She needed to stand. Keep moving. Must keep moving. Not moving meant death—how often had Dad told her that?
She heard the familiar creaking from deep within the ice. It sounded like a ghost, a tired and sad murmur. She imagined it was speaking, but she could not understand the words. With her pack like a turtle shell weighing down on her, she crawled forward. Her elbows shook. She inched across the frozen waves.
Enough, she thought. The ice was flat enough. She could rest here. Spread full-length, she would be more visible from the air, from Max’s plane, than if she were standing. It made sense to lie here. She closed her eyes. Rescue me, Max. Dad. Bear. Bear.
A voice inside her whispered he was not coming. She was never going to see him again. She didn’t have the strength to cry.
Snow drifted over her.
Cassie basked in warmth. Pillows pressed around her, and it was as dark as a womb. She cuddled the cushions. Her cheek squashed against them, pressing her face mask into her. Half-thawed, the fleece soaked her skin. She itched to tear it off, mask and skin. She wormed into the pillows. She was comfortable at long last, and no stupid face mask was going to—
A cramp squeezed her left leg.
That half-woke her. Her thigh was wedged between the pillows at an awkward angle. She shifted again and sniffed: sour sweat. Must not be dead yet, she thought vaguely. Soon maybe. She turned her face so that the rim of her goggles was not digging into her cheekbones, and she drifted back to sleep.
She dreamed about Bear. She dreamed that he lay beside her in his polar bear form, warm fur pressed against her and hot breath on her cheek. Cassie woke again. Fuzzy-eyed, she blinked at the warm darkness.
She wasn’t dead. The realization rushed through her, and she wanted to cry or shout. She wasn’t dead! Thank you, thank you!
She tested her muscles. They still worked. Cassie pushed at the pillows, and her mittens sank four inches, but with mitts, gloves, and liners, she could not feel the texture.
The pillows breathed.
Cassie recoiled, and the sudden movement turned her empty stomach upside down. She felt the world pressing in on her as if she were again trapped in a sleeping bag in a storm. “Let me out!” she shouted. She elbowed the warm darkness and wriggled upward.
She squirmed out of the press of fur and emerged in a sea of polar bears: sleeping bears as far into the misty white as she could see. Blackness swam up over her eyes and then retreated. The bears were still there when the dizziness passed. “Oh, my,” she murmured.
At the sound of her voice, a dozen bears raised their heads. She swallowed. Expressionless, another dozen bears also turned to look at her. As one, the mass of bears—bears, not pillows—shifted, freeing her. Her legs shook, and the wind bit into her.
They had kept her warm while she slept. The bears had saved her life. “Oh, my,” she repeated as her knees caved. Bears rolled back to support her as she slid to the ground.
Cassie turned her head—and stared directly at the nose of a polar bear. He huffed at her. She ogled back. “You’re bears,” she said. “You aren’t even magical bears.” She didn’t understand. The fog in her brain wouldn’t lift. She couldn’t think. Why had the bears saved her?
A bear prodded her with his muzzle.
“What? Don’t eat me.” Her words were slurred. She leaned backward and felt another bear behind her. This one pushed in the middle of her back. “What do you want?” Another push. Did they want her to stand? She tried to make her brain function. Was she dreaming? She didn’t feel like she was dreaming. She hurt too much to still be asleep. Wincing, Cassie lurched to her feet.
Had Bear sent them to save her?
The bears parted, uncovering Cassie’s pack.
“I can’t,” she said. Her eyes felt hot, near tears. The bears were helping too late. She didn’t have the strength to go on. “I’m tired. I’m hungry.” She mimed chewing. “You know, hungry?” She made sucking noises.
Obligingly, a female bear rolled, exposing four round nipples. Cassie licked her cracked lips. Lolling her head, the bear looked at her. Half-falling to her knees, Cassie knelt and crawled to the sow’s stomach. She looked over at the bear’s face, and the bear placidly closed her eyes.
Cassie pulled off a mitt and her face mask. Taking a deep breath, she touched the nipple. It felt as firm as a thumb. She squeezed it, and milk welled at the top: life. When the bear did not maul her—in fact, did not move—Cassie leaned in and held her tongue catlike under the milk. She squeezed hard, and the milk squirted onto her tongue. It was oily, tasted of seal. Rich and thick, it clogged her throat.
She managed three swallows, then had to rest, leaning her head against the sow. She drifted into sleep and woke a few seconds later to swallow more milk. She alternated, drinking and sleeping, until she felt human again.
I’m going to live, she thought as she lay against the mother bear. From beyond the ends of the earth, Bear had found a way to save her. And somehow, she thought, I’m going to find a way to save him.
CHAPTER 19
Latitude 84° 42’ 08” N
Longitude 74° 23’ 06” W
Altitude 3 ft.
Squinting into the sun’s glare, Cassie scanned the softening ice. In the twenty-four-hour sun, icicles dripped into melt pools. The constant drip sounded like the second hand on a clock. Heading toward Ward Hunt Island, she’d traveled with the bears for three weeks, stopping only to drink bear milk and eat the strips of seal and fish that the bears had brought her. Often the bears had carried her while she slept so she wouldn’t lose time. But it hadn’t been enough.
I’m not going to make it, she thought.
She tried to ignore the knot of fear that lodged inside her rib cage. Sweat pricked the back of her neck underneath the flannel and wool. Everywhere, the ice was splintering. In five-foot-wide cracks, the ice was packed mush that moved with a hollow sound. Murres and gulls wheeled overhead, diving for cod in the widening cracks. She was not going to make it to land before the ice receded from the shore. Not going to make it, her mind whispered over and over. Not going to make it.
Summer was coming.
Facing a stretch of thin ice, Cassie mounted one of the bears. With giant paws like snowshoes, he walked across the green-gray ice. It wobbled in waves. Holding her breath, she watched the frost patterns for cracks. She stayed mounted as the bears continued to plod over thin ice and alongside ice rivers.
Five days later, Cassie and the bears reached the end of the ice.
Ahead of them, ice tossed in the waves, and then crumbled into semifrozen gruel. The slush undulated. Eventually, it dispersed into open ocean. Miles and miles of open water lay between her and land.
Cassie stared at the water. It was over. She was too late. She was stranded on the pack ice. All her grand resolve to reach the ends of the earth… All she’d done was reach the end of the ice.
The sun sparkled like golden jewels on the ice and the water. Blinking fast, she focused on the dancing waves. She knew better than to cry in the cold. Her father had taught her that years ago. And did he also teach you to quit? she asked herself. Was it to be a family tradition to fail to reach the troll castle? Like father, like daughter? “Snap out of it,” she whispered. “You aren’t dead yet.” She had options: Max could still come, or… She could not think of a second option.
Hoping for inspiration or a miracle, she looked around her at the army of polar bears. An arctic fox, diminutive beside the behemoths, trotted among them. Light as a cat, he didn’t have to worry about weak ice, she thought. If she were the size of the fox, maybe the bears could have swum her across any open water without drenching her. Cassie looked at the glittering black water and shuddered. As Dad would have said, it was death water: In fifteen minutes, the muscles would seize, consciousness would fade, and death would come. As things were, without a munaqsri to warm her, she’d freeze if she tried to swim.