Bending awkwardly around her stomach, Cassie wiped mud from the soles of her feet with ferns. Her feet were swollen and cold. As she wiped, she saw skin. It looked waxy and was mottled with burgundy splotches. She touched it, and it felt as spongy as moss. “Lovely,” she said, swallowing back bile. She dried her feet as well as she could. She knew she should not walk on them, but the longer she stayed in one place, the more likely Father Forest was to find her.

She stood and winced. She felt the baby shove its knee (or elbow) outward. “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up,” she told it. “I’ll keep you free.”

Using her stick, she picked her way over rocks and roots down the hill. In spots, the hill was sheer. She had to snake down it, avoiding the drop-offs. Below her, she could see the reflected blue of a stream. If she had to, she told herself, she could move river to river, bog to bog, across the forested foothills. So long as she did not have to move faster than a shuffle.

She made it to the bottom. Her feet felt like blocks of wood, and she moved painfully slowly as the terrain went uphill again. Something rustled above her. Wind or munaqsri? Squirrel or spy? Heart thudding in her ears, she scanned the trees. She saw nothing.

Cassie sank against a spruce. “I hate this,” she said to the tree. “I just want you to know that I hate this.” She bent around her swollen stomach to examine her feet. Blistered now, they felt like they were burning. She picked off needles and dirt that had stuck to the blisters. There was nothing she could do for her feet, except hope that the trench foot did not worsen into gangrene. She felt her stomach skin ripple as the baby squirmed like a bird bashing its shell. It did not like her bending. “Just a little while longer,” she said to it as she straightened. “We can do this.”

Limping, she made it another mile on the strength of bravado before the rain began. On the slope of the next hill, she heard it before she felt it. Rain pelted the coniferous canopy. Aspens quivered. Rain burst through. She tilted her face up, and water spattered over her. Mud streaked down her neck as the bog muck sloughed off her. She caught drops in her hands and mouth and drank. Rain washed over the forest floor.

Needles underfoot became as slippery as soap. Cassie hurried to the shelter of a fallen spruce. She huddled under it as rain soaked the trees.

A steady trickle ran down her back, and Cassie shivered. She pressed against the cold bark. She imagined the baby inside her shivering too. She wondered if she was hurting it, being out here—and then she wondered when she’d begun to care what it felt. She couldn’t remember a moment. It had sneaked up on her gradually with each kick, each hiccup, each shift she felt inside.

Cassie curled into a ball. Resting her head on a root, she wrapped her arms around her stomach as if she could cradle the baby within. Water pooled under her head. Her wet hair chilled her neck. In fits, she slept. She dreamed about Bear; she dreamed about Gram; she dreamed about a child with wide eyes and a distended stomach. The child stared at her without speaking until Cassie’s eyes snapped open.

She was hot and shivering. Arms shaking, she struggled to sit. Water dripped onto her. Outside her makeshift shelter, it drizzled. She lurched out.

The world spun as she stood too fast, and she had to close her eyes. She put her hand on her forehead—hot to the touch. She knew she had a fever. Gram used to take care of her when she had a fever.

Opening her eyes, she looked for Gram.

She stumbled forward. “Gram, I don’t feel well.” It came out as mush. Her ears rang, and her vision blurred. She felt as if she were underwater. “Gram?”

Gram was a white bear. Then she was a starving child, eyes as wide as Father Forest’s tea saucers. Cassie held her arms out.

The bear-child ran.

Cassie ran. Her head pounded and her feet throbbed. She saw fine white lines imposed over the forest. She saw a flash of darkness.

Cassie cradled her forehead in her hands. She wanted to outrun the throbbing in her head. She ran faster and, blind, burst through the trees.

She did not see the drop-off.

She did not see the rocks.

She fell. Sharp rocks hit as she somersaulted down the slope. Pain lanced through her. Screaming, she rolled.

She hit bottom. A stream gurgled beside her. Her hand dangled in it. Wet, she thought. She lost consciousness.

She had fever dreams: blood and heat and searing cold. As the dreams and the fever faded, the pain jolted her awake. She lay, twisted, on the rocks. Her skin felt tenderized. Her ears rang. Her head spun. Her stomach… She writhed and gasped for air. Her guts squeezed.

Oh, what have I done? Please, please, don’t be dead. Cassie tried to sit. She could not seem to get enough air. Please, live. Live, damn you.

Blackness swam up in her eyes as she moved. She vomited. Sharp pain sliced through her body as she heaved. She brought her hand, shaking, up to her mouth. And she saw the blood. She spread her fingers. Neon scarlet blood. It was all she could see. It consumed her world.

She was vomiting blood.

Cassie closed her eyes. Still saw red. She shuddered. She knew what it meant, alone and hurt. She had not only killed her baby. She had killed herself.

PART 3

At the Back of the North Wind

CHAPTER 27

Latitude 63° 48’ 11” N

Longitude 126° 02’ 38” W

Altitude 1108 ft.

Cassie was drowning. She clawed at her throat. She was a beached fish, drowning in air. She saw a shadow cross over her. Fighting, she focused on it.

It looked like a young Inuit man.

But that didn’t make any sense. She was alone, dying alone. Just her and her unborn, never-to-be-born child. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut.

When she opened them again, the man was waiting silently on the rocks above her. Suddenly, she understood: He was waiting for her to die. “Munaqsri,” she rasped.

Startled, he lost his footing on the rocks. He skidded down a few feet before catching himself. Pebbles rolled into Cassie, and she flinched.

“You can see me! I thought you were…,” he said. “You know what I am?”

Yes, she knew. He was the human munaqsri. He was here to take her soul. Well, she wasn’t going to let him. He was a munaqsri; he could manipulate molecules. He could save her! “Heal me,” she demanded. She coughed. Blood speckled his pants leg.

He frowned at the blood and then at her. “If you know what I am, then you know I’m not here to heal you.”

She batted his ankle with a weak hand. “You can,” she said. He had the power. “Do it.”

Gently, he said, “I’m sorry, but you’re dying.”

“Not dying.” Not while he could save her. Straining to reach for him, she spat blood.

Leaning down, he touched her neck, feeling her pulse. “You must be especially determined.” He released her. “You need to let go. Your body is too damaged to heal itself, and you must be in tremendous pain.” He sounded almost kind. “I must take your soul now.”

She closed her eyes for the briefest of instants and then opened them again. She concentrated on his words as if they were bubbles she had to catch. Her vision swam. “Can’t have it.”

“Hey, now, we don’t want it drifting off beyond the ends of the earth.”

She thought of the polar bears, their unclaimed souls drifting off beyond the ends of the earth unless—she remembered the owl and the hare—unless another took them. Could she tempt the human munaqsri? “Know twenty-five thousand,” Cassie said.

He squatted on the rocks beside her. “What was that?”

More strongly, she said, “Twenty-five thousand unclaimed souls.” The effort made her gasp. She choked on air and started to shake.