Dagna Boulderback's Arc

Chapter 16 of 17

By first light Nora had finished the second stone. Dagna ran her thumb across every mark. Each stroke matched the cave hide. The record was true. But the grey stone sweated in her hands. The hollow was warming. Water dripped from the roof and pooled near the frozen blue block. Dagna knew the cold in her shelter was failing. If the second stone stayed here, the damp would eat the hide records first, then loosen the stone itself. She needed a cold place, hidden and deep. She knew none. Nora wrapped her torn hands. "We can't leave it in the wet," she said. "But I don't know these mountains. You do." Dagna searched her memory and found nothing. The high hollow was Mikhael's. Every cold place she trusted was too far for her failing heart. She sat on the damp floor and felt the winter closing on her. Then a girl stepped into the hollow's mouth. Dagna did not know her. She was small, dressed in a pale gown stitched with glass beads that caught the grey light. A thin crown sat crooked on her hair. Snow melted off her shoes into little bright drops. Behind Dagna, the arctic wolf lifted its head and did not growl. "You keep the ice that talks," the girl said. She had heard the old stories. "My name is Alice. I got lost past the ridge. I found a cave. It breathes cold like a throat." Dagna's chest tightened. "Breathes cold," she repeated. "Not warm winds?" "Cold," Alice said. "It hurt to stand there. Water froze on the walls." She held out her palm. On it lay a white snowbell, still fresh, its blossoms not wilted. "This grew at the mouth. Nothing else grew. Just this, right at the cold's edge." Dagna took the flower. The stem was stiff, not limp. The girl had walked far, and the bloom had not thawed. That meant the cold ran hard and steady, deep enough to hold a hide against any thaw. A hidden place. A cold that never broke. "Nora," Dagna said. "Can you follow her back and mark the way?" Nora studied the girl. "How far?" "Half a day," Alice said. "I can lead you. I remember the turns." Dagna pressed the second stone into Nora's arms and wrapped it in the last dry fur. "Set it deep, past where the cold begins. Bring the frozen bloom to mark the mouth so we find it again." She looked at the wolf. "Take it too. It knows the ridge." The wolf rose and padded to the door. Alice smiled and turned into the snow. Nora followed with the stone against her chest, the girl's bright trail leading her out. Dagna sat alone with the dripping roof. The second stone had a home now, cold and hidden and far. But she had trusted a stranger she did not know to carry it there.