Chapter 14
"Gwen! Gwen Frost!"
Someone shouting my name snapped me out of the blackness that I'd been drifting along in. I opened my eyes and realized that I was still outside on my back in what was left of the crushed, snowy thicket.
But I wasn't cold.
Sometime while I'd been unconscious, the Fenrir wolf had lain down lengthwise next to me. It was longer than I was tall, and it had wrapped its thick, shaggy tail around my legs, like I was a cute, wayward puppy that it was cuddling with. I turned my head and almost bumped my nose into the wolf's. The creature blinked at me, like it had been asleep, too, then yawned, showing me each and every one of its sharp, pointed teeth. It could have seriously used a breath mint.
Snuggling with a wolf? That was kind of weird. All right, really weird. But since the creature hadn't tried to, you know,eat me,I wasn't going to complain. Not one little bit. Still, I slowly scooted away from it. No point in tempting fate, the gods, or whatever crazy thing was at work here.
"Gwen!" the shout came again. This time I realized it was a man's voice. "Can you hear me?"
"Over here!" I shouted back, although my voice came out as more of a low, strained rasp. "I'm over here!"
Silence. For a second I wondered if he'd even heard my hoarse cry, but then-
"I heard her! She's alive!"
Scuffles sounded, and through the pulverized pine trees, I spotted someone in a black jacket running toward me, sending up sprays of snow in every direction. I turned and looked back at the wolf.
"I think you'd better go now," I said. "They wouldn't like you being here."
I don't know if the Fenrir wolf understood my words or not, but the creature rose to its feet. I noticed that its right ear had a bloody, jagged V in it, like a piece of it had been torn off during the avalanche. The creature leaned down and gently butted me with its head. I hesitated, then reached up and stroked its silky ear. My psychometry kicked in, and once again, the wolf's warm gratitude filled my mind. Maybe it was my imagination, but the wolf almost seemed to-torumblewith pleasure at me petting it. Yeah, that was kind of weird, too, especially since I'd never thought of the wolf as anything but a mythological monster, a nightmare come to life.
"Gwen!" the shout came again, closer and louder this time.
The wolf let out another happy rumble, then loped off through the trees, heading away from the sound of the approaching voice. It limped a little on its injured leg, but it still moved quicker than I could ever dream of.
I put my head back down on the snow and tried to ignore the tremors that shook my body and the fact that my teeth clattered together like dried up bones. I'd just petted a Fenrir wolf-andlived. How twisted was that? Daphne would have probably thought it was wicked cool. I was just happy I'd survived.
Without the wolf to help keep me warm, the cold quickly seeped into my body. I knew I should fight the icy numbness, but I just didn't have the strength. Not right now. I'd just started to drift off to sleep again when Coach Ajax burst into the thicket, his big, burly body tearing through the broken trees like they weren't even there. He dropped to one knee in the snow beside me.
"Gwen?" he asked in a tight, concerned voice. "Are you all right?"
"I've definitely been better," I said, and passed out again.
I was out of it for a while after that. I tried to stay awake, really, I did. You would think it would have been easy, given all the shouting, noise, and general commotion. But time after time, my eyes slid shut, and I just didn't have the energy to stop them. All I got to see of my dramatic rescue were these little snapshots whenever I woke up for a minute or two.
Coach Ajax carrying me out of the trees and putting me on a stretcher that was attached to the back of a snowmobile. Professor Metis wrapping me in warm thermal blankets to help get my body temperature back up where it should be. Even Nickamedes was there, throwing the snowmobile into gear and racing down the mountain faster than I thought the librarian would ever dare to drive.
Finally, though, the cold, wind, and noise faded away, replaced by soft, soothing, quiet warmth. I dreamed then- strange dreams about all sorts of things. Well, they weren't reallydreams so much as disjointed images and old memories, not all of which were my own.
I'd had these sorts of dreams before. Thanks to my Gypsy gift, I never forgot anything that I saw or felt when I touched an object and got a vibe off it. Sometimes, when I went to sleep, my mind randomly surfed through other people's memories, other people's feelings. Usually I saw things that I'd already experienced, thanks to my magic. Other times the images were completely new. I didn't always notice every little thing when I touched an object and flashed on it. But all the information was floating around in my mind, and sometimes my subconscious kicked in and showed me what I'd missed.
Either way, it was like watching a movie in my head, and more often than not, I felt like Alice roaming through Wonderland and staring at all the curious things around her.
This time was no different. One after another, various flickers, flashes, and flares of memory filled my mind. The arrow quivering in the bookcase beside my head at the Library of Antiquities. The shriek of the calliope music from the Winter Carnival turning into the roar of the avalanche. The Fenrir wolf sitting in the snow staring at me with its red, red eyes. Even my mom, climbing into her car.
Somehow I knew this last memory was from the night my mom had been killed by a drunk driver-and I was watching her get into her car for the very last time before the accident. But the really bizarre thing was that it was a memory I shouldn't even have. I hadn't been there the night my mom had left the police station-or touched anything that would give me a vibe about the accident. At least, not that I knew of, and I think I would have rememberedthat, even in my weird, twisted dreams.
"Mom?" I mumbled.
My mom opened her car door and slid inside. Cold, sweaty panic filled me, and I suddenly couldn't breathe. I had to stop her. I had to tell her to stay at the police station and not drive home tonight. If only she would stay put, she wouldn't be T-boned by that damn drunk driver. She wouldn't die and leave me and Grandma Frost by ourselves.
I raced toward my mom, my sneakers smacking against the cracked pavement, but the closer I got to her car, the fuzzier the image got, until the vehicle just faded away completely-with my mom still inside it. I stopped, gasping for air, and my heart throbbed with a dull, familiar, bitter ache. I whirled around and around, but there was no one else in the parking lot-and nothing but blackness all around me. Why did my mom always keep leaving me? Why couldn't she stay with me for just a little while? Why was I always the one who was left behind?
"I think she's finally coming out of it." A soft voice interrupted my dream.
The blackness vanished, and my eyes fluttered open.
I was lying on a hard, lumpy hospital bed. To my left, a complicated-looking machine chirped out a steady tune in time to the green, squiggly lines that skipped up and down on a monitor. My heart rate, I supposed. Blankets covered me from neck to ankle, and I felt several heating pads trapped between my back and the bed. I tried to move and found that I was wrapped up tighter than a mummy. It took me several seconds to wiggle my hands out of the tight cocoon and sit up.