Before the Snow Read Free Page A

trying to crawl through the water. There was a trail of blood from where he had been gutted in the foyer. Blood floated on the water. Nepenthe pulled him upright enough to see the wound. She grabbed a blanket from a nearby chair and wrapped it around the seeping hole in his chest. She patched him up as best she could, but she was only a girl and there was too much blood.
    Water hit her father’s face and her own. But this time, from above. It was raining in the house. She knew it was her doing, but she couldn’t stop it.
    The River Witch’s name was on his lips. Nepenthe had tried to save him, but she did not have enough power. He ordered her to find her mother, and Nepenthe left his side, wrapping his own hands over where hers had held the cloth over his wound.
    He couldn’t tell Nepenthe who did this to him. He would only say the River Witch’s name on a loop. His love for the River Witch meant more than who had taken his life.
    Nepenthe found her mother in the Grotto. She had been returned to the water, facedown. Turning her over, Nepenthe found her mother’s green eyes open, but not even a hint of her remained.
    Nepenthe cradled her mother in her arms and called her name. She futilely prayed for a pulse, but there was none. She pulled the River Witch to her and heard an inhuman wail and the sound of thunder, like a storm was gathering in the Grotto. Nepenthe knew both sounds were hers. The walls wept water now, and the water beneath her mother swirled. She clutched her mother tighter to her. Her words were gone. There was only the wailing.
    On the wall of the Grotto, she saw a word scrawled in what looked like blood: WITCH.
    Did my mother write it?
Nepenthe wondered through the torrent of tears.
    She heard the Witch of the Woods’s voice calling from outside the house. Somehow word had gotten back to her and she had traveled by roots to find Nepenthe.
    â€œI heard you, little fish,” she said, her branches outstretched to Nepenthe. “All of Algid heard you.”
    She carried her parents’ bodies outside. Behind her she could hear the house collapsing under the rising water. She did not look back.
    Nepenthe and the Witch of the Woods took her parents to the River, where they were met by the rest of the Coven. The Witch of the Woods built a floating pyre, and they pushed her parents downstream. Nepenthe wanted nothing more than to follow them. Instead, she stood on the River bank surrounded by the Coven and watched as the Fire Witch lit the pyre with a stream of fire that seemed to drop right out of the sky.
    â€œWho did this?” Nepenthe asked the Witch of the Woods over and over again.
    â€œ There are people who will never accept us for what we are—not even in a place of magic like Algid. Your mother taught you that.”
    â€œBut if Mother had had her full powers, she could have fought off whoever it was.”
    â€œWe don’t know that. She made her choice and she was happy with it. She was so thrilled to have you.”
    Nepenthe let herself sink against the Witch of the Woods’s bark-covered chest. It was simultaneously hard and soft. But even as the tears fell, Nepenthe made a promise. She would never be so weak that she could not defend herself. And she swore she would never love if it left her open to this kind of pain.
    She had made her choice. Or her choice had been made for her. Whichever it was, Nepenthe was the River Witch now. She belonged to the water. And the water belonged to her.

6
    â€œYou still have a choice to make, Nepenthe,” said the Witch of the Woods. “But not today.”
    â€œI have made my choice.”
    â€œNot today,” the Witch of the Woods repeated.
    The Witch of the Woods’s home was the Hollow. It was a marvel of magic and roots. The Witch had used her roots to hollow out room after room beneath the ground. But Nepenthe had never felt at home under the ground like she did in the water. And now, with