THEY SAILED south for several days almost without speaking. Artie didn’t want to talk about the bears, and Putnam was irritated that she wouldn’t. He admitted to himself that it might be petty to be mad at her—she was obviously used to keeping things to herself, obviously not used to treating anyone like a friend. But it stung that she wouldn’t tell him more about it. After all, he was so easy to talk to! He was a good listener; he always nodded and said the right words in response. Also, he had agreed to run away from the island—even left behind her water sack that they so needed—hurrying away at Artie’s insistence, and before seeing the bears.
When he saw them, he understood why Artie was so scared. But he also knew there was more to the story.
Artie said they chased her. But she refused to give any details. Where had she found them? How had she gotten away? Were there more than two? And . . . bears?
Bears, after all, didn’t even exist. At least, not according to the stories he’d grown up on. They were like dragons or sea monsters: pretend. But these—these were definitely real. Or real-ish. He needed more explanation. He wanted to talk about them. And she was a boulder of silence.
ARTIE FELT RELIEVED: relieved to be away from the bears, and almost as relieved that Putnam was mad at her. If he stayed mad at her, she wouldn’t have to talk with him. And Putnam, mad, was almost laughable. He didn’t even yell or hit or anything. He just frowned deeply and grew quiet. She could handle that.
Of course, maybe he just hadn’t lost his temper yet, and that was still coming. You never could tell.
She knew why he was angry; she wasn’t stupid. He wanted her to talk, to explain everything about the island and what exactly had happened with the bears. But she just couldn’t talk about it, how she stood in the bears’ home, how she saw the hollows their bodies made in their beds, how they huffed as they followed her. If she put it all into words, the bears would seem even closer, their panting breaths even louder.
Besides, they were in the past now. No reason to remember them.
But though she put the bears out of her mind during the day, they inhabited her dreams. She found herself waking with a jerk several times every night, falling off cliffs trying to escape, or tripping over tree roots, or simply not running fast enough, their claws raking at her back. She’d yell or gasp as she flailed and fell through sleep to wake, dazed, in the cabin of the boat. And across from her, on the other side of the cabin with just the heater between them, she’d see Putnam’s eyes, open in the darkness looking at her with concern. She’d duck and cocoon her head in her blanket and try to go back to sleep. But sleep was long in coming, and then another nightmare would jerk her out of it.
She only knew what bears were because of stories—stories from both the Islands and from Raftworld. But they were all made-up stories—no one thought bears were real. They were the bonfire stories that children listened to when they wanted to scare themselves—as they huddled under a blanket or cape with a grown-up who would protect them. The stories described the claws and teeth, the huge doglike shape, the long nose and small round ears, the white fur, and the padded feet as large as a person’s head, with claws extending as long as your fingers. In some stories, the bears came into your house and stole your food and sat in your chairs and slept in your beds, like goblins. And in other stories, the bears lived in rough caves, and when you went near the caves, they came out and roared, like dragons. And like goblins and dragons, they were mythical.
And in none of the stories did their cave resemble the cozy home you always dreamed of having.
Artie knew now that bears were real. But one of the reasons to hold off from telling Putnam more about them was that somehow telling would really make them real. Right now she felt like she was keeping them, just barely, in the world of nightmares—and shutting them out of the daytime. Talking about them would make them daytime monsters, too.
PUTNAM, AS THE DAYS and—especially—nights went on, transformed from being angry to being worried. He could see Artie was having nightmares, and he could see she was scared. And that made him feel troubled for her, too. And not sure how to fix things.
He used to think he was good at fixing things—especially between people. But Artie refused to tell him, refused to let him make everything right again.
So they traveled on, barely speaking, through disturbed nights and anxious days.
Meanwhile, as days passed, the water grew choppier, filled with slush. Soon they began to see actual ice—slabs of it floating on the water and chunks sticking up that hinted at more ice beneath the surface—worrisome even to them with their shallow boat.
There wasn’t much to do. Putnam took the sails down; they shouldn’t move fast with so much ice around. He thought they would need to pole or paddle, but almost immediately they found a slow current that pulled them south, winding through the biggest chunks of ice either of them had ever seen—the only big chunks of ice Putnam had ever seen, actually. Artie’s islands froze every year, but even she’d never seen this kind of winter. Where she lived, the sea stayed liquid away from shore; it only froze and cracked into a crust along its edges—the Island’s shore. The giant mountains of ice that rose out of this ocean—well, this was a different world.
Putnam stood on deck with a pole to make sure that they didn’t run into anything. Once in a while he stuck the pole out to push against a too-close slab of ice. But mostly he didn’t have anything to do but shiver and daydream. When he got too cold, Artie would appear and take the pole from him. They traded spots all day long. At night they put the anchor down but stayed in the current so that the water wouldn’t freeze around the boat. Artie explained—since Putnam had no experience with ice—that if they let the boat sit in still water, it would start to freeze and develop leaks. Could even break apart.
“I’ve seen it happen,” she said. “My—someone—left a little rowboat in the water, anchored to the dock. And the ice wedged in and made cracks so that when spring came, the boat leaked like a basket.” She shook her head, remembering. “So it’ll be better if we keep the boat in the current.”
“That makes sense,” said Putnam. And the conversation for the day was over.
AS THEY got farther from the bear island, Artie thought she’d sleep better. But she didn’t. In fact, the nightmares got worse as they entered the ice fields. One morning—a week now since they’d left the island—she stood on the deck, pole in hand, and shaded her eyes to look far away, all around them. Ice and slushy water in front of them. Behind them, less ice, but just as much water. The island long out of sight.
But . . . there was something—on the horizon. She squinted. What was it?
Putnam came up to take his turn with the pole. “What are you looking at?” He shaded his eyes, too, then said, “There is something back there, isn’t there?”
“It’s nothing,” said Artie. She looked again, and now she couldn’t see anything, but horizon clear and bright. “Just ice.”
“I guess so,” agreed Putnam. “But wow, I could have sworn I saw an iceberg that was moving. I guess you get optical illusions when you’re out here so long.”
It wasn’t an optical illusion. Artie had seen a chunk of ice lumbering toward them.
Like a giant bear. Like two bears walking on the water.
But that couldn’t be.
ONE MORNING Putnam saw land: an island. Or something even bigger, and all made of ice and snow. It rose out of the ocean, grim and white and endless.
“Well,” said Artie.
“Yep,” said Putnam. “End of the road.”
“You think it’s here? What you’re looking for?”
Putnam didn’t know. He felt like there would be something here. The water was so briny that they could smell it all the time, and their clothes were covered in salt stains. The answer had to be here somewhere.
“Yes,” he said.
She looked back at the horizon and then turned forward, shrugging. “Let’s go take a look around.”
But as Putnam and Artie poled through the ice toward shore, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed. He kept looking over his shoulder. Whatever had happened to Artie on the island was starting to rub off on him now. He shook himself and straightened up. Stop being afraid. Artie might be falling apart since the bear island, but that meant it was up to him to hold everything together. To be the hero. To rescue them and save everyone.
He could have sworn, though, that when he’d studied the far distance where Artie had been looking, he’d seen two white bears, small and almost glowing against the bright horizon, riding a tiny raft. Following them.