Ellie's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Ellie slowed the ice cream truck when she saw the figure stumbling along the roadside. Snow clung to their coat, frost burned their cheeks raw, and their lips moved like they were trying to remember how to form words. She rolled down the window. Cold air rushed in. The traveler collapsed against the wooden sign of her tree house, just off the main road. "I've been there," they rasped. "The frost garden. It's real." Ellie's heart jumped. She killed the engine and stepped out, boots crunching in fresh snow. But when she asked which pass they'd taken, the traveler pointed south. The frost garden was north. Everyone knew that. When she asked what they'd seen, they described summer flowers and warm rain. Ellie stood there, wind biting her face, watching them shiver. This person had been somewhere cold and desperate, but not the place she was looking for. She climbed back into the truck. The engine turned over, and she pulled onto the road, leaving the traveler wrapped in one of her old blankets. Now she knew: people would say anything when they were freezing. She'd have to see it herself.