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Panic’s nasty little fingers gripped at me—I couldn’t see him.
I darted to the door.
While I pushed an arm through my coat sleeve, I shoved my feet in my boots. I barely had my winter hat on my head as I charged outside into the embrace of the cold, wicked storm. It roared at me, laughing in my face. I could almost hear it say,This little girl is the reinforcement being sent in?
I ignored the doubt and the overwhelming fear as I wrapped my arms around my body and searched for his footprints. I couldn’t find them. The storm had erased them, as if they’d never existed.
Panic trickled through my veins.
“Kaleb!” I screamed, my voice extinguished by the howl of the wind. I raised my hand in front of my face, as if that would help me see better. It didn’t.
I screamed his name, again and again.
The storm answered, and it pushed me back, consuming my voice, pulling my hair, and shoving me around as if I were one of my sock dolls.
I stumbled through the snow, the feeling in my fingers and toes slowly beginning to retreat. A blast of ice and wind collided into me, pushing me to the ground.
I was cold. And scared. And alone.
Tears stained my vision, stinging my frozen cheeks.
“Get up, child,” commanded a voice as strong as stone.
I looked up. “Ezra!” I cried out as I leapt to my feet and wrapped my arms around her waist.
She gripped me against her—my lighthouse, my saving grace. “Where is Kaleb?” she shouted above the deafening wind.
“He’s out here, somewhere,” I stammered as my tears continued to fall.
“I can’t sense him,” Ezra said as she kneeled, her fingers drying my tears. “But you, dear child, you can save him.”
“I-I-I can’t. I don’t know how.” I sniffled.
“You may not know how. But this does.” She tapped the spot over my heart.
I closed my eyes and searched for that well within, but when I got to it . . . it was frozen over. I looked to her and stammered through my chattering teeth. “It won’t work.”
“It will. You have too much to lose if it doesn’t,” she said, her fingers tightening on my shoulders. “Now fight for him, child, with everything you have.”
I returned to the well in my mind, reaching my hand over the ice. I pressed against it, but it didn’t heave. Kaleb’s laughter filled my mind, memories of us climbing the swaying oak trees spinning in my mind. Those memories urged me on, and I pressed harder and harder and harder until—the ice began to crack.
I shoved with everything I could conjure—my might, my will, my heart. The crack shattered into a thousand jagged pieces and my water broke through. The liquid bubbled beneath my fingertips, moldable and tame—a good soldier, readying for battle.
Opening my eyes, I reached to the heavens and let my Curse break free.
Within seconds, I brought the blizzard crashing to its knees.
Without the snow coating the world in white, we could finally see. We shouted for Kaleb, my heart slamming against my frozen ribcage as we searched for him, my twelve-year-old hands holding the roaring snow beast at bay.
“There!” I exclaimed. Kaleb’s black toque poked out from the snow, the remainder of his body tucked under a coffin of white. Ezra and I tugged him free. His skin was an ashen gray. Our knees buckled as we trudged through the deep, endless snow, frantically dragging Kaleb as he faded in and out of this realm.
When we reached the safe embrace of the cottage, I stayed at Kaleb’s side, watching as Ezra applied various salves, chasing the frostbite from his skin, the ice from his veins. When Ezra told me that Kaleb would survive, that small, remaining ember that kept me standing was snuffed out.
My knees caved and I bowed to gravity.
The dark abyss called sweetly as it dragged me down, down, down.
“What are you thinking about?” Kaleb asked, his fingers cracking an egg and pouring its contents into a bowl.
