Jackson Pearce - Cold Spell

It’s when I see two ice-blue eyes that I understand.

My fingers race across the book, assembling pieces. There are several noses, several eyes, and it takes me a dozen tries before I finally, finally assemble the clippings in the right order. In the right face. Mora’s.

The clippings weren’t a bookmark. They were the Snow Queen page. No text, no details, just Mora’s face.

I rise and back up. No, no, this is crazy. Crazy—Mora is just a girl. Just a girl who stopped to give us a ride. She may be beautiful, but she’s not the queen of the beasts. It’s a stupid idea, you’re just emotional, you’re just angry with Kai. She’s just a girl.

Don’t go with the girl.

Grandma Dalia’s last words are screaming in my brain, the magazine-clipping eyes staring at me. I shut my own eyes, try to ignore the rising panic. You’re looking too far into it , I tell myself. Besides—she pointed at me. Right at me. I remember the way her eyes narrowed, the crook of her finger, the way her hand shook—

I swallow.

I remember where Mora was standing, outside her parked car. Directly behind me.

I run for the apartment door, cutting my mother off when it slams behind me. I pound down the steps and through the courtyard—the cold is worse, the wind is worse. In the back of my head is a voice telling me this is silly. But then I think of Mora, of her slick words and icy eyes, of the costume man in the parking lot she reminds me of. Of the beasts in Grandma Dalia’s stories.

I reach Kai’s door, grit my teeth, and rap on it.

Silence.

I knock again, my breathing slow, controlled, as if I’ll be able to stop myself from panicking if he opens the door and she’s standing over his shoulder.

Silence.

“Kai?” I call softly, almost inaudibly. Still nothing. I knock again, louder this time, then again, and I finally hear movement—from the apartment across the hall. I wheel around to see Mr. Underwood, wearing a painfully see-through white shirt and chewing on a thick cigar. His hair is so white it makes the hall look especially dingy.

“You’re interrupting my news stories,” Mr. Underwood says crossly.

“Sorry,” I say. “I was looking for—”

“Kai, obviously. He’s gone. So you can stop knocking.”

“Gone?” I ask, voice catching.

“Hours and hours ago, with some pretty girl. Good for him, if you ask me. Better than sitting around moping over Dalia.”

“Where did they go?”

“Hell if I know—point is he isn’t here, so stop the commotion,” Mr. Underwood says, waving a hand at me before he shuts the door.

For coffee. To a movie—are the theaters open in all this snow? Maybe for dinner. I feel sick hoping that they’re just on some sort of date, but it’s better than the alternative—I’m sure of that, even without fully knowing what the alternative is. Still, all I can think of is what I heard on the roof, Mora’s voice all hypnotic and smooth. Come away with me.

He can’t have left. Not without me. Not with another girl.

I fumble with my key chain till I find the spare Kai gave me and slide it into the lock. The door creaks open; the apartment is pitch-black. Even though I know he isn’t here, I call his name again before reaching over and flicking on the kitchen lights.

The kitchen looks like it always does. There are dishes by the sink, and a loaf of bread sits on the counter. I see one of Grandma Dalia’s sweaters is still on the back of the armchair, and Mora’s thick fur coat is laid across the couch. Everything looks right here… I’m overreacting. I close the front door behind me and move through the house. Shoes in the hall. Toothbrush by the bathroom sink. They haven’t left yet; there’s still time to understand what’s going on, to get Kai away from Mora and whatever… spell she has on him. I round the corner to his bedroom just in case and grope for the light switch. It springs on, revealing his bed—unmade, like normal—and a pile of dirty laundry on the floor, including a shirt I recognize from Grandma Dalia’s funeral.

And then my eyes fall on the spot.

The spot where his violin is supposed to be. The spot where his violin always is. It’s a void, an empty space on the otherwise cluttered carpet. I stare at it, unsure what to think, what to feel, what to do, because I know that this means he’s gone. With her.

I call the police. It’s the only thing I know to do.

“So wait, the violin is worth how much?”

“Thousands,” I explain, brandishing Mora’s fur coat at him, as if it’s evidence. “But it’s not that. If it’s gone, he’s gone.”

“Is it insured?” he asks, ignoring the coat.

“I’m not worried about the violin!” I shriek. “He didn’t steal it, it’s his!”

“All right, all right, calm down,” the officer says. We’re standing in the courtyard, and I can see neighbors peeking out from their curtains to see what the noise is about. It’s late—the police were so inundated with snow-related calls that it took them hours to get here. My mom stands beside me, arms folded, irritated not only that I called the police, but that, as far as she can tell, I’m being immature. Upset over a fight with my boyfriend. Childish.

She doesn’t understand that I’m afraid.

“This, to me, looks like a kid freaking out over losing a relative,” the officer says to my mother, as if I’m not standing right beside her, shivering. “Has his aunt shown up?”

“I don’t know—” my mom begins.

“No. She isn’t here. I don’t even know if she’s coming,” I say dismissively. My tears have dried, but my voice is still stuffy and thick.

“Well, he’s eighteen, so he’s not a runaway. I wager he’s taken the cello—”

“ Violin ,” I hiss.

“I wager he’s taken the violin,” the officer says, looking weary. “To hock. Fast cash to hold him over till the will gets executed.”

“That’s not—”

“Honey,” the officer says. “I have been driving through the snow for days now. Tomorrow it’s supposed to let up. I get that this boy broke your heart and ran off with some blonde, but he’s a legal adult and can make his own decisions. Most of downtown’s without power. Water pipes are frozen over. A few streets over, we’ve got a girl your age, murdered. Ripped to shreds. You really think I should be tracking down some boy instead of finding the monster who did that to her?”

“The girl who took Kai, I think she’s done something to him,” I plea. “He didn’t just leave me. I think his grandmother—”

“He’s a bum, Ginny—you’ll meet someone else,” the officer says firmly, and gives me a pointed stare. We’re silent for a moment, still, him daring me to say another word.

“He’s not a bum,” I grumble, and spin around. I slip on the ice, a final indignity, before I stomp back inside. My bedroom is cold; I’m so tired of the cold. I turn the radiator on high, even though it fills my room with a sticky, plastic smell.

This is crazy. This is crazy, crazy, crazy. The magazine clippings are still assembled on my bed. I stare at them, trying to see someone other than Mora, but it’s so clearly her. Her, on the Snow Queen page. Her, in Atlanta during a blizzard. Her, here the day Grandma Dalia died.

Mind the beasts.

I have to leave tonight.

The first week after taking a new boy was always the worst. The boys had questions, they clung to who they were, and they got scared. Mora looked over at Kai as she pulled the car under the awning of the hotel drive. She knew what they were going through, almost exactly, and she also knew it would pass. And when it did? Things would get so, so much easier.