Free The Ice King (A Witch Ways Whisper) by Helen Slavin Page A

collect the meltwater for tests.”
    Dr Byrne moved around the slab of ice. It was cold in the workroom, it was one of the oldest sections of the building, purposely isolated from the rest of the centre so that it could be used as a cold storage.
    “I say we rig it, as you say, so that we can collect any meltwater and we leave it overnight, return in the morning and see if the ice has softened at all and whether we can scrape it or crack into it.”
    They worked together until past midnight, their breath making clouds as the ice seemed to give off further coldness.
    Vanessa was up early, having hardly slept. She’d drifted off easily enough the first time but her sleep had been plagued by dreams. The dream had been familiar and yet scary, she could see herself pictured in a small globe, she watched herself walking further and further away under a sky shimmering green with the aurora. It ought to have been beautiful but it had woken her with a sense of unease.
    She moved quietly through the research centre, stopping in at the kitchen to make herself tea and toast.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” the voice was sharp. Vanessa dropped the knife she was using and turned as Dr Crowe stepped further into the room.
    “Er…I was just…having some toast…” Vanessa felt the need to pick up the square of bread as evidence. Dr Crowe reached for the bread and threw it into the bin.
    “You’re barred from food preparation areas. You have not been wearing a biohazard suit therefore you are a biohazard….” he looked very pleased with himself. “From now on you’re confined to the workroom with your icicle friend.”
    Vanessa was speechless but her stomach rumbled its complaint. Dr Crowe raised his eyebrows and grinned “Should have thought of that before you dragged the prehistoric popsicle back here.”
    Vanessa did not fret about this for long, once she was in the workroom she began to assess the ice man. She took measurements of the dimensions of the ice block and scraped samples of it so that she could run tests upon it.
    She had prepared slides of water droplets from the ice and she slid the first one under the microscope. Her notes were copious, the tiny droplet offering up an entire universe of microbes that she had not encountered before. The ice too, when she looked at it under the microscope showed intricate patterns and fractals that she struggled to draw in her notes.
    She looked up from the seventh slide and thought about the difference in the light coming through the triple skinned window. Outside was whiteness, the sky a colder white than the snow beneath today and the sun lower in the sky, a burnished orb making the snow glister with barbs of bronze light. Intricate shadows were cast on the floor. They were branched, limbs and spurs making a shifting treescaped network on the aged concrete. Vanessa looked up through the window, trying to work out the angle at which the sunlight was coming through and where the shadows were falling from. She could see nothing outside and she thought of what was beyond the wall, what was out there? It was just the small outbuildings, the snowcats, some storage tanks. It didn’t fit with the tree like shadows that were being thrown. She looked down again and picking up her pencil she began to sketch the shadows on a fresh page in her notes. As she observed them to draw them, she began to see that the shadow was indeed trees, here there were the fluttering ghosts of leaves cut out of daylight. It was very beautiful, she sketched on and on, there was a smoky honey scent in her nostrils, delightful, delicious , she felt warmed by the sunlight.
    The door burst open, the artificial light from the windowless corridor flooding over the floor, obliterating the shadows. Dr Finbar Hardy looked about as cross as she’d ever seen him and he was not a man given to good mood.
    “The comms mast is playing up. I need someone with small hands to fix it.”
    In the common room, Dr Finbar