Chapter Three

Several days later, Sage and Leelo were sent to visit Isola. Her mother, Rosalie, had complained to Fiona and Ketty that Isola had been acting strangely all winter, sullen and tired for no good reason.

“Maybe she’s ill,” Sage suggested as they made their way to Isola’s cottage. “She did look terrible when we saw her last.”

“Or perhaps being a Watcher was too hard on her. Winter duty is exhausting.”

Leelo had once asked her mother why they didn’t start their year as Watchers in the spring or summer, giving them more time to learn before the lake froze.

Because the winter is long and takes a toll on even the more experienced Watchers, her mother had explained. Going through it all at once is too much, so we split it up, make it a little easier. Everyone, no matter their size or physical ability, was required to spend a year on duty, guarding the island. Leelo was still recovering from the night she’d spent in the woods, followed immediately by an entire day patrolling the shore.

Sage was about to respond when they heard a commotion from inside Isola’s house.

“I don’t want him to go!” she screamed. “You can’t make him!”

The shrill desperation in Isola’s voice made Leelo’s skin crawl. “We should leave,” she whispered, turning back to the trail.

But Sage shook her head and pulled Leelo along after her. “And miss this? I don’t think so.”

“Sage,” Leelo hissed, but they were already crouched behind a tree, listening.

A moment later, the door to Isola’s house burst open. A young man, half-undressed, was being shoved over the threshold by Isola’s mother, who was beating at his head with a wooden spoon.

“Fool!” Rosalie yelled. “The ice is gone! Tell me if it was worth it when the lake takes you!”

The young man raised his arms over his head to protect himself, the muscles of his torso rippling with the movement. Leelo and Sage stared slack-jawed as Isola ran out of the house after her mother, clad in nothing but her shift.

“Please, Mother!” the girl wailed, but the young man was already tugging his shirt over his head and running through the woods toward the lake.

Rosalie snatched at her daughter’s sleeve. “Stop this nonsense, Isola! You know he can’t stay. What were you thinking?”

But Isola pulled free and ran after him, stumbling barefoot in the mud. “Pieter! Come back!”

Pieter. Now Leelo recognized him, though he’d been only a little older than Tate the last time she’d seen him. His father was a painter, and his mother sometimes bought Ketty’s wool to make the warm felted boots they wore in winter. But beyond that, Leelo couldn’t remember much about the boy, other than that he was incantu. What was he doing back on Endla?

“Come on,” Sage said, yanking Leelo behind her.

Rosalie was following her daughter at a rapid clip, but she didn’t run. She had to know Pieter would only make it so far. “Get your family,” she called to Leelo and Sage over her shoulder. “There’s going to be a drowning.”

Leelo gasped, but Sage’s expression was strangely intent as they ran back to the house. What had Isola been thinking? Leelo knew she would want to see Tate after he left, but she would never allow him to risk his life by coming back to Endla. And Pieter wasn’t family, just a former friend who had somehow become something more.

When they reached the house, the girls pulled off their muddy boots before going inside. Sage paused to warm her hands by the stove for a moment as she hollered for her mother. “Hurry up!” she shouted. “There’s going to be a drowning!”

Leelo’s stomach twisted at the echoed phrase. She had always been too sensitive, according to Aunt Ketty. Whenever a lamb was slaughtered for their summer festival, Leelo didn’t have the heart to eat it. It wasn’t the sight of blood that made her vision tunnel and her knees grow weak; it was the thought of anything enduring that much fear and pain. And while she knew a drowning wasn’t a slaughter, exactly, that Pieter had chosen his own fate, he was nevertheless going to suffer greatly.

Ketty came in from the yard, where she’d been chopping firewood. She had the same auburn hair and hazel eyes as Leelo’s mother and Sage, while Leelo had her father’s silvery blond hair and blue eyes. Tate didn’t look like any of them. Her mother said he resembled their grandfather, who had died before Leelo was born.

