The views from the upstairs windows were shocking—and amazing. Only the pointed roof of the garage was visible; the rest lay hidden beneath a deep and endless swath of snow. It buried tree trunks, leaving dark, surrendering branches that looked too immobilized even to wave for help. But it was better than being downstairs. From the second-floor vantage point, and able to breathe again, Orla could appreciate its beauty—and the possibility that it was simply snow. The sky was the same, and that helped alleviate the claustrophobic panic of the living room; the more Orla thought about it, the more reasonable that explanation became. Who wouldn’t start to lose it if she felt like she’d been buried alive?
Eleanor Queen believed as Orla did, that if they tried to walk in the snow, they’d sink to the bottom. But Shaw insisted it would hold them, that it would settle some, as snow does, but they wouldn’t drown in it.
“So if we lose electricity or anything else happens, we can strap on our snowshoes and hike to town.” He chewed his sticky peanut butter toast as he sat on their bed with the kids.
Orla supposed Shaw meant that as a reassuring backup plan. But she hadn’t thought about the electricity that came to their home on fragile cables—fragile cables that kept the furnace running, and the lights on, and the water pumping, and the refrigerator and stove in working order. Surely such a tenuous lifeline would succumb to the oppressive snow…though the few lines she could see from her bedroom window appeared all right, not slackened or weighted down.
“That’s a pretty long hike. We have the generator, and the woodstove,” she offered—the only practical thing she’d been able to utter since they’d awakened. She didn’t know if the generator would work while buried in that much snow, but they could always use the woodstove for warmth and melting water, and to provide a flicker of light.
“True. Right. Can probably hold out, then.” He sounded disappointed. Orla wondered if a part of him wanted a reason to leave, to abandon ship. Was he hoping she would suggest it? Did it have to come from her, since the North Country had been his idea? Maybe she’d propose to Shaw later that they keep the house for a summer place so the mistake they’d made wouldn’t feel like total failure. But for now, she’d wait; it would be cruel to tease any of them with the possibility of leaving when they couldn’t even walk out the front door.
She tried her cell phone again, just in case. But there was no signal. Their bed was going to be a mess if they kept using it as a picnic spot; it was already splattered with crumbs and dribbles from Tycho’s milk.
“We should move the table up if we’re going to keep eating here,” she said.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about it…it should be totally safe to be downstairs.”
“Totally?” Orla raised her eyebrow at him as she tore off a little piece of her toast.
“It’s not like the snow is applying force from different angles, you know? It’s not pushing against the house, it’s just straight down, so…it should be fine.”
“Should?”
“Are you just going to keep singling out individual words from everything I say?”
The kids, from their perches at the end of the bed, watched them bicker back and forth. Orla couldn’t shake the sensation that their bed was a rickety raft about to split apart and plunge them all into a frozen sea. She wasn’t trying to antagonize her husband, but everything he’d said and done since they’d discovered their predicament was testing her restraint. Somehow she’d become an octopus, and Shaw couldn’t stop trampling on her tentacles. She didn’t have enough patience—or arms—to console/care for/entertain her children and demand better survival skills/solutions/apologies from her husband.
“Do you know it’s safe?” How could he have forgotten Eleanor Queen’s dream? She hoped the unspoken question was graffitied across her annoyed features.
“I have every reason to believe…I mean, I understand if you don’t want—if the view out the downstairs windows freaks you out. But it could be like this for days, and we shouldn’t just stop living. After I work on the roof, I’d like to get some painting—”
“You’re going on the roof?” Tycho asked, bouncing a little. “Can I come?”
“The kitchen roof,” Shaw clarified. “That’s our one vulnerable spot, because of the way it was built. They couldn’t put a steep pitched roof on the extension”—he put his hands together so the middle fingers touched, showing the children the shape of the house’s roof—“without blocking some of the second-floor windows. So the kitchen roof just slopes down a few feet, and the snow stacks up there—it doesn’t slide off like on the upper part of the house and the garage. I’m sure I won’t be the first person who’s shoveled snow off that roof.”
