Between the Water and the Woods Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Simone Snaith

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Sara Kipin

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Snaith, Simone, author.

  Title: Between the water & the woods / by Simone Snaith.

  Other titles: Beneath the water and the woods Description: First edition. | New York : Holiday House, [2019]

  Summary: “Emeline must use her inherited forbidden magic to fend off the Dark Creatures of legend, the Ithin, and prove to the king and his council that the supernatural exists, all with the help of whip-wielding Lash Knight Reese and her dauntless family”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018041582 | ISBN 9780823440207 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Supernatural—Fiction.

  Forests and forestry—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S65726 Bet 2019 | DDC [FIc]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041582

  Ebook ISBN 9780823441938

  v5.4

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Acknowledgments

  “The princesses decided that words and numbers are of equal value. In the cloak of knowledge, one is the warp, and the other woof.”

  —Norton Juster,

  The Phantom Tollbooth

  watched her brother, Dale, fling his pretend whip at his friends, and then duck and spin away. She smiled, standing in the high grass with her hands on her hips, feeling the sun warm the golden bands on her forearms.

  Dale was spry and agile, and she felt proud of him, even though it was just a silly game that boys played, way out here on the edge of the village as close to the moat and the woods as they dared. Her gaze was drawn to the wall of dark, tangled trees beyond the water, and her smile faded.

  The sight of the woods awoke an age-old fear.

  A primeval dread.

  The boys had laid a plank of roof slate across the narrowest bit of moat, where the water was only as wide as the length of two men. This was so the bravest ones could stand upon it, on the very edge of danger, at which point Emeline would scream at them to get back over. So far not one of them had risked actually crossing the water. It meandered thick and green beneath the plank, littered with lily pads and the long vines that the boys used as whips.

  Emeline loved the water lilies that grew in shades of pink and white atop the water. They were like living jewels—delicate, dewy, fluttery—but now wasn’t the time to start mooning over them. She was supposed to be playing the girl to be rescued, although her true role was to keep an eye on the boys. Dale was ten and mostly level-headed, but his ragtag group of friends from all around the village were of different ages and wits. Aladane, especially—a hefty, good-looking boy with glory in his eyes—had the wildest ideas and needed extra supervision. His father, the head fisherman, was constantly apologizing for the trouble he got into.

  “Someone better rescue me soon,” Emeline called, sinking down into the grass. Dada would need her home shortly to help with supper. She shoved her black curls away from her eyes and laughed as a tiny blond boy called Minnow caught Aladane square in the face with his “whip,” then squeaked and ran away. A shout of laughter sprang up from the group.

  “Who let him play?” Aladane bellowed, rubbing his face. “Babies can’t play Lash Knights!”

  The idea that any of them were anything like real Lash Knights made Emeline grin.

  “I don’t know, Al, he’s better than you,” Dale said, laughing. Aladane ran after him, his heavy feet thumping on the ground. Dale dodged and weaved, and the other boys jumped into Aladane’s way, waving their vine whips and sticking out their tongues.

  “Coward!” Aladane yelled, heaving. “A real man would stand and fight!”

  No, a real man learns how to cook supper for his children after their mama dies, Emeline thought, glancing back over her shoulder toward their cottage. And stands around fretting about what he should put in the stew to make them healthy and strong. At barely sixteen, she had taken on many of the household duties, but Dada tried hard not to depend on her too much.

  “Go and play, Little Plum,” he told her, using her old nickname. She had been a plump little girl and was still curvy now. “Be a child as long as you can.”

  A cry struck Emeline’s ears and she jerked her head around. Her heart leapt into her throat.

  Dale was standing on the middle of the plank across the moat, waving his arms at Aladane.

  “Who’s a coward now?” he demanded, grinning ear to ear. The sunlight gleamed off his armbands and his cropped black hair.

  Emeline jumped to her feet. “Dale, get off of there!” she yelled.

  The other boys looked back at her and then at Aladane, who seemed frozen in place, staring at Dale. He took one step forward.

  “Don’t you dare!” Emeline cried, and ran toward them, nearly tripping over her skirt.

  Aladane stepped out onto the bridge and lashed at Dale with his vine whip. Dale struck back, the two of them scooting back and forth across the slate. The other boys started cheering.

  “Dale Bird, get back here right now!” Emeline shouted, reaching the end of the bridge.

  “It’s okay, Em!” Dale said, fighting.

  “Dada’s going to kill you!” she warned.

  “Not if you don’t tell him!”

  Emeline felt a tug on her skirt; Minnow was at her side. “They won’t go all the way over,” he told her. But his small face was worried too.

  A cloud crossed the sun, casting a shadow over the water and the pretend knights. Aladane suddenly tripped and fell, knocking into Dale—the bigger boy tumbled into the water with a splash—and Dale fell across onto the other side. The other side of the moat. Emeline’s heart stopped.

