Jackson Pearce - Cold Spell

Mora swallowed the thought and took Kai’s hand and tried to pull him forward, but his feet were planted, a look of shock on his face.

“Mora,” he gasped, squeezing her fingers. “I think I love you.”

Mora smiled and wrapped her fingers underneath Kai’s chin tenderly. “Of course, darling.” She turned, pulling harder until he followed her. “You all do.”

Think. Think this through.

I leave a note for my mom saying I’m going to stay with Dad for a week or so, to get over Kai leaving. It’ll buy me a little time, at least—she won’t want to be the helicopter parent, telling me I can’t go, and she won’t want to call Dad to check that my story is true. Then I call the school, just in case the snow breaks sooner rather than later. I leave a voice mail with the attendance office in a voice that sounds like my mother’s: There’s been a family emergency. Ginny will be out for a week.

It’s not a total lie.

Odds are good someone will notice Grandma Dalia’s car is gone before they work out I’m gone, anyway , I think as I pull the station wagon out of the parking lot, opting not to consider what will happen if finding Kai takes more than a week. In the back seat, the dimes from the bowl rattle, now dumped in a grocery bag; I took them for luck. After all, if Grandma Dalia was right about the Snow Queen, she might be right about everything else, too.

The Atlanta skyline fades quickly, blotted out by snow clouds. I hardly ever drive, and the weather isn’t making it any easier. The roads are slick and darkened by both the night and the power outages that dot my route. I can’t go anything close to the speed limit—at times, I’m going less than half. My eyes are trained on the white dashes on the asphalt, so focused I feel hypnotized. I play a game in my head, pretending I’m leaping over the dashes, running toward Kai, running to stop him from…

From what?

Just find him, first. They can’t have gotten that far ahead of me—a few hours, at most, and if they don’t know I’m behind them they’re bound to take their time. Plus, Mora doesn’t seem like a road trip kind of girl. She’ll probably want to stop in a hotel or something, and not a cheap one, either. It’ll have to be one along this interstate—it’s the only reasonable way to go north. Not that I really know she’s even headed in this direction, but before leaving I looked at the weather forecast. Snow north of Atlanta, headed for Nashville. If I’m right, if Mora is the Snow Queen—a theory that alternates between sounding like the absolute truth and complete lunacy in my head—then she’ll be where the snow is. I think. I hope. Please.

Strange how stealing a car suddenly doesn’t feel like the craziest part of my plan.

Night begins to give in to the slightest implication of morning. The black sky becomes a shade of steel gray, though every now and then hints of the sun slip through, fingers of orange in an otherwise monochrome world. The sight snaps me out of my hypnosis a little, making me aware of just where I am and what I’m doing. I’m in Tennessee, somewhere near Nashville, I think. The snow here isn’t deep, and cars are beginning to appear on the road, though the drivers look every bit as wary as me.

I yawn; my eyes burn and my throat is suddenly dry. Has it really been five hours? I’ll have to stop and sleep soon, I’m certain—the very prospect feels like a betrayal, like my body is stubborn, defiant for needing rest. My headlights flash on a sign, indicating yes, Nashville is only fifteen miles out.

I take the closest exit, to a small but functional rest area hidden from the interstate by a swatch of pine trees. I dash inside to use the bathroom and buy a cinnamon roll from a faded vending machine. The trees in the adjacent forest sway in the wind, trying to lose the last few clumps of snow clinging to their branches—it’s amazing how comforting seeing the greenery instead of stark whiteness is. I park the car, hug my coat around me, and climb into the backseat. I brought Mora’s coat along—I’m not sure why, exactly, but I suspect it’s to remind me that she’s real, that I’m not crazy. Even though it looks warm, I kick it onto the floorboards so I don’t have to look at it.

One hour. That’s all , I think, yawning again. I curl into a ball on the wine-colored upholstery and let my eyes drift shut….

My dreams include beasts with Grandma Dalia’s voice, warning me to stay away. Every now and then my eyes creak open, unable to discern the difference between the dream world and the waking one. But with time, my dreams become more solid, warming into ones about Kai. In an apartment somewhere, one with old wood floors and wide windows. We’re seated on either side of a coffee table, eating dinner with our hands and telling jokes and laughing and happy and together and home. Yet even in the dream, I remember what he said to me on the rooftop, all the cruel things. The memories taint our laughter, flooding out any comfort the dream might have brought me.

He didn’t mean it. It was Mora; she’s the Snow Queen. He didn’t mean it.

My eyelids spring open. It takes me a moment to be certain the dream is over, that I really am wide awake. It’s freezing, and snow is coming down, heavy and thick—so thick I can’t see the interstate through the bowed-down branches of trees anymore. My bones feel like blocks of ice under my skin, creaking as I unwind my curled body and sit up. I hear a snap behind the car and whirl around to see a limb breaking off a tree, crashing to the ground under the weight of snow.

Then it’s silent again, as if I’m the only thing alive here. As if I’m the only thing alive anywhere.

It’s silent in a way that reminds me of the moments before Grandma Dalia’s death. I scramble into the front seat despite how badly I want to curl back up and cling to whatever warmth I can find. I fumble with the keys, trying to look at the ignition and the forest at once—is it snowing harder, like it was on the rooftop? The trees are giants pushing toward me; the road ahead is almost entirely hidden by the snowfall. My heart is beating faster, faster, faster; finally my numb fingers slide the key into the ignition, turn it forward.

The engine struggles to turn over, then fails. I lick my lips, realize I can see my breath. How cold is it out there? Air is raw and sharp in my lungs, I push the ignition forward again, again, try not to see Mora’s face in my mind.

I push the key forward again, hold it this time as the engine sputters, struggles, and finally kicks to life. I crank the heat knobs to all the way on and all the way red, push the car into drive. The car doesn’t move, locked in by snow and ice. Damn it. The heat is kicking in, burning then thawing me as I glance in my rearview mirror—

Eyes. Bright eyes staring at me from behind the car, a man’s shape in silhouette. My breath stops; I can’t look away, but I reach over, lock the door—

I scream, because there’s another man just outside my window. He has thick, wavy hair; a smooth face; and thick lips. The man at the window waves his fingers at me, and something about the motion isn’t right. Something about him isn’t right. I can’t look away—

A scratch at the passenger door. I wheel around instinctively. There’s another man there, then one by the front tire, two more behind me. They’re everywhere, surrounding me, and I can’t slow my heart down—

The man at my window smiles.

It isn’t a real man’s smile. It’s the smile of a man in a costume. A smile I’ve seen before, on another face. A smile that terrifies me. What’s worse is the recognition in the man’s eyes—he knows that I know what he is, and his face gleams over it. I see him look to the back of the car; his gaze falls on Mora’s coat. He frowns.