Free Ice by Sarah Beth Durst Page B

began.
     
    “There is a bear being born,” he said. “I am needed.”
     
    “Now?” It wasn’t birth season yet. The bear cub was premature. “You . . . feel it?” He’d told her about this once, how munaqsri could sense an imminent birth or death. They could also, he’d said, summon each other, but she’d never seen him do that. “Can I come with you?”
     
    “It is a munaqsri duty.”
     
    She felt a rush of air, and then she heard the door open. She called after him, “See you at breakfast?”
     
    The door slammed. She hugged her shoulders as the room chilled.
     
     
    * * * * *
     
    Sometime the following night, Bear slid into bed. Automatically, Cassie curled against his warmth.
    She didn’t think about how natural it felt to do so. She murmured, “Hello.” He said nothing, but buried his face in her hair.
     
    Gradually waking, she remembered she was annoyed with him. He had left her alone. Her whole day had been turned upside down. She’d resorted to eating dried fruits and nuts from her pack. She couldn’t work the table without him. Worse, she’d been bored for the first time ever here. It reminded her of blizzards in the station: nothing to do, nowhere to go.
     
    His breathing sounded uneven, choked. She frowned and reached to touch his face. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you sick?”
     
    His cheek was damp under her fingers. She snatched her hand back as if it had burned. “Bear, what’s wrong?”
     
    “I was late,” he said. His voice shook. “It was far. I was too late.”
     
    “What do you mean ‘too late’?” She wished she could see him. She peered into the darkness as if she could pierce it. “What happened?”
     
    “I should have been patrolling the ice. If I had been nearby, I could have given that cub a soul in time. If I had been an hour closer, it would have all been well. I was miles late.”
     
    “Late?” She tried to understand. He’d missed the birth?
     
    “The cub was stillborn,” he said. “No soul, no life.”
     
    She could hear the tears in his voice. Did he want her to comfort him? Hesitantly, she put her arms around him. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m here.” She held him close.
    NINE
     
    Latitude 91° 00’ 00” N
     
    Longitude indeterminate
     
    Altitude 15 ft.
     
     
    THROUGH THE DARK DAYS OF WINTER, Bear “patrolled” the ice, waiting to feel the summons of a birth, while Cassie waited alone in the castle and grew more and more restless. In his absence, she prowled the topiary gardens under the perpetually starlit sky. By winter solstice, she knew them by heart.
     
    Carved owls stared down at her with glassy eyes reflecting a thousand stars. It was as silent as a museum. She could hear the crunch of ice under her mukluks. It sounded like firecrackers. She had a great urge to run through the gardens with her arms stretched wide, shattering all the trees in her path—but she didn’t. Instead, her feet took her through the maze of translucent hedges to the center of the garden. Rosebushes ringed a single sculpture, the newest.
     
    It was her: her long hair, her high cheekbones, her bony elbows, her height. It is the heart of the garden, Bear had told her after he’d finished carving it.
     
    She studied the statue. The ice hair looked blown by wind. Stray pieces curved upward, twisted together. It was a perfect likeness, down to the short lashes on her eyes and the short nails on her hands. Her twin grinned upward, as if she were laughing at the castle spires, or higher at the star-choked sky. What am I still doing here? Cassie wondered. I should be on a snowmobile, not a pedestal.
     
    Who was tracking bears now? Dad? Owen? Scott would be taking bets on the number of cubs being born. Jeremy was probably stir-crazy by now.
     
    And what about her mother? Cassie couldn’t imagine what she was doing. All she could picture was her mother’s image from photos she’d seen, but even that memory lacked details,