But she couldn’t even do the “crawl into bed” part. Her mom had left Christmas decorations all over it.
Katie sighed and looked over the decorations. The little wooden nativity had always been her favorite. She’d spent hours playing with it, telling herself the story of the tired mother and the small, new baby she loved more than anything.
“I will never leave you,” her Mary had whispered to the little bundle in the manger. “Not ever. Not for anything.”
But the story was too painful for Katie to tell this year. The whole point of Christmas was a birth story that millions of people had already known for thousands of years. This is important, all the songs and stories and symbols repeated. The thing that matters is how and where you were born.
But what if you didn’t know? What if you could never know?
There was a soft knock on her door, and Katie brushed the tears from her eyes.
“I’m still upset,” she warned. “You’d better not come in.”
After a long pause, a little voice came from the hall. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Mikey?
Katie opened the door, and there he stood, smiling at her shyly like he was actually happy to see her.
“Sorry,” Katie said. “I’m not upset at you. I thought you were someone else.” She looked behind him, but Ana wasn’t there.
“I’m just me,” Mikey said. He held out the purple pants, all bunched up. “These are for you. Sorry I spilled.”
“It’s okay.” The whole thing seemed like it had happened last week.
Mikey stepped forward and hugged Katie hard around the waist. “We’re fixing everything. Don’t worry. Oh, and here.” He pulled up his sleeve and handed Katie the other half of the best friend bracelet. “This is from Ana. I hope that makes it better. It’s really pretty.” Then he scrambled down the stairs and out of sight, and Katie was alone again.
Good, she thought, slipping the bracelet around her wrist and snapping the two halves back together. Now I have them both again.
But it didn’t feel good. Not at all. Katie stared out the window and into the dull gray haze of the sky. She was sick to death of snow. How had it ever seemed magical when it was just cold and dirty? None of it was beautiful, not even the snowflakes. Especially not the snowflakes.
One by one, Katie ripped the paper snowflakes from the window. So crooked, so ugly. Why had she ever thought they were good enough? After the last one had been torn down, Katie stared at the bracelets and realized they were crooked and ugly too. She took hers off and fit the two halves together, then threw them onto the bed. She had wanted them both so badly, and now she’d gotten exactly what she deserved.
Katie wouldn’t let herself look over at the nativity figures on her nightstand, but she couldn’t block the image from her mind. The mother, and the newborn baby she adored. The perfection of it tore her apart.
Katie didn’t go down for dinner, even though the smell of stroganoff made her belly ache. When her dad brought a plate up, Katie nodded and thanked him but kept staring out the window.
“Your mom told me what happened. I suppose you’re still in trouble,” he said. “But whatever is going on with you, we can fix it.”
Katie thought of the forged permission slip, the torn-up snowflakes, and the blank space in the attic where the box had been. Of the last link of the Thankful Chain and all the trouble it would cause—but how impossible it would be not to say those words after all this time.
“No,” she said softly, telling herself not to cry. “I don’t think it can be fixed.”
Katie’s dad kissed the top of her head, just above the gash. “Tell me when you’re ready to talk about it.”
I’m ready now, she thought. Please stay. But she couldn’t make herself ask. Why had it been so much easier to speak when she was angry? She struggled to find any words that might keep him there a little longer.
“What happens at the end of The Snow Child?”
Katie’s dad straightened his sweater. “Well, there are lots of different endings. My favorite is the one where she learns she’s the granddaughter of the Russian Santa Claus and joins him in the frozen North.”
It wasn’t a terrible ending, but if that was his favorite, the others must be worse. “Does she stay with her parents in any of the stories?”
His eyes grew sad, but he only hesitated a moment. “She does in mine.”
Katie told herself to look up the ending of the story the next morning, but she found she didn’t want to know. She tried to tell herself she didn’t need anybody, but the truth seemed to be that nobody needed her. She was the kind of kid you could do without. All week, the world went on as Katie disappeared, little by little, from her own life.
She woke up later and went to sleep earlier.
She ate a little less with every meal.
Ms. Decker didn’t even notice that Katie never raised her hand or spoke a single word.
Ana never waited; she just hurried Mikey home after school. No candles shone in either of the girls’ windows anymore.
Katie’s mom spent more and more time in the little study at the back of the house, and her dad began to join her there. They never once asked Katie if she’d taken her medication. Not even Katie noticed her own heartbeat much anymore.
As the Thankful Chains grew shorter, they seemed to be counting down the days until Katie vanished completely.
Ana
Chapter 18
ANA’S HEART POUNDED as Jarek sat thrashing in the half-frozen pond. “Next time, it’ll be worse,” she yelled. “Don’t even test me. Mikey is the best kid that ever lived, and you don’t get to tell him there’s one single thing wrong with him.”
A stream of Russian cursing came toward them. Ana squinted into the sunlight as she turned to face Babushka, but Babushka marched right past her and straight into the pond. She picked Jarek up by the armpits, then spun him to face her.
“It is too cold for swimming,” she said in a low, dangerous voice. “How stupid of you to fall in.”
Ana ran back over to Mikey, but she couldn’t stop staring at Babushka in the water with Jarek.
