Jackson Pearce - Cold Spell

“Don’t be so stupid, Ginny. We’re not going to find her if we’re dead in a ditch somewhere. This thing’s got practically bald tires as is. It can’t handle snow this deep.”

I grimace as Flannery takes the closest exit; Wallace struggles to make it up the off-ramp and to the main road. There’s little here—it’s the sort of stop that’s geared to truck drivers, I think. There’s a Flying J gas station that advertises hot showers, which is attached to a fish restaurant and… not much else. We pull Wallace into the parking lot, struggling to find a space—we weren’t the only ones who decided to stop, apparently.

Flannery turns the bus off and we sit for a moment, watching the snow rain down as if it wants to suffocate us. We creep to the back and sit; Wallace becomes colder, colder, and colder still. It’s a million times worse than Atlanta, than Nashville—I guess Mora has less to fight in Minnesota, given how cold it is up here even without her influence

“Let’s go inside,” Flannery finally says. “We’ll dine and dash. I’ll talk you through it. I’m a pro.”

“How are we supposed to dash when we can’t actually move the car?”

“You worry too much.”

I give her a tired look, but I have to admit the idea of real food instead of crackers sounds appealing. We bundle up as best we can, layer upon layer of thrift-store clothes. I grab the cookbook just before we step outside.

“You’re bringing that?” Flannery asks, perplexed.

“Last time I left it in a car, I ended up getting kidnapped,” I point out, and Flannery laughs.

Together we tromp through the parking lot to the fish restaurant. There’re a few inches of snow on the ground already, and at the rate it’s coming down there’ll be a foot before it gets dark. The bottom of my jeans are soaked, and my lungs ache from the temperature.

I reach for the restaurant door, fling it open, and am punched by a wall of sound and wave of heat. People are huddled over tables, nursing enormous plates of food and cheap beer. They cast wary looks out the windows every so often, shake their heads, and go back to it. A harried-looking waitress calls out to us as she sets a basket of bread down.

“Two?”

I nod. She bustles over, grabs some paper menus, and leads us to a seat by the back wall.

“Order something,” Flannery says, fiddling with a wood-and-golf-peg game in the center of the table. “Don’t think about it, just do it. They’ll never even notice when we slip out.” When a different waitress stops by I order a fish sandwich without hesitation. Flannery orders the most expensive thing on the menu, and smiles at the waitress so genuinely that I’m impressed.

“How much farther?” Flannery asks.

“Maybe two hours if the roads are clear.” I say. “ If they’re ever cleared of all this.” I’m about to say more when something catches my eye. A photo near the top of the wall, wedged between an old pair of skis and a signed painting of basset hounds.

“Ginny? You listening?” Flannery asks.

I ignore her and rise, standing on my chair to get a better look. I reach up and pluck the frame from the wall. It’s a photograph, an old one.

A photograph of a pack of wolves.

I lower myself, setting the photo on the table. Flannery leans over me to look; the animals are a few dozen yards away from the photographer, and though they give the camera hard stares, it’s impossible to tell if anything in their eyes is human—if they’re just wolves or if they’re Mora’s guard. But something about the way they’re standing, the formation they’re in, the curve of their shoulders….

“This isn’t them, is it?” I say. “I think I’m just—”

“Desperate?” Flannery says, giving me a skeptical look. The waitress drops by our table and sets down two waters.

“Thanks,” Flannery tells her, grinning. “Hey—this photo. What do you know about it?”

“Uh, nothing,” the waitress says. “I mean, I’ve never really noticed it before now. Why?”

“Just wanna know where it was taken.”

“Well… I can ask the manager?” the waitress says, looking confused.

“That’d be swell,” Flannery answers sincerely.

“Swell?” I ask when the waitress walks away.

“Don’t buffers say swell ?”

I shake my head, and Flannery looks crestfallen. She’s just recovering when the waitress walks back over with an old woman. Her eyes are tiny blue gems in a sea of wrinkles that only deepen when she smiles at us.

“This is the owner,” our waitress says. “Liz. They wanted to know about the picture?”

“This one!” Liz says, looking surprised. She leans over the table to get a closer look, though it doesn’t take much, given how short she is already. The scent of lotion and perfume temporarily overtakes the smell of cooked fish. “My husband took that. Years ago. The wolves on Isle Royale, I suspect.”

“Isle Royale?” I ask.

“It’s a park, just off the coast here. Middle of the lake.”

“Is there a way over by car?” I ask, and hear Flannery groan.

“Oh, no,” Liz says. “You’d have to rent a boat or catch the ferry. I think they start running again in April.”

“April?” I ask, my heart sinking.

“You don’t want to be going over there this time of year anyhow,” Liz says, looking at me as if I’m crazy.

“She just gets excited,” Flannery says.

“It’s a lovely island,” Liz says. “Huge population of wolves. Hang on, I’ll get you a brochure.”

Flannery scowls at me. “You’re not thinking right. Come on. I thought we were going into the forest.”

“I know.” I move the photo off the table as our food arrives. It’s hot and burns my tongue, but that makes me like it all the more. The shaky, vibrating feeling that was buzzing inside me dissipates as I eat, until finally I’m full and tired and relieved that Flannery insisted we stop here. She orders strawberry shortcake for dessert and is eating it greedily when Liz makes her way back to us, a few coloring books tucked under one arm and the promised brochure in the other.

“Here you go. If you want to book a trip, just call that number on the back to schedule a plane. They’re not cheap, though,” she adds, looking from Flannery to me. She walks away as I unfold the brochure.

“What are you expecting to see?” Flannery asks. “A werewolf theme park or something?”

I ignore her, studying the first flap. Nothing exciting—a national park, no permanent inhabitants, largely impassable terrain except for a few picnic areas. Wolves, moose, foxes, mink. There’s a picture of a wolf on the second panel, but it’s clearly an animal—eyes that are watery, intense, but not human. I flip to the back and see a map of the island, showing ferry and plane routes. It looks a little like a curled-up dog.

I inhale.

“What?” Flannery asks through a mouthful of strawberries.

“The island, the shape—” I grab for the cookbook, nearly knocking our drinks off the table as I slam it open. Flip, fast, fast, I know this shape. There. In pencil, on a page stuck between dozens of shorthand recipes. I squint in the dim light to be sure. Yes, yes. Grandma Dalia, you knew.

The pencil line. Just an odd shape, one I thought so little of. I press the map down beside it and follow the lines. Curled-up dogs. I look at Flannery.

“The island. Mora is on the island.”

Flannery’s eyes widen. “I guess we need to find a plane.”

“Can I use your phone?” I ask our waitress, clutching the brochure in my fist.