The Snow Queen, Page 4

He perused his coffee as if the black depths held answers. “I know. We’ve been avoiding it but, in a way, it doesn’t do any good to make plans until the blizzard ends and we know what we have to contend with.”

  “I suppose that’s right.” I didn’t want to discuss the future any more than he did and so, somehow, we went back to leaning against the couch and toasting our toes at the stove as we drank cup after cup of coffee. My parents like coffee and they only stock the best everywhere they have the ability to do so. The cabin was no exception.

  I giggled and said the first thing either of us had said about our shrinking food supply. “We might run out of food but we’ll be able to drink like royalty.”

  He raised his cup like a toast. “It’s strong stuff. If we drink enough, maybe we’ll be able to up and fly away on caffeine alone.”

  And then it happened. A lessening of the wind howling high above the trees. In our minds we could see the tops of the evergreens bending a little less. We held our breaths and looked at each other. “Is it over?”

  “Maybe.” That one word, of hope and possibility kept us awake and reasonably happy until the coffee was gone and we were so tired that even caffeine couldn’t keep us awake and we climbed to our respective lofts and slept.

  CHAPTER 7

  Morning came bright and clear, with only a thin veil of snow still falling. I was disappointed to see it but soon realized that as it swirled and moved voids appeared between the sheets of white stuff with numerous bright layers dancing over and under one another. Movement meant there was still wind somewhere above but the veil itself was fading, disappearing slowly, almost gone, and the brightness meant the sun was slicing through those layers now and then.

  “The blizzard is history!” I didn’t know I was shouting until Jase peered over the ledge of his loft to see what the commotion was about, and then he shinnied down the ladder so fast I doubted his feet hit the steps and he joined me at the window where I’d pulled the curtain all the way back the better to see the developing peaceful world beyond.

  I heard his indrawn breath as he contemplated our small world, bound by evergreens and snowdrifts. That sigh didn’t sound as happy as I felt and he said slowly, “There’s a lot of snow out there.”

  “Yes there is, but it’s done. The blizzard is done.” Didn’t he understand?

  “It’s not waist deep, thank goodness, but it’s deep enough.”

  “We should celebrate.” How could he not be dancing with happiness?

  “We should look for wood.”

  His simple words forced me to return to the nasty reality of our situation and contemplate our pathetically small pile of wood as he asked, “Do you know if there are sticks on the ground? Think we can find any beneath all that snow?” His forehead was wrinkled with concern.

  I peered soberly at the wood pile, forgetting my earlier shouts of happiness. “What we have won’t last long, will it?”

  “What’s out there that we can get easily?”

  I thought about the area around the cabin, whether there were branches on the ground. “A few sticks might be in the yard.”

  “Under all that snow.”

  My shoulders sank. “A lot of snow and not many sticks if I remember right.”

  “Not enough to be worth digging for.” He looked around a second time. “There are dead branches on the trees above the snow but low enough to reach. We can break those off and burn them.”

  His gaze was on the evergreens surrounding the cabin. As the forest grew the trees reached ever upwards and sent all nutrients to the top, causing the lower branches to die off. Those dead, dry branches were close enough to the ground for us to grab and break them off. As I followed his gaze, I realized that we could collect a fair number of small branches.

  But how long would they last? I screwed up my courage and asked the question we were both thinking. “How much wood will we need?”

  His frown matched mine. “If the temperature drops, as it most likely will, more than what’s out there because no one knows we’re here and who knows how long before they figure it out and come for us.”

  We stared silently at the trees, wishing there were more branches. Wishing we could get the ones on the ground, too. But the snow was too deep and the standing dead branches were limited. I licked my lips, then realized what doing so looked like and stopped.

  I turned from the window, examined the interior of the cabin, found my gaze settling on the pantry and forgot about wood as I thought how limited our food supply was and that made me sick with worry so I looked away again and, unable to consider either wood or food, chose to look at Jase because he was the only positive thing in my life at the moment, only to find him looking at me with the same expression I knew was on my face.

  We were both scared. Terrified.

  He blinked. Looked away, then back. Cleared his throat and said slowly and without a glimmer of the smile I’d learned was a part of him, “We have decisions to make because if we can’t expect help, we must save ourselves.”

  He turned back to the window and stared long and silently at the green and black and white world beyond. “I’ll amend that statement. We know we won’t get help which means we must decide what to do and we won’t last long here. So the way I see it, the only important decision to be made is where to go and when to leave.”

  He turned to the kitchen area and rubbed his belly while once again putting on that smile that had been missing moments earlier and it’s appearance amazed me until, as I kept watching, I realized it was real, though I couldn’t figure out how he could feel good in such dire circumstances until he said, “Which we will discuss after breakfast because I’m hungry and I don’t think well on an empty stomach.”

  His statement was so unexpected that I exploded in laughter. How’d he manage to make me laugh? Was it a deliberate attempt to lighten a dangerous situation or was it simply Jase being himself?

  Then I realized that the man was hungry and at the moment perhaps that was more important than figuring out what to do. Maybe. And perhaps it was the right thing to think about because we couldn’t do anything about our situation at the moment so we might as well have breakfast.

