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Drew presses a kiss to my temple as soon as I make it to a seated position without any catastrophes. And I swear, from the other end of the table, a few of the associates’ wives swoon with how sweet Drew is being.
They’re right. I really do have the best boyfriend in the world. I cringe in shame for ever thinking anything different. I’m ungrateful for what I have, and if I’m not careful, one day I’ll look back at this moment and regret not appreciating him more.
Suddenly, I shiver.
Cold.
I’m so, so cold.
And then Drew is tugging on my arm to get my attention.
“What?” I try to ask him, but it’s like my mouth won’t move. And then I am blinking awake as the dining room disappears into a dream.
And instead I’m surrounded by white. So much white, everywhere.
“Devochka!”
I blink against the blinding white, struggling to remember where I am. “What’s happening?” Hallucination? Does that happen when you freeze to death?
But again comes the voice. “Devochka!” Then a stream of words in a language I can’t understand. I try to pry my eyes open one more time, so frozen, I barely understand what’s happening.
But then I see a pair of… boots?
Big boots frosted with snow.
And I’m so confused. Where am I? I’m so tired. Was I asleep? Did I actually fall asleep in the middle of the Arctic? How am I not dead already?
But now there’s a face above me. Not the beast’s lion face either. Or another terrifying monster.
It’s just a man—a very old man, his beard encrusted with ice and snow. His eyes are wide as he looks down at me and another stream of words bursts from his mouth. I don’t understand a single one of them except something that sounds vaguely like angel.
Which makes me laugh.
And that hurts. My whole chest hurts.
The man bends over and lifts me in his arms. I’m quite small, I suppose. Maybe he’s only sort of old. It’s just that his beard is halfway down his chest and white.
I giggle again. Have I found Santa? Am I at the North Pole?
I glance around. The way he’s holding me, I can see the sky. And I scan, searching for the beast. It’ll be my luck if he swoops in now, kills my good Samaritan, and drags me back anyway.
But the sky remains clear.
And when I focus on the ground, my heart leaps because there, in front of us, half covered by ice and snow—is a house!
More tears come, though I didn’t think I had any left.
I didn’t imagine it. I did see something.
This light in the darkness. My salvation.
The man kicks open his door and immediately heads for a roaring fire. I weep to see it. The air is so much warmer here already.
He takes me near the fire and lays me on a couch that’s like a futon, then shoves that closer to the fire. All the time muttering over me. Immediately, he pulls several blankets that were in a pile right in front of the fire—warming I guess, likely for him when he came back in. But he piles them one after the other on top of me, covering my nakedness and warming me at the same time.
I blink, the ice on my lashes melting and turning wet, along with the ice on my face. My icy tears finally turn wet again and slide down my cheeks.
He piles blankets on top of me more and more until the weight of them swallows and presses down on me. They smell musty and comforting, like my grandmother’s attic.
Only then does the man start to take off some of his own snow coverings.
He is old, but not as ancient as I first thought. Maybe in his sixties? Skinny as a rail, though. If he is Santa, he needs to work on his belly full of jelly.
God, I feel delirious.
And sleepy.
My eyes start to fall closed, but he snaps gnarled fingers in front of my face. “Nyet, doch’. Nyet.”
I feel numb all over, and now with the warm weight of the blankets and the fire…
He holds a finger in front of my face in warning. I blink, exhausted.
Somewhere in the back of my mind swims a warning that I suppose it is bad to fall asleep when you’re in danger of hypothermia, and I’ve fought so hard to get this far.
So I fight to hold my eyes open.
Then the old man disappears from in front of me, and I hear pots and pans bang around, then a kettle whistling.
Several minutes later, he returns. I’ve managed to keep my eyes open, but barely.
He says something, repeating it a few times, and it sounds like “chocolate coffee,” as he holds out a steaming mug to me. Or maybe I just get that from the smell. It certainly looks like hot cocoa, but I can also smell a coffee scent.
