So she’d torn after, following the clear trail through the snow. The squirrel would tire eventually. She would find it and put it out of its misery. Or maybe bandage up its head. After it was warm and fed, it would understand that the girl was really a good friend who had just made a terrible mistake.
The squirrel tracks had led to a granite face, polished clean by wind, sparkling in the winter sunshine. And that was where the prints disappeared. She had no way to tell where the squirrel had gone, and she never saw it again.
The girl had to be like the squirrel. If she could reach the smooth granite slopes where snow never caught hold, the sorcerer’s people would lose her trail.
She was smart. Mamá always said so. Even Yara the herb woman, who hated her, always called her “wise for her years.” So she set off with firm determination in the direction she was fairly sure was east, toward the windward side of the mountains.
She didn’t get far before she heard someone yell. The voice sounded far away, but it was hard to judge in these mountains; sometimes a distant sound turned out to be as close as a whisper in the ear. The girl broke into a run.
Running through snow was one of the hardest things in the world, especially if you were little, with little feet and little legs, and a very awkward basket filled with a heavy cloak. She fell to her knees three times before she realized it was faster to just walk.
The voices sounded again, closer. She couldn’t help herself—she was too scared and her legs wanted to run too badly, and she gave in, tripping and wading her way up the snowy slope. But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how many times she ordered her legs to go faster, they refused. They felt like porridge. Useless, wobbly things that could barely hold up her body.
The monster’s people were catching up to her. Their hands would be on her, a knife in her kidney, long before she could reach the granite slopes. She had to think of something else. But thinking was hard. Her vision was blurry now, her breath so loud in her own ears. The pit of hunger in her tummy was dragging her down, down, down, making her stumble in the snow. Her feet were so cold she could hardly feel them.
She spied a huge slate-colored boulder jutting out of the snow. Beside it was a pine tree, thick with white-laden branches. The girl had climbed plenty of trees. They were familiar. Safe. She plunged toward the boulder.
Its surface was slick and icy cold, and her feet slid down as much as they pushed her up, and she wasted precious seconds scrambling to the top. From there, it was an easy reach to a sturdy pine branch. She hoisted the basket’s handle to her shoulder, grabbed the branch with both hands, and lifted one leg and hooked it around.
She’d done it a hundred times before—swung the dangling leg to provide momentum enough to propel her to the top of the branch. But she was hungry and cold, and the heavy basket yanked at her shoulder, and she couldn’t quite manage it. She tried again. And again. The third time, one of her hands slipped on the slick branch. Her basket swung wildly against her back, and all of its contents spilled out, crashed to the boulder below, then slid off the rock to plunk down into the snow.
“No!” the girl cried out, before she remembered that hiding from someone meant being very, very quiet.
Maybe she should leave all those things behind. Jump from the tree and take off again. Without a basket full of heavy things, she could go faster. Maybe even run for real.
But she needed that cloak and that tinderbox. Cloak, fire, and food.
More voices. A horse neighing.
Panic leaped in her throat. The girl released the branch and fell hard against the boulder, bruising her hip. She half climbed, half slid to the ground, gathered up the cloak and tinderbox as fast as she could. Her hip didn’t want to move, but she forced herself to stumble forward, away from the traitor tree, even as she stuffed her precious items back into the basket.
Snow began to fall, lightly at first.
Ahead was a break in the trees. Maybe. It was hard to see. Everything blurred, and the sun had disappeared behind furious black clouds. The girl wiped at her eyes, and wetness smeared the back of her hand, turning instantly chilly. Tears. But she was not crying, she wasn’t; it was just the angry wind, making her eyes water.
Blinking rapidly, she pushed through the snow toward the place where the trees seemed to part. Not much farther.
Someone yelled. She didn’t recognize the words, but she knew that excited tone. They seemed very close. The girl dared to look over her shoulder, but she saw no one.
The snow came harder, and gusts of wind snatched up powder from yesterday’s storm, swirled it into little eddies, whipped it around her ankles. She imagined the flurries were like white monster claws, grabbing for her legs, threatening to pull her down.
She reached the edge of the trees and almost sobbed in relief. They opened onto a granite face that sloped upward, curving toward the summit like a giant upside-down bowl of stone. She’d slipped on granite many times. It would not be easy to get across, especially while her hip hurt so badly and snow was swirling everywhere.
The land transitioned from snow-covered forest to stark stone in the space of a single step. Up here, away from the trees, the wind whipped even harder. A fold of cloak separated from the rest and hung out of the basket, flapping against her back, but she was too scared to slow down even the smallest bit to shove it back in place.
The slope grew steep, and she used a hand to steady herself. Her toes kept slipping, losing their purchase on the rock face. Her hip screamed in agony. The snow fell harder. Between that and the wind tears, she couldn’t see where she was going. Just up, up, up, keep going up, don’t stop no matter what, no matter what.
Before her mind could register that she had crested some kind of rise, her momentum carried her right over and suddenly she was grappling, scraping knees, sliding faster and faster.
Her fingertips found a tiny ledge; it was just enough to slow her descent and pivot her around, but the weight of her legs was too much and her fingers slipped away, leaving some skin behind.
She plummeted, picking up speed like water through a chute, and just as she was thinking, Sorry, Mamá, I tried not to die, her feet impacted ground with a bone-numbing force that shivered up her spine and gave her neck a crack. She collapsed to her knees. The basket spilled to the ground beside her, but by some miracle, nothing fell out.
The girl was in a ravine. No, more like a granite crevice. The wind didn’t blow so hard here, and the ground felt squishy, filled with an accumulation of dirt and gravel and pine needles and even a bit of snow. The squishy ground had saved her life.
Her first attempt to gain her feet failed; her hip was locking up, and sharp pain in her neck made it hard to move her head.
But ahead, up the slope of the crevice, was a dark spot where the walls of granite closed in. A cave maybe, or at least a depression, that would protect her from the falling snow and from prying eyes. A hiding place. A safe place.
She used her good leg as much as possible to gain her feet. Her cheeks were icy with tears and her heart was like a rug beater against her throat as she pushed forward, toward the inviting murk.
It was a cave! The wind instantly quieted as darkness pulled over her head like a blanket. It wasn’t very deep. She could barely stand up straight, and an old pile of dry scat hugged the wall near the entrance. Something had used this as a den once, probably one of the big mountain cats. Now it was her den. Her secret place.