Before the Snow Read online

  The Fire Witch raised her arms, and flames shot out toward the cloud. But the blast was unnecessary. The snow fell down to the ground, blanketing the witches, Nepenthe, and the boy, who collapsed in a heap next to the pyre.

  Nepenthe reached for him again, but she was stalled by her mother.

  “Let him be,” she whispered.

  Looking slightly terrified, the King approached and crouched over his son. The King’s hands were shaking as he leaned over and checked for breath. He nodded to the witches in thanks and then lifted the boy up into his arms and carried him away.

  Nepenthe looked up at her mother.

  “He can’t see us, child; he can’t know us.”

  When it was over and Nepenthe and her mother were in the carriage riding home, the sun began to rise.

  Nepenthe stared at her mother’s profile in shadow, contemplating her. Her mother, who had taught her every day that magic was something to be reckoned with, had just made her help wipe that boy’s magic away.

  Her mother had spent every day educating Nepenthe about her choice. The River or the land? Hadn’t they just taken that boy’s choice away? How could he live fully not knowing what he had done or what he was capable of?

  “I know you don’t approve of what we did back there,” the River Witch said quietly.

  “I think it’s going to be worse for that boy not knowing what he did. I think the sadness won’t have a name, but it will be there all the same,” Nepenthe said.

  “Perhaps, but this way he can grow up and have a normal life—sad or not,” the River Witch replied. “It won’t be a life tainted by murder, even one done by accident . . .”

  “But he’s not normal, Mother.”

  “And perhaps one day there will be a consequence for that . . . for all of us.”

  The River Witch didn’t live to see how true her words were. But she couldn’t have been more right.

  Nepenthe was more confused than ever. She had never felt power like what she saw in the garden. The only thing she knew for certain was that she would not forget that little boy, even though he had forgotten all about her.

  5

  The next few days were a blur of land and water for Nepenthe. She was no closer to choosing between the two, but the water always seemed to have a slight edge. Little did she know that like the boy, the decision would be taken from her.

  Then one day when she returned home from the academy in town she knew right away that something was wrong. Water had flooded the house.

  She walked through ankle-deep water that was still rising with every step. Has the Grotto somehow flooded? she wondered. But the water itself told a story. It was brackish and gray, not the clear blue water of her Grotto. The water somehow seemed sick or worse.

  “Nepenthe . . .”

  The water carried her name to her in an urgent whisper, and she waded toward its source.

  She found her father clinging to life in the study. He was on his belly trying to crawl through the water. There was a trail of blood from where he had been gutted in the foyer. Blood floated on the water. Nepenthe pulled him upright enough to see the wound. She grabbed a blanket from a nearby chair and wrapped it around the seeping hole in his chest. She patched him up as best she could, but she was only a girl and there was too much blood.

  Water hit her father’s face and her own. But this time, from above. It was raining in the house. She knew it was her doing, but she couldn’t stop it.

  The River Witch’s name was on his lips. Nepenthe had tried to save him, but she did not have enough power. He ordered her to find her mother, and Nepenthe left his side, wrapping his own hands over where hers had held the cloth over his wound.

  He couldn’t tell Nepenthe who did this to him. He would only say the River Witch’s name on a loop. His love for the River Witch meant more than who had taken his life.

  Nepenthe found her mother in the Grotto. She had been returned to the water, facedown. Turning her over, Nepenthe found her mother’s green eyes open, but not even a hint of her remained.

  Nepenthe cradled her mother in her arms and called her name. She futilely prayed for a pulse, but there was none. She pulled the River Witch to her and heard an inhuman wail and the sound of thunder, like a storm was gathering in the Grotto. Nepenthe knew both sounds were hers. The walls wept water now, and the water beneath her mother swirled. She clutched her mother tighter to her. Her words were gone. There was only the wailing.

  On the wall of the Grotto, she saw a word scrawled in what looked like blood: WITCH.

  Did my mother write it? Nepenthe wondered through the torrent of tears.

  She heard the Witch of the Woods’s voice calling from outside the house. Somehow word had gotten back to her and she had traveled by roots to find Nepenthe.

  “I heard you, little fish,” she said, her branches outstretched to Nepenthe. “All of Algid heard you.”

  She carried her parents’ bodies outside. Behind her she could hear the house collapsing under the rising water. She did not look back.

  Nepenthe and the Witch of the Woods took her parents to the River, where they were met by the rest of the Coven. The Witch of the Woods built a floating pyre, and they pushed her parents downstream. Nepenthe wanted nothing more than to follow them. Instead, she stood on the River bank surrounded by the Coven and watched as the Fire Witch lit the pyre with a stream of fire that seemed to drop right out of the sky.

  “Who did this?” Nepenthe asked the Witch of the Woods over and over again.

  “There are people who will never accept us for what we are—not even in a place of magic like Algid. Your mother taught you that.”

  “But if Mother had had her full powers, she could have fought off whoever it was.”

  “We don’t know that. She made her choice and she was happy with it. She was so thrilled to have you.”

  Nepenthe let herself sink against the Witch of the Woods’s bark-covered chest. It was simultaneously hard and soft. But even as the tears fell, Nepenthe made a promise. She would never be so weak that she could not defend herself. And she swore she would never love if it left her open to this kind of pain.