“I didn’t fall!” Jarek pointed at Ana. “That ugly freak pushed me.”
Babushka grabbed Jarek by the shoulders, his coat giving way like bread dough under her strong fingers. “Careful,” she warned, “or you may fall in again.” With that, she swung his shoulders toward the shore, and he stumbled out of the pond and onto the snow.
Babushka stood there, still knee-deep in the icy water, her long skirt pooling around her. She pointed and glared at each of the boys in turn. “You would all be wise to listen. Terrible things happen to terrible children, and the witch will be watching.”
The boys gaped at each other, then took off running as Babushka stood there and cackled. Something inside Ana seemed to melt as she gawked at her grandma.
“That was amazing,” she said.
“Of course,” Babushka said. “Now pull me out. We will talk about your punishment when I can feel my feet again.”
Ana steadied Babushka as she lurched out of the pond. They gathered Mikey and trudged up the hillside together in silence.
Inside, Ana shed her coat and shoes and headed upstairs for dry socks. But Mikey was already up there, staring at their mom’s door.
“I wanted to tell her,” he said. “But I think it’s a bad day.”
Ana couldn’t argue with that. This had to be the worst day of her life.
No, she remembered. There was a worse one last summer.
But at least there had been three of them then. At least they had been able to curl up in their mom’s bed and all cry together. She listened at the doorway, hoping for any sound she could use as an excuse to go inside.
Nothing. The room might have been empty, or her mom might have been in there. On the bad days, it didn’t make much of a difference.
Ana put an arm around Mikey’s shoulders and gently guided him toward her room. “You can talk to me instead.” She tried
to think of a good distraction. “Who are the Flyers playing today?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t check.” Mikey panicked. “They need my good luck. Where are my marbles?”
“Hey, it’s okay, Mikey. You go find them, and I’ll check the schedule.”
Ana meant to look, but a headline on the Flyers’ website knocked the breath right out of her.
Two for One Trade: Flyers Gain Draft Picks, Petrov Leaves for Detroit
He was playing for the Red Wings now. He’d asked for a trade again, but this time, he hadn’t even told them.
He’d been gone for months. So how did this feel like him leaving all over again?
With a sick shock, Ana realized what this meant for the plan she’d been too busy to keep planning. The Flyers were playing in the Winter Classic, not the Red Wings. The Red Wings only played in Boston a few times a year. Ana clicked over to the Bruins’ schedule and bit her lip as she waited for it to load.
This Friday.
The Red Wings were coming to town just four days from now. After that, they wouldn’t be back again for another month.
Ana paced the room. She’d thought there would be more time. She hadn’t figured out any of the details yet, like how they’d get to the game or what, exactly, they’d do when they got there.
And now she only had four days.
Mikey came back, clacking his marbles together. “Who are they playing, Ana?”
“Detroit.”
Mikey frowned. “Are you sure? I thought . . .”
“Detroit, buddy. He plays for Detroit now.” She tapped her fingers against the tablet, not sure what to do next.
But then she knew. “Hey, Mikey? I need you to go get your paper chain.”
Mikey ran to his room and came back with his paper chain and about a hundred questions. To answer him, Ana just ripped off the last ten links they’d added and drew a family of stick figures on the new last link.
“You had it right before, Mikey. We never needed those other links. This is the day we get Dad back.” Ana said a prayer and floated a wish toward the puck, hoping for any help she could get. Go big or go home. Except “home” was exactly what she had to fix.
Go big, then. She had to believe in herself again, for all of their sakes.
“This is the day everything goes back to better.”
All week, Ana planned and practiced, and Mikey even stayed out of her way.
On Tuesday, Ana counted up the money her dad had given her for every goal she’d scored last season. They’d never had to pay for tickets before, but according to the website, she had enough. (And according to the website, she never could have afforded the Winter Classic anyway. It was destiny for sure.)
Next, Ana dug through boxes in the basement. Finding her dad at the regular arena would make things a lot easier, because she’d grown up there—and because of Bruins Giving Back. Thanks to Markov and his youth-groups-at-home-games organization, she had a way to get past security and find her dad.
Ana rummaged around until she found a box with special Bruins jerseys that were just the right sizes. Okay, the jerseys wouldn’t get them into the visitors’ locker room, but they’d get them a whole lot closer than any plan she’d had for the Winter Classic. Ana could improvise the rest when they got there.
On Wednesday, Ana brought her picture-frame project home from school. She’d seen a box of old photos the day before, and she spent the afternoon hiding in the basement and looking through them, trying to find the perfect one to go in her frame.
Hockey team photos—hers and her dad’s.
Formal family portraits where they all looked a little uncomfortable.
School pictures where she looked ridiculous. She really should let somebody fix her hair, at least once a year.
Ana searched for something better. Didn’t anybody ever print the good ones? Or were they all lost on a cell phone or stuck in a computer somewhere? Ana didn’t dare ask her mom.
But then, at the bottom of the box, Ana found an old photograph of all four of them at the Bruins’ family carnival. Mikey held a paper cone of pink cotton candy, bigger than his head. He grinned up at Ana, and the rest of them smiled down at him like he’d just won the Stanley Cup. Nobody even looked at the camera because they were just so happy to be with each other.
