Citrus Jelly pressed his nose against the cold glass and watched the snow fall. His brothers were already outside, their bright shapes bouncing through the drifts. The fun was happening without him. But something about the snow had changed — the flakes were moving sideways now, then up, like they'd forgotten which way was down. He pulled back from the window and wiped the fog his breath had made. The snow was definitely climbing. Not drifting or swirling — climbing, like it was crawling up an invisible wall. A few flakes near the toboggan his brothers had abandoned were stacking themselves into a tiny tower, one on top of another, perfectly balanced. Citrus Jelly's feet did their wiggly thing. He stood like a lemon again, watching the impossible snow build itself into shapes. His brothers were too far out to notice. They were tumbling down the hill, laughing, while the snow behind them grew into something that shouldn't exist. He grabbed the door handle. If the snow could forget how to fall, maybe he could forget how to wait. The cold air hit his face as he bounced outside, leaving the warm cottage behind. His brothers turned and waved, and Citrus Jelly bounced toward them through snow that was finally doing exactly what he was — moving in the wrong direction, but moving anyway.

Citrus Jelly landed in the snow beside his brothers, and the world stopped making sense. The towers were taller now. One rose right behind Spearmint, a spire of packed snow with wind-cut ridges and a crown of frosted spikes. It hadn't been there a minute ago. Spearmint stared up at it. He didn't wait, he didn't ask. He just walked toward the base of the spire and put a green paw on the wall. "Spearmint," Peppermint said softly. "That wasn't there before." "I know," Spearmint said. He kept his paw on the snow. "My belly feels quiet near it. That means something." Citrus Jelly bounced closer. "Quiet how?" "Quiet like inside is better than outside." Spearmint didn't turn around. "I'm going in." A seam opened in the tower wall, dark and narrow. Spearmint stepped through. The seam closed behind him with a soft crunch, like a boot on fresh snow. Citrus Jelly's feet went wiggly. He stood like a lemon. Peppermint sat down in the snow beside him and didn't say anything for a while. "He'll come back," Peppermint said. "Probably. He usually does." "Probably isn't the same as yes." "No," Peppermint said. "It isn't." Citrus Jelly looked at the spire. It hummed, low, the way a fridge hums when you stop talking. He could bounce. Nothing could really hurt him. He knew that. He kept knowing it, over and over, and his feet stayed put. Then he noticed a small red-and-blue cape lying folded on top of the abandoned toboggan. It hadn't been there before either. The stitching was neat. The collar was sized for a small jelly bear. "Was that yours?" Citrus Jelly asked. Peppermint shook his head. "I think the snow left it. For someone." Citrus Jelly picked it up. It was heavier than it looked. He fastened the clasp under his chin. His feet were still wiggly. But the cape sat on his shoulders like a hand pressing down gently, saying, go. He walked to the spire. He put his paw where Spearmint's had been. The seam opened again. "I'll wait here," Peppermint said. "I'm good at waiting." "I know," Citrus Jelly said. He didn't want to be good at it anymore. He stepped inside. The seam closed. The hum was louder in here, and the light was blue, and the air smelled like a freezer. The floor sloped down, not up. Spearmint's tracks led into the dark ahead, small green smudges on the packed snow. Citrus Jelly followed them. The cape swung behind him. His feet were still wiggly, but they were moving, and that was new. Somewhere ahead, deeper than a snow tower should go, he heard his brother say his name.

The tracks ran out. Citrus Jelly stopped where the last green smudge faded into black. The slope kept going down, he could feel it under his paws, but he couldn't see it. The blue light from the seam above was gone. He held one paw in front of his face and saw nothing. "Spearmint?" he called. The hum answered. His brother did not. He took one step. His foot found floor. He took another. The floor tilted a little more than he expected, and his squishy bottom slid, and he bounced once against a wall he couldn't see. He bounced back to the middle. His cape swung. "Okay," he said out loud. "Okay. If I keep walking I'll get lost. If I stand here I'll lose him." He sat down in the dark. His feet went wiggly. He stood like a lemon, except sitting. Something small moved near his knee. He froze. Then two blue lights opened in the dark, low to the ground. Eyes. Round and shining, the color of pool water with a lamp under it. A soft white shape came with them, close enough now that he could see the outline of long ears and a round back. A rabbit made of snow. It sat in front of him and blinked once, slowly. "Hi," Citrus Jelly whispered. The rabbit hopped one length forward and stopped. Waited. Its eyes threw enough light to show the floor for about a paw's width around it. "You want me to follow you?" It hopped again. Then again. Each hop lit a small circle of packed snow, and in each circle Citrus Jelly could see a green smudge. Spearmint's track. Then another. The rabbit was walking the trail. Citrus Jelly stood. He stepped into the circle of light. His feet were still wiggly, but the rabbit didn't wait for him to be brave, and he didn't want to lose it. He walked. The tunnel curved. The rabbit hopped. Green smudges appeared and disappeared under its glow. Citrus Jelly counted them so he wouldn't count other things. Four. Seven. Eleven. At the twelfth smudge, the rabbit stopped. Its ears turned toward a low sound ahead. Citrus Jelly heard it too, past the hum. A voice. Small. Flat. "I'm here," Spearmint said. "I stopped. My belly went quiet all the way through." Citrus Jelly bounced forward into the dark past the rabbit's light. He didn't wait for the next circle. He hit something soft and green and cool and caught it in both paws. "I found you," Citrus Jelly said. "You did," Spearmint said. He didn't move. "I don't think I can walk back on my own." The rabbit's light showed Spearmint's face. His eyes were open. His paws hung at his sides. He was sitting in the snow like something had been switched off inside him. Citrus Jelly held on tighter.

