Free WINTER WONDERLAND by Belinda Jones

myself, trying to push away these thoughts that plague me. Why couldn’t I have a baby? If I had been able to, then Andrew wouldn’t have left me. I’m still a little in shock that he did that. Though I could sense the change in the way he looked at me almost straightaway – as though I no longer had that mystical other dimension to me. I was not physically capable of bringing a new being into the world. What you see is what you get. End of the line. And it’s not enough. Not for him. And not for me.
    The driver says something to me in French. It probably isn’t, ‘ Don’t think like that, you have so much to offer! ’ but I pretend it is.
    He continues for less than a mile and then slows, turns the car around, inhales as if to muster his nerve, revs the engine and roars up a snowy slope.
    ‘Oh my!’ This is quite an incline, I think, as we claw our way up the unpaved track: it could certainly double as a ski slope on the way down.
    ‘You have very good tyres!’ I comment.
    ‘I am a very good driver,’ he corrects me.
    ‘Yes you are.’
    And I appreciate the extra adrenalin boost.
    For a while I can’t see anything but snow, but then we mount the brow of the hill and I spy a barn, a couple of boxy buildings and one idyllic stone farmhouse, which we stop beside.
    ‘What does that mean?’ I ask, pointing to a sign bearing the word ‘ ACCUEIL ’.
    ‘Welcome. Or Reception,’ he shrugs. ‘It’s where you need to go.’
    His radio crackles with a message.
    ‘You want to stay here?’ he asks.
    ‘Um … ’
    Is it wise to be stranding myself in this way? I look around for further signs of life and see a man in bright blue doing a backflip out of the top floor of the barn.
    My jaw drops. ‘Did you see that?’ I lurch to the window.
    ‘Did I see … ?’
    ‘A man just … ’ I stop. I must surely be seeing things. The barn has to be twenty feet high. Perhaps it was a bird or a piece of rubbish caught on the wind – some kind of peripheral vision illusion.
    ‘Madame?’
    ‘ Oui ?’
    ‘Tu reste ici?’
    It’s then I catch a glimpse of Jacques leading a group down a pathway and my heart-leap dares me to say, ‘Yes, yes, it’s fine. Merci! ’
    I hurriedly pay the fare and then inch over to the dark red front door of the farmhouse. Before I lift the latch, I hesitate, unsure of quite what I might be walking into.
    Then again, what’s the alternative? Standing here until I become a porch-side ice sculpture? In I go!
    I step down into a large room lined with cold-weather gear, all clompy boots and bulky jackets, and a vast flagstone hearth housing the kind of fire that makes your face glow yellow and your cheeks flush if you so much as look at it.
    ‘ Bonjour! Comment est-ce que je peux vous aider? ’
    I look to my left and see a petite girl with a headful of springy curls, partially restrained by a fleece beanie, sitting at a large old wooden desk.
    ‘Er, English?’ I prompt.
    ‘You are here for the three p.m. ride?’
    ‘Possibly … ’ I hedge my bets.
    She looks confused. ‘You have a reservation?’
    ‘I don’t. Actually, I was hoping to speak with Jacques … ’
    ‘He is about to leave with the group.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘You can join?’
    ‘You mean go dog-sledding?’
    She looks ever more puzzled. ‘That is what we do here.’
    ‘Like now ?’
    She nods. ‘It is fifty dollars for an hour.’
    I picture myself swathed in cashmere blankets as Jacques stands behind me, swooshing us through the sparkling snow and into the sunset.
    ‘I’ll do it!’ I say, scrabbling for my purse.
    ‘Sebastien! Tu es libre? ’ She addresses the lean young man who has just skulked in. He is wearing kingfisher blue, just like my phantom back-flipper.
    He concedes a grunt, letting me know that I have just stolen his break.
    ‘He will take you.’
    I hope she means up to meet Jacques. As lovely as I’m sure the Wolfman’s rear view is, I don’t particularly want to be staring at it for the next