That was the one. Ana fixed it into the frame.
On Thursday, Ana told Babushka she had a homework project to do at Katie’s, then practiced the long walk to the T station and bought plenty of tickets. She even rode two stops toward downtown before she decided she’d gone far enough and turned around.
As the T rattled down the tracks and back toward home, Ana tried to work out what she’d say to her dad. Sure, she hoped he’d spot them in the crowd and pull them into his strong arms and none of them would have to say anything at all. But she’d better think of exactly the right words, just in case. The trouble was, she might only have a few seconds. How was she supposed to fix it all in only a few seconds?
On Friday, she realized how. She needed Katie. Katie, who always knew the right thing to say. Who had found a way to connect with Ana’s mom, maybe the first time they’d ever spoken. Who had eased Mikey’s fears by listening to him instead of trying to get rid of them with a magic puck. Who had used nothing but kind, hopeful words to make Ana feel like things could be okay a hundred times since they’d met. She almost reached for a candle right then to give the signal—not just because of the mission, but because she realized how much she missed her friend.
Ana still couldn’t stay mad, and she hadn’t really been mad at Katie for days. She’d just been too busy planning. Since Katie had never believed in the plan, it hadn’t occurred to Ana to have her be part of it.
But now, Katie seemed like the missing piece. The link that would hold all this together. Ana turned that thought over in her mind as she emptied her coat pockets. The arena didn’t allow anybody to bring bags and Ana didn’t own a purse, so they couldn’t take much. And they had to be ready to leave as soon as it got dark.
The puck went in her coat pocket first, then the extra T tickets Ana had bought and every single dollar she had. If they needed much else, it would have to go in Mikey’s coat pockets, which were probably stuffed with junk already.
Sure enough, Mikey’s right pocket was loaded with candy wrappers and rubber bands and crusty, wadded-up tissues. Because of that, Ana was extra careful when she reached into the left one. But when she closed her fingers around two small circles, Ana almost swore.
Babushka’s pocket watch, and another one just like it.
Katie’s.
A wave of sickness washed over Ana. Katie had been telling the truth all along.
But even if she hadn’t, even if she hadn’t, how could Ana have let their friendship fall apart over a watch and a little lie? Especially considering how many lies Ana had told in the last few days. What kind of friend was she?
The kind who fixes things. If she could fix her family—and in spite of everything, she believed again that she could—then she could fix this. Maybe she could fix it all today.
She just had to apologize and give back the watch.
Katie would forgive her. Katie would know what to say. Katie would make it all work out. Ana didn’t just believe in herself, but in her friend too.
Ana shoved everything they’d need into the pockets. There wasn’t room to take the family picture, and suddenly, Ana realized it wasn’t her dad who needed it. He’d have the real thing right there. So, ugly as it was, she left the frame she’d made on her mom’s nightstand. Half the papers had come uncurled, but at least it had that great picture inside. There were glops of glue showing, but at least it showed how hard Ana was trying to do things right. At least they were all in this together tonight, in some small way.
She grabbed Mikey and snuck to the back door.
“Is it time?” he whispered. He slid his arms into the coat, but not before Ana noticed he’d slipped the very last link of the chain arou
nd his wrist like a bracelet.
“It’s time,” Ana said. “Actually, we’re a little ahead of schedule, but we need to make one extra stop.”
Ana and Mikey stole into the darkness and planted themselves outside Katie’s house.
“Why can’t we just go inside?” Mikey asked.
“Because I messed it up,” Ana said. “And so did you.” Ana held out the watches. “Mikey, whichever one is hers, you’ve got to give it back.”
Mikey’s face fell. “But they’re a pair.”
Ana hugged him close. “Not all pairs get to be together, buddy. Not all the time.” She shivered, telling herself it wasn’t a sign of what would happen tonight. It couldn’t be.
“Come on,” she said. Outside Katie’s house, Ana scraped some frozen-together gravel from beside the sidewalk. She climbed the snow banked against Katie’s fence. “Let’s get my best friend back.”
One by one, Ana threw the tiny stones at the dark rectangle of Katie’s window, praying it wasn’t too late.
Katie
Chapter 19
THE PEBBLES STRUCK Katie’s windowpane one after another.
Tink.
Tunk.
Each time a stone collided with the glass, a shimmer of sound waves rippled from the spot, weaving through her room and off her bare, dark walls. Finally, enough of these invisible waves found their way into Katie’s ears to pull her from her shallow, dreamless sleep.
She opened her eyes, but she didn’t turn on the lights. Now that she’d finally settled into being alone, it seemed like so much work to live any other way. Maybe whoever it was would just give up and go away.
But they didn’t. The pebbles continued to strike the glass. Katie dragged herself from her bed and knelt on the window seat, straining to see who had woken her. The window itself had frozen shut, but with a great jerk, it groaned and swung, nearly sending her tumbling to the ground.
The latch had scraped Katie’s hand, which at least made her feel something. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth as she looked down toward the yard.
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