by Blair Drake
She’d called Vancouver Island home all her life. With nannies and babysitters and boarding schools all over the world as a poor substitute for a family life. So being alone here was no different. Although, here she was alone alone. And that was terrifying.
That something weird just happened was a given. But the weird event being dark, dangerous, and terrifying was way worse. She tried again, “Anyone out there? Please, can you help me?”
There was no answer. Not verbally anyway. She could have sworn she saw an arrow drawn in the snow, pointing in the general direction of where she landed on this godforsaken iceberg, but the windblown snow quickly covered it up. “Or you are losing your mind, Melissa.” Thankfully, her landing spot remained evident, despite the wind, given her full-body impact marred the otherwise pristine white landscape here.
She sifted through her pockets, looking for something solid to ground her, to hold, to focus on, to distract her—her cell phone—but her fingers wrapped around another item in her pocket first. The school pin Headmistress Hettie gave each of them. She stared at hers, watching a bright lavender glow pulse from deep inside. The color was mesmerizing. It’s as if she’d never seen it before. And she’d studied hers a lot, but it had always been a flat gold color.
She used to stroke it, like a good luck charm, a comfort. Her life was so lonely and boring that getting accepted into this special school was borne of luck. The pin was proof. It made her feel special.
Still, her pin was the same as everyone else’s.
Until now. Or had it been switched out for a new one? Hers presently held a glowing circle. Too bad the light didn’t produce heat. The cold was diving deeper and deeper into her bones. And the wind was picking up…
“What the hell am I going to do?” Still, she held on to the talisman like a lifeline, refusing to let go of something that held special meaning for her. She found herself stroking the pin and didn’t even try to stop her nervous movements.
She didn’t know exactly where she was, just that she was nowhere close to home. There didn’t appear to be any sign of civilization in any direction. It’s as if the blast sent her into some weird dimensional thing, but stuff like that just didn’t happen. And why would she end up here? Was anyone looking for her? What about the other students up on the roof with Melissa? Where were they? Was everyone lost? OMG. Annalise?
Annalise was the youngest of them all. She’d skipped an earlier grade, arrived at the school younger than the other students. Often, older kids coming from other countries, needing to acclimatize to the language of the system, either failed or took a little longer to pass their exams. Yet, in this case, Annalise jumped right in and had done well with grades. Only she hadn’t adapted to the school climate easily. That’s how she and Melissa became such good friends.
This wasn’t just about Annalise and Melissa now. She rubbed her forehead, wishing she was back at school. Everything happened so fast; it was just a blur. She saw the headmaster and headmistress performing some kind of chant. Were they protecting everyone, or were they the ones who started this nightmare?
Melissa frowned. “That would be so like you two. Headmaster, you can be such a shit, and Hettie, you evade our questions at times. I wish you would treat us as adults and just be honest with us.” Instantly, Melissa felt bad.
The headmaster was a good man. He often helped Melissa with calculus. Why anybody would need calculus in the first place, she didn’t know. Why it existed was beyond her. Calculus made no sense to her, but the headmaster was very good at sitting down and helping her work through the different logarithms.
Headmistress Hettie, on the other hand, was really lovely. All the students gravitated toward her. She was like an eternal mother with a good heart. Melissa had to believe, if Hettie didn’t share certain things with the students, she had a good reason not to. Like protecting the students, letting them enjoy their time at the school. After all, enough stressors were involved in attending any school. Why add more to the students’ load?
Although Melissa had to admit Hettie looked very tired lately, as if worried about something—with good reason apparently.
Melissa couldn’t figure out how she wasn’t fatally hurt. If there was an explosion powerful enough to land her here, then it should’ve killed her. She immediately checked to see how she felt physically. She was bruised, and in shock, but whole.
There had to be another explanation, but nothing made sense. Her mind immediately jumped forward to the glowing talisman pin and Hettie’s evident worry. Did the headmistress know this would happen?
Even if she had, it wouldn’t help Melissa’s situation right now. Melissa stared at her lit talisman, flipping it over to study the backside. Other than the new lavender light, it was the same old school pin from before.
Yet, being here only a few minutes, she was already raw with the cold. Dying wasn’t on her bucket list—at least not for a long time.
With great effort, she flapped her arms to warm up as she turned in a small circle. This was unbelievable. She held out the glowing talisman in her hand and wondered, Was it magic? It sounded ridiculous even considering the possibility. But, although far-fetched, it would make some sense of her sudden trip to the North Pole. Taking a chance, she said, “Abracadabra.”
Nothing happened. She snorted. “Well, what did you expect?”
She pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and turned it on. When her screen came on, she had no cell signal. She swiped through her contacts, found Annalise’s number, thumbed the keys, and immediately sent a message. The little round pending icon thing kept turning and turning and turning. Still, it would send her text when she came into range.
Or not—when her phone lost all its power. And, if her talisman wasn’t magic, was it also battery-powered, like her phone? Meaning, it would not even light up soon? I so should have bought that solar charger from Amazon.
