At the intersection, I could go right and head home—but turning left would take me back to the cabin. My phone was still there, stuffed under the damp mattress with that skeleton key. The key that Isabelle had asked me to hide if anyone came looking for it.

I pulled my eyes away from the road and checked the time displayed on the dashboard. 10:51pm. I could still go back. No one else was on the road at this hour. I hated driving at night. The bumpy road that split away from the highway onto Snowdrop Lane was so remote I could hardly tell the forest from the trees. The cabin was my cousin’s, but his girlfriend, Isabelle, had asked me to meet her there earlier.

We’d been yoga class friends for about a month now, always oversharing on the things we hated doing in the city like paying for overpriced caramel lattes and going to lunch after class with the other girls. They’d always managed to pick the loudest restaurant on the street, and it would be torture watching them post selfies on Instagram as we ate. We’d had that in common. So, when she’d said she needed my help with something I was there for her.

Earlier, when we’d had our first class of the week, she’d looked as pale as a ghost, unable to even manage a downward dog without taking a deep breath. She’d been glancing over her shoulder all morning like she was expecting something. I’d thought an ex-boyfriend, a package, or maybe a Facebook stalker, but when I’d asked her, she’d just said, “It’s not like that.” Even when I’d first arrived at the cabin, she was already outside pacing up and down the veranda. Something had been on her mind, but why she’d needed me, I still didn’t know. She’d been barefoot in the snow, her toes just beginning to redden from standing in the cold too long. It had made no sense. I mean, Isabelle hated the cold. In the yoga studio if the instructor happened to turn up the air conditioning, she was the first one to complain. It was strange seeing her pacing about like she didn’t even notice the frosty wind slicing through her cardigan.

She’d never looked up when I first called her name. Just kept pacing. But as soon as I’d walked up to her, she’d hugged me like I was the last person in the world. Then she pulled me inside, locked the door behind us, and said, “This is the only place they can’t follow me.” She wouldn’t say who they were. Just looked at me like whatever secret was gnawing at her was eating her from the inside.

Then she’d led me downstairs to the basement.

“Wait a second while I go do something important,” she’d said.

I hadn’t realised “important” meant stepping through the wall like it was thin air. I didn’t move. I couldn’t comprehend what I was actually seeing. Isabelle had walked straight through the brick wall like some kind of Houdini trick.

I’d almost lost control of my legs. They felt like rubber. I figured that maybe she’d found a hidden door none of us in the family knew about. But the wall was solid brick. She’d disappeared for about an hour before reappearing with a skeleton key of all things. It was thick and jagged like four car keys stuck together.

Isabelle wouldn’t explain how she’d done it. She’d just handed me the skeleton key and instructed me to hide it somewhere inside the cabin. Said she knew she could trust me with it, even if I didn’t understand. I wondered what it opened.

Then she’d told me to leave and never come back.

I know what it sounds like. I mean, everything inside of me screamed to leave. Truth was, I was terrified, but also curious. But not curious enough to stay, so I hid the key in the only spot no one would look. Under the old mattress.

The wheezing in my chest came back just thinking about what happened earlier that day at the cabin. I’d left in such a rush, forgetting my phone and the candle burning by the door.

I made the turn and drove straight through the fog. The fog was everywhere on this road. I hated the fog. It was spread across the trees and over the snow. The SES had warned us about the conditions this month, said there was no visibility when the fog drifts in from the North. They called Blue Mountain Hill the birthplace of winter. Where smog descends and daylight fades faster than a boat heading into a storm.

I was pretty far up the mountain by now. The small orbs of my headlights cut through the fog, leading me to the front of the cabin. I turned off the engine.

The cabin was still dark on the outside. From here, it looked abandoned like no one had ever even been staying here in the first place.

Maybe Isabelle was gone. Back through the wall.

Maybe whatever she was into had stopped her from coming back.

Maybe she was dead.

All the lights inside were off and the heater had stopped its low rattling. The cabin was an ice box. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Isabelle wasn’t inside and by the look of it nothing was out of place. Except for the candle, which I’d left burning in the hallway. It was now out. Maybe only seconds ago because I could still smell the smoke fizzling away in the air.

