Stealing Snow (7 page)

When I woke a few hours later with dirty fingers and charcoal dust all over my bed, I knew two things: where Bale was and that I was going to follow.

I knew the boy was right. Because drawn over and over, page after page in my sketch pad, was the same image: the Tree with the carvings from my dreams.

I waited until the predawn room checks were done before trying to escape again. It was still dark out, but the moon was getting low in the sky. Luckily, Vern hadn’t bothered to check the door on her way out, and the tape was still intact. There wouldn’t be another sweep for at least an hour, so I slipped into the silent hall and made my way toward the exit.

“Again!” a familiar voice said behind me. I didn’t want to turn around, but I did. “Sleepwalking is not part of your repertoire, Yardley. Let’s get you back to bed,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Vern. I have to go. I have to do this. I have to find Bale.”

I took a hesitant step backward, just inches from the exit, but Vern knew my tricks and was by my side in an instant.

“Let our people find him,” she said solemnly. “They’ll bring him home.”

“Only I can,” I tried to explain. “He’s somewhere only I can go. Please, Vern.”

Her face crumpled. She wasn’t disappointed. She was worried I was having a setback.

“I don’t know what happened to him, but I won’t let anything happen to you, too.”

I wasn’t sure if I could fight Vern. I knew I didn’t want to. I knew that she was bigger than me—a lot bigger. But before she could drag me back to my room, there was a crash down the hall, followed by a rush of footsteps and voices.

“She’s coding—”

“Vern!” another orderly yelled. “We need you!”

I stepped farther out of her reach while her head was turned in the direction of the commotion.

“Vern!” another voice called just as the alarms starting to ring in Ward D.

Vern grabbed me by both shoulders. “You’re coming with me.”

And then she galloped down the hall, pulling me along behind her.

The code had come from Magpie’s room. As soon as we arrived, there was a flurry of activity and chaos. Orderlies filled the small area, shouting to one another, all trying to clear the
floor around the center of the room where Magpie’s prone form lay. In all the commotion, someone handed Vern the desk chair to get it out of the room and she let me go, giving me a stern look that said “stay put, or else.”

I was mesmerized by the scene. Magpie was stark white. The kind of almost-transparent white when you’re dead.

The orderlies were barking at one another while they hit her with the defibrillator. After a few tries, Magpie sprang back to life. She struggled and fought until they restrained her. That was when I saw the blood. It was all over her arms and her sheets. Magpie had cut herself badly.

“I want Vern!” she cried, which was odd because Cecilia was the White Coat assigned to her.

I couldn’t imagine Magpie ever attempting to take her own life. Then I noticed a trail of things all along the floor. Magpie’s treasures were out of their hiding place. A scrunchie like the ones Wing wore. One of my drawings of the Tree. Paper clips from Dr. Harris’s office. A tube of lipstick. Some screws. This was her bounty. It was arranged in a semicircle around the bed.

Vern managed to wrap a bandage around Magpie’s wrist and secure her to the gurney.

I took a step backward.

Magpie’s eyes fluttered open and landed on me. She shared a look with me—one that said good-bye. Then she winked.

Maybe it was just an involuntary response to the trauma her body was going through. Maybe she really was trying to tell me something.

I didn’t have time to process my surprise. I only had a few moments while Vern was still distracted by Magpie. Silently, I slipped out of the room and took off down the hall.

I hit the outer door release and felt the cool night air on my cheeks. The alarm for the door was drowned out from the alarm ringing inside. I was free.

There was nothing left to do but run.

Had Magpie cut herself on purpose? To create a distraction for me?
I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t know. I just had to keep running.

The gate to the Whittaker grounds was open, thanks to the ambulance I watched rush through it from my hiding place in the bushes. Before it swung back shut, I slipped out. I had this strange feeling that more than just Magpie’s distraction was in my favor that night. Something about the magic of everything working out lifted my spirits as I ran through the gateway and into the dark night. I felt like I really could make it to the other side of the mirror, to the Tree, and rescue Bale.

It was colder than I expected it to be, but adrenaline kept me warm. Soon, though, the biting air began to penetrate the thin Whittaker sweatpants and sweatshirt I was wearing. At least I’d remembered shoes.

Buildings, stores, and open spaces flew by as I raced away from Whittaker’s north gates, away from Dr. Harris and Vern. My eyes caught on the Lyric Diner, where we’d taken field trips in my better days at Whittaker, back when we were in Ward A. The last time we were there we had to leave because Wing did a belly flop from the counter and Chord had freaked out the manager when he told him that “in the future his kids would all be dead from the war.” That day Bale and I had shared a booth and a milk shake with two straws. We had to sit close to share, our shoulders touching.

I shook the memory away and pressed on.

I tried not to focus on how my legs felt like lead. I hadn’t run or exercised much at all over the years, and each muscle was happy to remind me of it.

None of the other storefronts looked familiar, which wasn’t surprising because I hadn’t been this far from Whittaker in a
very long time. I was coming up on railroad tracks, and just beyond them, a dirt road leading into the woods. I turned onto it, partially because of what the boy-orderly had said and partially because it would be easier to hide among the trees than out in the open.

Before long, though, I was lost. I didn’t know which way I had come and which direction I should head in. All I saw were trees and snow, and every tree looked exactly the same. I sank to the ground. I could feel the snow through my clothes. What was I thinking? Maybe I really was crazy. I’d followed the word of a boy I didn’t know to look for a Tree in the woods to save the life of my boyfriend who had disappeared through a mirror. And, oh yeah, supposedly I was a princess. When I thought about it, it sounded totally insane. And now I was going to freeze to death. I laughed out loud, my voice cackling through the woods. The sound carried and echoed back, reminding me of how far I was from everything I’d known and how screwed I really was.

