I brush the snow off their bodies and herd the boys back inside.
“Where is Colin?” Liam asks. Aayu starts to cry.
Tim says nothing, but his somber mood mirrors my own. When he thinks I’m not looking, he glances at the door, willing it to open.
We settle down in a tight huddle, maximizing body heat. A cold wind slinks through the cracks in the fuselage, mocking me for every millimeter of skin that isn’t covered. At least the boys are bundled up. Liam and Aayu finally doze off, but Tim continues to sniffle as he picks at the threads of his ski mask. I told him to take it off for a while because it was so wet, and now he holds it in his lap like a consolation prize.
“I’ll find him, Tim.” I take his hand and squeeze it. His gloves are red and blue, emblazoned with the Patriots’ mascot. I can barely feel his fingers through the plump material.
“He stopped whistling.”
“He must’ve had a reason.”
He yanks on one of the threads until it comes loose. “What if there are more bears?”
“Well, they live here. How would you feel if a bear broke into your house and slept on the floor?”
“I’d be mad.”
“Me, too. But what if the bear explained to you that he was lost, and he needed a place to stay for a while?”
“Bears can’t talk.”
“That’s right, they can’t.” Tim’s logic makes me smile; ten bucks says this kid loves going to school every morning. “But we can still communicate. Like with the bear we just met—we don’t speak the same language, but we both got our points across.”
“How?”
“Well, for one thing, your radio really annoyed him.”
The glow in his green eyes warms my heart. “It did?”
“Big-time.”
“One of the suitcases had batteries.” He folds his hands in his lap, and in that moment, he looks like the first grader he probably is. “That’s all I did.”
“Well, you did a lot, Tim. We’ll keep it on so he stays away.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
“Why?”
“Because I told him to.”
“You’re the boss?”
I nod, even though the last thing I felt like back there was the boss. I felt like bear meat.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“How about Colin? Will they bother him?” He tugs his hat past his runny nose, his quivering chin. He waits for my answer with unfailing patience, and the feeling it stirs in me isn’t just an ache; it’s a burn.
“Avery?”
“No,” I say. “They won’t bother him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Tim scoots a little closer. I pull his hood up again and tie it around his chin. The generous size makes him look like a miniature Eskimo. The fur lining just enhances the effect.
“My mom and dad are dead,” he says after a while. The flat, resigned way he says it makes my stomach clench. “Is Colin dead, too?”
I cup his face in my hands. “No,” I say. “He’s not dead.”
“Are you sure?”
This time, I don’t hesitate. This time, the trace of doubt in my voice is gone.
“Positive.”
•
The boys sleep in a state of oblivion, but I spend the next hour watching the storm cycle through various phases of its natural life. A blowing, gusting snow; the occasional gasps of wind; the silence that follows. In these moments, I find the time and space to think.
Colin would not have made the swim without calculating it from every angle. He would have tried to minimize distance and, therefore, effort. He went at dawn so he would still have time to hike back if it came to that. But the whistles tell me he never even made it into the water.
They sounded close, too close. But why signal to us at all? If, in fact, it was a signal. In which case he may be injured, or even lost.
I can’t leave these boys for an entire day, but I have to do something. Colin would look for me if the situation were reversed. He wouldn’t hesitate. The only difference is, he’d carry all three boys in his arms. I can barely manage one.
I nudge Tim awake.
He finds me holding a toiletry case, its contents stuffed with what remains of our nutrition. In this case, it’s a bag of Werther’s and a Fruit Roll-Up, which we found stuffed in a slipper. He glances at the Werther’s, then back up at me. “Are you leaving?” He looks at me like I’ve just murdered a puppy.
“I’m going to look for Colin.”
“Oh. Well that’s okay. Can I come?”
I shuffle over to him. He looks strangely pale, his forehead clammy. “Are you okay, Tim?”
“Yeah,” he says. Would a six-year-old lie to me? I feel the skin there: It’s warm, but not feverish—not quite yet, anyway.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” he says, a little disgruntled. I peel my hand away, his sweat clinging to my fingertips. He doesn’t look right, but then again, none of us are in prime condition. Maybe he’s just cold.
I tuck another scarf around his neck. “Tim, I need you to stay here.”
He nods like he expected this. “You need me to watch Liam and Aayu.”
“Yes.”
“What if they don’t listen to me?”
“They will.” I zip his coat up to his chin. “They look up to you.”
He glances over his shoulder, uncertain.
“Remember what I said. You’re the fort master now.”
Not sure how I came up with fort master, but Tim seems to like it. He gives me a very serious, stern look. I almost smile, but to do so would wound his pride. Instead, I hand him the Fruit Roll-Up and Werther’s and tell him he’s in charge.
