“I brought your file back,” Naomi told Ranger Dave, standing in the door of the station. Behind her the falling sun turned the white-capped trees into visions of gold. The snow reflected the sky above, the clouds rushing like tatters of heaven.
The ranger looked up from the desk in surprise. She could see the loneliness in his face. He covered it quickly, smiling to see her.
She stepped forward, and he rose, taking the file. Behind him the posters moved lightly under the heater fan, reminding her why she was here.
“Is it ever warm up here?” she asked.
“We have a brief summer,” he said. “But no—it never really gets warm here.”
“How would Madison have stayed warm?”
He frowned at her, and in that moment she could see he was not like Jerome, who would have been eager to discuss this question. It was the way most people were—they kept walls around their thoughts.
“Well . . . alone in the woods? In December? There is no way to stay warm unless you have a tent, a sleeping bag, and supplies. You walk and walk and walk, and the moment you slow down, well . . . it’s like that Jack London story about the fire. At first it starts with your extremities, your feet and hands. If you know better and have a shovel, you can stop and dig a cave. I’ve had to do that before, out searching for lost people when a blizzard hits. But I have a zero-degree sleeping bag. Fire. Food to eat.”
“What if you found a cabin?”
“You mean the old homesteads?” He looked amused. “They’re still out there. I’ve run across a few, out searching or just exploring. Most are abandoned, though we still got some old-timers hanging on. I guess if you happened to run across an empty one it might be shelter. But you’d still be lost.” He sounded dubious. “You’d have to hope you were found before you starved to death.”
“So being found is the way to stay warm.”
“It’s pretty much the only way up here,” he said. “If you are lost.”
“And alone,” Naomi said.
Ranger Dave looked at her, framed in the golden light. Her shoulders were strong, her legs graceful. Only those eyes told more. She was like a watchful animal.
With a flash of insight he asked: “Have you ever been lost?”
“Oh yes,” she answered, and he was surprised to see that wide smile.
He expected her to say she had gotten lost once trying to find a child, and she would tell a story of a time she had taken a wrong turn. But part of him knew the question ran deeper, which is why he had asked.
“Once upon a time,” she said, “before I can remember.”
Over dinner that night in the diner—meatloaf and peas, followed by the homemade rhubarb cream pie—Naomi studied her map. The place Madison went missing was no longer a lonely circle. It was surrounded by constellations. The closest claim was the Strikes one, with the store. The next closest was a man named Robert Claymore, who had gotten a claim circling the side of a mountain to the south of where Madison was lost. Even higher was the Devil’s District claim the clerk had noted, in the most inhospitable parts of the wilderness, claimed by a man named Walter Hallsetter fifty years before. She noted the claims were all platted off the main roads. That made sense—it was probably why they built the roads, for these settlers. Or the logging companies.
The world was now taking shape—the ball of yarn had strings to follow. She would start with the Strikes claim.
The migrants had driven her for an entire day. In late afternoon they pulled in front of a small brick office and took her inside, where a tall man in an olive green uniform stood up out of his chair in surprise. The man tried to get the migrants to stay, but they shook their heads and backed out of his office when he picked up the phone.
The sheriff made some calls and put Naomi in his truck. He had been so kind, so gentle, but Naomi was having none of that. She pulled herself into the side of the passenger door like she wanted to crawl out the keyhole.
He had taken her to a farmhouse on a hill, framed by falling sun. She had stood in the clean, too-bright living room. A kindly-looking grandmother figure—a woman—came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a faded dish towel. Behind the kitchen door peeped a black-haired boy.
“What is her name?” Mrs. Cottle had asked the sheriff.
“I don’t know,” the sheriff admitted.
“What’s your name, honey?”
“Naomi,” she had whispered.
“Where did you come from?” Mrs. Cottle had asked.
“I don’t know,” Naomi had whispered.
Mrs. Cottle had looked at her with a well of sympathy that extended beyond any borders. “What were you running from, then?” she had asked.
“Monsters,” was all that Naomi could remember.
And to this day, outside the hints in her dreams, it was all she could remember still.
4
One day the trapdoor opened. Mr. B came down. He lifted snow girl by her arm, roughly. She was pushed up the ladder. The light hurt her eyes.
She was standing inside a cabin. The cabin was made of what looked like Lincoln Logs, but these were rougher. You could see the bark on them. The space between the logs was filled with dried mud. The underside of the roof was made of heavy beams, the wood dark with time and smoke.
The cabin smelled strongly of sweat and fur and the pure, clean smell of snow. The windows were covered with nailed blankets—the nails holding the blankets were old and rusted, as if they had been there long before she was created.
Mr. B used his hands on her shoulders to make her sit at the wood table. There was a bench.
It was then the snow girl discovered what Mr. B did. He found animals. He cut them open over a large sink. The blood ran down. It was pretty and bright red. Mr. B slipped the skins off the animals. He put the skins in one place and cut up the meat of the animals into a pot over the black woodstove. Mr. B stopped every now and then to whet his long silver knife against a stone. It made a soothing sound.
The girl got up and walked over to him. He frowned. She touched a wet pelt, asking permission with her eyes. He nodded. She stroked the soft fur. Mr. B smiled.
Later they ate stew. Outside the snow hissed against the windows, covered with cloth, but inside? All felt safe and warm.
Mr. B had a bed. It was on the floor, in the corner of the one-room cabin, behind a frayed curtain. The bed looked big, and cozy. It was right next to the trapdoor. The ladder he used to climb below was leaning against the wall. Hanging on a hook was the big tarnished key he used on the lock. The lock on the trapdoor latch looked old and bent. Snow girl wondered how strong it was.
When it came time to return to the cave, the girl decided she would be a good girl and follow Mr. B. He wouldn’t have to push and shove her. But she was scared of the night twigs, of the darkness and hurt and fear that existed even while she was asleep. She didn’t want to go to the cave, where she spent her days carving letters she was afraid she would forget in the walls. She was scared in the cave, and missed people she was afraid she had made up.
She had wanted to stay in the cabin. She would do anything to stay where there was warmth and light—and Mr. B.
She knew he couldn’t understand her, so there was no reason to talk. The snow girl had a special language. She put her hand on his chest. He froze to see it there, and then smiled.