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“Does it ever thaw?” Molly wondered aloud.
“It sheds water in the summer, when the sun shines on it. Like any glacier, it could retreat as the climate heats up.” Sam spoke in a raised voice to be heard over the engine. “It’s another form of glacier, essentially.”
“So it wouldn’t thaw all in one swoop and cause a flood?”
“You’d have to ask a scientist about that. There’s several who come to Firelight Ridge in the summer. I fly one guy out who was pretty cool. He comes every summer with his two little kids to study the wild bees out here.”
“Will you tell me when he gets here? I bet he knows all about the Ice Falls.”
Sam grinned. “Sure thing.”
Too late, Molly realized she was talking as if she was definitely going to be here whenever the scientist arrived. Maybe it was time to face the fact that she was fascinated by Firelight Ridge, by its majestic setting and oddball residents. This was an incredible adventure she was on, and she was in no hurry to leave it and go back to dog-eat-dog New York legal work.
She glanced back at Elias and saw that he was glued to the closest window, staring down at Ice Falls until the very last moment when it slipped out of view. Hadn’t he seen it before? The Chilkoot place wasn’t far from Ice Falls. Maybe he’d never seen it from the air.
When they landed in Blackbear, Sam tied down his plane while Molly took Elias into the hangar to get a snack from the vending machine. He’d never seen one before, so it was hard to drag him away. The Flamin’ Cheetos caught his eye—that artificial coloring sure was effective—so she mentally apologized to his digestive system and bought him some, along with a bottle of Sobe because he was fascinated by its logo. Those marketers really knew what they were doing.
They climbed into the truck that Sam kept at the Blackbear airport and drove through the town looking for a hotel for the night. Elias stayed low in the backseat, only peeking out now and then. He seemed overwhelmed by the sensory onslaught outside the window. Semi-trucks rumbled past every few minutes; this was a transient town where long-haul drivers stopped for the night on their way to or from Canada.
It felt strange to be back in “civilization,” in a place with a continuous stream of traffic instead of a stray pickup cruising past the hardware store now and then. Everyone seemed so busy, and there was so much pavement, so many signs and buildings and businesses. Where was all the mud and the ferns and the birdsong?
Molly experienced a fierce longing to be back in Firelight Ridge. Go figure.
They located a trucker motel, called The Big Wheel Inn, that seemed clean enough and boasted of its hot shower and Wi-Fi.
“I don’t know what I’m more excited about, the shower or the Wi-Fi,” she said with a moan.
He chuckled as he swung open the door of the truck. “The way to Molly Evans’ heart, shower and internet.”
“You know it, baby.”
“Can I come inside?” asked Elias.
“Of course. You’re sticking with us no matter what,” Sam told him.
Once again, they put Elias between them so he’d be hard to spot and hurried inside the motel.
As Sam booked the room—they’d decided on two adjoining rooms, arrangements to be sorted out later—Molly checked on Elias. The boy had stopped halfway across the lobby. He stood stock-still, staring at the wall behind the desk.
“Elias? Are you okay?”
She followed his gaze and saw that the hotel’s logo was painted on the wall—a goofy cartoon-style boy with a big grin, riding a giant wheel as if it were a bull in a rodeo.
“It’s a logo,” she told him. “Businesses create them to kind of say who they are in the form of an image.”
She’d had no idea that marketing would have to be one of the first things to explain to someone who’d grown up in the wilderness.
“In this case, they’re trying to say that this is a place that welcomes families, because of the boy, and it’s kind of goofy….actually I don’t know what?—”
“I remember him,” Elias interrupted. He pointed at the boy in the logo. “I saw him before.”
“Him?” Molly looked at the logo, then back at Elias. “You mean in real life, like a boy who looks like him?”
“No. That.” He waved at the image painted on the wall behind the reception desk. “I saw that before. I was afraid, and he was like a friend. He smiled at me and asked me to play wheel with him.”
Chills swept through Molly’s body. “When did you see him before?” she asked carefully.
“I don’t know. A long time ago. I was small. I was—” He broke off and looked around the small lobby, beads of sweat popping on his face. “I was here. There was candy. I ate candy.”
