Beside it, in the foyer’s corner, next to the carefully crafted side tables and coatracks, were their snowshoes and coats.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nothing tried to disturb Clare as she buckled on the snowshoes. She already wore the thick, puffy jacket Dorran had given her, and she zipped the spare over the top then pulled on the gloves. She didn’t have time for all of the other precautions she’d worn the previous trip—the extra layers of socks, the second pair of pants, the hat—but that didn’t matter. She only needed to get to her car.
The door was immensely heavy. She leaned her weight on the handle to wrench it open. On the other side, the snow drifts were up to her shoulders. Clare found a chair along one of the foyer’s walls and used it to climb out.
Cold wind buffeted her as soon as she tumbled down the embankment. Clare squeezed her eyes closed and took a moment to let herself acclimatise. In some ways, the freezing sting was nice. It distracted her from the way her insides felt like they were tearing themselves apart. She gave herself a second, then she got the snowshoes under herself and stood.
She remembered the way to the forest. When Dorran had led her out there, he’d taken her down the main driveway then speared off to pass the groundskeeper’s cottage. She followed the same path, struggling up one side of the dunes and skidding down the other.
Her body was worn down. Even though she’d been awake for less than two hours, she felt ready to collapse, close her eyes, and never open them again. The forest’s edge looked impossibly far away. The sun was nowhere near as warm as it had seemed from the windows. A hazy fog had spread over the sky, reducing visibility and giving the environment a sense of impending twilight.
She pushed the weariness down and instead grasped the kernel of pain and fear inside of herself. She squeezed it, making it hotter, and let it fuel her as she hiked towards the forest.
The groundskeeper’s hut was visible. The snow had abated slightly compared to the day she and Dorran had taken shelter in it, and more of the stone walls were exposed. The little tunnel they’d dug to the door had been thoroughly filled in.
Walking past the structure was painful. She tried not to relive that night when they’d shared the mattress and huddled in front of the fire as the elements assaulted them from every direction. An internal assurance had told her they would be fine if they just stayed together. That memory hurt too much. She thought it would hurt for a long time to come.
Past the groundskeeper’s cottage, the ground levelled out. Clare guessed it was a clearing ahead of the forest. She fixed her eyes on the tree trunks, which were nothing but a blur of grey and shadows through the snow, and kept her numb, shaking legs moving.
The sky seemed to be growing darker. Clare watched it with one eye, but she didn’t know what she would do if it swept over her. She wasn’t going back to the house. The groundskeeper’s cottage would be locked. If she could get to the forest, it would help protect her from some of the elements. But she could survive outside for only so long.
Her plan was simple—reach the radio and contact Beth. Then she could see if there was any way someone could reach her. Even if it took a few hours, she could sit inside her car—assuming the crash hadn’t fractured it too badly—and be protected from the worst of the cold.
It was a poor, broken plan with many opportunities for failure. The radio could be wrecked from water damage. Bethany might have given up and turned off her half of the pair. The car might be buried under six feet of snow if the crash site was in an area where the trees funnelled the flakes. It was the only plan she had left, though. Her one lifeline.
Not that she deserved it. Under the gloves, her fingers were still caked with mud. The farther she walked from Winterbourne, the more convinced she became that she was responsible for destroying the garden. What other explanation is there without reaching into the realms of fantasy?
Tears ached as they turned to frost on her eyelashes. Dorran hadn’t deserved that. He’d never raised his voice with her or even been irritable before. He’d been nothing except kind and patient. She owed him her life. And in return, he’d lost his only source of food.
She felt sick. Clare hoped, with one less person in the house, his stores would last until he could regrow the garden. Or maybe she could convince someone to go and check on him. They would need a helicopter to reach the property. She wasn’t sure if she could talk a search-and-rescue team into dropping off supplies to a house that almost no one knew existed and that was otherwise uncontactable.
The forest’s shadow passed over her, and she half closed her eyes as the temperature fell even lower. Every breath felt like it was burning her lungs. At least the wind would be gentler once she was among the trees.
She stepped over the first bank of roots and staggered as the snowshoes threatened to upend her. The massive, many-layered pines had largely protected the forest floor from the incessant snow. It still clumped there, often in enormous drifts, but patches of clear ground were visible too. Clare couldn’t wear the snowshoes any farther without risking breaking them. She unfastened them and left them propped against a tree at the forest’s edge. One of the estate’s gardeners might find them there eventually and return them to their little closet.
She stepped into the forest and relished the feel of bark under her gloves. The insides of Winterbourne Hall had been almost entirely devoid of life. She, Dorran, and the garden had been the only living things there.
Banksy Forest was an incredible expanse. Some of the oldest trees had died, collapsing over and slowly rotting to feed the next generation. What was left was ancient and gnarled. The trunks were immense and often twisted by wind, other plants, or simply their own weight. Several trees had split down the middle but still grew leaves on both halves.
As Clare climbed deeper, she was able to appreciate the generational difference. Younger trees had grown in between their forbearers. Sometimes they were fully grown, as large as their sires, but discernible because they didn’t conform to the straight rows of the previous generation. Others were small—the perfect size for someone to move into their living room for Christmas. A few tiny trees struggled to survive in the low-light environment of the forest floor. The younger plants tended to be spindly unless they’d been lucky enough to grow in the space left by one of the fallen first generation. Shrubs, winter-hardy vines, and the occasional fungus had made their home in between the pines.
Once, Clare saw a flurry of motion in the distance as some animal—probably a rabbit—fled. She didn’t know which direction led to the road. All she had was Dorran’s mention that it lay straight ahead. She kept walking, struggling through the snow and over exposed roots, breathing heavily and unstable on her feet.
She hadn’t expected the walk to be short. There would be no way for the manor to be so unknown if it were too close to the road. But the farther she hiked, the deeper her anxiety set in. The frightened little voice in the back of her head asked what she would do if she’d gone in the wrong direction and completely missed the road. She didn’t have much of an answer beyond wandering around until she either found the street or the manor again.
Or die of exhaustion.
Her feet ached, and thirst began to make its presence felt. She’d had a drink that morning when she’d brushed her teeth but nothing since, and the stress had dehydrated her. She ran her dry tongue over parched lips. The forest’s interior was, at least, a few degrees warmer thanks to the trees’ insulation. Her face still stung from the cold, but her core was warm. She tried to focus on that.