Page 17 of Echo North

Laughter echoed in the hallway, whispers in an unfamiliar language. Fear crawled through me. I wished it wasn’t so dark, and my mind jerked once more to the lamp on the end table.

“It will get in,” I whispered. “It will destroy us.”

“We are protected. As long as we don’t open the door. As long as—as long as you don’t light the lamp. She is … she is tempting you. She is testing your strength.”

“Whois?”

“The force in the wood. The force … binding the house.”

The room trembled as something hit the door with an earth-shatteringbang,like it had been rammed with a tree trunk.

“You must get your mind off of it. The fire cannot harm you.Shecannot harm you.”

I twisted my fingers together, tangling them in the blankets.

Anotherbangat the door. The wood creaked and splintered. A deafeningcrack,heat pulsing on my skin. I was shaking so hard I thought I would burst apart.

“Tell me about your father,” said the wolf.

“What?”

CRAAAACCKKKKK.

“Your father!” He had to shout above a sudden roaring wind. “Tell me about him.”

I dug my fingers into the mattress. “He’s good and kind. Even to me. Especially to me.”

“Why wouldn’t he be kind to you?”

“Because of what I am!”

“And what are you?”

“I’M A MONSTER!”

“You are no monster!”

The wind shrieked and screamed and twisted around us. I gripped the bed frame, shuddering.

“Tell me more about your father!”

I grasped for words behind my fear. “He loves my stepmother, but I don’t know why. He never—he never laughed at me. He never signed the cross to ward off my Devil’s face.”

“Your face was not carved by the Devil.” The wind died all at once, the roaring shrank away, and the wolf’s next words echoed overloud in the sudden silence: “IT WAS CARVED BY ME!”

The room stretched between us. The heat seeped away, as if conducting a strange slithering retreat back under the door.

“Then itwasyou, that day with the trap.”

“Yes.”

“Why were you there?”

“I was watching you.”

“Why?”

“I have always been drawn to you, Echo Alkaev. Even when I couldn’t remember why.”