  She had made her choice. Or her choice had been made for her. Whichever it was, Nepenthe was the River Witch now. She belonged to the water. And the water belonged to her.

  6

  “You still have a choice to make, Nepenthe,” said the Witch of the Woods. “But not today.”

  “I have made my choice.”

  “Not today,” the Witch of the Woods repeated.

  The Witch of the Woods’s home was the Hollow. It was a marvel of magic and roots. The Witch had used her roots to hollow out room after room beneath the ground. But Nepenthe had never felt at home under the ground like she did in the water. And now, with her parents gone, she could not bring herself to step inside.

  Nepenthe spent days at a time in the water. No longer was she torn between land and sea. It was different living with the witches than visiting them. Before it was like going out and seeing a magic show in one of the villages. Now magic was all around her, all the time.

  She only wanted to be in the water. It was where she could still feel her mother. And it was where she could weep without anyone seeing.

  Days turned to weeks.

  And then the Witch of the Woods, finally accepting that Nepenthe’s choice was a final one and that she would never live on land again, came to her with a gift.

  “I wanted you to come to this out of a place of love, not grief,” the Witch of the Woods preambled.

  Nepenthe always answered when the Witch called. She would swim to the side of the River and listen to what the Witch had to say before pushing off with her tentacles back into the currents.

  But this time, the Witch had not come with words alone. She had built Nepenthe a boat and it was sitting still, anchored, despite the current.

  “There is a point where even a witch can forget who she is,” the Witch of the Woods said. One of her branches skimme
d the top of the water, reaching for Nepenthe.

  “I think I know who I am,” Nepenthe countered, swimming with a purposeful splash in her direction.

  “Mourn your parents, but do not drown in your tears.”

  The Witch of the Woods stood on the shore and reached a long branch beneath the waves, plucking Nepenthe up. With a slick thud, she deposited her on the boat’s deck. And then she left her to be.

  The boat was made of the Witch of the Woods’s favorite silver Oaken. It was rare and came from the top of some mountain that she could not travel to by roots. In order to procure the Oaken, the Witch of the Woods had to climb.

  The Oaken’s bark looked like gold leaf, but it was silver—and it made Nepenthe think of the King’s carriage. Only it was not twisted into something ornate. Its lines were simple and reminded her of the River’s currents.

  The boat had all the comforts of home, including a few of Nepenthe’s favorite things. There were also some belongings of the River Witch and Prince Eric. Nepenthe contemplated throwing everything into the River. But instead, she curled up in her father’s favorite chair, which somehow still smelled of him, and fell asleep.

  The next few weeks went like that. Nepenthe got into a comfortable rhythm with the other witches. She continued her training, and when things became too much to bear, she had her boat. She had the water.

  And then the witches brought her Ora. She was so different from Nepenthe. Ora was about the same age, but she was not from the sea. She was beautiful, and Nepenthe imagined every boy in Algid thought so. The Witch of the Woods had said that Ora had powers, too. She was said to have control over fire. But while Nepenthe was submerged in exercising her power, Ora did not make any effort to find hers. Nepenthe hardly ever saw even a spark.

  In theory, Ora was to take the Fire Witch’s place one day. Just as the Coven had left Nepenthe’s mother’s place as River Witch open to her. But the Fire Witch and Ora were not mother and daughter. They were aunt and niece. And their relationship seemed a distant one. Perhaps it was because Ora was not interested enough in fire, or perhaps her disinterest came from the Fire Witch’s lack of interest in her. Nepenthe never knew, and for all Ora’s talking, Nepenthe sensed Ora would never really tell her. All she knew was that Ora was a fixture in the Coven.

  In the future, she was to be a part of the Three. But Nepenthe wondered, somewhat meanly, what the Three would be if their Fire Witch could not so much as raise a hearth without kindling.

  The Coven said Ora needed a home, too, and they brought her to Nepenthe’s boat often. Ora was happy to have a new playmate, though, and her pretty and bright presence in contrast to Nepenthe’s rumbling clouds drowned out some of the noise of Nepenthe’s hurt when she was out of the water. If nothing else, Ora was becoming a friend—whether Nepenthe wanted one or not.

  They went on like that for a while, living like sisters, until everything changed again.

  One day on the boat, Nepenthe saw Ora saying good-bye to another girl. She had a shock of hair and a striking face that rivaled Ora’s.

  Nepenthe vaguely remembered her visiting the Coven during the phases of the North Lights when she was young. The girl was one of the Coven’s apprentices. The Coven had many. There were girls from all over Algid who had shown some magical promise. Girls who might one day replace one of the Three—if Nepenthe or Ora did not rise as expected.

  The Witch of the Woods had no heir and she was as old as the forest itself. Nepenthe wondered if this girl had wanted to be of the River. If Nepenthe had perhaps pushed out the apprentice by her arrival. But on second look there was something so earthly about the girl. So human. It was clear she did not belong in the water.

  “Margot, since we might not meet again, I want you to have this,” Ora trilled, giving the girl a pretty embroidered shawl.

