“You’re not,” he said flatly, his eyes rolling to the crumpled roof that sagged over our heads. “I want you to tell me what happened to you.” My face felt smooth like a rendered wall. I couldn’t. He sensed it and added, “But I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
I gripped his arm and gazed into his eyes, crisscrossed with torchlight, dark with shadows. “Thank you. I just want to get Orry back. After that…” I didn’t want to say ‘we’ll have time’ because I didn’t know what the future held. Once we had Orry, who knew what we would be returning to. Hot tears welled like a candle fighting the breeze, but I snuffed them before they could fall.
He seemed to understand. His eyes darted to the men behind us briefly, but then they settled on me. Drowning in gold would be a good way to go.
“I love you, you know.”
I didn’t say it back, even though I wanted to. Stubbornly, I pursed my lips, nodded, and turned around. But I let him keep his hand on my back, to connect and stabilize me. I was a crooked, splitting trunk. I couldn’t pull together by myself. Unfortunately, I needed help.
We followed the very convenient green exit signs, traipsing through several levels of soggy roofs and mold spreading over the wall like art.
The last door, painted with zebra stripes, celebrated the end of the stifling building. The light seemed brighter when I pushed down on the big, metal handle and shoved the door open. I felt closer. I pictured wrapping my arms around Orry and never letting go. Fear pricked the edges though. What if something had happened to them? I peeked at my handheld. The red dot hadn’t moved at all. Shouldn’t it have moved a little?
I traced the dot with my finger as if it were him, pausing in the snow. “What if he doesn’t remember me?” I whispered.
Deshi uncharacteristically leaned his cheek to mine, his wiry hair brushing over my ear. “What if he doesn’t remember me?”
Joseph hoisted Rosa-May higher up his back and flicked his hair from his eyes. “You two worry too much. Who could possibly forget either of you?” I liked the old grin back on his face. Too much.
I glanced up from the screen. The arrow pointed towards lumps of white between old streetlights. I walked up to one and kicked the snow away from the base. A road. The arrow told me to follow it. “This way,” I directed with excitement and trepidation staining my voice.
As we left the ski village, as Denis called it, the road tipped off the edge of the world. Sheer cliff face above and below that the snow could barely hug. As I trudged upwards, my boots gaining layers of ice with every step, I wondered how they’d got up here with Pietre’s leg. It may not have been as snow covered but still, with two children, it must have been rough.
I turned to Joseph, breath clouds misting his face at every step. “Are you scared?” I asked.
“Of you? Yes! Of finding them? Definitely not.” He smirked and adjusted Rosa-May on his back. “You need to hold on tight, Posie.” The nickname ran warming hands on either side of my heart.
I snorted, rubbed my hands together, and walked. Deshi strode next to me, as anxious as I was. Denis lagged behind, his head down, watching his feet make imprints in the snow like it was a first. Like he was the first man to ever walk up here. I rolled my eyes.
JOSEPH
I know what she’s doing. Turning the idea over and over in her head. Trying to decide how she should act instead of doing what she feels. It’s unlike her. I kind of wish she’d just punch me and get it over with.
She brushed past me and pinched Desh’s elbow, whispering in his ear. It annoyed me, even though I had no right to be annoyed. I scooted closer so I could hear what she was saying.
“So, you and Denis,” she started, awkwardly winding her fingers together, a blush appearing in her cheeks despite the cold. My fingers ached to touch those pink cheeks, but thankfully, they were holding on tightly to Rosa-May.
Desh’s head jerked up in surprise. “Huh?”
She pursed her lips. I could tell she was thinking of a way to back away from whatever it was she was going to say, but then she blurted, “You know. You and him, uh, together…” She clapped her palms together. The sound echoed over the desolate-looking land.
The Superior’s son was behind us, walking painfully slow. Desh jerked his head around to look at Denis and rolled his eyes. “Rosa, just because Denis and I have that one thing in common, it doesn’t make us a good match. Besides, he’s not really my type.”
I suppressed a chuckle.
“Oh,” she said, looking down at her feet as she shuffled through the snow that came up to her calves. “Sorry.”
Desh slung his arm over her shoulder and laughed. “Don’t be. You’re being uncharacteristically sweet, and I don’t mind it.” Man, I wanted to be Desh right about then because she turned, poked her tongue out at him, and gave him a real, rare, Rosa-smile.
It killed me, because by the time her face had come back to me, the smile was gone.
ROSA
At midday, we stopped for food and drink. I scanned the thinning buildings. Only the occasional bump in the cold landscape showed any evidence that people once lived there. A broken roof, a car. The terrain flattened out, still a cliff face above, but below us, trees punctured the snow and a gentle slope drifted away from us. We sat on our packs, in the road, and ate quickly. Rosa-May refused food, but she drank a little. It worried me.
“She needs time,” Joseph whispered as I tried holding the bread to her lips. She clamped them shut, shaking her head like I’d just waved a dead rat under her nose.
I put my hands on my hips and let my head fall in frustration. The air was clean, fresh, wet pine and snow creeping up my nose carried on a thin waft of wood smoke. “Smoke,” I said, my voice shaky as a crackle in the fire. “I smell smoke!”
We all turned in circles, searching for the source. The smoke wafted under my feet, pushing me higher. It had to be them. My eyes skimmed the trees but I couldn’t see anyone.
“There!” Joseph yelled, pointing down and northwest through a collection of leafless, blue-grey trees clothed in knitted, yellow moss. I didn’t wait. I tumbled off the road and sunk knee-deep in the snow, following the imaginary line Joseph had pointed out. It ran like crimson ribbon in front of me, melting an imaginary path in the snow.
“Rosa, wait!” they shouted, but I couldn’t stop. I ran, pushing my way through the snow like a plow, streams of sunlight piercing the gaps in the trees like the spokes of a wheel, strong and hopeful.
My legs were frozen, I think. I couldn’t feel anything except the warmth of Orry’s skin when I eventually held him. I couldn’t hear anything other than the sound he would make as I squeezed him, and the tears I would try not to cry. My eyes lifted to the soft rise and fall of the land. He had to be just over there, just past that ridge of trees. The smoke smell strengthened. My heartbeat did too, pulling out of my chest and pulsing for home.
I pulled at the tree trunks like they were the rungs of a ladder. Bark scratched my hands, and birds startled away from me. My breath was hot, my vision sharp as icicles.
A flap of wings and children’s laughter weaved its way through the trees. A sound I knew, like bells underwater. I halted. Snow seeped into my pants, my boots. I tucked my hair behind my ear and listened.
Two distinct laughs sailed up to the sky. Unfettered, unworried. Perfect.
I slowed, creeping towards the sound like a tiger stalking a deer. Afraid somehow that I would frighten them away.
My head poked past a frozen blackberry bush and I saw them, my heart breaking and melding back together. There they were, Hessa and Orry, playing together in the snow. It was an extraordinary, ordinary scene that slotted in my brain and took up permanent residence, knocking one old, bad memory out.