It is not even light yet, the sun only a faint glow in the horizon, when the White Bear steps into the yard to go feed the sheep. She cannot sleep these days, the anticipation is growing too great in her, the restlessness makes it impossible for her old limbs to find a comfortable position.
'It is growing light much earlier,' she thinks to herself uneasily. And as she steps on the thinning layer of snow in the yard, something catches her foot.
The White Bear looks down, and at her feet she finds a strange tangle. Bending down as far as her stiff back will let her, she peers at it in the ghost light of a winter morning.
Although the colours are muted by the snowmelt, she can just about recognise orange, dusky blue and pale green. She picks up the pouches, all firmly tangled up with each other, and notices there is something scattered on the ground.
It's thistles and forget-me-nots but they have been burnt nearly to ash.
"Oh," breathes the White Bear and understands.
"You've nearly made it to the end," she says, pushing the wet tangle into her pocket to be burnt later, and picking up an armful of hay for the sheep. "Now if only you remember not to close your eyes as I told you, all will be... Well, who can tell. But may the end not be a very painful one. Or may its wounds soon heal."
Maryam scrambles out of the room because the dark lunges at her again, more and more sharp little wisps. She looks at Anya over her shoulder, half in fear and half in amazement because it is Anya, really Anya, and not a reflection.
"Sorry," Anya calls, dashing out to the landing, braid messy, eyes clear. "She doesn't know you, she's scared! I was down, the tunnel collapsed, I came right away, really!"
Anya is about to spring past her and down the stairs when Maryam stops her, grabbing her arm, and the fact she can feel the warmth of Anya's skin against hers feels impossible, like some dream she'd willingly forgotten by dawn so as to not feel its burn. "Hey, hey, slow down a little."
Anya turns to look at her but is clearly eager to dash off again. "We should go, we don't have much time!"
"Okay, we will," Maryam assures, and she tries to focus although her mind is spinning and she can't quite believe Anya is really there. She wants to hold her and never let her go. She wants to ask a million questions. But simultaneously, she can feel Anya trying to tug herself free, eager to go, eager to get to the next thing. She is clearly at home here; it's Maryam who can't seem to find her footing. "Just first--" And she has no idea where to begin. But then she decides on the first thing to come to mind. "How come you're no longer forest-covered?"
"Forest-covered?" Anya tilts her head in confusion, and her foot is tapping against the floor, restless.
"Invisible," Maryam clarifies.
"Oh, it's really easy!" Anya exclaims, and points to the doorway. "There's a mirror on both sides of that wall. If you go through from here, you become visible, and the other way, invisible. It's really good for getting around the city and that."
All this does is birth a hundred more questions, not the least about how Anya has learnt this, how she is in the city in the first place, and what does she mean, getting around. But then one of her earlier words returns to Maryam's mind, and its echo is unsettling enough to push aside all the things she doesn't understand. "What did you say about the tunnel?"
"It collapsed! Come on!" And then Anya is already skipping down the stairs and all Maryam can do is to follow.
Trying to shake of the memory of the ground trembling beneath her feet, Maryam hopes that collapsed doesn't actually mean collapsed but that hope evaporates as soon as she sees the rubble and leaves that have spread on the floor of the hall below.
She can feel terror rising up in her chest, making her throat feel tight. All the windows are high and very narrow, and it is perfectly clear that Anya is the only one who can get out of them and climb the tree. And there's no other doorway that the collapsed corridor, as far as Maryam can tell.
"Anya, Anya," she calls after the girl who has already made her way to Silver's slumped figure, the path there drawn by a smear of blood. "Do you know any other way out of here? We really need to take Safiyyah somewhere to get her help."
"We have to get her up, okay, up the stairs!" Anya replies, and busies herself trying to pull Silver's arm onto her shoulder, although this attempt is clearly doomed.
"Sweetie," Maryam says. She's never been one for that kind of soft and sweet pet names, but somehow it's the only word she can think of right now. "She's very, very weak. She needs a healer, soon."
"I know, I know," Anya nods her head. "We have to take her up. It's okay now, she won't be so scared, she knows me, it'll be okay."
"Wait, Anya," Maryam calls, and the girl looks up at her, dark eyes reflecting impatience. "Why do you think we should do that? Because the thing in the dark told you?"
Anya frowns, hearing the fear in her mother's voice. "Yes," she answers, and Maryam's heart falls.
"Look, you can't just trust strangers like that." This is another way she has failed as a mother. She isn't sure if she's uneasy or grateful that they haven't addressed the other way. To her relief, it seems that Anya isn't really trying to get away from her, but is rather just her excited, restless self, and finds Maryam's questions a drag. But of course, that may be what Maryam sees because it's what she wants to see so badly. "Even if they seem nice." She can't imagine how the howling creature in the dark could ever seem anything but terrifying. "You never know what a stranger really wants."
Anya's frown grows deeper, "Yeah, you've told me a thousand times. I knew her, though," she says, miffed that her mother is telling her such a thing in the first place. But before Maryam has the chance to ask how on earth Anya could have known this creature, there is another rumble, the floor shuddering beneath them, and the wail grows overwhelming once more.
"Anya," Maryam calls once more, a weak, sad question she can't keep inside, "Are you upset with me?"
"No? But we really need to go now, we don't have a lot of time." And Anya tugs at Silver's arm, causing her to lift her head slightly.
There are still a thousand questions on Maryam's tongue, but she knows this is not the time or the place. She's wasted enough time already. So she kneels down to Silver, "Hey, I know you're in pain, but I need to take you up those stairs ahead. There's a room there, and inside, there's--"
And Silver's head lolls in what appears to be a nod because with a whisper of a voice Maryam can barely hear through the howl, she says, "Yes, it called me here."
Maryam isn't sure if that's something she wanted to hear, but really, it doesn't matter right now. They're in a stone-walled room with two windows that only Anya can get through, a doorway that is now full of rubble, completely sealed, and a stairwell that takes you up to a creature howling in the dark. Dark which will heed its beck and call, no less. And that is where they must go, because there is no other way.
And so Maryam lifts up Silver, as gently as she can, and still Silver whimpers in pain. Anya skips a few steps ahead, towards those stairs, towards the voice, and every now and then, the ground beneath their feet trembles, threatening to fall away altogether. And as she climbs the stairs, Maryam's mind quietens and her fear turns from water into ice, resting still now, there but not tugging at her limbs to run. And so the three of them step into the dark.