“Don’t give any of the Werther’s to Aayu, though. I think he’s too small. And keep the transceiver on.” I squeeze Tim’s hand. “I’ll be back in one hour. I promise.”
“Are you sure?”
This time, we say it together: “Positive.”
•
The sky is a muted palette of blacks, grays, and whites. I’ve seen my share of snow as a native New Englander, but nothing like this. Fine white flakes evaporate into nothing, blending with the swath of gray skies. It’s a false calm, the eye of the storm. The mottled clouds tell me Mother Nature is just catching her breath.
I’m traveling light: long underwear, two pairs of pants, a coat, two sweaters, three T-shirts, and a pair of boots from a piece of luggage that washed up yesterday. The boots are at least three sizes too big for my feet, and the camouflage-style gloves on my hands and the hat on my head were clearly designed for a lumberjack. It makes the going slow and cumbersome.
I lick my lips and unleash a long whistle. A flock of birds sweeps the sky above me. I whistle two more times, but the only answer is my own echo, bouncing off the mountainsides until it fades to the same maddening silence.
My first instinct is to follow Colin’s likely path, but after ten paces into the forest, everything starts to look the same. Even if the sun manages to penetrate the clouds, I won’t have the benefit of daylight. The branches are thick and weighted with snow, obscuring my view of the sky. For as long as I’m in those woods, it will feel like the dead of night.
With this thought, I turn around. The snow, the pale sun, the clouds shifting overhead . . . it all feels like mockery, like a cruel, relentless joke. The snow flutters down on top of me, a dainty dance in the wind. I approach the lake, where everything feels somehow clearer, more possible. While scanning the perimeter for signs of color or movement, I whistle until my lips are numb.
A faint, tinny sound drifts into my consciousness, then fades. I listen to it, let it go. The snow kicks up around me, soft as a caress.
I put my hands on my knees and lean forward, dropping my chin to my chest. My vision narrows until all that remains is my own shimmering reflection. My cheeks are a raw, worrisome red; my skin bears the telltale burn of sun and wind. I see my eyes, too. My father’s eyes. Edward’s eyes. They would find a way to survive out here. They would make it home.
I lose myself in this thought, searching for comfort in the familiar, for memories that might somehow spur me on. But it doesn’t come. My only emotion is grief. My only thought, louder than any other, maybe in all my life, is how desperately I want to find Colin.
Tim. Aayu. Liam. The thought of their innocent, windburned faces brings me back again. I can’t lose my tenuous grasp on reality, on hope. The boys need me.
Need. As dangerous as hope, as uncertain as the future. I need Colin Shea, and it’s a pure, driving kind of need. I understand this now, and it gives me strength; it pushes me onward.
I turn back toward the woods, wading through snowdrifts to get there. North and east and south all look the same, especially now, after two feet of snow. But the answer is out there; it’s close.
Where are you?
The tall tree across the lake looms through the haze. Tim’s Tree, as he calls it. The cabin is somewhere nearby, an impossible destination.
Colin would have started at the narrowest distance across, which isn’t here. I walk the tree line, just as Colin would have done. The snow is shallower, easier to wade through. Less exposed, and therefore a few degrees warmer, which would have made a difference in preparing for a swim like this.
I spot a small isthmus jutting out into the lake, maybe two hundred yards south of the lean-to. This little strip of land would have saved him fifty meters, a distance Colin can swim in twenty-two seconds on a bad day, but an alpine lake in blizzard conditions isn’t an Olympic swimming pool. He would have wanted those twenty-two seconds. He would have fought to conserve them.
Here, too, the cabin is visible—just barely, but part of the roof is exposed. Maybe he saw it, or maybe he didn’t. I’m not sure it mattered. He knew it was there.
You shouldn’t have done this. It’s insane.
I realize this now. The distance is too great, the conditions too poor. Maybe he turned back. Maybe he decided—
There. I whirl around. The sound is so faint as to be almost inaudible: breathy, with a scratchiness that makes my blood hum. It’s coming from the woods.
I inch past the first row of trees, despite every spit of good sense telling me to do otherwise. My boots sink into the softer, shallower snow. Shadows draw me into an uninhabitable nowhere. I start reciting Emily Dickinson’s creepy poems about death because they are the only words that come to mind. Hopefully it will be enough to keep the bears at bay.
The trees close on me—above, around, everywhere. Lines of poetry turn to breathless chants, and then I’m screaming. Colin.
There is no response. No stray sound, no whispers of air. A gust of wind snakes through the trees, and a plume of snow falls at my feet.
I look down at my boots.
And there, half buried in the snow, is Colin’s red shirt.