Free Snow Angel by Chantilly White

against the headrest, her iPod turned up loud enough to block out the noise of the last-minute preparations for leaving.
    Brisk desert air flowed over her with the opening of the driver’s side door, sending another shiver up her spine. She burrowed more deeply inside her blanket. The scent of sagebrush came in with the cold, fresh and clean.
    Her cousin Danny, who was driving, climbed in beside her and turned on the engine to get the heater going. The oldest of the Carlisle boys, he was a natural leader and the most serious of the three. Or at least he seemed that way until people got to know his goofy side. He was studying to become a lawyer like his mother, and like Aunt Pat, he would make an excellent attorney someday.
    Melinda peeled one eyelid up enough to peek at him, disgusted to find him looking rested and ready to go. It was five-freaking-a.m. The man was a machine.
    “Morning, Princess,” Danny said, patting her heartily on the knee through the layers she’d piled up.
    She grunted at him and shoved his hand away, making him laugh.
    “Nice to see you, too,” he said.
    “Shut up, Daniel,” she said, her voice gravelly.
    “Yes, Your Highness.”
    “Peasant.”
    Melinda turned her face to the window, shutting him out. The rest of the guys traveling in their car—Jacob, Christian, Gabe, and Wendell—climbed in back.
    “Kumquat,” Jacob said to her by way of morning greeting, patting her gently on top of her beanied cap as he plunked himself in the seat directly behind hers.
    “Celery stalk,” she answered, not opening her eyes. At least he sounded properly raspy and tired, as any normal human should so early in the morning.
    Loud rustling filled the vehicle as the guys shifted around. Finally they settled and, from the sounds of it, went instantly back to sleep.
    Her dad, who’d brought her the hot cocoa and a bear hug when she got in the SUV, would drive the lead car, along with her mother and Jacob’s parents, Bill and Lois. The rear vehicle contained Aunt Pat and Uncle Allan, Nancy and Peter Thomas, along with their son, Eddie, and her cousin Rick.
    Pulling out of the driveway, only twenty minutes late, they drove single-file over the bridge spanning the dry bed of the Mojave River. Skirting downtown Pasodoro, with its 1950s movie-set perfection, they passed the small cemetery where Seth was buried, then traveled along neighboring Hesperia’s nearly empty Main Street through the cold, misty-gray morning air.
    They only had to turn back once to make sure Stan had locked the front gate.
    Some years, they flew to wherever they were going from the airport in Ontario—forty-five minutes south down the Cajon Pass. Since the Marshall’s Peak Ski Resort in Utah was only a six-hour drive from Pasodoro, they’d opted for the road trip. It was easier to take all their gear that way.
    In the past, they’d gone to Tahoe, Mammoth, Vail, Taos, and even some pricey resorts back east. They’d skied in most of the western states, too, as well as areas of Canada. Banff had been a group favorite.
    In lean years, or ones with limited time, they went to their local resorts in Big Bear or on day trips to Mountain High in Wrightwood.
    This was their first trip to Marshall’s Peak.
    Since the drive promised nothing but winter-dead, dirt-brown desert for a view, and maybe a few canyons in the tiny slice of Arizona they’d pass through, Melinda wasn’t too worried about missing the scenery by sleeping the entire way.
    It would take nearly half an hour just to reach the fifteen-freeway from their small town on the south-eastern edge of Hesperia’s mesa.
    Her mom, who’d grown up in Hesperia, sometimes talked about the old days when there had only been one stoplight on Main Street and no overpass for the railroad tracks, so people had had to wait for the trains to go by. Now there were stoplights on almost every corner.
    In Melinda’s opinion, even with the overpass and no traffic so early in the morning, getting to