’ve lived a life, haven’t they? He said that if I didn’t know what to write otherwise, that I could journal my thoughts and feelings, what I experienced.”

  “But you write all the time now,” I said. “You’ve written books that have been published in the biggest cities in the world.”

  “That journal is what got me started,” Yent explained. “Without it, I would never have written those other books. My journals are the only books I’ve never let anyone read,” he finished with a laugh.

  I turned the book over in my hands. Maybe I could do what Yent had done: write about what was happening to me. But not now. To live it over a second time as I tried
to put it into words did not appeal to me. I bent over and slid it under the bed next to my drawings. I didn’t feel like writing. I didn’t feel much like anything.

  I went back to watching the pine tree waver through the window. There wasn’t much else to do, and the thought of standing up and going to be productive…well, that just made me tired.

  Dinner that evening was a quiet affair. We sat around the scarred table and silently ate the meal my mother had prepared. It was bland, tasteless, but I forced myself to eat until my stomach was filled, and then rose to help clean up after. It was something to keep my hands busy, at least. But as I reached for the stack of plates, my mother shook her head. I stopped, my fingers inches from the dishes.

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said quietly, not meeting my eyes. “Just…go.”

  I went.

  That night, as I lay in bed, I heard my parents. My mother was weeping softly, the sound broken by the low rumble of my father’s voice as he tried, and failed, to comfort her.

  ~*~

  The next morning, I began the process of gathering my belongings. I started with the row of books below my window, running my fingers along the spines. I stopped at a familiar title, and pulled it out. It fell open in my hands, to reveal a hair ribbon I’d been using as a bookmark. I touched the edge of the ribbon with one finger, remembering.

  For my thirteenth birthday, I had wanted a new dress. There had been a new fabric in the general store; it had been a dark blue, my favorite color, with threads of gold and silver worked in leaves. I wouldn't have cared about the dress pattern, I just wanted that fabric. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had told my mother how much I loved it; how much I wanted a dress from that material. When my birthday came, I wished, I hoped. I knew the fabric would be expensive, but I had so much faith in my mother's ability to scrimp and save that I believed she could do it with what we could afford.

  When my birthday came, there was no dress. But my mother had known what I wanted, and had dipped into her savings to buy a strip of the material. She worked hard on that little strip, hemming the edges and embroidering it with thread that almost matched. It was a beautiful hair ribbon, and I loved it. But I couldn't hide my disappointment. I knew better than to say anything, but I knew they could tell. I had tucked that cloth away, never worn it. I had never asked for anything for my birthday again.

  When Yent’s book had come, I had pressed the ribbon between its pages, two painful memories I couldn’t let go of, tied together forever.

  I closed the book on the ribbon, and held the slim tome to my heart, unsure if I could finish what I’d started.

  I was still staring at my tiny collection of books when my mother appeared in the doorway. I turned to face her, and found that she was still refusing to meet my eyes, as if even looking at me properly was too painful.

  “I’m going to the general store,” she said finally. Then she paused, biting her lip. “To buy provisions for…your trip. You should come with me.”

  “I’ll get ready,” I said quietly. She nodded, and left, still not having looked me in the eyes. I sighed, and pulled my shawl off the hook at the end of my bed. I draped it around my shoulders, and patted at my hair. If I didn’t make sure it was lying flat enough to please her, my mother would fix it for me. Then I left my room.

  She was waiting for me at the front door, hand on the knob. She turned at the sound of my footsteps, and frowned. Then she strode up to me, and smoothed my hair down with her hands. I resisted the urge to jerk away; I’d thought I was presentable; apparently not. After she’d smoothed my hair, she tugged at my shawl until she’d deemed it straight. It didn’t matter that I was twenty-three years old, and perfectly capable of both fixing my hair and dressing myself. Finally, she nodded her approval, and opened the door.

  A gust of chill air swept through, and we stepped out into the street together. The sky was obscured entirely by clouds, hanging low overhead, as we strode into the dust of the road. Eventually it would be dampened with rain and snow, turned swiftly to mud. But probably not for at least a few days yet. It was getting colder though; autumn was coming to an end, with winter close behind.

  The general store wasn’t far away; we reached it after a brisk walk of only a few minutes, and entered the dusty, gloomy building accompanied by the ringing of a bell.

  “What can I get for you?” the clerk, an older man named Tero, asked at once, before my eyes had adjusted the change in light.

  “Travel provisions,” my mother said, the wooden heels of her shoes clicking as she stepped up to the counter.