  Still, the situation was so ridiculous and the change from terror to hunger so unexpected that I found myself grinning along with him and, just like that, the mood in the cabin that had started out as a celebration of the end of the blizzard when I first rose and then turned into despair as we faced our future had somehow changed again, this time to comfortable, and I wondered if ever before had I experienced so many wildly different moods in such a short span of time.

  As we ate oatmeal that I’d found stuck in the back corner of the cupboard that was so old I didn’t even look at the ‘sell-by’ date, Jase leaned back thoughtfully as he carefully and slowly savored each and every bite and said, “There’s everything we need and more at the Center.” His eyes narrowed and he moved forward again and leaned across the table until we were nose to nose. “If we can get there.”

  “How far is it, exactly?” My question followed a long, measured silence as we both contemplated the changed world and whether we could get through the deeper snow. Before the blizzard, there’d been a thin cover of it. Now there were inches. In some places, many inches.

  “I’m not sure. I came by way of the snowmobile trail and that winds around a lot. Do you have a map of the area?”

  “Actually, yes. We have a topographic map.” I flushed. “My dad got it a while back. He loves to peruse it and think about going places without actually getting out of his chair.” I indicated the chair beside the wood stove that Jase had occupied while reading books. “While he looks it over, he’s seated in a comfortable chair and going someplace would require getting up and leaving his warm, comfy situation so it never happens but he enjoys thinking about it.”

  “He comes here to relax and it sounds like that’s what he does.” A smile ghosted across his face. “I think I’d like your dad.”

  I found
the large book with topographic maps of the entire area, spread it across the table, and opened it to the page where the cabin was located. I pointed. “Here’s where we are.”

  He pored over the map for a minute, then put a finger on another spot. “That’s where the snowmobile died. I came here with little effort in the middle of the night so I’m fairly sure we can get that far at least without much trouble.” The finger moved and stopped farther away. “Here’s the Center.”

  Not so far on the map. Mere inches. Miles of forest and fields in the real world. His face darkened as he figured the distance. “How far is it? Can you tell?” He peered at the map and tried to convert inches into miles. “Think we can make it?” His question echoed in the cabin.

  I took the map from him and turned it to see better. I know the forest. I’ve spent hours, days, weeks and months wandering about until what was lines and elevations on the map was as real to me as if I was looking at the ground itself. “We’ll never make it if we go the way you came on your snowmobile.” I shook my head. “Too many twists and turns, which is good for snowmobile trails and bad for walking.”

  “Is there another way?” His voice had a tinge of something I didn’t want to think about. Despair. “The road won’t be usable until it’s plowed and we don’t know when that’ll happen so we can’t walk out to it and wait for a passerby.”

  “It’s never used in the winter so it won’t be plowed until spring.” I examined the map again, calculating miles. “The Center may be an option.” I traced a path through the forest and hope rose in my chest. “I know a short cut.”

  He nibbled his lower lip and peered closer at the map, following my finger. “Through a bog.” He breathed in deeply. “I know the bog. The Center is on the edge. It’s large and it’s nasty.”

  “It’ll be frozen solid this time of year.”

  “But there are no trees. It’s all open.” The blizzard could have laid down feet upon feet of snow there. “What about drifts? What about wind?”

  We stared at one another as he asked slowly, “If we try it and make it to the bog and we’re exhausted from tromping through the snow and find that we can’t get across the bog, can we come back?”

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

  “How long will it take to reach the Center if everything goes right? Best guess.”

  “A day.” I decided to be honest. “A long day.”

  “One day. Just one day. But that’s a lot of hours in the cold and snow.” We stared at one another until he said it for both of us, his voice harsh and grating. “It’s our only choice. Our only chance to reach safety. To survive.”

  We were silent so long that the lack of sound screamed until Jase snapped the book of maps shut and said, “Right now, let’s get some of those dead branches for firewood and in the process find out what that snow is like. Maybe it’s light and fluffy. Easy walking. Maybe it’s hard and crusted and there’s no chance of going anywhere.” So we pulled on every warm thing we owned and went outside.

  He was right about the snow. It was light and flew every which way, making white clouds each time we took a step. We found ourselves grinning even as we snapped off tree branch after tree branch and carried them through that white fluff back to the cabin where we deposited them on the porch. Later we’d take them inside but there was no reason to open the door and let the cold inside any more than necessary.

  Soon, somehow, against all reason or perhaps because Jase was Jase and smiles were a part of his being, in that white, fluffy world we found ourselves laughing and as we dropped the last load of branches on the porch we realized that we were standing in a winter wonderland. Without consulting each other, without even looking into each other’s face for permission, and again against all reason but perhaps because it was a part of Jase’s personality, we started to play.

  “Snow angels?” Soon Jase was on his back on the ground trying to make snow angels and failing miserably because the snow was too deep and fluffy for him to make any headway. But he tried until he ended up with snow on his face and every other part of him and then he had to stand up and shake himself like a dog to change from a snowman back into himself.