“A drowning?” Ketty asked, hanging her apron on a hook near the door. “Are you sure?”

Sage nodded. “It’s Pieter Thomason. He was in Isola’s house. He must have come across the ice and hidden all winter. Isola’s mother chased him into the woods.”

Ketty sucked in a breath. “Poor Rosalie. This will be a lasting shame on her family.”

Leelo had never heard of an incantu returning to Endla, and she wondered how this differed from an outsider trespassing. But unlike her aunt, Leelo wasn’t thinking of Rosalie. She was thinking of Isola and, more importantly, Pieter.

Ketty shook her head, muttering to herself. “Best get Fiona. She’s upstairs resting.”

“I’m awake.” Leelo’s mother came down the stairs on unsteady legs, leaning heavily on the wooden banister. She had been weak and tired often lately, though she promised she was fine. Leelo had helped her with the weaving and embroidery before she became a Watcher, but now Fiona had to do all that work herself. “Pieter Thomason, you say?”

Leelo took her mother’s arm and helped her into a chair by the fire. “We can stay here, if you’re not feeling well enough.”

“Everyone has to attend,” Ketty said. “You know that.”

“Mama?” Leelo crouched down next to her mother. “I don’t mind staying.”

“I don’t think I have the strength for it,” Fiona said to Ketty.

“Exactly why you should come, sister. The singing will help bolster you.”

Fiona frowned and rubbed her temples. “My head is pounding. I’ll try to follow, but you should go ahead, Leelo.” Her mother’s voice was soft with compassion, though she looked troubled. “That poor boy. And his parents. I wonder if they know.”

Leelo bit at the jagged edge of a fingernail. Her mother understood how much Leelo hated the drownings, but she had missed the last one, when a man who claimed to be lost in a snowstorm was found by a pair of Watchers on their first day of duty. He had been given the same choice as everyone else, and Leelo had been surprised when he chose the Forest. In the winter, there was at least a chance of making it across the ice. But the Forest would no sooner tolerate an outsider than a dog would a flea. The man had been crushed by a falling tree within minutes of his release.

Leelo’s repeated absence would be noticed. Besides, drownings were important to Endla. They were a reminder of how precious this place was and how vital it was they protect it at all costs. Only the incantu were spared from these occasions, as they weren’t considered true Endlans.

Despite the food and shelter the Wandering Forest provided, outsiders believed it was evil, as Aunt Ketty had explained a hundred times. That’s how outsiders are. If they don’t understand something, like the Forest, they have to destroy it. Anything that doesn’t function the way they decide it should doesn’t deserve to live in their eyes.

That was why all the other Wandering Forests had been chopped down or burned by outsiders and why it was so vital no harm should come to Endla. Pieter wasn’t an outsider, of course, and he likely had no intention of harming the Wandering Forest. But if he could come across the frozen lake so easily and remain hidden, what was to stop an outsider from doing the same?

“All right, Mama,” Leelo said finally. “We’ll be back soon.” With a pit forming in her stomach, she donned her muddy boots and trudged back into the woods with her aunt and cousin.

Sage linked her arm through Leelo’s, and she could feel Sage’s—she didn’t want to say excitement, though that was what it felt like—buzzing inside of her. “I know you hate it, Lo. But it’s necessary. He can’t stay here. You must understand that by now.”

“I do,” Leelo said because it was easier than arguing with Sage. But surely Pieter didn’t have to die. She thought of him stumbling out of Isola’s cottage half-naked, how vulnerable humans were when it came to the violence of nature. A flash of memory—the way the roots of her family tree had so eagerly absorbed the blood sacrifice—made the wound on her hand pulse with pain. She had seen birds fly into trees and never fly out again, had even watched an entire deer disappear into a sinkhole once. She knew all too well what the Forest was capable of.

As they reached the water’s edge, Leelo saw that a crowd had gathered near the shore, spread out in a half-moon shape. Sage pushed her way through to the front, dragging Leelo along with her.

