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“No, you have to be respectful.”
“Whatever.”
“Mom, we can go to the Moss Garden, rig
ht?” called Kelli.
“Hannah —” said their mom.
“Mom, I’m not saying anything!”
“Help … once you’re done the doghouses,” her mother finished.
Her mom’s voice sounded weird. When Hannah looked up, she saw that her mother was down on one knee, and one of the pails she was carrying had spilled across the unbroken snow, the water mingling with the thick coat of ice, making an ugly blue channel in the snow. Hannah had never seen so much ice in her life before. It was everywhere, glittering and angry: it hampered all movement and made it three times as hard to lift her foot out of the snow and place it down again. She finally ended up half crawling, half wading through the snow, using her gloved hands to break through the ice and pull herself forward toward her mother. The ice bit into the backs of her hands where the gloves came away from her cuffs.
“Mom! Mom!”
“I’m okay, Hannah.”
Just breathe, just breathe, Hannah repeated to herself. She reached the pond path and scrambled over to kneel in front of her mother.
“Mom!”
Her mother looked up.
“I’m fine, I just … the path is slippery.” Her mom struggled to her feet again. “I have to go refill this now. I want Kelli and you to bathe tonight. It’s not good to be dirty out here.”
“I’ll get it,” offered Hannah.
“Have you done the doghouses?”
“No, but I can do —”
“Your job is yours; my job is mine, Hannah. See to the dogs.” Her mother stood up, grasped the pails again, and started back toward the cabin.
“But —”
“I’m not asking. Go.”
Hannah watched her mother walk away and a picture of the broken ampoules arose unbidden in her brain. She thought again of how she had hooked the cord to the stupid, stupid rotary phone that wasn’t even working since the telephone line had gone down, too — and there was no cell service in this stupid, stupid place, either — and she thought about her mother, who was now out of insulin, because they were trapped with no way to get to town.
And no one could get to them, either.
From his kennel, Rudy whined, eager to work, eager to run. Hannah walked over to him, and with each step the feeling of doing something, anything, became stronger. She thought of the dogsleds at the back, ready to go. Rudy quieted under her hand as Hannah stroked his ear, pressing against her legs. Both of them were quivering.
“All right,” said Hannah. “We’ll fix this mess. We’re leaving tonight.”
CHAPTER SIX
The snow continued to fall in great white sheets. Hannah’s first thought was that she would go to town. But Timmins was far away, too far for a trip that wouldn’t get her into trouble. But what else could she do? She needed to get to a phone or a person with a snowmobile.
That meant Jeb’s place. Jeb was the closest — scratch that, the only other — person nearby, and even she was a long way away, five clicks down the road by car, probably twice that on the twisty back trails. So she would take the dogsled to Jeb’s, and then Jeb would take her to Timmins on the snowmobile to get more insulin.
She would be a hero.
“I’m a fairy,” Kelli said, coming into the living area that made up most of the front of the cabin. She was bulky and tottering, wearing at least four layers of clothing. “I’m metamorphosing, like a cocoon. Soon I’ll be a real fairy! Then I can fly away to get Dad and bring him back!” She unpeeled a layer and dumped it on the floor.
“Kelli, don’t just leave that there, put it away,” said their mom from where she was standing at the kitchen window. She was pulling the hand crank on an emergency radio, even though it’s probably fully charged, thought Hannah.