“Isabelle!” I yelled.

No answer.

I pushed open the bedroom door and searched for my phone. My breath fogged in the air. I was so cold. Rummaging through the nest of cold blankets on the bed in the corner, I felt around the mattress. Underneath and on top. And there it was still wedged between the bedframe and the wall. Next to it was the skeleton key I’d hid when I was frightened.

“Oh, thank god,” I said, taking a breath as I picked up my phone and hugged it to my chest. The screen was cold to the touch. Any longer and it would’ve turned to ice. It pinged as a text message popped up. It was from my cousin, Adam.

11:01pm

where the hell r u???

There were a dozen other messages from him, too. I scrolled down.

9:41pm

hey lucie, is izzy with u? she’s not answering her phone.

9:50pm

seriously, call me!

10:00pm

Izzy should’ve been home ages ago.

10:20pm

i think she’s in trouble or something. Can u call me plz

10:40pm

r u with her? do u know what’s happening??

10:43pm

please tell me she’s with you.

10:50pm

I just found a note from Izzy saying something about not being able to stay this time WTF? did u know about this?

10:55pm

found another note by the fridge says she’s going home. I need ur help!

10:59pm

Call me the hell back!!

I didn’t know what to tell him. I mean, I could try explaining this whole, crazy night to him, but my cousin was always a nervous wreck when it came to Isabelle. He’d been head over heels in love with her ever since they’d met a year ago, and if I told him any of this, he would probably accuse me of lying.

I quickly typed a message back.

11:05pm

Sorry Adam. We’re at the cabin. There’s something weird going on. I can’t explain it over the phone. Plz wait for me. I need to tell you something.

I pressed send. What more could I really say? How could I tell him that his girlfriend could walk through walls?

It wasn’t more than five seconds before something moved beside me in the darkness.

“Isabelle, is that you?” I said, staring at the doorway. “Are you here?”

I shined the light from my phone. Something creaked, then stopped, then creaked again. I looked around, but it was only the groan of the wooden walls settling against the cold.

They did that in winter. The wooden beams of this old cabin stretch and crack as the frost outside pushes in. Our grandfather was supposed to seal it up years ago, but he died before he ever could.

Bang.

What the hell was that? My shoulders flinched at the sound. It sounded like a door slamming shut. Then a rattling started to my left. Not above me, but below. From the basement.

Maybe it was Isabelle.

I turned to where the kitchen and the long, dark hallway came together, leading to the back door. I remembered locking it like Isabelle had told me earlier. But it was wide open. Swaying while drops of snow blew in.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Who's there?”

My heart beat like a drum.

“Have you seen her?” someone suddenly asked from behind me. It was a man. He was standing right there. The shadow of his broad shoulders was in the doorway. A long dark cloak fell behind him, brushing the floor like water. I couldn’t see his face.

“Who the hell are you?” I blurted, stepping back.

“I asked if you’d seen her,” he asked again. “Lady Isabelle isn’t meant to be here.”

Lady Isabelle?

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

He came toward me, and then I saw it. A bow with an arrow strapped across his back. He stepped out into the light where I could finally see his face. A cleft lip scar was carved into the skin between the edge of his nose and his mouth, and the long dark coat he wore was soaked at the hem with snow, like he’d just been walking around outside in the woods.

“Has she told you about the key, girl? Don’t you have it?” His voice was getting louder.

I stared at him. “I don’t know who you are, but you need to leave right now.”

He towered over me, avoiding the light from my phone. He shoved my arm down.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, leaning back. “I’ll call the police.”

“Just tell me if she has it. She asked you to hide it, didn’t she?” His breath was warm on my neck. It smelled of old shoes.

I didn’t answer.

He pointed at me. “Your silence gives you away.”

I heard my phone buzz and the sound distracted him. His eyes flicked downwards then back up.

“What is that?” He reached for my phone, trying to get at it, his fingers slipping like he wasn’t sure how to hold it, but I slapped his hand away.

“Right, I’m calling the police.”

When the light of the screen switched on, his eyes drifted over the it like a startled bird.

