Winterfolk Read online

  DEDICATION

  To Bodi

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Books by Janel Kolby

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  I WASN’T ALWAYS A GHOST. I was told to be. Dad and King said it was for protection.

  My protection. Their protection.

  The Winterfolk’s.

  The problem with being a ghost—

  Is that no one can see you.

  1

  SOMETIMES I’M A GHOST.

  But this morning’s air is heavy with the scent of our bodies, me and Dad’s. Our unwashed laundry. Our rock dreams.

  And I remember.

  I’m not a ghost.

  I’m real and I’m warm beneath my fleece blanket. A draft creeps up to my face, but I remember I have breath, and I blow. The draft escapes through the top of our vented tent with a sky window to my trees.

  Seagulls call to each other from high—one after another—and gossip about the ocean. One tells a fairy tale about a girl who turned fifteen. She fell in love with a boy and left her world to find him.

  It was never about the boy, I tell the bird.

  The bird’s voice dips behind the trees. The trees hide everything. His squawk blends in with the blur of trains, trucks, freeways, and planes to imitate the whoosh . . . whoosh . . . of the ocean, one wave never like the next.

  I stretch out my legs, and my toes touch our full laundry bag. Beside it sags my faded blue duffel with clean clothes, and beside that is our box of food, which used to be for my shoes. My toes tip the box, and a lonely apple thuds to the side. Dad saved it for me. I should eat it, but my stomach is full of worms.

  Not actual worms. I know that. I’m the one who’s hungry.

  But it’s easier to believe the worms are responsible for the holes in my stomach. Worms get in everywhere, especially apples fallen from trees. It doesn’t matter how far they’ve fallen. Rot begins as soon as they’re detached, and the worms know where to find them.

  I want my morning blackberries, still in season. I can pluck them straight from the bush and into my mouth. From one home to the next. No chance to rot. But I can’t go alone. I need to wait for King.

  I pull my book from under my pillow and check to see if Dad’s asleep. He’s on the other side of the tent, under his own blanket, his back to me. His silver hair glows green from the light through our tent, and the kit of shiny glass beads props his head. An empty wine bottle has toppled his stack of finished bracelets.

  My fingers rest on the solid cover of my book.

  I don’t need to see the words to know what it reads. Fairy Tales. My long, pointed fingernails ache to trace the words to make them real, and I let them. Trace one letter after another as if I can write.

  Fairy Tales.

  The girl on the cover doesn’t know what a fairy tale is. No one dared tell her.

  I touch the mermaid’s hair, brown-black like mine. It floats around her head when she’s under the water. Everything is different under the water, but that doesn’t make it less real. Seashell armor covers her chest, and her scales reach down from her waist.

  I open to the first page, strong as cloth from all my reading.

  The story begins in the deep, deep ocean.

  But that’s not the story I read.

  “Beneath these stars, no man can judge another. And that’s where we live, baby. What palace is grander than that? See that one? The biggest and the brightest? That one’s always true. We’re all the same in her light, and it’s because of her I met your momma. I wished for her. How many people do you think have wished on that star?”

  I’m ten years old.

  I adjust myself on the flatter part of the rock and try to ignore my stomach. “I dunno. Twenty or thirty?”

  He scoots himself over to give me more room.

  “In all our lifetimes? As long as humans have lived on this planet? Everyone in the world can see her at one point or another. Come on, baby, you can do better than that.”

  I look at the shimmer-stars above us and the honey-drip moon. “Too many to count.”

  “That’s right.” He tilts the bottle and drains it with a last swallow, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Too many to count.” He examines the empty bottle. “And gone too soon. Not everyone gets their wish.”

  I stare at Momma’s star. “She’s getting heavy, isn’t she? With all those wishes on her. She’s gonna fall. Maybe she wants to.”

  “Nah. It’s all those frivolous wishes hanging on her that might cause an accident. All those ex-pec-ta-tions. Stars don’t want to fall, but they do. Most of them burn up in the atmosphere, but not all of them. It’s the wish. The wish that matters. If it’s really special, that star’ll cool down. Turn to a rock. To protect the wish.”

  That star is sagging. I can see it. And it’s partly because of me.

  He shakes his bottle. “You know what this cost me? One bracelet. That’s one hundred and—”

  “Twenty-five beads. Will you teach me tomorrow? I sorted the beads like you said.”

  “You wished on that star, didn’t you? Wished that I’d teach you?”

  I hang my head. It’s hard to keep the wishes pent up inside.

  “Causing that star all kinds of trouble. You know I can’t, baby.”

  “But you said—”

  “Not yet. When I get asked at the market, did you make these, I want to reply with honesty, yes, I did, with these hands alone. Eyebrows would sure raise if I told them they were made by my baby girl.”

  “Why?”

  “They’d want to know where you are, and then they’d take you from me. We’ve got to stick together. There’s nothing out there worth losing what we have here. Believe me. You’ve got to be my little ghost for now. It’s just us two. Your momma would want that. I’ll teach you someday. Maybe next year. Don’t get ahead of yourself, and don’t go wishing. She wouldn’t want any of those stars to fall. You know that. She took good care of them—”

  The back of my heels hit the rock. “She’d want me to hide?”