  “Dale!” she screamed. Her brother jumped up immediately, as if to run straight back across the plank, but the boys were electrified now.

  “I dare you to stand there for ten seconds!” one shouted.

  “Yeah! Bet you can’t do it!”

  To her horror, Dale hesitated and stood there in the grass. An uncertain grin spread across his face. Then he looked down at Aladane, spluttering as he clambered up onto the slate plank. Aladane stared back up at him, his eyes shining with awe.

  “You’re crazy!” he said.

 
“Dale, get back here right now!” Emeline shrieked.

  “One, two, three….” the boys began counting. Dale put his hands on his hips and turned around to face the dark trees.

  “I dare you to touch a tree!” one boy called.

  Emeline gasped, and the others yelled, “No! Don’t do it!” This was too much.

  Dale looked at them over his shoulder and winked. He took one step forward, and all the boys roared. Emeline ran out onto the plank. Aladane fell back into the water as her steps rocked the little bridge.

  “Em, I’m just playing!” Dale said, turning around. His face was flushed. “I wasn’t going to do it!”

  Emeline reached him and grabbed his arm. And then she glanced up, unable to help herself, at the dense tangle of trunks and branches locked together a few feet away from them. Their sheer steepness alone was intimidating; the gnarled trunks rose twice as high as even the meeting hall. There were black hollows in between where no light fell.

  Emeline had never seen anyone as close to the woods as she and her brother were now. A shiver shot down her spine, and her chest tightened.

  “It’s a stupid game!” she snapped. “Let’s go!” She yanked Dale by the arm and turned away.

  But then there was a sound. The two of them froze, and the rest of the world went quiet.

  A rustling. There was a rustling among the trees behind them. She turned, not breathing.

  A branch was trembling. Something was moving.

  “Emeline…” Dale whispered. A shadow rose up between the twisted trunks. A shadow that moved languidly, like a snake.

  Boys were screaming behind them, but the voices sounded far away. Emeline saw the silhouette of a hooded head. And then, in a finger of sunlight, something like an arm—a crooked, bent arm. It was not a human arm.

  Her heart beat against her like a giant fist.

  She whirled Dale around and shoved him straight into the moat. Then she dropped to her knees, feeling for something—anything—to grab, her fingers groping into the stream, and snatched up a lily pad from the water. She turned and threw it wildly into the trees.

  It hit something. A terrible hiss filled her ears.

  She shot back across the bridge and onto the safety of the grass, grabbing hold of the slate plank’s end and dragging it away from the moat. Nothing could come across now.

  Aladane and Dale were scrambling out of the water, pale as fish underbellies. All the boys were scattering, running for their homes. Emeline stared back across the water at the woods. They were dark and still again. Silent.

  “What did you see?” Aladane exclaimed. “What did you see?!”

  “Go home, Aladane,” Emeline said hoarsely.

  She took Dale’s hand and turned away, pulling him along with her. Her teeth were chattering; her hands were shaking. She stumbled and Dale almost fell into her. Then they both broke into a run, racing ahead, leaving Aladane standing there behind them.

  “You’re a real knight, Emeline!” he cried after them. “That was real!”

  Lash Knights had not come past Equane since Emeline was six years old.

  She had perched on a wall with Sessa as a royal procession flooded the road outside the village gates. There had been a sea of knights up high on their horses, their black armor glinting in the sun. They carried black shields with black whips coiled at their sides, and their helmets were sloped and pointed like dog muzzles. Sessa had insisted that she could see fangs.

  Behind the knights had chugged the steam-powered carriage that everyone knew carried King Olvinde, although no one could see through its curtain-drawn windows. It was painted black and was nearly as large as a cottage, with wheels half as tall as a man and a mound of cases strapped to its roof. Light blue and silver flags had fluttered just above the driver, their silk shining in the sun, but otherwise the black carriage and the black knights had made a dark impression. The villagers had stood solemnly in a crowd, watching them pass.

  That had been the king’s last journey to his summer home by the ocean. He had never returned all these long years, because of his wasting illness. She would never forget the sight of his steam-carriage, at least; there was nothing like it in Equane, only horses, wooden bicycles, and wagons.

  Emeline bit the thread she was sewing with and tied a knot, glancing over at Dale as he sat quietly in Dada’s chair with a book in his lap. The light from the two fish-oil lamps in the sitting room revealed the tension in his face.

  He had better start turning the pages if he wants Dada to believe he’s reading. She hadn’t told on him, but he was obviously shaken. Their father was sure to notice soon.

  A terrifying image flashed in Emeline’s mind and she shook her head. A snake-like shadow in the trees…She would not think of it. It was gone now and they were safe. She sewed diligently.

