Frost

by Wendy Delsol

  “Only the ones with whom I’ve survived drowning incidents and bear encounters.”

  It was comforting to know that he, too, could joke about our brushes with death, especially as neither one of us thought our ordeals were behind us. He kissed my eyelid. It fluttered as if about to take flight.

  “But about the cap,” he said.

  “What about it?”

  “Does it come in another color?”

  “Dodger blue, buddy. No other color.”

  He adjusted its fit. It was a definite improvement over the mesh John Deere cap.

  “Your turn,” he said, pulling a small round-shaped package from under the sled’s front seat.

  Unlike Jack, I knew how to open a gift properly. Within moments the shredded paper lay at my feet and I held a beautiful snow globe on a squat black base. The domed scene depicted a dark-haired boy and a blond girl in a red coat skating on a tree-lined rink.

  “How did you . . . ?” I asked with a catch in my voice. It was so eerily reminiscent of our fateful encounter: the winter day, five years ago, when Jack and I miraculously survived a skating accident. Even the red coat with white trim was accurate. “Did you have this made?”

  Jack shook his head no. “I found it in a box of my grandmother’s old Christmas decorations.”

  “But . . . it looks so much like . . .”

  “Turn it over,” he said.

  I upended the glass. A stamp on the bottom read “Gleðileg Jól 1946.”

  “Merry Christmas 1946,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  Before even our parents were born, our likenesses were entrapped in a snow globe.

  “Weird. Isn’t it?” I asked.

  “I don’t ask anymore. I just accept.”

  He had the right attitude. Certain aspects of our lives were almost too much to contemplate. I shook the globe. Snow fell, powdering the girl’s hair and shoulders and dusting the pine trees. “I did ask for a white Christmas. It’s perfect.”

  “That’s just part one of your gift,” he said, stretching out his arms.

  A light snow began to fall.

  “Hooray,” I said, cupping flakes in my joined palms. “My white Christmas.”

  It began to snow a little harder.

  I looked around, awestruck. “But how? Before, it only happened when you were mad, or jealous, or out of control in some way.”

  “I’ve been practicing,” he said.

  The flakes grew large and feathery. They clung to the horses’ hides and tails, and my lap blanket was soon coated with a thick band of white.

  “I can see that.” I scooted in for a kiss, something we’d been practicing together. It struck me that, like the proverbial snowflake, no two kisses were ever the same. This one was all the more special, given the holiday setting. And it had a delicious contrast between the cold air and the heat we were generating. The tips of our noses were chilly, but our hot breath and lips were smoldering. I shrugged my hands out of my gloves and walked them under his shirt and up his ribs. For one of the Winter People, his skin was always thermal. Nor would he ever have occasion to complain about my icy fingers. I sat on his lap. His groan, though not a complaint, was raw. Forget the Hallmark greeting card; we were now rifling through the pages of a Harlequin romance.

  I pulled away and leaned my head back. The snow was falling like confetti now; giant crystalline flakes clung to my eyelashes and wet my face. I was startled to see Jack with a cap of white hair, as if the intensity of our kiss had prematurely aged him. Looking around at the cloaked landscape and night falling as fast as the snow, I knew it was time to bring things down a notch.

  “Uh, Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  “This seems like an awful lot of snow.”

  “Huh?”

  “Maybe you should turn it off now.”

  “Crap!”

  “What?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “And?”

  “It’s not working.”

  I jumped off his lap. “Quit fooling around.”

  “I’m not.” His voice was tight.

  I could barely see my hand outstretched in front of my face. The wind howled like a wolf, hungry and irritable. We’d jumped books to Little House on the Prairie: the blizzard scene where Pa had to tie a rope to his waist so as not to get lost between the house and the barn.

  “We gotta go now,” Jack said. “Before it gets worse.”

  “It’s going to get worse?”

  “It could,” he said.

  “How are we going to see our way back?”

  Jack lightly switched the horses with the reins. “These girls know the way.”