Citrus Jelly held Spearmint by the shoulders. His brother was warm under the cool green skin, but heavy, like a bag of water. The rabbit sat by their feet, its blue eyes lighting a small patch of the tunnel. Above them, somewhere up the slope and past the seam and out on the snow, Peppermint was waiting. Alone. Citrus Jelly pictured him standing by the tower wall, then walking one slow circle around it, then two, then wandering off to look. Peppermint always wandered when he was worried. Quietly. Without telling anyone. "I have to tell Pep we're okay," Citrus Jelly said. "Or he'll go looking." Spearmint blinked slowly. "He will," he said. "He won't say so. He'll just start walking." Citrus Jelly looked up the tunnel. He could not shout that far. He could barely hear the hum over his own breathing. He patted his sides. He patted the inside of his little cape, the red-and-blue one that had gotten him through the door. His paw hit something hard in the seam. He pulled it out. A tin whistle. Slim, silver, with a row of black holes down the front. He didn't remember putting it there. Maybe it had been stitched in from the start. Maybe the cape came with it. "Can you blow that?" Spearmint asked. "I don't know how." "Just blow." Citrus Jelly put the mouthpiece to his lips. He covered no holes. He blew. The sound that came out was too big for the whistle. It filled the tunnel wall to wall. It ran up the slope in one long clean line. The rabbit's ears flattened. Spearmint winced and smiled at the same time. Citrus Jelly blew again. Three short. One long. Three short. He didn't know why he picked that. It felt like a shape Peppermint would notice. He stopped. He listened. For a moment there was only the hum. Then, far above, thin and small and coming down the tunnel like water finding a crack, a voice. "Citrus?" Citrus Jelly's whole middle went loose. "Pep!" "I was going to walk around the other side," Peppermint said. His voice trailed down slow, unhurried, a little tired. "I thought maybe there was another door. I'm glad I didn't yet." "Stay there," Citrus Jelly called. "Don't go anywhere. I found him. He can't walk." A pause. Then: "Okay. I'll sit by the opening. I'll wait." Citrus Jelly lowered the whistle. His paws were shaking, but not the lemon kind of shaking. The other kind. The kind that came after. Spearmint leaned against him. "Good," he said. "Now the hard part." Citrus Jelly looked up the long dark slope. His brother was heavy. The climb was steep. The rabbit stood, hopped one length toward the way back, and waited.

Citrus Jelly hooked his arms under Spearmint's and pulled. Spearmint slid up a few inches, then sagged. Citrus Jelly's own middle folded like warm pudding. His feet slipped on the packed snow. They both slid back down a full body length before he could dig in. "Sorry," Citrus Jelly said. His voice came out small. "I'm too soft. I keep bending." Spearmint didn't answer right away. He looked at his own green paws in the rabbit's blue light. "My belly is empty," he said. "I don't have the push. You have to be the push." Citrus Jelly tried again. He set his back paws wide and heaved. His shoulders bent sideways. His hips wobbled. Spearmint rose, then Citrus Jelly's knees buckled inward, and they slid another arm's length toward the dark. The rabbit hopped back to keep pace, ears flat. Citrus Jelly stopped. He was shaking. Not the lemon shake. The tired shake. "If I keep going like this," he said, "we go down, not up." Spearmint nodded once, slow. "Yes." Citrus Jelly looked at his paws. Soft. Wobbly. The whole thing he had always been embarrassed about. He remembered standing at the cottage door. He remembered thinking his squishy bottom was the problem. He remembered saying, out loud, that bouncing was the whole thing. He sat down on the slope. He pressed his back flat against the tunnel wall. He braced both back paws against a ridge in the snow. Then he pulled Spearmint down onto his lap so his brother sat between his knees, facing up the slope. "Hold my paws," Citrus Jelly said. Spearmint took them. Citrus Jelly bounced. Not a jump. A small, contained bounce, using his squish like a spring against the wall. It shoved them both up the slope one body length. He landed, braced, bounced again. Another length. His middle jiggled hard, but the jiggle was the engine now, not the leak. "Oh," Spearmint said quietly. "There it is." Citrus Jelly bounced them up the tunnel in slow, steady shoves. The rabbit ran ahead, lighting the next patch of wall. Citrus Jelly's back was raw from the snow. He didn't stop. Every bounce moved them closer to the seam of light above. When they reached the opening, Peppermint was sitting cross-legged just inside it, exactly where he'd promised to wait. He looked up without surprise. "You came out from under him," Peppermint said. "I wondered how you'd do it." "I bounced," Citrus Jelly said. He was out of breath. "Mm." Peppermint studied Spearmint's slack face. "He's colder than he should be. His green's gone pale." Citrus Jelly looked down. Spearmint's paws in his were cool and loose. The green skin had thinned to almost clear. "We have to get him warm," Peppermint said. "Soon. He isn't going to sit up on his own." Outside, the snow was still falling upward.