49

Wolves

KAT SHOOK ALL over as if she stood in a freezing wind. She couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice. “I know Gumble and MacLarren said we shouldn’t leave our rooms. But still.”

“I’ve got my sword,” Rob said. He and Peter had also fallen asleep, and their clock had stopped, too. Rob looked ready to burst, his cheeks were so flushed.

“We’ll get her back,” Kat said, making fists of both hands. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get all of them back.” She wished she believed her own words.

Kat clutched her great-aunt’s chatelaine. Peter carried a sword of his own. Wrapped in their warmest clothes, they set out after the girls.

Once outside, they ran. It had snowed only an inch, but it was a wet snow and Kat’s feet were numb within minutes. They saw no sign now of the girls, and they could find no tracks.

The chill wind cut right through their clothes. Gray clouds spat freezing mist, and even as she ran toward the sea Kat could see the whitecaps kicked up by the early winter wind. If she was this cold, those girls were in danger of freezing. She sped up, and the boys followed.

They reached the cliff edge, but still there was no sign, so they turned north along the cliffs, running toward the cave.

They stopped, panting, at the high promontory above the cave. Waves crashed below and the gulls keened above. Then Robbie pointed down to the stream that cut from the moors above to the sea.

“Look! There they are!”

Below them, all the way at the bottom of the cliffs, Kat could see the three girls entering dark Dunraven Wood.

“Well done, Rob. Let’s go!” she called, and scrambled down the path toward the woods.

How the three small girls managed to be so far ahead and to get down without incident, Kat couldn’t imagine. By the time she, Rob, and Peter reached the bottom, where Fairnie Burn flowed over rocks and gravel on its way into the sea, Kat was covered in scrapes and bruises. Her hair was disheveled and her shirt untucked, and her right stocking sported a large hole where she’d caught it on a thorn. If the skirt and blazer hadn’t been woven of strong Scottish wool, they, too, would have been in shreds. All the way down she could hear Peter’s and Rob’s swords as they battered the cliff face.

They crossed the burn, splashing carelessly through the icy water, and made for the woods. At the edge, Rob stopped.

“I don’t know, Kat,” he said.

The wood was already shadowed, and small things skittered among the brush and dead leaves, crackling and snapping dried branches.

Kat steeled herself, then turned and plunged into the wood.

It was dreary, dank, and dark within. The trees, bare, stretched above her like so many bony fingers. The wind whispered at the tops, and cold dripped through the bare spots so that she was even more chilled than before. She stopped, wondering which way to go.

Rob brushed past her. “Well, if Stodgy Kat is going for it, so am I. Even if it seems we’re chasing shadows.” Then Rob shouted, “Look!” and began to run.

They pressed through the woods, the branches tugging at Kat’s hair and jacket, snapping and popping as they broke through, and all of a sudden they came out of the wood and onto the highland waste.

The sun sat watery and low in the west, gray folds of clouds wreathing the late yellow glow. The moors, where they were not snow-covered, were shadowed with purple, rocks rounding skyward, and here and there an orange or yellow patch of late autumn color glowed in the lee. The rolling hills stretched to the ends of the earth.

Nothing moved on the landscape save the gorse and bracken that were stirred by the chill wind and three rooks that circled silently overhead.

Rob flanked Kat on one side, Peter on the other. After a moment Kat spoke, her voice broken. “They’re gone. They’ve flat-out disappeared.”

Rob let out a deep sigh.

Peter said, low, “If they were ever here.”

“That’s the problem,” Rob said. “Even though we saw them, there were no footprints in the snow. I kept having the feeling we were being led on.”

The three of them exchanged a glance.

“But where are they? Ame!” Kat called, desperate. “Isabelle!”

The first howl drifted on the bone-chilling wind.

The sun set so fast, Kat thought it was being pulled down to the horizon. A second howl, and a third, came with the lengthening shadows.

“Wolves are extinct here,” Rob said, his voice a coarse whisper. “They haven’t been here for decades. Killed off. I mean, there might be one or two, but . . .” Another, distinctly different, howl.