“I need the instruction manual for the school pin if it does anything besides light up,” she yelled into the barren snowcapped wilderness.
She stood on the top of the small plateau, studying the desolate area. Cliffs ranged high behind her in the distance. Were cell towers anywhere around here? None she could see…
With that thought, she checked her cell again, still attempting to send her message to Annalise. Her bars were nonexistent, and her power less than half. Not good. She’d have to do things the old-fashioned way.
How the hell had she gotten here? Was she really at the end of the earth? And that was another disturbing thing—there were no footprints. So she hadn’t been carried here, nor had she walked. She closed her eyes. Clenching her fists, she whispered, “Please let me wake up from this nightmare at home, where I belong.”
She opened her eyes hopefully. Only to see snowflakes drifting her way from above. She tilted her head to the sky. “Really?”
More snowflakes fell around her. This nightmare just kept getting worse.
“Hettie, can you hear me?”
No answer.
This must have something to do with the talisman. Although why she called it that, she didn’t know. It was a school pin. No, it wasn’t. The school pin didn’t have a purple glowing center.
Did anyone else’s?
Her mind glommed onto the word talisman. She liked it. It gave her hope. She turned her school pin around in her hand, studying it intently. Although she had looked at it many times before, she’d never really seen it. The initials of the school were on the top of its face.
Instantly, images flooded her mind—memories, snippets of conversation. There were rumors about a missing student. Melissa thought it was just people talking. But, as she glanced around, she had to wonder if she would end up the same way. She muttered out loud, “Don’t even start thinking like that, Melissa. That’s just a one-way street into nowhere.” Kind of like this trip she’d just taken.
As soon as she thought that, bright lavender lights in a clock face style circle lit up the edge of the talisman. She stare
d at it for a long moment, then ran her fingers over the bright ring to see if it would change. Maybe a genie would appear to help her out, but nothing happened. It was pretty but useless. She glared around her and yelled, “Pretty doesn’t cut it, guys. What am I supposed to do with this thing?”
A voice whispered through her head, “You know what to do with it.”
She froze, her breath caught her in her throat. “Who said that?” She spun around, but no one was here. “Show yourself!”
Nothing happened.
“Don’t go crazy on me now, Melissa,” she said to herself. She bowed her head and struggled to get her thoughts together. The school taught meditation classes to help deal with the stress of exams and being away from their families—or the stress of going home to families.
She didn’t have much of a family life, but she didn’t let anyone know that. She never let anyone know how her quest for a happy home life bothered her. Since Luke moved on without her, she’d been more than lost...and more aloof. The two of them had been an item, and for her, he’d been the only one. Except she hadn’t heard from him since his graduation. It was horrible.
Every day she kept expecting to see him, expecting to hear from him.
And never did.
That abandonment had been complete, surgically quick, and without explanation. Even now she felt the loss whispering through her soul. If he was out there, would he know what happened to her? Would he care? So many things in her life she wished she could change. He was the one bright light that kept her going, and she had no idea what she did to make him cut her out of his life like that—to hate her so much.
Despite Luke’s silent departure, she loved being at the school—knowing she belonged to something special, that she made it into something so much more than she thought she deserved, that an exciting future was out there for her.
And none of that helped her right now. She sat with a thud. And pulled her knees to her chest, burrowing her face in her arms. She wouldn’t last much longer. Not in these temperatures.
Still, she was alive and that surprised her. This cold was brutal. She could still feel her fingers and her toes. As she pondered that, she wondered, as cold as she was… she wasn’t numb. Hypothermia hadn’t set in. She wasn’t dying… at least not yet.
Hearing a tiny scratching sound beside her, she leaned over and scooped away some of the snow. A small arctic mouse stared at her, its nose twitching as if figuring out what she was.
With a delighted gasp, she whispered, “Hey, little one. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
In an odd movement, it stretched up, its huge eyes studying her.
She chuckled, afraid to move too fast and scare it off. As it was the only animal she’d seen, and it was alive, she welcomed his presence.
He wasn’t terrified of her and clambered over the snow to see her closer.
She lowered her hand to the side so he could sniff her. Her smile widened at the sight of his whiskers going crazy, but the mouse kept getting closer.
“Are you hungry?” she asked instinctively. Yet, she didn’t think she had any food in her pockets. She turned her pockets out, looking for something, but found nothing edible, not even a mouse-size snack.
Terrified of scaring the little one away, she continued to talk to him in a low, crooning voice. She’d never get this close to a mouse in her world. She was surprised to see this guy in such an inhospitable place as this. “How do you survive, buddy?”
The little she knew about mice said they burrowed under the snow all winter. With her luck, she’d sat on his tunnels and collapsed them.
The mouse stretched out a paw and placed it on her finger. She caught her breath and waited.
A second paw landed beside the first. She grinned when the mouse hopped up on her hand, totally unconcerned she might be a danger to him.
Too bad no one witnessed this. She was too scared to pull out her cell phone for a quick photo in case she disturbed the little guy.