“What trick is this?” he whispered to himself. He stared at my phone for a full two minutes before trying to grab at my hand again, like I was holding a strange glowing talisman. “Is it a scrying mirror?”

“A what?”

“Give that to me, witch!”

He tried grabbing my arm again, pushing at my shoulder, and I stumbled back into the wall. My phone fell onto the ground in the dark. His fingers squeezed around my wrist, hard enough to sting.

“The key. Where is it?”

I definitely couldn’t tell him about the key now. No way.

“What do you want with my cousin’s girlfriend?” I asked, trying to pull my arm away.

His eyebrows furrowed when I said girlfriend. Like he wasn’t used to hearing it.

“The skeleton key was meant to be returned days ago,” he explained. “It doesn’t belong to you or Lady Isabelle. My King requires it to unlock the Oath.”

“What is an Oath?”

His eyebrows arched like I’d insulted him.

“No not an Oath, the Oath. An agreement made a hundred years ago between our two kingdoms.”

I could hear my pulse throbbing in my ears. “Fine,” I lied. “I’ll tell you where the bloody skeleton key is,” I said, taking a breath. He loosened his grip on my wrist. “It’s under the stove in the kitchen.”

I watched him walk over to the kitchen, his long dark cloak swaying behind him, and the bow on his back was bigger than I’d thought. I swallowed hard, thinking that an arrow from the bow could pierce my heart at any moment.

This was my chance. I turned and shoved his back into the side of the stove. Pots crashed behind him and he stumbled onto the floor. I ran past him to the bedroom and dropped to my knees beside the mattress.

The moment I stood up, the light flickered from the hallway, and the man’s footsteps stopped. Then I heard it. That rattling through the walls again. But it was coming from the basement.

I gripped the key, backed out of the room, and ran. Who the hell was this guy?

“Hey, stop right there!” he yelled.

I didn’t turn around.

At the bottom of the stairs, my foot got caught on a pair of Adam’s old sneakers lying on the floor. I stumbled backwards. The man was right behind me, so close I could smell the wet wool of his cloak in the air. I tried to steady myself, but I hit the wall by accident, shoulder first, then my head.

I was pulled through the basement wall like a vacuumed spider. The brick wall vanished from behind my back. My ears popped as I hit something, hard.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t on the cold cement anymore. I was standing in the center of a stone corridor. The light was golden and candles were flickering. The air smelled of smoke, lavender, and something was burning outside an arched stone window. Birds flew by the trees.

Women in long, blue gowns were staring at me. Their dresses were all made of satin and lace, nothing like the stretchy yoga pants I was used to seeing on girls their age.

One woman’s dress flowed beneath her as she walked towards me. I just sat on my arse completely speechless.

“Are you alright, Miss?” she said.

I couldn’t speak. My mouth was suddenly as dry as a draught.

Behind her, another woman turned. The candlelight caught her face. It was Isabelle.

When she saw me, she said, “Lucie?” and walked towards me like a princess in a fairytale. Her long, wavy hair fell past her shoulders. “You’re here and you have the skeleton key.”

“Where are we?”

“We’re in Sumnerset. My childhood home,” she said. “You remember I told you that night after Adam’s party. The place I said no one could follow me to unless they had the key?”

I remembered Adam’s party, but I was pretty wasted that night so the details were still a little fuzzy.

“Yeah, I sort of remember bits of that night.”

She smiled.

At that moment, a woman wearing a crown on her head, with jewels shining through her long red hair, tapped Isabelle on the shoulder. Her gold shoes poked out from beneath her swaying dress.

“I have not yet thanked you for attending to me this evening,” she said to Isabelle, taking her hand.

Isabelle curtsied. “I only hope my Queen never learns of the message from King Alder,” she replied, kissing the woman on both cheeks.

“Queen?” I blurted. Everyone stared at me.

“And you girl,” said the woman, “do you have something for me?” She was staring at the skeleton key in my hand.

Before I could move or say anything, Isabelle grabbed it from my hand and passed it to her.

“Can you please tell me what the hell is going on, Izzy?”

She leaned into my ear.

“You can’t go back,” she said. “Only I can walk through these worlds.”

She brushed a strand of hair away from my ear and giggled like we were back in yoga class.