Thorns by Kate Avery Ellison Page A

breath. Casting one last glance over my shoulder at the warm darkness behind me, I stepped onto the porch and pulled the door shut.
    Snow and shadow swathed the outside world, and light tinged the horizon even though the sun had not yet risen. Mist painted the barn in shades of gray, and the forest beyond made a black wall encircling the farmyard. Above my head, the Watcher Ward clattered in the wind. I could smell and taste the cold as I faced the woods.
    The world was still dark. The Watchers still roamed somewhere in the shadows of the deep forests. My skin crawled with awareness of each gust of wind and scrape of branches against each other.
    I didn’t want to do this, but Adam was waiting. This was my moment to prove myself.
    I struck a match and lit the lantern. The flame flared to life, and I half-closed the shutters to restrict the light. Gathering in a lungful of frosty air, I wrapped my cloak tighter around my body and crossed the yard.
    Each step seemed loud as a shout. The forest loomed closer and closer until I could smell the sharp scent of pine. My ears were tuned for any sound in the depths that might signal the approach of a Watcher, but I heard nothing. The shadows lay still. The trees made stark lines against the sky.
    I kept moving. My lungs felt as unyielding as glass as I struggled to draw a quiet breath.
    Another step, and another, and then the yard fell away as the trees crowded around me. The shadows enveloped me, and chills skittered over my skin.
    I was in the Frost.
    The light of almost-morning leaked silvery glints across the snow. The snow blossoms lining the path looked luminous, their petals glowing bright blue in the faint light. The snow sparkled, a dance of diamonds lit by stars.
    I’d never been in the forest so early. I didn’t recognize this terrible and beautiful fairy land.
    A branch snapped behind me. I whirled, my hand going to the knife at my waist.
    A pale white deer went loping away in the darkness, her tail flapping.
    Lightheadedness swept over me. Just a deer.
    I sucked in a breath and pressed on.
    Follow the path until the charred oak , he’d said. So I hugged the edges of the road, brushing past the snow blossoms forming a tenuous line of safety between me and the deep forest. My eyes searched the line of trees for the oak. I knew the one he meant. It had been struck by lightning when I was a girl, and now the trunk grew twisted and strange.
    All around me, the darkness hung heavy as a curtain.
    I breathed a sharp sigh when I spotted the blackened trunk rising up from the forest around it like a half-desiccated corpse. I turned left, leaving the path and forging directly into the Frost. I counted the paces in my head as I moved until I reached a clearing. Trees made a wall around me, their scabby trunks slick with ice and dark with damp. I could smell the sharp scent of ice and pine. Above my head, the sky was a dark indigo laced with pink. No house or hut or other structure was in sight, and nothing in the darkness so much as moved. The ground was damp and muddy from melted snow, and frost ferns covered the forest floor. If Adam was here, I couldn’t see where.
    Where was I supposed to go now?
    Beneath the stingweed .
    I spotted an abundance of the thorny bushes at the edge of the clearing. Stubby branches of reddish-green poisoned nettles waved gently in the wind.
    Beneath?
    Crouching, I peered at the dark patch of earth underneath the curling branches of the stingweed. I could just barely make out the seam of wood against it.
    A door, just like the one in the barn.
    I set the lantern down and looked over my shoulder at the forest behind me. No red Watcher eyes glowed in the darkness, no Farthers lurked behind the trees. But the shadows shifted faintly, and my skin still crawled with apprehension. I bent back over the door, taking care not to brush against the stingweed branches.
    My fingers found the handle after a moment of brushing over the ground. I tugged, and the