The tears began to fall one after another. I was not a crier, no matter which dwarf I took. The sensation was new. Like all the sadness inside me was trying to get out. But instead of punching and clawing … it was seeping out in a steady stream. My breath was jagged; my nose was running. The drops were warm against my impossibly cold skin. I was an idiot. I felt a wave of anger surge—at myself, at my mom, and at that dream-boy-orderly for leading me out here.

I wanted to go back, but I didn’t know the way anymore. I had run in circles too much, and there was almost no light out here in the woods. Plus, there wasn’t a real life to go back to. My
options were either bad or worse. So I cried until there were no more tears. And then I did the only thing left to do. I got up and started walking.

With every step, I scolded myself silently.

I should have packed food.

I should have taken a coat.

I should have grabbed a flashlight from the guard station.

The should-haves began to pile up, and the thought of giving up chased my every step.

And then I saw it: the Tree. It was unmistakable. Even in the dark, it stood out.

The Tree took up more space than I expected. It almost looked like it took up the entire sky. Above it, the darkness cracked open in a fury of lights, which reflected in its surface. Green chasing red chasing blue chasing yellow, encased in the blackest of clouds. The lights stopped moving and contorted into a face, which dipped down suddenly and seemed to be looking at me. I jumped backward and swallowed a laugh. What was I afraid of? They were just lights. They looked like the northern lights I had read about in books. But that would be difficult in upstate New York. Then again, so was the Tree.

I took a step closer to get a better look. The Tree was covered in some kind of fancy script and pictures. But the words weren’t in any language I could understand, and the pictures looked like faces I had never seen. Not even in my dreams. What was this place? Who had etched them there, and what did they mean?

My arm stung suddenly. I pushed up my sleeves and saw a white light pulsing through the web of scars that ran along it. I
pulled my sleeve back down, even though my arm was lit up like Christmas.

“Am I dreaming?” I thought out loud. It wouldn’t be the first time my dreams had felt this real.

I stepped closer to the Tree and examined its surface, which was as smooth as glass. It looked totally iced over. But it also didn’t look like there was any real bark under there. Either the etchings had happened ages ago and they became so smoothed down over time or the markings had actually grown as the tree had. I reached out to run my fingers over the carvings, but as soon as my fingers made contact, there was a creaking sound and my eyes were drawn to a fissure in the center of the Tree’s trunk.

It broke apart with a sudden crack, proving my first instinct was right. There was no bark beneath the surface.

But I was wrong to stand so close. There was no escape. Thousands of ice shards dropped from the branches and headed in my direction all at once. Terrified, I hid my face in my elbow, protecting my skin.

But rather than pierce me, the icicles stopped a millimeter in front of me and dropped to the ground. Lifting my head fully once again, I saw the forest suddenly before me, bright as day. Which was impossible because it was nighttime. Or it had been. But this also didn’t look like the woods I was just in. And the trees surrounding me didn’t look like normal trees … They were tall, taller than I could crane my neck to see. And they were blue. The palest of periwinkle. Despite the color change, they seemed to be made of real wood. That was my first clue that I wasn’t in New York anymore.

“Hey, Princess …,” a strong, familiar voice behind me said. “Sorry, I was a touch late.”

I turned around to face the boy from my dreams. Gone was the white coat. Instead he wore a long black trench and a smile.

He raised his hand, and a tree dropped over the ice like a drawbridge. “Careful. It’s beautiful, but it cuts deep.”

The way he looked at me when he said it, I almost thought he was talking about me, too.

“Come on. We have to go.”

I scrambled across his tree bridge, balancing myself a little self-consciously as he watched me, determined not to slip under his gaze. Behind me, I heard an eerie tearing sound, almost like a large canvas was being ripped apart. I glanced back and saw the Tree was there again, but this time it was blue like the others.

“The gateway sealed back up,” was all the boy said. When I reached him, he offered his hand to help me down. I took it and felt a jolt because he was
real
.

“Welcome to Algid,” he said with a smile.

“Algid?” I repeated the word, letting it roll over my tongue. There was something familiar about it. “Is that this place?”

He nodded.

“And Bale is somewhere here?”

He dipped his head again.

I didn’t believe in coincidences. There was no way this boy had nothing to do with Bale’s disappearance.

So I made a fist and decked him in the stomach. He jumped out of the way in time to miss the brunt of the blow, but I still got him pretty good.

“I guess I deserved that for saving you from a mental hospital and bringing you home,” he said, not showing that my punch had affected him at all beyond an expression of surprise.

A smile crossed the orderly-who-wasn’t-really-an-orderly’s face as he stood taller. I resisted the urge to shake out my knuckles, which smarted from hitting the muscle beneath his coat. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“You took me away from everything and everyone I know. Gee, thanks so much.”

Sarcasm was always my first line of defense. And I was out of my depth, here in the middle of the woods, with this boy who I did not know. And who acted as if he knew so much about me.

“You came under your own speed,” he attested, as if the distinction were important. “I can see that you’re upset, Princess. I just wonder if all that anger is for me…”

“Where is he? Where is Bale? What did you do with him?” I yelled.

His face poorly hid a smirk. “If I could take Bale, then why wouldn’t I have just taken you?”

He made a certain amount of sense, but I wasn’t ready to trust him yet.

Relenting slightly, he leaned toward me and said, “I will tell you where Bale is, and I’ll even help you get him back. But first you have to do something for us.”