  That didn’t help. Our welfare was in the hands of a couple of nags: one called Moonbeam and the other called Bubbles. Neither name, if you asked me, inspired much confidence. I’d have preferred a Saint Bernard named Hero.

  It was slow going. Even the horses shied their heads to the side with the winds whipping the snow every which way. Jack was quiet, which made me nervous. Every few minutes I could hear him muttering — cursing, technically — under his breath. And he was going to bust a lobe if he concentrated any harder on whatever it was he did to harness the weather.

  My cell phone was at Jack’s, in my purse, next to the front door, my “Stayin’ Alive” ringtone probably not sounding so cute and retro anymore.

  I could still see the outlines of trees on either side of the path, but barely. I wondered how the horses kept to the trail. As if sensing my concern, they came to an abrupt stop.

  “Shit,” Jack said with a lash of the reins. “Giddyap.”

  Nothing.

  He tried again. Bubbles, or at least I think it was Bubbles, neighed in complaint. A headwind barreled into me. My face hurt from the cold, and I burrowed farther into my collar. Though I, better than anyone, knew of his resistance to cold, I still shuddered with sympathy for Jack.

  “Hold the reins,” Jack finally said. “I’m going to have to guide them.”

  He jumped down from the sled, carrying one lantern with him and leaving the other next to me on the seat.

  The horses were in no mood and dug in their hooves obstinately. I could just make out Jack’s form through the squalling snow at first coaxing, and then pulling, until he was finally engaged in an all-out tug-of-war with the animals. He may have had determination, but they had brute strength and were not about to be led into an abyss through which they had no guideposts, no point of reference, nothing but a wall of swirling white. And then it came to me. They needed a corner. Not literally, of course, as that could put us into a ditch or thicket of trees. They needed what my mother had always given me when we did jigsaw puzzles together: a small, manageable start, an achievable goal.

  As cold as I was, I shrugged out of my white parka and then hastily took off my new red sweater. How, of all days, had both Jack and I managed to dress in white? And dang, it was cold. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. They formed words of their own volition. They even got a little mouthy and crass. Good thing Jack was out of hearing range. They cursed us both: me for coming up with the stupid idea, and him for listening.

  Coat back on and lantern and sweater in hand, I scrambled out of the sled. Fighting the driving snow, I made my way to where Jack struggled with the horses. I held the lantern and red sweater mere inches in front of one horse and then the other. I noticed they both lifted their heads slightly. Jack caught on and urged them forward toward the wagging sweater that, inch by inch, I pulled away from them. It was working. Evolution moved quicker, but at least it was progress, and who knows, maybe by the time we got back I’d have adapted for frostbite resistance, a mutation I supposed Jack already possessed. As things stood, I couldn’t feel my toes or the tip of my nose. As if sensing our clearheadedness, even the snow and winds relaxed a little.

  “It won’t let up for long,” Jack said. “But I think we can get back in the sleigh.”

  We settled back onto the wooden seat. I tucked a blanket
around my frozen toes.

  “Is it over?” I asked, lifting my mitted glove to catch flakes.

  “Not even close,” he said, switching Bubbles lightly. “We better hurry.”

  When we finally pulled into the barn, Jack’s parents rushed out with flashlights in hand.

  “Thank God you’re OK,” Alda said.

  “We’re fine.” Jack unhitched Moonbeam.

  Lars stepped in and tended to Bubbles. “You had us worried,” he said gruffly.

  “Kat’s mom called three times,” Alda said.

  “The storm just blew up so quickly.” Jack’s head dropped as he led Moonbeam into her stall. “We had a hard time with the team.”

  A howl of wind rattled the rafters of the old wooden structure. Jack’s parents were aware of his special immunity to the cold, but they were not aware of his weather-wielding abilities. His grandmother had thought it best to keep quiet about it, even to his parents. “For their protection,” had been her cryptic warning to Jack. And as much as I, too, kept my abilities from my parents, owing to a Stork oath, I, at least, had Hulda and my sister Storks for guidance and advice. Jack had no one except his grandmother and me. And neither of us was exactly a bucket of know-how. She had vague centuries-old legends of the special among the Veturfolk to offer. I had only a profound belief in our combined fates to comfort him.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Alda said. “It looks like it’s picking up again. We better get inside.”