  “We have a sled in the shed.” I pointed to the small shed not far from the cabin where we kept the few things necessary to keep the place operational. An axe, the sled, clippers to cut dangerous, low-hanging branches. That sort of thing. “And there’s a hill not far from here.”

  He shook his head, still wiggling from his snow angel fiasco. “Too much light snow. It’ll plow through it instead of sliding over it and we’ll get lost in a blizzard of our own making.”

  “It’s a plastic sled. It’ll work better than one with runners.” I loved that sled. My uncle brought it north to haul deer during hunting season but he was a lousy hunter. I don’t think it was ever used and it still hung in pristine newness on the wall of the ancient shed, high up and out of the way. “Want to go sledding?”

  He sighed and put a hand to the small of his back. “Maybe later. Right now I could use a cup of strong, hot coffee and a chair beside that warm fire.”

  I nodded agreement. “Maybe for the best.” We’d need a ladder to reach the sled and the only ladder on the property was so rickety that my father had admonished me sternly against using it. “Emergency vehicles would have a hard time getting down that ridiculous driveway if anyone broke a leg.” But I said nothing to Jase because we’d decided not to go sledding.

  CHAPTER 8

  We carried the wood on the porch inside by the arms full. With just that short time with the door open and a lot of cold wood brought inside, the inside temperature dropped enough that we put several additional sticks on the fire and watched with appreciation as they caught and roared red and orange and very, very hot. And then Jase commandeered that chair beside the stove and lolled in pure luxury.

  He raised his head enough to see out the window. “I wish this blizzard had waited until it was supposed to start.” He gazed at me with a look that was part enjoyment, part fear for what lay ahead, and part something I couldn’t read. “But I still love the forest, and in winter it’s special and I’m glad I’m here and glad we met.”

  “Me too.” I dropped to the floor beside his chair and in front of the stove and put my hands out to gather in the warmth. “I’ve always loved the forest, summer and winter. Always will.” I followed his look outside. “Yes, it’s cold out and dangerous but we have a plan.”

  I tipped my chin up because the forest was my friend and I refused to be afraid even if a coldness was gathering in the pit of my stomach. “We’ll be okay. We’ll make it. We may have been blindsided by a blizzard that came too early but the world isn’t ending and we are both healthy and in good shape.”

  “We can walk.” He grinned and lightly touched my hair and watched as it flew every which way, which it does. He smiled and I had the odd thought that he was comparing my red hair to the fire. “We will take a winter’s walk to the Center, that’s what we’ll do.” Then he added, “I love taking walks.”

  He slumped deeper into the chair and put his own hands towards the stove as his expression changed somewhat into something I didn’t recognize. Didn’t want to know what it meant because there was a darkness to it and I didn’t want to think what caused it. “We should go soon, though, before the snow has a chance to pack enough to be hard walking. We don’t want to wait until there’s a crust we’ll have to break through.”

  I nodded thoughtfully, glad that this man knew about the forest. Neither of us were experts but between us we knew enough to survive. I hoped.

  As I stared into the fire, I realized that the brief time playing in the snow had done something to my insides. Strengthened me. Primed me for what lay ahead. Made me realize that it was snow. Just snow.

  I could handle a walk to the Center through the deep, white, snow and temperatures that would plummet because they always do after a blizzard. I could do it.

  “Yes.” The simple agree
ment didn’t seem enough so I said more. “You’re right, though. We should leave soon, before the temperature really drops.”

  I withdrew my hands from the warmth and examined them rather than Jase as he indicated the window, with lacy frost spreading across the pane. “Too late for that, I think. I’ll bet that if we go outside, it’ll be colder than when we gathered firewood.”

  “Already?” Sometimes the cold waited a day or so before descending in the aftermath of a blizzard.

  “I’m afraid the cold has arrived.”

  Not that it mattered, we had no choice. But there was a bit of leeway as to when we took that walk. I looked at the wind-up clock. “Too late to leave today. It’ll be dark soon.”

  “Tomorrow, then, at first light. We should get ready now. Make packs to carry food and water and extra clothes and blankets in case we need them.”

  I nodded. “I’ll look through the closets and see what I can find.”

  By the time it was dark enough to turn on the kerosene lamp and stop long enough to put together most of the last of the left-overs and call it a meal, we had our packs ready. Jase gave me a suddenly sober look. “Get a good night’s sleep. We need all the rest we can get.”

  I set the alarm for four-thirty the next morning, knowing it would still be full dark for several hours but thinking I knew the immediate area well enough to get us off to a good start so by daylight we’d be well on our way.

  We climbed to our respective lofts and I rolled into blankets that would be added to the packs in the morning. And then, expecting that I’d not sleep a wink, I fell so deeply asleep that I didn’t wake until the alarm went off.

  Once up, I threw the covers over the railing and slid down the ladder, after which I added them to my pack. Then I looked towards Jase’s loft to see if he was ready. I neither saw nor heard anything, so I climbed back to my loft and looked across the space between but it was too dark to see anything. But nothing moved, so he must still be sleeping.