The Wolf of Cape Fen

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Books. Change. Lives.

Copyright © 2020 by Juliana Brandt

Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks

Cover design by Nicole Hower/Sourcebooks

Cover and internal illustrations by Jana Heidersdorf

Internal design by Danielle McNaughton/Sourcebooks

Internal images © Shutterstock

Map design and illustration by Travis Hasenour/Sourcebooks

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Sourcebooks Young Readers, an imprint of Sourcebooks Kids

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

(630) 961-3900

sourcebookskids.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brandt, Juliana, author.

Title: Wolf of Cape Fen / Juliana Brandt.

Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Young Readers, [2020] |

Audience: Ages 8-12. | Audience: Grades 4-6. | Summary: Baron Dire

haunts Cape Fen, striking magical bargains, demanding unjust payment,

and sending the Wolf to hunt those who do not pay, but Eliza and Winnie

Serling are determined to stop him.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019034956 | (hardcover)

Subjects: CYAC: Magic--Fiction. | Wolves--Fiction. | Fantasy.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B75152 Wol 2020 | DDC [Fic]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034956

Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Part II

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Part III

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Acknowledgments

Excerpt from A Wilder Magic

Chapter One

About the Author

Back Cover

To Katie: You helped shape the world into a place in which I knew how to live.

And to those who bury deep their dreams: May you find the strength to dream as loudly as you deserve.

Part I

IN WHICH THERE IS A DEATH

One

The moon dreamed. Far below it, a ship sailed toward Cape Fen, magic and moonlight illuminating a path across the ocean.

The midnight storm laying siege to Cape Fen’s shores seemed determined to ruin Eliza Serling’s little sister’s birthday. Earlier that day the Cape’s weather forecaster had watched birds flying inland, racing away from rain clouds that shadowed the ocean. She passed around word that everyone living along the coast should travel to the mainland to wait out the storm. But of course, that was nothing but a cruel joke. No one born on the Cape could leave.

The only fluorescent lamp left on in the Serling home darkened by the force of the storm’s winds. The yellow-speckled stars on the stained-glass lampshade dimmed as electricity stuttered inside the Fen Jester Restaurant. It was the only thing of Ma’s that had survived Pa’s purge after she’d left four years before. Eliza scowled at it now and vowed to use only plain oil lamps in the future. They, at least, didn’t stop working when stiff winds blew through their drafty living space in the back of the restaurant.

Eliza climbed out of the makeshift fort she’d built for Winnie and clicked off the lamp, leaving the potbelly stove in their kitchen with its licks of blue and gold flame as their only source of light. Returning to their cotton castle, she sat crisscross behind Winnie and took up the knot she was trying to free from her eight-year-old sister’s cloudy hair.

Have you figured it out yet? Eliza asked.

Ostrich? Win asked.

No.

Owl. Octopus. Osprey.

No. No and no.

Eliza tugged hard at the tight cluster of strands. "I give up. I don’t know any other O animals."

Eliza grinned. Opossum.

"Liar! Possum starts with a P."

"No, it only sounds like it does. It starts with an O."

You tricked me.

Does that mean you’d like me to go again, this time without a trick?

No, it’s my turn. Winnie closed her eyes and felt around on the floor, grabbing up the wooden owl Pa had carved for her birthday. They’d celebrated earlier that night with butter cookies and presents—a Wright brothers tin airplane toy from Eliza and the wooden owl from Pa. She lifted the palm-sized bird in the air and flew it above her head. In the dim glow of the fire, light glimmered against fine details: tiny feathers ran down outstretched wings, massive eyes peered out from a heart-shaped face, and elongated claws clenched over an unseen branch.

Eliza picked at the tricky knot while she waited, guilt slithering through her. When was the last time she’d brushed Win’s hair? The tangled mess was Eliza’s fault, really. Sometimes, she didn’t know what it meant to be an older sister without a mother. For Winnie, she tried to be both, though it made her feel as if she were neither. I’m thinking of an animal, and it starts with—

I’m thinking of an animal, Winnie glared up at her, "and it starts with an S."

Salmon, she guessed. Starfish. Skunk. Sna—

Light flared outside their fort, and a half second later, a boom sent tremors through the walls of the restaurant. Winnie folded into Eliza, burying the owl against her neck, breathing fast with fear as rain lashed the windows and the roof.

Snake. Sloth. Eliza rubbed the back of Winnie’s head. Snowy owl. Sea lion. Seal. Sparrow. Spider. Squirrel. Stork. Swan?

No, no, no.

"I’m running out of S animals here, Win."

It’s something little. Winnie’s voice was muffled from where she hid her face against Eliza’s knees.

Little like a mouse?

Littler.

I already said spider. A…stick insect?