  Eerily backlit by the fireplace, Jack’s amma sat at the family room’s picture window, entranced by the falling flakes. She had pulled up a straight-back chair and was munching from the popcorn bowl; a string of abandoned garland sat at her feet.

  “Powers are out. Powers are out,” she repeated.

  “Yes, Mom,” Lars said. “The phones are, too.”

  As much as I wanted to believe that she was talking about gas and electricity, she had said “powers”— plural. After the whole palm-reading thing, it had me wondering.

  It took several minutes, but Lars was finally able to coax her away from the window. We set up in front of the fireplace, where it had been decided we’d sleep. We listened to the radio until well after midnight. With the exception of Jack, we huddled in blankets and crowded the fire. Jack’s amma had the occasional outburst, but she soon settled. I hadn’t been able to get hold of my mom, and I was worried. Though I knew she was with Stanley and Afi, her fireplace was gas with an electric starter. Also, I doubted she had a crank or battery-operated radio like the Snjossons’.

  I watched Jack get up frequently, pace up and down the room, and stare out the window at the drifting snow, which continued to fall. By the sounds of their rhythmic breathing, I knew his family was asleep. Finally I got up, drew a blanket around me, and joined Jack at the window.

  “What exactly happened tonight?” I asked.

  “A big mistake.”

  “Was that all you?” I whispered.

  He nodded his head reluctantly. “Once I got it started, I couldn’t turn it off.”

  “I thought you’d been practicing.”

  “I thought I had, too. It’s just . . . There’s so many variables to consider. I practiced in the fall, when the preexisting air temperature wasn’t as cold. I didn’t factor in how quickly winter air masses would grab. I was always alone, too. You . . . I didn’t factor in you.” He was so gloomy it was material, gathering at his feet in a cloud of gray matter like Pig-Pen, Charlie Brown’s sidekick. I wanted to absolve him of his self-reproach, remind him that it had been my idea. By the set of his shoulders, I knew that now was not the time.

  On Christmas morning we woke to a ghostly white landscape. Snow lay in stiff peaks like a meringue topping. Tree trunks were buried, drifts crept up the side of the house and barns, and not a path or driveway was visible. The radio news made a big deal out of the fact that it was a snowstorm the likes of which hadn’t been seen in almost two hundred years. Over thirty-eight inches of snow were recorded in Duluth, topping the charts and breaking all records since 1819, the date Fort Snelling was settled and weather events first measured. Our local snowfall was even higher, with estimates coming in at over forty inches. The phone and power lines were still down, and flights in and out of Duluth and International Falls were grounded. Motorists were stranded, as were rescue crews. Plows had to dig out plows. The governor had declared a state of emergency, with damages expected to exceed fifty million dollars.

  But worse than all that — far, far worse — was the report of an accident. A car, carrying a family of three, had gone off a steep embankment, and a five-year-old boy had died. Hearing that was like a bullet to the chest.

  After that news, Jack retreated to his room, skulking off without looking at me. I knew why. Though he’d been too kind to say it out loud, it was all my fault.

  I went to the bathroom to cry in private. I collapsed onto the toilet, burying my face in my hands. I couldn’t believe how arrogant and irresponsible I’d been. I had a gift: the ability to deliver souls. I’d found my match: another being of special abilities. And what had been my reaction to such fortune? I’d coaxed Jack into using his powers recklessly. There, in the Snjossons’ half bath, wiping snot from my nose, I vowed somehow, some way, to make amends.

  On the morning of the twenty-sixth, once the roads were cleared, Jack drove me to Afi’s. Luckily, my mom and Stanley had been there when the storm hit. With my grandfather’s wood-burning fireplace and a big pile of wool blankets, they’d toughed it out much the same way we had.

