The Northerners Chapter 1

Page 1

"The Northerners don't bury their dead. That's how we know they're different from us."

I dropped an armful of dry sticks at Lucy's feet. She was seated in a regal pose atop a rock, clutching the hood of her cloak tightly around her pale face with one hand and waving the other sharply through the air. Strands of hair stuck out from under her hood at odd angles; between this and her dress, which was ragged and torn from our trek into the forest, she looked something like a weatherworn scarecrow that was beginning to lose its straw.

"You should know to stay away from North Country , Daniel." Lucy was pushing her voice as low as she could, and had to press her jaw down into her neck with the effort. "The Northerners are always looking for children to steal."

"I know that," I replied in my bravest voice. "But I had to get you the firewood you wanted, Lucy..."

Lucy's eyebrows fell and her wide eyes bulged, almost filling the dark circles around them. It was a look sharper than a knife.

"Er," I said. "Sorry. I had to get your firewood, Abbess."

Lucy turned her nose upward, jutting her chin toward me. "How old are you now, young man?"

"I'm eight."

"Then eight rosaries for each year you've been sinning!"

Lucy's impersonation of the abbess was one of her best, and I found myself dreading the penance as though I actually had to do it. Of course, she was already making me gather firewood, so there was no reason to assume she was any less serious about the rosaries.

"And another rosary for going near North country . You ought to know better!"

"But abbess, I had my cross to protect me," I said, holding up the pair of twigs I had tied together with a few strips of grass.

Lucy leaned forward and bowed her head. Her hood came loose, dropping a curtain of mussed brown hair down her forehead and casting her eyes in shadow. "Nothing can protect you from the Northerners, Daniel. Not once they've seen you."

I felt as though a heavy weight were settling in my stomach. "Lucy, let's play something else..."

"Listen closely or it will be eight more rosaries, young man!" Lucy's eyes glinted through her hair. "You know what the Northerners would do to you if they got their hands on you?"

"Er, yes."

"No you don't. They wouldn't kill you. They would take you apart into a bunch of little pieces, but they would use their powers to make you stay alive..."

"Lucy..."

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