  “Who’s hiding? We live under the stars. They keep watch on us, and we keep watch on them. Look at that sad star now. You’ve got to be more careful with your wishing.”

  That star does look sad. I should keep to collecting instead of wishing. “How can I fix it?”

  “Close your eyes,” he says. “Close your eyes and take back your wish.”

  I close my eyes and take it back, along with the one about a double scoop of ice cream over a banana split.

  “That’s right,” he says. “Now look at that sky. Doesn’t she look brighter?”

  My stomach feels empty. “I don’t feel good.”

  “Just look up
, babe. Up there is your medicine. Star medicine. You gave her some of what she needs, and she’ll give some to you. Watch how she shines down on you.”

  I tilt my head back and let her shine.

  “You’ve got to respect the wishes that have gone before you. They’ve got to have their turn, too. How many stars do you think are up there?”

  I look back at the sky. “Too many to count.”

  “That’s right. Too many and too few.” He knocks the empty bottle against his knee. “Yours is up there to use one day. Do you see it? Do you see your star?”

  “No, Daddy.”

  “Keep looking. It’s up there. But careful not to wish.”

  Three scratches on the tent make me shut the book.

  Three.

  King.

  I stuff the book back under my pillow and scratch the tent back. The weather’s not cold enough for me to cover my tank, but I pull on sweatpants and twist my hair into a stocking cap. Last, my boots, before unzipping the door.

  Yellow light comes in, along with a snap of fresh air.

  King’s head is turned—always surveying—not looking at me. Behind him is his tent. Steps away. Never too far. Black and blue shadows tangle his hair over the sleeves of a fresh, black T-shirt. He brushes his hair from his warm-penny face, tinged with pink. I want to hug him as I used to.

  “You were with the sun all day yesterday,” I say. “She kissed your cheeks.”

  He smiles. “I stayed as long as she cared to watch.”

  “And then you went out with the moon. I heard your tent zip up. You came back late.”

  “You shouldn’t wait for me.”

  Of course he doesn’t want me to wait. He’s only two years older, but I’m not as strong as the sun. Or as luminescent as the moon.

  “Someday,” I say.

  The pink of his cheeks gets pinker. But I’m not the one doing it to him. He’s looking at whatever he did yesterday without me. And all the yesterdays.

  “Maybe the sun didn’t kiss you,” I say. “Maybe she slapped you.”

  His smile falls. “What d’you know about that?” He looks into the tent, which is absurd. Dad only sees the stars.

  I push King’s shoulder, and his eyes come back to warn me. “Only fairy tales,” I tell him.

  “Fairy tales?”

  “Sometimes there’s a kiss, and then a slap.” I clap my hands once, and the sound scares some birds. Their wings flap up from a tree.

  King puts his finger to his lips. “Don’t do that. You’re gonna wake him.”

  Yes, that’s right. Don’t make a sound. Plus, if Dad wakes, King would have to say morning, since he promised he would try to get along.

  I shake my head. Not to worry. From the looks of that bottle, Dad will sleep as deep and long as the ocean.

  “Did you bring me another book?” I ask.

  “Ready to return that one?”

  “No.”

  “Then, no book. Berries?”

  My stomach answers.

  King steps back when I climb from the tent and knocks over my black-white speckled rock, as oval as an egg.

  “Careful,” I say.

  He sets it proper in my rock path of wishes, almost fifteen rocks wide. The path winds in a circle ’round the tent—two more needed to complete the fifteenth row. Almost fifteen years. Where you start is where you end.

  He pats the rock firm. “There, now. No harm’ll come to her.”

  I kneel to check for cracks where any dreams could leak. She seems to be intact.

  I look up to my trees, my Bruces and Evergreens. “You take care of her,” I tell them, and one Bruce nods. The books call them spruce, but I call them Bruce. Evergreen can keep its name, since she’s so true. Bruce is a man, of course, and Evergreen is a woman. Beyond them are more Bruces and more Evergreens. Bruce, Evergreen, Bruce, Evergreen, Bruce, Bruce, Evergreen, Evergreen. All my soldiers. Standing by. Clumps of bushes fill their spaces. Green to hide our green tents.

  King picks up a dead stick and taps it hard against his thigh.

  Brittle bones, brittle bones. All too easily snapped.

  He lets go. Surprised. And throws the broken stick aside.

  “You ready?” he asks.

  I stand.

  He tosses a bottle of water to me, and I look to our empty rain catch—tarp open wide with a gutter that leads to a bucket. I guzzle the bottled water and enjoy the drips that run from the corners of my mouth. My stomach expands to accept it.

  I am the rain.

  He takes the empty bottle and throws it inside his tent.

  “You have more? For when he wakes?” I don’t like to ask, and he knows.

  He shrugs. Unspoken. It’s available for me to take, like anything else he has.

  “Come on,” he says.

