Linny Marsh's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Linny woke to a weight on her chest and no light at all. The blanket she had wedged across the opening was gone—no, it was still there, but pushed inward by a wall of packed snow. She reached out and her knuckles hit cold. The snow had come in the night and sealed the hollow shut. She held still and listened. The creature breathed beside her, slow and warm. Her own breath came faster. The air in the hollow tasted thick. She had felt this once before, under a heavy quilt as a child, and she remembered how quickly a small space could turn against a body. She pushed the blanket. It gave a finger's width and stopped. She pushed harder. Snow crumbled onto her wrist and she stopped, afraid the roof of it would drop on her face. "Up," she said to the creature. "We dig up, not out." It lifted its flat head. Its wet eyes caught the last shred of light leaking through the packed white. She pointed at the trunk above them, where a knot of bark met the fallen frostwood. The creature stared. Linny took her knife from where it wedged the blanket. She reached up along the slope of the trunk and pressed the blade into the snow at an angle, aiming for the side of the drift, not the top. She scraped. Snow fell into her lap. She scraped again. Cold water ran down her sleeve. Her arm shook by the twentieth pass. The air was thinner now. She felt it in her lips. The creature watched, then rose on its short legs and set its front paws against the trunk beside her hand. It began to dig. Its paws moved in short, heavy strokes, faster than hers. Snow piled between them and she scooped it back toward her boots and stamped it flat. A thread of pale light broke through above the knife. Linny put her mouth to the gap and drew a long, clean breath. Her chest ached with it. She widened the hole with the knife handle, then with her fist. The creature squeezed past her and shoved its head through. Its shoulders followed. She grabbed its haunches and pushed. When it was out, she threw her bundle up after it and climbed. Her coat caught on a splinter of the trunk and tore. She did not stop to look. She stood knee-deep in fresh snow, blinking at a white world. The clearing was gone under it. The frostwoods were black posts. The sky was the pale of an eggshell. Her paints were still warm against her stomach. Her hands hurt. The creature shook itself and started off, low-backed, breaking trail with its chest. Linny counted three breaths to steady herself. Then she stepped into the track it made and followed.