“Um,” said Finn.
“Er,” Kestrel said, panicking.
“Oh, goody,” said Hannah, beaming. “I’ve been so bored. And you know what, Kestrel, I feel like we’ve been a bit childish toward each other lately. We should actually get to know each other.”
“Yeah?” said Kestrel dumbly.
“I know I’m not the easiest person to get on with,” Hannah added. “I kind of follow everyone else sometimes. I hope you don’t hate me.”
Hannah started walking, and Kestrel found herself trotting alongside her. She was so shocked she felt like she was going to collapse. Maybe, she thought, hardly daring to think about it, we’re going to be friends.
“I left my scarf in the tree,” said Hannah suddenly, and Kestrel jerked to a halt beside her.
Hannah looked at Finn unhappily.
“Uh,” said Finn. “I guess . . . I could get it?”
“Could you really?” asked Hannah. Finn shrugged.
“I could do it with my eyes closed,” he said.
“I bet you can’t,” Hannah fired back.
“I can.”
“Go on, then.”
Finn snorted and leaped into the tree. Kestrel watched him disappear into the branches, then jumped in surprise as Hannah grabbed her and pulled her close.
“Go away, freak,” Hannah hissed in her ear. “We don’t want you here.”
“What?” Kestrel said, shocked.
“Finn’s friends with me now.”
“You said—”
“You idiot. I don’t want to hang out with you. Seriously, how stupid can you be? Nice eyebrow, by the way.”
Kestrel’s hand flew to her face. She’d forgotten about her missing eyebrow. Hannah turned away and beamed just as Finn landed on the ground, the scarf tied around his head.
“Okay, if you want,” Hannah said loudly to Kestrel. “I guess we’ll see you later.”
“Oh,” said Finn, looking slightly confused. Hannah bounced up to him and grabbed her scarf.
“Come on,” she said. “I found this amazing place the other day.” She looked at Kestrel snakily. “See you, Kes.”
“I’m coming, too,” Kestrel said impulsively.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” said Finn, looking insulted. Kestrel glared at him. What an idiot.
Hannah grabbed his wrist and pulled him away. Kestrel took a step after them, expecting Finn to protest, but he shrugged and traipsed after Hannah. Even if she went with them, Hannah would find a way to torture her all day. Kestrel turned away. She pushed into the trees, clenching her hand around the holey stone she still had in her pocket, trying to fight the shame and loneliness stuck behind her ribs. Of course Hannah didn’t want to be her friend. She was idiotic to think anything else.
“Why does she suddenly want Finn, anyway?” she said out loud. “He smells funny and burps all the time.”
Pippit gave a muffled snigger.
“And what was wrong with him?” she added, getting more annoyed. “Couldn’t he see me wriggling my eyebrow?”
“Duh,” agreed Pippit.
“I’m going to the Salt Bog by myself,” she continued out loud. “That’s right. And if I find a way out, I’m not telling Finn about it until he stops being an idiot.”
Pippit was still making snorting sounds. Kestrel stopped.
“What are you laughing at?” she said.
“Did a bad,” he said.
“What kind of bad?” said Kestrel.
She reached behind her and pulled him out of her hood. Without warning, a giggle rose in her throat. It grew and grew until it cut through all her rage, and she laughed helplessly.
Pippit beamed at her proudly, a chunk of Hannah’s shiny hair in his mouth.
The Salt Bog was a vast white landscape completely bare of trees. The whole place was blindingly white, carpeted in a fine layer of salt. Long paths of salt-encrusted earth twisted through the water, which was frozen in place, covered in a thick, crystalline layer of white with air bubbles rolling around underneath it.
Kestrel suppressed a shudder. It looked different in the daylight, but she’d been here before. The smell of salt brought it all back.
When she was eight, Granmos made her spend the night here alone. As soon as the sun went down ghosts had oozed from the forest and drifted across the bog. They swarmed around Kestrel all night, attempting to leech off her warmth, touching her with their long fingers and leaving frozen white patches on her skin. Kestrel was so cold she thought she might freeze to death. The ghosts tried urgently to speak to her, but their voices only came out as soft, unintelligible clattering sounds.
Granmos had promised to rescue her if she ever wanted to stop a training session, but Kestrel had always stood her ground. She would rather fight any amount of snarling wolves and starving bears than admit weakness. But that night, with the ghosts, Kestrel was terrified beyond belief. She screamed for Granmos, but the old woman had vanished. Kestrel was too scared to move, and too cold to fight, and too lost to find her way back. She curled up in a ball until sunrise, shaking, slowly solidifying under a fine layer of salt.
I taught you something important, girl, Granmos said when she came to collect her the next morning. You can’t rely on other people to save you, no matter what they say.
Kestrel wrapped her arms around herself, trying to shake the memory. The smell of salt made it feel too real, and for a second Kestrel expected the old woman to appear behind her. She stepped hurriedly into the bog, the back of her neck crawling at the thought of her grandma’s cold eyes.
Every now and then the ground belched and released huge wafts of unspeakable smells that lingered like a guilty burp. Kestrel stood at the side of a path, picking out a route with her eyes. When she finally moved she realized that rings of salt had formed around her legs. The bog crystallized anything that stood still for too long. Every few seconds a spray of salty water burst into the air, covering everything in a fine layer of brine.
A short distance away stood a crystallized fox. You could almost think it was happily asleep, if it didn’t have salt icicles hanging from its nose.
Pippit made a loud crunching sound, oblivious to the fantastic landscape. He was chewing some gray knucklebones he’d found in a puddle.
“Share bones,” he offered as Kestrel shielded her eyes. “Have crunch.”
“No thanks,” she said, and picked him up. Something had caught her eye. Halfway across the bog was something that looked like a vast white maze, a corridor of pillars and tortured, twisted shapes. It hadn’t been there the night of her training. “Let’s see what that is.”
The maze grew larger in front of her, but it wasn’t until she reached the first twisted pillar that Kestrel realized what it was made from. It was a corridor of frozen statues, each one preserved in a thick layer of salt. There were dogs with crystals hanging from their whiskers, wolves twisted up like they had a backache, and deer with milky eyes. There were hundreds of smaller animals, too, like tiny rabbits and frogs. The roof was made of trees and plants, their white branches forming a ceiling over the animals.
Kestrel licked her lips, tasting salt. Her eyes stung.
None of these animals had ended up here by accident. They were all facing one another as though they’d been carefully arranged for viewing. She cautiously moved among the animals, one hand on her spoon, making sure not to touch anything. Even Pippit was quiet.
She turned a corner in the corridor of animals, then another, and realized too late that it was almost impossible to tell one direction from another. Everything was the same color, and she was surrounded by a wall of repeating eyes and teeth and claws. She tried to go back the way she had come, but she wasn’t sure how she’d gotten in. The animals leered at her.