  It was a quiet drive. Since the storm, something had come between us. We continued to hold hands and share kisses, but our guilt was there: the crowd-making third.

  We pulled up in front of the house and let ourselves in through the front door.

  My mom met us in the foyer and pulled me into a hug. “What a relief. So many reports are coming in about the storm — stranded motorists, accidents, and that poor little boy.”

  Jack exhaled a ragged breath. I noticed he turned away from me. Who could blame him?

  We moved into the kitchen, where Stanley joined us, taking my mom’s hand in his. “Glad to see you kids are OK. What a night. One we’ll never forget.” He turned to my mom. “Have you told them yet?”

  “Told us what?” My voice was tight. It had been a long two days.

  Stanley held up my mom’s left hand. Like me, she got rocks for Christmas. Only I’m sure hers didn’t come in a bag.

  “We’re engaged,” my mom said, wiggling the fingers of her left hand. The ring was a pear-shaped diamond.

  I hugged and congratulated them both, as did Jack.

  “We’re thinking of a Valentine’s wedding,” my mom said. “Just family and a few friends.”

  I nodded and listened to their plans, but couldn’t help feeling a hard smack of shame that we were talking weddings while another family was making funeral arrangements.

  Afi rattled into the kitchen with a blanket around his shoulders and a mug in his hand. He didn’t look so great.

  “Are you OK, Afi?” I asked.

  “Been better,” he said. His eyes were glassy, and his skin was bone-white and hung like a rumpled sheet around his eyes and over his cheekbones.

  My mom took the mug from him. “More tea, Dad?”

  He nodded a yes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Old,” he said.

  “Older than the last time I saw you?”

  Afi gave me a complete loop of his watery eyes. OK, so it wasn’t the smartest question ever. We all were — technically — but my point was it had only been a couple days, yet he had aged years.

  “We were cold at night, weren’t we, Dad?” My mom clicked a fire to life under the kettle. “But at least the gas and electricity are on now. You’ll sleep well tonight. Not everyone’s so lucky. Plenty of areas are still without power. Our place and Stanley’s, for instance.”

  Just as Stanley was about to comment, his cell phone ra
ng. He stepped into the living room to take the call.

  “What about the store?” I asked. “It should be open, shouldn’t it?”

  “It would have been closed yesterday, anyway,” my mom said. “I suppose people might be disappointed this morning. They’ll understand, though. The governor did declare a state of emergency.”

  “I’ll open it up,” I said. “People will need supplies.”

  “Aw, hon,” my mom said. “They could drive into Walden. The plows have been out.”

  “I want to,” I said.

  Stanley appeared under the arched doorway. “I just had the most extraordinary call. From Greenland, of all places.”

  “Greenland?” my mom said.

  “The Klarksberg Research Station. It’s famous for its studies in global warming.” Stanley paced back and forth, shaking his head like a wet dog, and holding his phone out like he next expected a call from the president or the pope. “The storm drew attention to the area. They found that research paper I wrote about our September microclimate of cold temperatures. That, and now this record snowfall, has them interested.”

  Uh-oh.

  “They’re sending someone here immediately to do fieldwork. They want me to collaborate.”

  “That’s good news, right?” my mom asked.

  Jack and I exchanged looks.

  “Fantastic news,” Stanley countered. “It’s international recognition of my work and Walden’s Climate Studies program.”

  “What exactly is it you study?” Jack asked Stanley.

  “There are billions of tons of methane, the byproduct of decaying ancient arctic plant life, trapped below the permafrost. Based on the rate of climate change, I’ve created a model to predict the compound effect this methane will have on global warming.”

  As much as I knew Stanley was into his work, I still got the yawns every time he went all pocket-protector on us.

  “It sounds fascinating,” Jack said.

  Huh?

  “It is,” Stanley said. “You know, there’ll be plenty to do with the researcher coming so soon. And with everyone gone on break, I could use some help. If you wanted to come by the lab, you’d be more than welcome.”