Free Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 by A Stitch in Time Page B

the world went upward to the left and there was a twisty, bumpy slide, then she slammed to a stop, tipped at an angle to the right.
    Betsy sat still for a few seconds, trembling. Her engine was still running, no warning lights had come on, her headlights remained lit. She didn’t feel any sharp pains anywhere. She was all right, everything was all right.
    After a bit, she looked out the side window. She was against a pine tree. She could see the bark and branches pressed against the glass, which wasn’t broken. To the rear was blackness. Forward was driving snow, piling up on the windshield even as she looked. Her wipers leaped up, smearing the view. The instant they settled back, snow piled on again. To her left was a steep slope upward, dim and lumpish and scrawled with the marks of her passage.
    The road was up there, on top of that slope.
    She put the car into first gear and tried to move forward, but the wheels spun. She shifted into reverse, lifted the clutch gently, and again the wheels spun. She could see nothing out her rear mirror, not even a reflection of her taillights on the blowing snow. She shifted back into first. The car moved a few inches, tires spinning. The bark of the pine tree groaned against the door. She backed up, then rocked forward again, pleased to find an old skill still existed. She put it in reverse, and lifted the clutch. There was resistance, then suddenly the car bounced hard over something and slid around the tree, tilting more obviously backward. That scared her, and she jammed on the brake pedal, forgetting it was useless. The clutch slid out from under her other foot, and the engine died.
    She started it up again, but the car ran only briefly before choking and stammering. She twisted the wheel, pumping the gas pedal, then the stink of raw gasoline filled the car and instantly she turned the ignition off.
    I’m okay, I’m still okay, she reassured herself.
    She left the headlights on, set the emergency brake, and found a flashlight in the glove box. It had been a while since she’d needed it, and she was unhappy to discover the batteries were half dead. She opened the door just an inch. The gasoline smell was stronger outside, and snow came in with a rush, driven by the wind.
    The tilt of the car combined with the push of the wind to make getting out a serious effort.
    She tried to walk around the car. An old fallen tree blocked her way to the back, stubs of branches poking up through the snow. That’s what she’d backed over, and apparently something sticking up had punctured her gas tank. The car’s back end was buried in a sprawling evergreen bush, and the shaggy-barked pine tree was a big old monarch. She turned around and went back, looking for the skid marks she’d made coming down the slope. She found them and followed them upward, slipping and falling, until suddenly she was on the road. She turned and looked down at her car.
    All she could see was a light twinkling behind curtains of whirling snow.
    Betsy trudged up the road for five minutes, the dying flashlight not much help. She hadn’t changed out of her work clothes before setting out for Heidi’s place, and the powerful wind whipped under both her heavy coat and her box-pleated woolen skirt, chilling her halfway up her thighs. When she stopped and turned off the flashlight, she didn’t see the lights of a store, a house, or a barn anywhere.
    Then she turned around, and she couldn’t see her headlights, either. Alarmed, she started back. The wind was strong, shoving and tugging at her as she walked. Staggering onto the slope was her only warning that she was not keeping to the road. This happened three times, and by then she was wondering if she’d gone past her car. She stopped to peer all around. An extra strong gust of wind stung her face and she turned her back to it. And there were the headlights, gleaming fitfully from down the slope. As suddenly as they appeared,