“I’m going to call you Winter,” she whispered.
The mouse didn’t seem to mind. He sniffed her jacket, then wandered up her arm.
She stared, transfixed. For all the shittiness of her situation, this little guy was a light in her otherwise dark world.
Still, if the mouse was here, maybe someone else was here too. But, if she yelled right now, the mouse might take off.
She closed her eyes and whispered, “Anyone there?”
And got the shock of her life.
A voice inside her head said, “I’ve always been here.”
She struggled to recognize the voice. She thought the speaker was male, but the words were distorted and distant, so she couldn’t be sure. She kept an eye on the mouse sitting on her sleeve. He worked his way up to her shoulder, his nose and whiskers wrinkled at every step. She had to admit she wondered if the mouse had talked. “Who are you?”
“Somebody who loves you very much.” The voice spoke inside her head again.
Her mind struggled to identify the speaker who had no trouble making such a bald-faced lie. With the cold her thoughts were sluggish, her mind fogging up. Surely that voice was her imagination. No one cared about her—she wasn’t sure anyone ever had. “Can you get me out of here?” she asked hopefully. “Help me go home?”
Silence was her answer.
She frowned. “Is this a trick?”
The voice was sad, heavy. “No, it’s not a trick. I’m sorry to see you so distrusting.”
“How can I not be? Look where I am. I have no idea how this came to pass or who did this to me.” She shook her head, momentarily forgetting about the mouse. “Am I really here, in the middle of some kind of winter wonderland, all alone?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t even have a proper coat for this weather. Am I going to die here?” Melissa asked, wiping the tears burning the corners of her eyes. “Can’t you help me?”
“I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”
“Why are you then?” she asked in frustration, more tears burning, clogging her throat. “It’s despicable to torture me like this.”
“I tried to talk to you many times, but a wall was always between us. Right now the wall is thin, like crepe paper,” the voice said in exasperation. “So I tried again. This time I got through.”
“Can you tell me who you are?”
The voice paused, then said in a low tone, “No, I can’t.”
“Then what can you tell me?” she asked, trying not to cry. But the wind and cold were stealing her spirit. Until she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. The mouse had crawled up to her shoulder, where it settled down in the crook of her neck. She couldn’t see it tucked in there, but she could feel it. Her spirit warmed from the inside, along with her heart.
“I’m allowed to tell you that you have to get back on your own. Time is running out. A clock started ticking from the moment you landed. Your life force is also disappearing.”
Her head jerked up at that. “What do you mean, my life force? Like my health? Do I have a disease? Have I been shot or something? What are you talking about?”
“Your talisman.”
“Talisman? Is that what this is? I wondered. It’s my school pin but…different. Somehow it transformed on whatever weird trip I took to this place,” she said, slowly trying to figure this out. She stared at the talisman in her hand. “Is that what the ring of lights on the outside means?”
“Yes. When those run out, you will not have enough energy to get back again.”
“So it is possible to get back again?” Her mind locked on to the one thing she could handle.
“Yes, definitely. That’s what this is all about. You’re on a quest to learn what you can do, what talents you might have, but you have to start moving fast.”
Instantly, she scrambled to her feet, only to freeze at the startled squeak from her new friend. She reached up a hand to stroke the mouse gently, amazed it was still here with her. It was a least
used to the terrain whereas she was starting to shake violently as the wind whipped her face and body. Hunched against the cold, and trying to move carefully, she took several steps forward. Her mind caught on two words. Quest? Talents? “I’m happy to move. Just tell me where to go.”
“I can’t.”
Frustrated and angry, and terrified she would lose the voice in her head, she rushed to say, “Can you tell me whether to go up or down?”
“I have to go now. I’ll try to contact you later.”
“Wait,” Melissa cried out, “Can you give me a hint? Something? I’ll freeze to death soon.” Even as the words leave her mouth, her teeth start to chatter.
Just as the voice disappeared from her mind, it let out a sigh and whispered, “Think of a portal.” And then the voice was gone.
Chapter 2
“Portal?”
Melissa slowly looked around the white glare of the snow. The stormy winds had died down, and the sun shone through, making everything brighter and overly white. Easing back slightly, she glanced at the sky to see a large cloud moving in front of the sun. It was so cold the sun wasn’t even melting the snowpack. But, as soon as it went behind the cloud, she would get much colder. Plus, the sun was already setting, so night would approach quickly. She walked to the place where she woke up and studied it. There was no sign of a portal. Her footprints didn’t appear to be standing on anything mechanical. The snow wasn’t disturbed other than the spot where she’d brushed away the snow for Winter.
She just didn’t get it. “How did I arrive here?” she called out to the voice in her head. “How about a second hint? Any answers to the million questions in my head?”
She detected a light laugh in her head. She smiled. The voice hadn’t left her after all. Something was almost familiar about the voice. The only person she could think of who cared about her was the headmistress, Hettie. Melissa had a special bond with her, but then a lot of girls felt the same way as Melissa did. Hettie was a bright spot at the school.