He sounded cheery enough, like such tasks were commonplace, and Eleanor Queen nodded at his logical explanation. She didn’t seem alarmed, but Orla recognized what a catastrophe it would be if the kitchen roof caved in—the freezing temperatures and loss of food aside, they’d lose access to the basement, where a lot of their important gear and tools were stored.
Orla let out the breath she’d been holding, not quite sure when she’d stopped breathing. Finally something sounded reasonable, a plan of action. “I’ll do it. The shoveling.”
“Mama’s going on the roof?” Tycho asked, just as bouncy. “Can I come?”
“Shut up,” Eleanor Queen told him. “You’ll die out there.”
“No I won’t.”
“Eleanor Queen, that’s not how we speak to each other.” Orla’s tone was stern, but it was a relief to say something so ordinary.
“No one’s dying, and neither of you are going out on the roof,” said Shaw.
“He’s being stupid. This isn’t fun,” Eleanor Queen spat before slurping down the rest of her milk.
“He’s not being stupid; he’s feeling more adventurous than you are.” Before anyone could say another word, Orla turned to Shaw. “I’m serious, I’ll shovel the—”
“It’s a lot of work, snow can be heavy—”
“I know, but I need to. Please? I almost had a panic attack—I’m sorry, for downstairs. I didn’t know what I was saying. Getting out might help.”
His off-kilter grin was forgiving, and unless she was misinterpreting, he looked a little relieved. When was the last time he’d gone outside? Gone were his declarations about needing to walk among the trees. Shaw took her hand, rubbed her thumb knuckle.
“You really want to?” he asked. “I’ll do it if you don’t…” He sounded like Eleanor Queen steeling herself to sleep without the night-light.
“I really, really, really think shoveling the kitchen roof sounds like a spectacular option.”
“Well, you did say please, and who am I to deprive you of a spectacular option?” He winked at Tycho. “Mama’s gonna shovel the roof—that was my diabolical plan all along.”
Tycho and Shaw shared a conspiratorial giggle. Eleanor Queen gave her father an assessing look, suspicious, and reached a conclusion that Orla couldn’t read.
Eleanor Queen might have decided staying indoors—even after her nightmare—was a better alternative to venturing outside. But Orla had never felt so hemmed in in her life. Having nowhere to go had already been a struggle; having no way to get out felt like a coffin lid slamming shut in her face. Surely that was the origin of her shallow breathing, the sensation that she was running out of air and had to conserve it. And hard physical work, even in the surreal, half-buried landscape, would alleviate the sinking feeling of her—their—helplessness.
“And we should get the snowshoes and stuff out of the basement,” she said. “And move some of the food into the living room, just—”
“In case,” said Shaw, finishing her sentence. “I’ll pile up some essentials by the front door, just in case.”
“In case of what, Papa?” But they avoided answering Tycho’s question.
“In case the house collapses.” Eleanor Queen, doomed, didn’t say the words to anyone in particular. Shaw and Orla exchanged glances, but before they could contradict or reassure her, the girl slid off the bed. “Can I do my schoolwork?”
“Sorry, Bean—the satellite dish is buried, we can’t get online.” Shaw gathered up all of their dirty plates.
“You can work on your math pages, that’ll keep you busy.” Orla stacked up their cups with one hand, swept crumbs from the bed with the other.
“What about me?” asked Tycho.
They streamed out of the bedroom single file, but Eleanor Queen slipped into her room as the rest headed downstairs.
“We can watch Mama from inside, as she shovels,” Shaw said. “Or you can play in my studio while I work?”
Orla couldn’t help but remember the guns. They were locked up now, stored out of sight in the studio’s closet. But still. She didn’t like the image of Tycho playing on the floor with the guns at his back. There was too much danger. Indoors. Outdoors. She longed for the freedom, now gone, to walk—run—through the front door, go anywhere. She needed to get outside, shake off the crushing walls and the fear that moving to the Adirondacks had been a terrible miscalculation. Hopefully that would help. It had to help.
But the ghoul from the shadows reached for her, gesticulating, desperate to make itself understood.
What was she still not seeing? Had Orla missed something by not paying enough attention? To Eleanor Queen? To Shaw? Now, everything inside her, from her churning intestines to her frantic heartbeat, was urging her on. Find the pieces. Solve the puzzle.
Before it was too late.