No.

I give up. Tell me.

A centipede!

Eliza dropped her head into her hands. "Centipede starts with a C."

"And possum starts with a P."

Eliza laughed. Her sister was too clever for her own good.

Winnie turned back over and eyed the fort’s ceiling, as if trying to peer through to the rain outside. Do you think it’s a First Frost storm?

Old fury ran through Eliza, and she pulled too hard on Winnie’s hair, making her sister wince. First Frost arrived at the very start of winter, bringing with it Baron Dire, who was more devil than man, and with him came his strange Wolf. This was why no one in Fen could leave; they supplied the baron with a steady source of magic. In the last century of the Cape’s imprisonment, only two people had managed to bargain in the right way to gain freedom from the Cape, one of them being Eliza’s mother.

It was Baron Dire who’d made it possible for her to leave, and Eliza hated him for it.

It doesn’t matter if it is First Frost, Eliza said, forcing her hands to loosen their hold on Winnie’s hair. First Frost can come and go. We’re safe. We’ve never bargained. Without one of his bargains in place, Baron Dire and his Wolf can’t hurt us. Besides, it sounds like plain old rain outside, no frost or snow included… This snarl is refusing to unknot.

You could cut it out.

"No! Eliza wouldn’t give up as easily as that. You’d have a bald spot at the back of your head. I’ll try using soap to loosen it tomorrow."

Another bolt of lightning sheared through the storm, lighting up the Jester with white heat. Eliza lifted the sheet of their fort just as a second bolt lit the earth, illuminating the edges of the window where the shutters didn’t quite reach. Thunder cracked close behind.

She dropped the sheet. Try to sleep. You need to rest for school tomorrow.

Do not. I’m noctractal.

Nocturnal, Eliza corrected. And no, you aren’t. Sleep.

You’re being bossy.

If I’m not bossy, you won’t sleep, and then you’ll be grumpy tomorrow.

Grumpy is better than bossy. Winnie reached for the moon-patterned quilt that covered her feet, drawing it under her chin. You should sleep and dream too, Liza.

Words stuck inside Eliza, gumming up against her anger at Baron Dire. It had been their Ma’s dreams that had taken her from Cape Fen, too, right alongside Dire’s magic. She tucked the owl beneath the covers with Winnie and pressed her palm against her sister’s forehead. Winnie’s fine white hair and pale skin framed her black eyes, the only part of her that resembled Eliza. Neither of them looked much like Pa, and neither of them remembered Ma well enough to know. They had two photographs of her. The first was from when she and Pa had gotten hitched, and the muted black-and-white colors smudged the features of their faces. In the second, Pa stood behind the three Serling girls. Ma sat in the middle, a wide-brimmed hat trimmed in lace positioned carefully atop her head. Eliza stood to her left and Winnie to her right. Everyone smiled.

Eliza didn’t do much smiling these days. Not since her own eighth birthday, when Ma nabbed a boat and left their family, deciding that Pa and Winnie and Eliza weren’t enough. That her dreams of freedom from Cape Fen and its prisonlike winters mattered more than her family.

I’m too old for dreams, Eliza whispered, not loud enough for Winnie to hear.

Unlike Ma, Eliza’s family mattered more than anything else to her. She needed them, needed Win. Even needed Pa who right now worked through the storm in the tin-roofed shed behind the restaurant. She curled beneath her covers, vowing no matter what turns her life took, she would never bargain for use of Baron Dire’s magic and disappear, leaving Winnie all alone.

* * *

Come morning, heavy, gray clouds stuck to the skeletal oak trees and misted chimney tops lining Old Queen Mae Street. They looked as sleepless as she felt, worn out from the sky’s fit of rage the night before.

Winnie walked ahead of Eliza. Her hand-me-down galoshes slipped off and popped back on with each step. Step-step-HOP. She jumped into a deep pool, drenching the hem of her jumper and the wool coat that hung past her knees.

Eliza trailed behind her as they walked to school. The sun would rise soon, not that they’d know it if the clouds refused to pass. This time of the year, when days sucked in their girth and nights billowed out, they left the Fen Jester Restaurant early enough that Winnie could play hide-and-seek in the pools of light cast by newly installed streetlamps. Last night though, the winds had blown a transformer, knocking out power running east on Old Queen Mae Street. The turn of the century saw an update to the town center, but electricity still wasn’t as reliable as gas lamps. Because it wasn’t, they’d dressed in thick, long-sleeve dresses with rounded Peter Pan collars by the light of a coal-oil lantern. After eating the back-end of a loaf of bread for breakfast, they’d stepped out of the Jester onto a road cloaked in early morning darkness.

