Prologue
In my tenth winter, I discovered that a monster bided at the Keep at the End of the World. We didn’t call it that, of course; that was the poetic name granted by minstrels and troubadours who romanticized such a foreboding fortress. They gazed from a distance, imagined the mysteries within, wrote their odes, and passed through, ensuring that others would come to gawk and marvel.
Villagers just called the citadel Bitterburn, for the frozen lake that surrounded it. Born from a lack of creativity perhaps—our town bore the same name, and I didn’t refine much upon it. Back then, I listened to the whispered stories with wide-eyed awe and ate roasted chestnuts with vicarious glee as the merchants packed crates full of tribute—dried fish, spices, and grain—to get the beast to leave us be. That winter I had a new, red coat and shiny black shoes, and all my friends had plenty of wood to keep them warm.
In my fifteenth winter, the stories were less riveting. I had someone special then and we walked out together, whispering of secrets, the details of which I’ve long since forgotten. Supplies were a bit scarce, but we ate more porridge and made do during the long ice. I remember that Owen and I kissed beneath a tree laden with snow, and as our mouths touched, shy and tentative, the boughs broke and dumped white all over us.
He had nothing, did Owen, but it didn’t matter. I loved his crooked smile and his scarred hands; he was apprenticed to the smith, and one day, he would make the nails to build our houses, staves for barrels filled with our beer, and shoes for the animals that worked our land. We only had to hold on through a few more winters. But Owen took ill when I was ten and nine. He died of fever before the thaw. Life was bleak and unfair. That was the lesson I learned that season, engraved on my heart with indelible ink.
In my twentieth winter, the town of Bitterburn barely saw spring. We went from cold to cold with two scant months of sunlight. The farms brought little to harvest, and we could scarcely afford to send anything to the keep. Yet the Burgher insisted, and so we did, out of fear of terrible consequences. My anger grew as people starved.
In my twenty-first winter, I’d had enough. I would go to the keep myself and see an end to this, one way or another.
1.
In the back of the miller’s cart, I huddle deeper into my gray wool cape.
Despite my attempt to sneak away, my family has followed me to the town square. Da shouts at his wife as I try to make myself smaller, my meager belongings arrayed around me. I wish I still had something that belonged to my mother, but Da sold everything of hers, including the precious storybook she made for me. My sisters are weeping, barely tall enough to see over the bottom of the cart. Ignoring the dispute, folks go about their business, carrying baskets and drawing water from the well. Though we’re just past the first days of fall, an icy bite already hangs in the air, the threat of a winter worse than the one we barely survived.
My stepmother’s quiet pragmatism cuts through Da’s bluster. “This is for the best. We could do with one less mouth to feed this winter, and with Owen in the ground, who would marry one as strange as her?”
I am odd indeed because I believe women should choose their own fates, because I talk back, I don’t bow my head, I love to read, and I’m tired of belonging to my father and not to myself. There’s also the weird happenstance of me dreaming of things before they happen, leading to all sorts of hateful gossip. When Owen’s eyes first twinkled at me, his affection seemed like more of a gift because of all that, but . . . that future is no longer open to me. I must walk a different path.
“Amarrah isn’t coming back?” That’s Tillie, snot streaming from her red nose. Her twin, Millie, bursts into fresh tears, and they both reach for me.
I don’t move. Because Da has stepped back from the cart, lowering his head as if he agrees with my stepmother. Though I’m committed to this course, that stings a little, it does. But with Owen gone, nobody in Bitterburn will miss me. If I can end this, somehow, best that I get on with it. If not . . .
I’ll be with you soon, my love.
Briskly, I rap on the back of the cart with chapped knuckles. “Let’s go!”
The silent miller seems glad to be shed of the dramatics my family is enacting. Though most ignore us, a few onlookers have gathered, whispering among themselves, and I’ve no wish to linger. Likely this is madness, and I’ll be murdered by the monster who dwells within the Keep at the End of the World. I don’t know whether I dread that conclusion or anticipate it. Either way, it’s an ending and I’m so tired. Tired of the cold, tired of the hunger, tired of never fitting in the space I’m meant to occupy.
Evil stepmothers are a staple of the stories, but mine wasn’t evil so much as . . . disinterested. I wasn’t hers, and she never forgot it. Neither did I. But life wasn’t better when it was only Da and me because he made me his wife in so many respects. He expected me to cook and clean before I was big enough to wield the knife or hold the broom while he drank and shouted for my mother until I couldn’t stand to hear his voice. It was exhausting to be the only brightness in his world for so long, a smothering sort of attention. I rub the scar on my forearm, a memento of those days.
“Amarrah,” he would bellow. “Come and sing for me, darling!”
And I’d crawl out of the loft in the middle of the night, dance and sing while he drank, and . . . it was such a relief when he married Catherine, when he had two more daughters who could also dance and sing. The limelight slid away and gave me some room to breathe. But things were never the same either, as if I was a relic from a past he preferred to forget. When he looked at me, he remembered my mother, my lovely mother, struggling to breathe with bloody specks on her handkerchief. Owen was the only one who saw me as special, irreplaceable, but he was gone, the last tether keeping me here, and now I’m adrift, the final tribute the town will send to the citadel. Normally, there would be crates of provisions instead, but there’s none to spare, and I’ve persuaded the Burgher that offering me up presents our best option.
The miller speaks at last. “Are you dead certain about this, girl? I can take you elsewhere if that’s your wish.”
“Where would I go?” I ask. “No, I’m set on this course.”
The miller makes a sound in his throat, clearly doubting my faculties, but I don’t respond as we cover the ground between town and keep. As we draw closer, the mules grow recalcitrant, braying and digging in their hooves on the frosty path. Finally, with the imposing walls in sight, they can be whipped or coaxed no closer, and I have no stomach to see the miller brutalize his animals. I clutch my portmanteau in both hands and clamber out of the cart.
“I’ll walk from here,” I say with more assurance than I feel. “Thank you.”
The miller pats my shoulder, but he doesn’t linger. Instead he begins coaxing the team to make a roundabout, and the mules seem eager to get away from this place. I understand their nerves. Though we’ve ascended some, the change in altitude can’t explain the chill that lingers in the air, as if spring never touches this place. A slow exhalation shows my breath as I take stock, noting the ice and snow clinging to fir trees. The air is crisp with pine, but that’s all. I detect nothing else, just the purity of cold and the silence of the grave. The view is breathtaking from up here; I can see the tiny lights of town, the silver-blue strip of the frozen lake, and an ocean of green-white trees.