Pieter stood with his heels nearly touching the water, brandishing a stick as though it could protect him. He bared his teeth, reminding Leelo of a badger she’d once caught in a snare. She didn’t know if an incantu was given the same choice as an outsider, but it seemed Pieter had chosen for himself.

“Stay back!” he shouted, waving the stick at a woman who had come close to jeer at him. “I mean it.”

“Pieter, please!” Isola was screaming again, but her mother and two other islanders restrained her. “Stay with me!”

“Hush,” her mother said, trying to calm her daughter. “You know that’s impossible.”

Pieter glanced behind him. There were a few small ice floes left. The nearest was only a couple meters offshore, but there was no way to reach it without touching the water. Leelo scanned the crowd for Pieter’s parents and found them standing stoically near the end of the line of islanders. Aside from a few tears on his mother’s cheeks, you would never know their son was about to die. Why didn’t they do something? Leelo wondered. How could they just stand there and let this happen?

Suddenly, Pieter spun and hurtled through the shallows, somehow reaching the nearest ice floe. He stood there, his legs spread in a wide stance for balance, searching frantically for his next move. The islanders watched as he made a leap, landing half on the ice and half off.

“Look!” someone shouted. A group of outsiders had gathered on the far shore.

“Hurry, Pieter,” one of them called. “You can make it!”

Pieter was almost halfway across the lake, but the ice was even more sparse on the far side. There was no way he could reach it without swimming. The outsiders were hauling a boat through the mud toward the water, but they seemed hesitant to risk it. Leelo couldn’t blame them.

“Help!” Pieter screamed as the ice beneath him cracked. One moment he was standing, and the next he was gone with only a small splash and a strangled cry.

“Pieter!” For one moment, Isola burst free, but the others managed to grab her again before she reached the water. It was clear to Leelo she would have gone in if they hadn’t stopped her.

“This is awful,” Leelo sobbed, turning her head away, but Aunt Ketty was right beside her.

She grabbed Leelo’s jaw and forced her to look at the water. “You must bear witness to their foolishness,” she insisted. “See what happens when we don’t put the island above all else?”

Pieter resurfaced for a moment, but Leelo knew it was hopeless. Once the lake took hold of its victims, there was no turning back. As he disappeared again, the islanders spread out along the bank, linking arms with each other. Leelo found herself between her aunt and cousin, who had already closed their eyes and bowed their heads.

It was still winter, but every sacrifice deserved a song. This one didn’t lure creatures like the hunting song, or pacify them like the killing song. Her mother said it was for the lake, to ask it to be gentle with its victims. Though not truly a part of the Forest—the lake had been here before the Wandering Forest and would remain should it ever leave—it was nevertheless their protector. But there is nothing gentle about this death, Leelo thought as she remembered the swan. She only hoped it was swift.

The first note was so low that Leelo barely heard it. One by one, the others joined in, the mournful dirge echoing in her ears as her own lips formed the notes of the drowning song. As much as she hated the drownings, feared the poison of the lake and the hunger of the woods around her, she couldn’t stop her magic any more than she could stop the changing of the seasons. Once again, she felt that insistent press against her throat: the music and the magic, desperate to be free.

Across the lake, the villagers thrust their hands over their ears and fled like a herd of deer.

Leelo watched the spot where Pieter had disappeared, wondering if his bones would wash up on this shore or the other, if they ever made it out of the water at all. She wondered if his parents were singing, if they had known he’d returned, or if he’d kept the secret from everyone but Isola.

It seemed so unfair, to be first punished by being born without magic, and then again by being forced to leave. But the incantu weren’t safe on Endla. Because the islanders would sing again, and those without magic would no sooner be able to resist it than a moth could resist a flame.

Leelo knew then that the only thing worse than her brother leaving would be to find herself here, standing on the lakeshore, singing the drowning song for Tate.

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