“I would bet,” said Peter, “that these are no ordinary wolves. Just like those were not Amelie and Isabelle.”

The hair on the back of Kat’s neck prickled. More howls.

“We’ve got nothing but your swords,” Kat said. “No matches, nothing.”

One howl from the left, and then one from the right, quite close, and then a third from behind. Kat squinted. She saw movement in the long shadows made by the rocky outcrops. The boys pressed close.

“We need to be back to back,” said Peter. “We might need to stand all night.”

“Why don’t we run?” said Kat.

“Because, Kat, if they are real, or even if they are magical wolves with real teeth,” said Rob, patient but also quivering, “then they’ll figure we’re food and chase us down and kill us and eat us.”

“And if they aren’t real,” said Peter, “nothing we do will matter.”

Another pair of howls, terribly close.

“All right then,” Kat said, “let’s at least try to get back to the castle before it’s really dark. Without running.”

They had already formed a rough triangle facing outward. “That’s not a bad idea,” said Peter, who began to edge back the way they had come.

“Unless you like being in the woods when they attack,” said Rob. “I’d rather take my chances out in the open, where I can swing my sword, thank you.”

Several howls, too close. The boys stopped moving and braced and raised their swords. Shadows, shifting back and forth, closed on them.

Her fingers were stiff with cold, so Kat jammed her hands into her pockets. And there she found her great-aunt’s chatelaine.

A rook wheeled. Out, out, out.

She lifted her right hand, the chatelaine glowing a faint blue in her fist. She let it dangle from her fingers, and at once blue light shot from it as if from a brilliant lantern.

“Whoa!” shouted Rob. “What is that?”

“Is that the chatelaine thing?” yelled Peter.

Gumble had used spells and Great-Aunt Margaret had given out quotes, so without thinking why, Kat cried out, “How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?”

Silence. The chatelaine pulsed with blue light. A thin band of yellow sat on the western horizon. The rooks wheeled away inland. The sea pounded and the gulls keened, but there were no more wolf calls.

“Plato,” whispered Peter. “Good old Plato.”

“That was Plato? From that cave story? The one Gumble had us writing about? I’m going to study harder from now on,” said Rob. “Nicely done, Kat. You’ve got to tell me how you knew.”

“Come on,” said Kat, breathing hard. “We’ve got to get back before it’s really dark and we can’t find our way.”

By the time they reached the castle it was dark. Their only guiding light was the chatelaine, which glowed stronger with the deepening shadows. Kat held it before them as a lantern. They heard no more wolves.

They went to the dining hall, but no dinner had been laid; the fires had never been lit and the luncheon had not been cleared. The three of them snatched up bits of food—dried-out bread, fruit, chunks of cheese—eating as they moved. They tried the kitchen: also dark. There was no sign of any adult—not Cook, nor Hugo, nor the teachers. And, thankfully, no sign of the Lady or Storm.

They made their way up to their rooms, and, after changing into dry clothes, gathered in Peter and Rob’s room.

“I wish I knew where she was,” Kat said, and winked away tears.

They sat in a half circle after building a fire in the fireplace, warming their hands and feet. The chatelaine sat on the floor in the middle.

“It wasn’t Ame,” Rob said. “It was a figment. A shadow.” He paused. “Like in Plato’s Cave. It wasn’t her, but I just know she’s all right. She’s all right, and real, and warm. And with all the others.”

“That’s good, Rob,” Kat said. Somehow hearing him say it made her feel better.

“If you don’t mind staying here tonight,” Peter said, “I think we should stick together.”

Kat said, “I wouldn’t be in my room alone tonight for anything.”

The chatelaine now glowed faintly.

“So, Aunt Margaret gave it to you,” said Rob. “And she told you it was magic. But you didn’t believe her.”

“Not at first. But I do now,” Kat said. “It’s all different now.” She thought, but didn’t say, I’ve found my way out of Plato’s Cave.