  “Thank you,” Margot said, flummoxed, before turning to Nepenthe.

  “Nepenthe, is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  The genuineness of her tone cut through Nepenthe, reopening her forever wound. She bit her lip, and called on her forgotten manners.

  “That is kind of you,” Nepenthe replied. “I remember you. You are with the witches.”

  “The Witch of the Woods says she has nothing more to teach her,” Ora explained. “So Margot’s training is done.”

  Margot looked at Ora then. That was the difference between them. Ora was a part of the Coven by blood. Apprentices were there on merit alone. But if Margot felt any resentment toward Ora, she hid it well. With a small smile, Margot pulled the new shawl around her with great care.

  “Funny thing,” she said.

  “What?” Nepenthe asked as she made her way toward Ora.

  “It’s the only thing I have ever been given since my naming day,” Margot laughed.

  A whole life from birth to now, and she had never had a present? Nepenthe thought of all the gifts she’d gotten from her parents over the years and tried to imagine what this girl’s life had been. Nepenthe opened her mouth to offer up a kindness, but what was there to say? Nepenthe had lost those who were most important to her. But she had the Coven and the water. Margot had never had anyone or anything, except for a little magic, and apparently not enough.

  Nepenthe said Margot’s name gently, but Margot was already gone into the night.

  The next few years were a blur of magic and water. Apprentices like Margot would drift in and out of their lives, but Ora was a constant. In time, the Witch of the Woods would leave them for days and sometimes months at a time.

  Ora and Nepenthe did not have much in common, but they spent hours together. Time unifies and endears, while one isn’t paying attention.

  And though her training wasn’t complete like Margot’s, Nepenthe could make the River do what she wanted now. She could change its course. She could make fountains rise and fall. But on land Nepenthe was limited. She could only move water like a bow without arrows. On land, her skin dried. Her tentacles disappeared. She looked like anyone else.

  Like everyone else.

  7

  “Sometimes I think you never really leave the River. You’re more fish than girl,” Ora teased, calling to Nepenthe in the River.

  It sounded like something Nepenthe’s mother would say. Ora’s words were comforting and stinging all at once.

  Ora was sitting on the riverbank. She was embroidering a dress with an exquisitely detailed bodice. The dress was way too pretty for a riverbed, or really anywhere. Where she was expecting to wear that dress was beyond Nepenthe. That was one of the many differences between them. Ora liked things.

  Nepenthe liked the water and everything that lived beneath its surface. She liked the Coven and the boat and the few feet of land that the Coven sat on and she dragged herself onto for ceremonies and meals.

  “Just because you have manners and a pretty face doesn’t mean that you aren’t ugly on the inside,” Nepenthe bit back, without hesitation.

  “You wouldn’t understand, River Witch. You probably just have a balloon full of water where your heart should be.”

  “You know if I had a heart, that would hurt. But it doesn’t,” Nepenthe countered and stuck her forked tongue at her sister witch.

  Ora turned away as if wounded . . . and then she began to laugh. She turned her attention back to the dress. Her nimble hands swept the needle back and forth, sewing an elaborate flower into the bodice.

  “Fancy threads. When’s the ball, Princess?” Nepenthe teased.

  “You jest, but you never know . . .” She winked, just as the ground rumbled beneath her and the King’s carriage pulled to a stop by the riverbank.

  A man dressed in burnished steel from head to toe climbed down beside it. It was the Enforcer, the King’s henchman. The man did not speak, but he pointed to Nepenthe and then the carriage. The King was summoning her.

  Nepenthe didn’t want to go, never mind alone.

  But Ora had been waiting for this carriage her whole life. When they were younger and no on
e was around, she would waste her magic on playing princess. Being royal appealed to her more than being a witch. She looked at Nepenthe expectantly, hoping for a chance to see how the royal half lived. The Witch of the Woods had told her the story of when the Coven erased the Prince’s memory, and she felt like she’d missed out.

  “Okay, Ora,” Nepenthe said. “Let’s go.”

  Ora clamored to her feet before Nepenthe emerged from the water. The Enforcer never moved from his place next to the carriage.

  From what they had heard, no one had ever seen his face and there was a rumor that the Enforcer was not one man but a series of rotating guards. The Witch of the Woods believed it was something more supernatural: one man serving his entire life behind the metal helmet only to take it off at death and pass it on to the next Enforcer.

  Inside the carriage, Ora began to ask questions.

  “What was the Prince like?”

  “Like a ten-year-old kid whose whole world was ending. And then we made it right again. Until now. ”

  8

  The Enforcer walked them past the Throne Room and up the staircase, which was as wide as the grand hallway. Nepenthe heard Ora gasp as she took in the palace’s grandeur.

  “I was sorry to hear about your mother,” the King said when Nepenthe was brought before him. “She was the loveliest of her kind.”

  He was shorter than Nepenthe remembered. There was a coldness now that she wasn’t sure was there before. She could hear it in his words. She could see it in his eyes.

  Expecting to find another room full of ice statues, Nepenthe wanted to prepare Ora for what they were about to see. But instead, they were led to a corridor of rooms. The Enforcer stopped beside one of them and pointed, and then continued on his way.