  Branches crackle beneath his boots, but not beneath mine. Ghosts don’t make a sound. King got me these boots from the salivating army. My feet slip around, and the cold gets trapped in the extra space at my toes.

  A flash of red appears below. The Lady. Wandering the way she does in her red dress and brown hair hanging loose. Of all the Winterfolk, she’s been here the longest, but she’s not the oldest. As old as Dad, maybe.

  “She’s following,” I say.

  King looks behind. He goes to tug at his sleeve cuffs but remembers he’s in a T-shirt and rubs his wrists instead. His mind is uncomfortable. “You been talking?”

  The last of the red disappears. “Not since last winter.”

  A single drum plays down below—Hamlet’s—a deep pulse in the hill only Winterfolk hear. I can almost smell the oatmeal, and I don’t miss it.

  “Breakfast,” I say.

  King touches a yellow-tinged leaf—the turning color, our warning sign.

  Once the leaves turn, the rains will come with all their sliding. We’ll move our tents down on the flatter part with the others, some without the daily sort of rules that keep their space clean. Not all the oatmeal in the world can hide it.

  I rub my nose. “Winter should smell like candy canes. Remember that one I got for Christmas? I slept with it under my nose to smell at night. Had it for three days, then woke with it gone. Thought someone took it, but my tongue caught something sweet stuck in my back tooth. I’d eaten it in my sleep.”

  I suck at my teeth, and my stomach growls.

  King picks the turning leaf from the tree and walks again. “I heard there’s a chocolate factory supposed to be built down the hill in one of them old breweries, pumping chocolate in the air twenty-four-seven. Think of smelling that. Be like eating chocolate all day.”

  Smelling’s not eating, but he knows that.

  “I hope it at least snows,” I say. “Cover everything. Make it pretty. How those flakes float down to rest and turn into one big blanket. Ever wonder what it’s like? To sleep like snow? Nearly still forever. I’d sleep on top if I wouldn’t freeze. Better than any type of mattress I imagine. Do you think I’d disappear like the snowflakes?”

  King tears the leaf in half and drops it. “Guess so.”

  “Guess so? You should know. You’re the one who sells mattresses.”

  “I don’t sell mattresses. I only swing the signs.”

  “You dance the signs.”

  He pauses and lowers his eyes. I know I’ve hit a nerve. “That’s not dancing. I’m done with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The money’s not worth it.”

  “But it’s money. I could take your place.”

  His shoulders push forward. “Girls swinging signs . . . I haven’t seen any. Maybe cuz they’d cause traffic accidents no matter what they look like. Girls like that—they belong in clubs. And that’s not you.”

  “You did it.”

  His eyes dart to me, and my legs go numb. I finger the gold-beaded necklace around my neck with the glued-shut locket.

  A plane roars above, and he looks up to watch it pass. He breathes deep and pulls back his hair, as glossy as a crow’s,
into a neat ponytail with a band from his wrist. His eyes are soft when they come back to me.

  “Rain,” he says.

  It isn’t kind to remind someone about their past. Which is why we won’t talk about dancing, his needles, or what happened days and nights and days ago. Why King goes with me to get the berries. And why we both won’t think about it.

  “Don’t worry ’bout money,” he says. “I’ll figure something. Let’s get your berries.”

  I nod and follow.

  The worms in my stomach come alive as we reach the thorny blackberry bushes, bigger than the both of us. I don’t hear the drum anymore. Just my stomach.

  King puts a hand in his pocket, where I know there’s a silver blade as long as my middle finger.

  I reach out to the wild berries, and the thorns move aside. I pluck a plump berry that’s loose from its stem and pop it in my mouth. I let it settle on my tongue first. Hardly nothing’s better than a mouth that’s full. Then I bite—just a little—and the sweet juice trickles to fill the empty spaces. And it’s even better. Only liquid can fill empty spaces. Maybe ghosts. Too many empty spaces, Dad says before his wine. But I have my berries. And King.

  My stomach urges me to pluck another. I won’t argue with it.

  “Aren’t you gonna eat?” I ask King.

  He shrugs. The bush has plenty but not as much as yesterday, and not as much as the day before.

  I pluck another and hold it out to him. “Eat.”

  He can’t deny me. His two fingers wrap from top to bottom while mine wrap side to side. A whole berry world in our fingers. He pulses his fingers—dares us to squish the great beauty. But he only teases.

  I let go, and he scoops the little world in his mouth.

  “Ripe.” He wipes his mouth. He doesn’t like stains.

  “So, what’re you going to do today if you’re not working?” I ask.

  He smiles.

  Stay with me. I don’t want to be alone.

  A snap beyond the blackberry bush turns both our heads, and he goes for his knife. He jumps through the thick bush, and it snags at him as he tears through. My breath goes with him.

  But the rest of me can’t.

  Not across those bushes. And never outside the Jungle.

  I can’t breathe.

  The trees blur around me. Their leaves cover my ears and shut my eyes. I’m all blackness. They tell me to run. Can’t stay here. They’ll help me to run.