  “Going somewhere?” Tero asked.

  “Mizna will be attending the Muse Academy of Art this year.”

  “Is that so?”

  I let the conversation drift into the background as my eyes adjusted. The general store was lit with lamps, but they weren’t nearly as bright as the sun outside, even on a gloomy day, and the building was full of shadows. The plain wood walls were lined with shelves, stacked with tins of canned produce, sacks of flour and sugar, boxes of nails, and packets of sewing needles. Barrels on the floor were filled with apples, potatoes, and the last corn of the season. The counter along the back wall hosted a display case with a glass front, and had more expensive specialty items inside: a pocket watch, spectacles, a knife with a metal sheath that had been molded in curlicues, and a curio box with a mirrored lid.

  I wandered over to one of the walls, examining the items on the shelf as my mother spoke with the clerk behind the counter. There was a line of smaller sacks, filled with more exotic fruits than our regional apples. Oranges, pineapples, and other fruit I’d never tasted in my life. They were far too expensive for our tiny budget, but there were pears, too. Pears grew in the area, though there weren’t many. I picked up the bag, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, to look at more closely.

  “If you want the pears, Mizna, I can give you a deal.” I turned, the packet of dried pears in my grip. Tero was weighing out dried apples into a sack on his scales. “I’ll sell them for the same price as the apples. Most people aren’t that interested in them, so I can sell them at a discount.”

  “That could be nice,” I said slowly.

  “The apples are fine,” my mother said quickly. I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, she went on. “It’ll be easier to carry if they’re all in one package. I don’t want you to have to carry more than you have to.”

  “What if I want pears?” I asked, weighing the package in my hand. “I like pears, and since I’m the one that has to carry it…”

  “I could put the pears in with the apples,” Tero offered. But my mother had turned to me, ignoring him.

  “You haven’t done any traveling before,” she said. “I think it’s best to take the safer option for now.” She turned back to the clerk. “Thank you for the offer, but I think we’ll just be getting the apples for today.”

  Tero looked from me to her, once, twice, before he shrugged and went back to weighing the apples. I set the packet of dried pears back on the shelf, and a few minutes later, we left the shop together, carrying our purchases in our arms.

  “I’m sorry about the pears, Mizna,” my mother said. “I just think it’s better to keep it simple. It’s the first time you’ve left home, after all. Simple will be easier for you.”

  I wanted to ask whose fault it was that this was the first time I’d left home, but I bit my tongue.

  ~*~

  It was only a few days later that the Artist came.

  I was sitting at the rickety desk in the sitting room, with the window that faced onto the street before me dropping natural light through the gauzy curtains and onto the worn surface. The hard wooden seat beneath my thighs, at first cold, had warmed the temperature of my flesh as I turned my new, empty, book over in my hands. Putting something in it that wasn’t worth the ink and paper it took to write it seemed a crime. What could I possibly have to say that would be interesting enough to act
ually put into words? I could feel the start of something - thoughts, feelings - not ready to be written, not even ready to be thought out in an organized fashion. What could I do with such chaos? I ran my fingertips over the tooled leather cover, following the designs. My father and Gort had worked together to make it, though I doubted my father could have guessed the purpose to which it would be put.

  I picked up the waiting pen, and dipped it into the bottle of ink, then I held it over the blank page, waiting for something to come out. Something that made sense; maybe something life changing. The thought that anything I could write might fall into that category almost made me smile. The pen hovered, waiting for me to make up my mind.

  Before I could work up the courage to blot the paper, a flash of motion caught my attention. I turned to watch a splotch of lurid red dancing down the street. The curtains obscured details that otherwise would have been clear, like who it was running down the road, but I could deduce the red was a cap, and it was a child that wore it. Probably a little girl, I thought; most of the boys in town favored blues and greens. I brushed the lace curtain away from the glass, and the red-capped girl suddenly resolved into the neighbor girl, Marsa. Her dark braids were flying out behind her, and she was running toward…

  My hand faltered, and the curtain slipped back into place. I hurried to catch it again, though I didn’t really want to see.

  The road, the main street of town, stretched southward toward the mountains that ringed our valley like a protecting wall. On the other side of the street sat the small cottages that belonged to the families that worked in the local businesses – the seamstress, the general store, the cobbler, the butcher. If one left our house and walked south, they would pass most of these cottages before they came to the book shop where my father worked with Gort, which was on the same side of the street, and separated from our house by yards of pine forest. Beyond the bookshop sat the other businesses, and that was where he stood.