The Witch and the Huntsman by Rod Kierkegaard Jr J.R. Rain Read Free Book Online Page A

said aloud. “I can’t keep up.” From off in the distance, I heard a plaintive howl echoing between the snow-covered rocks. “Seriously— wolves ? In Oregon?”
    “ They have returned ... ”
    I stopped and looked around in every direction. Aside from the ghostly flickering ahead of me, I couldn’t see a single light, except for the stars overhead. I realized I was now seriously lost. Great.
    The sky was also clouding up and getting even darker. The silhouettes of the trees were the deepest, darkest shade of sable imaginable, and I could no longer even make out my footprints in the snow. Incidentally, I’d also decided this was totally the last time I was ever going to wear New Balance to a ski resort; my feet were like blocks of sodden ice.
    “ Quickly, child...follow me... ”
    I took a few dozen more steps into the darkness—and then my sixth sense screamed a warning. I stopped in my tracks.
    “ Hurry ... ” Her voice was the faintest whisper, and the glow had disappeared.
    But I didn’t hurry. Instead, I pulled out my iPhone and used it as a flashlight. There was a sheer drop ahead of me—two or three more steps, and I would have pitched over the edge of a crevasse and down to my death below. Witch or no witch, no way in hell I was surviving that drop.
    I think it was right about then that I realized it wasn’t Millicent’s voice I was hearing in my head. It was someone else’s. Someone—or some thing— with the power to impersonate a ghost! But how was that even possible? Then I remembered that the spirit of Millicent’s dead son had managed to fool me into thinking he was alive, even in broad daylight.
    Which was when I panicked. Suddenly, I felt like I was in way over my head. I turned around and stumbled back through the snow, following my own tracks as best I could in the darkness, swiping my cell phone screen whenever it went dark. I hoped the battery wouldn’t die on me.
    I hoped I wouldn’t die on me.
    Because I was pretty sure I was being followed. From time to time, I sensed a dark shape flitting through the trees, and once I clearly saw the shape of a man against the sky—a man with some kind of hat and a crossbow. A hunter . Was he out here in the middle of the night hunting me?
    I broke into a run. Okay, it was more like a fast slipping, sliding series of lurches, I guess, and I fell down in the snow a couple times, but hey, at least I kept moving. And it was a lot faster going downhill than up. Plus there was that little thing about maybe being shot by an arrow if I slowed down. Was that what had happened to Marisa? I started running even faster—it’s amazing how fast you can forget a stitch in your side with the right incentive!
    But now my breath was coming in ragged gasps. I knew I couldn’t run much longer—especially because I had no idea where I was going. I’d long since lost sight of my own footprints in my panic.
    “ This way, Allison ! ”
    “ Millicent?”
    “ Yes, it’s me—make for the black lines over the trees. That’s the liftline. The way you came .”
    “ But you’re the real Millicent this time, right? Not the fake?” Okay, dumb question, but it was really late at night, and I was totally wiped. It had been a long day. And somebody was stalking me—maybe even trying to kill me.
    “ Of course I am—what are you talking about? ”  
    And this time I felt the full connection. The voice in my thoughts really was Millicent’s now. My heart lifted, and I stumbled on toward the trees. I’d come to a line of wooden service sheds when I realized I couldn’t run any more. One of the sheds had crumbled into a ruin, and I crouched inside it to get my breath back while I tried to spot the shape of the hunter against the dim gray snowfield I’d just dashed across.
    “ That’s why I’m out here. Someone pretended to be you—the same voice in my head, the same physical manifestation—and told me to follow them. That’s why I climbed halfway up Mt.