  Dada was thumping in and out of the sitting room, carrying in tools from the field and mumbling to himself. He was a tall man with straight black hair, black eyes, and a crooked nose he’d gotten from a fall in his youth. He grew vegetables in the field behind their cottage, whittled clay figures, and read every book he could get his callused hands on. Dale had inherited his dark eyes and Emeline his absentminded look; neither of them were as pale as Mama had been, but Emeline had gotten her wildly curly black hair and filled out in her curves, which embarrassed her. The buckle-up fish-leather bodices that were the fashion only emphasized it.

  Sessa called her podgy and scruffy. They hadn’t been friends for ages, but those words still stung. Emeline often was a bit scruffy; she spent her free time outdoors with her brother. It was fitting that Dada had not even asked questions when she and Dale came dragging in, both of them dripping wet and filthy.

  Dale watched Dada leave the room again and leaned forward, catching Emeline’s eye. She was startled to see the fear in his face.

  “It was the Ithin!” he whispered.

  “Be quiet,” she whispered back.

  He snapped his book closed and got up to look at the crooked shelves along the wall where Dada kept his books. She knew what he was looking for: Dada’s History, which he’d pored over a hundred times before.

  Dale pulled out the heavy tome and sat on the floor with it, flipping through the yellowed old pages. With a sigh, Emeline put down the blouse she was mending and sat next to him. Her sewing always came out crooked anyway.

  Dale paused, as usual, at the dog-eared section about the Keldares. Mama had been one. Anyone could be, if they ran off and joined them, becoming an apprentice in one of the arts they practiced. Musicians, poets, skalds, and storytellers, the Keldares traveled the kingdom, entertaining those who would listen. They went their own way and had never sworn to the king, but because of their long peaceful history, and because there were so few of them now, they were mostly left alone. Old folks whispered to each other that slivers of magic were kept alive in the realm’s most ancient songs and stories—songs and stories that no one but the Keldares knew now. Magic ran in their blood because of it, they said.

  Like many Keldares, Mama had worn golden armbands, and she’d made sure that Emeline and Dale followed the tradition, just as generations of her family had: her people had been Keldares as far back as anyone remembered. The gold in the bands had been panned in the cold waters of the north.

  Dale flipped more pages until he found the section he was really looking for: the legends of Dark Creatures.

  Dark Creatures. Monsters that had roamed the land since the beginning of time. Unnatural beasts that could only exist if magic were real. Dale’s fingers swept over the ancient drawings of craggy hides, shadowed eyes, and wicked fangs.

  He knew all of them, and so did she. There was the bat-like Gorbin, dropping from trees to smother you with its wings; the Embel, scuttling among the undergrowth on vicious claws, never seen before it struck; the many-mouthed Silgare, whose hundred-bite was poisonous; and the
Anthrane, casting alluring little lights that led you straight to its sting.

  Dale stopped at the Ithin, a creature wrapped in a ratty, hooded cloak, stretched out along a tree branch like a snake or a giant cat. He shuddered.

  “Why do they wear cloaks?” he asked, his voice tight. Emeline reached over and turned the book around. There was another drawing of an Ithin standing upright, just like a man, but its hooked arms showed through the cloak’s opening. She read the text beneath it aloud.

  “ ‘The Ithin live in the forest and fear water, like most Dark Creatures. They eat the hearts of men.’ ” Dale squirmed next to her. “ ‘Some say the Ithin cover themselves in hooded cloaks because they are too hideous to behold, but it may also be a form of protection against rain, which poisons them. Few have seen their faces and lived to speak of it, but the descriptions are always the same: an elongated head with enormous round eyes, two large fangs in the upper jaw and two more in the lower, no nose or ears to speak of. Beneath the cloak is perhaps a man’s form, but one not restricted by the same physical laws. Their arms are bent in the manner of the praying mantis—’ ”

  Dada thumped back into the room and Emeline jumped, almost flinging the book. Dale burst into a hysterical giggle and fell over on his back.

  Their father stared at them, bewildered. Then he noticed the History, so Emeline shut it quickly and gave Dale a kick. He only laughed harder.

  “What in the kingdom are you two up to?” Dada asked. He was holding his pipe, which meant it was time for him to settle in for a quiet evening. The old clock that had been his father’s chimed up on its shelf amid the books.

  “We were reading the Comedies,” Emeline told him. “Dale is having a silly fit.”

  Dada sank into his chair and shook his head, tapping his pipe. “I’m surprised he can understand them. Those old stories aren’t very funny to me. I suppose humor changes with the times.” He lit his pipe and watched as she stood up to slide the History back onto the shelf. “Anyway, I thought the Comedies were in the back of the book,” he added mildly. Emeline cringed. She should have known he knew the book inside and out.