Serena Vanderwoodsen's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

The village lights were closer now, but the sky had turned the color of wet slate. Serena felt the first hard flakes hit her goggles a mile out. By the time she and Nate reached the edge of the trees, the wind had teeth. She cut the engine so they could hear each other. Snow was already filling the tracks behind them. "This isn't a flurry," Nate said. He wiped his glove across his sleeve. The navy wool was going white. "We need walls." Serena checked her phone. No signal. The village was still twenty minutes on foot through open ground. They wouldn't make it. She turned in a slow circle and picked what she could see: a dark shed, a bookstore with its lights already off, and one storefront glowing yellow at the far end of the lane. A winter gear shop. Its display windows held snow suits on wire hangers and boots lined up like soldiers. "There," she said. "That one's still open." They pushed the snowmobiles behind the shed and ran. The wind shoved them sideways. Serena kept one hand pressed to her chest pocket, feeling the small hard square of the silver box through the lining. She would not lose it in a drift. The outfitters door stuck, then gave. A bell rang. The shopkeeper looked up from a ledger and took them in — two people covered in snow, one of them a woman in a white and silver snowsuit shaking ice from her hood. He said the storm was supposed to sit for six hours. He said they could wait it out in the back if they bought something. Fair enough. Serena bought two wool blankets and a thermos. He pointed them through a rear door to a covered yard with a fire ring — four logs set around stacked kindling, sheltered by an overhang. He lit it for them and went back inside. Serena sat on a log. Nate sat across from her. The fire caught. Her hands stopped shaking first. Something moved near the woodpile. She froze. Then she laughed, a real laugh, the first one in days. A row of small ceramic penguins had been arranged along the low stone wall, each one wearing a tiny glass crown. Someone's idea of a joke. They stared back at her, watchful and useless. "Blair would love those," she said. "Text her when the signal comes back." Serena pulled out her phone. One bar. She wrote: Safe. Stuck in a storm. Bought a fire. She hit send. It went. The reply came a minute later. A pink heart. Then: Stay put. Call me when you can. Serena set the phone face-down on the log. The wind screamed past the overhang, but the fire held. She was warm. She was reachable. She had shelter until morning. She did not yet know the storm would knock the village power out before dawn.