That evening, after Aunt Sadie left and his father turned off his light, Thomas stole downstairs and retrieved the new pages of his story from under the piece of slate in the birdbath. Back in his room, he wiggled into UnderLand and, with the aid of the Christmas lights, began to read.

The three days that Helen traveled she knew not where were the longest days of her life. As the old woman promised, the clogs carried her swiftly: over mountains, over rivers, over fields. At the end of each day, when the clogs stopped, Helen, overcome with exhaustion, longed to lie down and close her eyes—just for a moment! But she knew if she did, all would be lost and she would not be able to bring Baby Sadie home again. So she propped herself up with the low-hanging branches of trees and let the cold bitter wind sting her cheeks as she ate a few bites of bread from the loaf the old woman had given her.

Thomas followed her, winging his way over the trees. On the third evening, Helen found herself in a clearing at the edge of a dark forest. The old woman had told her she’d be in the polar bear queen’s kingdom after three days. Setting down the clogs, she bid them return to the woods from which they were carved and watched them fly off. As they were soaring through the air, Helen’s boots dropped from the sky. She plucked them out of the powdery snow and pulled them on. When the first light of dawn broke, Helen set off through the forest again, keeping the sun to her right cheek and wondering how she would find the queen.

The snow was deep and Helen was so very tired it was an effort to hold up her head. From far above in the tree-tops, Thomas thought she looked like an old woman.

If her head hadn’t been bent so, Helen might have missed the drop of color, like a half-buried feather from a cardinal’s breast. Immediately she knew it was blood.

Helen stopped, holding her breath. Waiting.

In the silence and stillness of new-fallen snow, she thought she heard something. Was it? Yes. Like a cat licking its fur. She followed the faint noise until—not far away—below a tangle of brush she spied a young fox licking at his bloodied paw, which as she drew nearer she could see was caught in a trap.

Helen fell to her knees and crawled toward the fox, who, mistaking her for a beast in her great coat, raised the fur on his back and bared his teeth at her.

“No,” Helen whispered. “Hush.”

Confused by her scent, the fox stopped growling and simply waited for what would come next—the final blow? The gunshot? Helen’s fingers crept out from the sleeves of her coat and took hold of the rusted spring on the trap, working to release the animal. The fox cried out as the trap sprung free. Hurling the trap away in case the hunter should come back for it, Helen sat there on her knees wondering what she could do for the little fox. His paw was still bleeding.

“I have to leave you,” she said finally. “You must stay still and rest and keep that paw in the snow until the bleeding stops.” Helen broke some of the bread into small pieces, which the fox licked off the snow.

“Stay here and heal,” she said. “When I have found Sadie, I will come back.”

Stroking the fox’s head, she looked into his eyes.

What pain she saw there!

“I will come back,” she repeated. “I would never abandon an injured comrade.”

Thomas folded the sheets of paper and put them into his metal box, considering. He didn’t like the word “comrade.” His mother never used that word. He would say something to Mrs. Sharp about changing that sentence. What should it say? Maybe: You will never be in pain again. No. How could he say that? There was no way to predict what the fox might have to suffer.

Thomas let his mind drift. He was following an old scent. There was no smell, but still…He thought about his aunt and how she’d cried on Christmas Eve. At dinner, in addition to the way she stirred her tea, he’d noticed there was something wrong with her hair. It was always pulled back into a ponytail, neat and shining, but now it looked dull and there were white flakes in it, like his father sometimes got in his hair. There had also been a smear of oil on her blouse. His aunt, who never wore anything unless it came out of a dry cleaner bag, was wearing a dirty blouse.

He went to his desk and tore a sheet of paper from his school notebook.

Dear Mrs. Sharp,

I think Giselle was right after all. It isn’t Baby Sadie that Helen needs to save. It is my aunt Sadie. There’s something wrong with her. It’s like…she has the clouds in her eyes.

Sincerely,

Thomas

P.S. Please change the word “comrade” to “friend.”