We stand in the cold kitchen, putting dishes in a waterless sink. Snow keeps piling up outside. My fingertips touch the cold window. "You're kidding."
I place the corned beef hash pan in the sink. The metal matches. Corned beef hash crud cakes the bottom of the pan in a brown crunchy mess. l rip a paper towel off the roll. "Disgusting."
"Zara? We can't hide in your room again all night." Nick reaches around me to grab the pan's handle. He swirls the detergent around in there, spreading it out, so it touches all of the crud. "We have to get rid of this problem now."
"Now?"
"While it's still daylight."
"Look at Mr. Proactive."
"I'm serious, Zara."
He puts the pan back in the sink. We can't do any tiling with it, not now, not without water.
"I know. I know you're serious, but I am not a snow person." I rearrange my ponytail. My hair is not at its best due to the lack of a shower. I pull up my wool socks. I wear two pairs and they scrunch beneath my toes. "And where are we going to go? And what about Betty?"
"She should have been here by now," he says and my heart tries to hide behind my lungs, not listening, but I do. I keep listening even though I'm so worried about Betty. "We'll go to my house. We'll get Issie and Devyn and make a plan."
I point out the window. "And how are we going to get there?"
"My car."
"The roads are bad. Betty said not to drive."
"I know, but sometimes you have to break the rules."
I give up. I don't want to stay here without Betty. Especially not if the pixies are going to come back for a happy little return visit. I dash upstairs and get my Urgent Action letters.
"You have mail?" Nick scoffs.
'"They're Urgent Actions. They have to be sent out right away or else people could be tortured or killed or-" He touches my lips with his fingers. "You are worse than I am."
"Mot true."
We bundle up and head outside. We wipe the snow from Mick's MINI. The trees worry me. Not the trees, really, but what might be beyond them.
The snow covers everything outside. It covers the branches and the cars, the land and the water. It covers the houses. Beneath it the world is lost. Beneath it the people are lost, the animals, the grass.
Everything is just white. Blinding. White. Everything is gone. The hard lines of rooftops and tree limbs, the straight lines of roads, everything is blurred, covered, lost.
"My dad would have loved this. Just pulled out some skis and said, 'Let's have an adventure,' " I say.
"He sounds cool."
"He was cool."
"Must've been a were."
"Yeah, right," I say, letting that additional piece of knowledge bounce around the room, finally spoken out loud. "He said 'Shining One' in his note."
Nick grabs a brush out of the MINI and whisks off the fine remains of the snow, but there's a crust of ice that covers the windows. He gets back in the cab and turns the defroster on full blast.
I brace myself against the hood, watching the windows clear; zoning out, trying to process it all.
"Zara?"
Nick waits by the driver's side door, which is open. Snow stains his hair white, sticks in his eyebrows.
His face rivers into something warm.
"You coming?"
"Okay."
Betty's house is only a few feet away. I could rush back inside, slam the door, lock it, and hide.
I could hunker down.
I could stop moving.
Instead, I get inside the car.
"Okay," I say, slamming the door. "Let's go."
The inside of the MINI is warm already because the engine has been running and pumping out heat. I sigh into the warm air and smile. I could sit in here forever, all cozy, safe, and warm, like Nick. I reach down and touch the fur I'd seen on the floorboards the other day. It belongs to Nick. I glance at him to make sure he's not looking and sneak the fur into my pocket. No matter what happens I'll have it to remind me of him.
Not that anything bad is going to happen. Right?
Nick grabs my hand and it's like he's reading my mind. Can werewolves do that?
"It'll be okay, Zara."
"I know," I snuff in. My nose is getting stuffy. "I'm fine."
He squeezes my hand and lets go, which is totally unfair. I like his hand on mine.
"I need two hands to drive in this," he says.
His fingers are thick and long, and unfurry.
"I can't believe those become paws."
"It's weird, isn't it?"
I eye him. His shoulders expand beneath his jacket and his legs, solid and long, seem enormous. I pull my seat belt on and click it into place.
"We should get going. The driveway isn't plowed." Nick shifts the MINI into reverse.
"Uh-huh."
"We might get stuck."
He presses the accelerator and we scoot about three feet before smashing to a stop, trapped in the snow.
He tries to rock it back and forth, a little forward, a little backward. His face tightens into a cranky mess.
"This isn't good, is it?" I ask.
"Not good at all." He shuts off the engine.
"I could try to push it."
"That wouldn't work. Not for the whole driveway." He opens the door and hops out. "We're going to have to shovel."
"Shovel?"
I've never shoveled in my life. I've seen people on TV do it, and my dad had stories about shoveling for hours, trying to get out of the house during nor'easters, which are these monster blizzards that hit New England.
I jump out after Nick, sinking in the snow. My pants are soaked already, and clumps of snow fall inside my boots, nestling in there.
Snow sucks.
"We're going to shovel the whole driveway?" I ask, hands on my hips. "Just you and me? This is a long driveway. It's half a mile long."
A bird calls in the distance. It's the first bird I've heard since yesterday. Nick hears it too. He cocks his head and squints, listening just like a dog does. Something seems to register with him because his eyes shift into something more serious, more urgent.
"Nick?"
He wipes at his face like he's trying to get rid of a fly. "I know. It's a long driveway. Where are the shovels?"
He strides back toward the house. I chase after him.
"Nick? What if the road isn't passable? What if the plows haven't gotten out here yet? We can't shovel the road."
He stops, turns around. His strong shoulders slump. "I didn't think of that."
"One of us can go scout it out and the other one could start shoveling."
"No. No way. We have to stay together."
His face hardens again. I hate it like that. Panic rises in my throat, tightening it. I wince, remembering the arrow in his shoulder.
He rubs his face again, really roughly this time, and it reminds me of how a dog scratches its muzzle when it has an itch, just this gruff swipe with the whole of the hand. God, he really is half canine or lupine or whatever the word is for wolves.
"We have to do something," Nick says. His nostrils flare. "I hate pixies."
"Hate is a useless emotion."
"What?" He whirls around and glares at me.
I back up a step. The little hairs on my arms are standing on end. He scares me when he's like this, all angry power. "My mom says that all the time. It's one of her life quotes, she got it from my dad.Hate As a useless emotion. "
"That's such a mom tiling to say."
"I know. I'm going to kick her butt when all this is over," I say. "And Betty's too."
He laughs. "I thought you were a pacifist."
"Whatever."
We give up on shoveling. We give up on driving. We decide on snowshoes.
Yes, snowshoes that I find downstairs by the railroad ties and some old barbed wire.
We stomp through the white falling snow, moving steadily, not moving fast, but definitely moving forward.
Together. We raise our feet carefully, just a little bit and a sweeping motion forward. One foot. Another foot. Clean snow smells hit our noses, mixed with pine trees and the wood burning in Betty's stove.