Tiredness weighed heavy in Eliza. She’d only managed to trick herself into sleeping after she’d pushed hard at the wound of her mother’s leaving, making her angry all over again at Baron Dire and the way he’d left her life a mess.

Eliza dragged her feet down the road.

One, two, three. She counted as she filled up her lungs with air.

Seven, eight, nine. She held her breath.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen. Her pulse slowed. Her thoughts drifted away, and along with them—

Eliza! I can fly!

Winnie? She broke into a jog, her small sack of school supplies bumping against her spine. Old Queen Mae took a turn, following the curved shape of Fen Bay to the north. Shops closed throughout winter loomed over her, throwing angled shadows across the already dark street. Winnie? Win!

See me, Liza? Winnie stood atop a three-foot-high stone wall that separated street from woods. With her head tossed back and her arms outstretched, it did indeed appear as if she could fly, if only her bones were hollow and her skin lined with feathers.

Eliza pressed one hand against her chest where her heart beat an unsteady rhythm.

See me? Winnie grinned, not knowing that Eliza had nearly died of fear.

I see you.

One, two, three. She held her breath and counted again to settle.

Winnie leapt off the wall and headed down the path that would take them through the woods and along Fen Bay. Shadows scurried overhead, tree branches crisscrossing to block out what little light existed. The forest was too still, even for the start of winter. There should have been a few chickadees out, at least, or a titmouse or two. Their songs should call the sun to wake. But, except for the crunch of Eliza and Winnie’s steps, the world was absent of sound. It was as if they’d stepped into a charcoal drawing, she and Win the only pieces shaded in full color.

They crested a small rise and the trees opened on the north side of the path, and at last, sound reached them. Whoosh-whoosh-crash! Winnie climbed on top of a large rock. She stood and held one hand above her brow.

Come on, Winnie. We need to go. Not much time before school starts, Eliza said.

Winnie rose to her tiptoes and leaned out over the rock.

Winnie! Eliza closed the gap between them. Get down from there.

I’m looking for pirates. Winnie licked her finger, then held it up to the overcast sky. Sky pirates in air balloons.

They’d be in an aeroplane, not a balloon.

A giant balloon filled with butterflies. Winnie spread her arms above her, as if a balloon floated above her head.

"Stop."

You’re no fun! Winnie launched from the rock into a muddy puddle and climbed onto a fallen tree.

Eliza rubbed her face. She hadn’t had enough sleep to stomach her sister’s wild dreamings.

A low growl cut through the quiet, the waves having already faded into background noise.

Winnie squeaked.

Eliza turned, fingers stretching toward Win.

There, to their left at the edge of the tree’s opening, stood a monstrous animal.

Hello, Wolf, Winnie said.

A crown of white tipped its ears and ran down the matted fur across its back. Tufts of grey stuck out from between its claws. It was bigger than the sheep dogs kept at the base of the Cape and bigger than the mini pony one of the summer vacationers liked to keep on a leash.

Winter’s First Frost hadn’t yet arrived, so how was the Wolf standing here?

Back away, Winnie, Eliza said, low.

The Wolf’s snout extended. It snuffled, testing the air. Its yellow eyes tracked her movement as she inched closer to Winnie.

Hello, you, Winnie said to the beast. She held out her hands, wrists bent and palms up, as if to welcome the Wolf.

Its head cocked at an unearthly angle, just a tad too far.

We haven’t bargained with Baron Dire, Eliza said. You can’t hurt us. You’re not allowed. I know the rules.

The Wolf shifted, tail standing on end, ears tilting up and steam spiraling from between finger-length canine teeth.

"Winnie." Eliza’s voice trembled.

Winnie grinned and leaned forward, the knot at the back of her head poofing up her hair, looking for all the world as if she were a wild animal herself. The Wolf lowered, head dropping so its shoulder blades jutted into the air.

Please, don’t kill us, Eliza whispered, grasping with both hands for her sister. "Please. We haven’t bargained."

The Wolf leaped. Flesh and blood and muscle launched at Winnie. Eliza shouldered into her, knocking her off her perch. The Wolf sailed through air. Its jaws came unhinged, baring each fang at Eliza, who now stood where Winnie had been.

"Look!" Winnie cried.

Eliza couldn’t look, but she felt it all the same: the clouds opened above, dawn light streaming down to save them.

And the Wolf passed straight through Eliza’s body.

Two

The Wolf of Cape Fen dreamed. It waded belly-high in water that glittered with moonlight. The night smelled of footprints left behind by frightened creatures. The Wolf sang to the sky. It was time to hunt.

Eliza staggered. She patted her chest, but she was whole, unharmed, and unbelievably, alive. She looked behind her. The woods stood empty.

She turned to Winnie, arms outstretched to snatch her up