Ice

CHAPTER 15

Latitude 91° 00’ 00” N

Longitude indeterminate

Altitude 15 ft.

Cassie woke cold. Shivering on the silken sheets, she massaged the lump on the back of her skull. For several seconds, she wondered why she had slept on top of the sheets, why she was cold, and why her head ached. Then she heard the dripping.

She leaned down from the bed and picked her flashlight up off the floor, then shined it on the bedpost. The post glistened with a fresh sheen of water. Droplets ran down the spiral. The canopy dripped as if it were crying. It cannot melt. Not so long as I am here.

Bear was gone.

The bed was melting.

“Oh, no,” she said.

Cassie vaulted out of bed; her bare feet hit ice. Cold shot up her legs, and she grabbed the bedpost. It was a wet icicle. She snatched her hand back. Cold! She ran to her pack and shed her nightshirt. Limp on the floor, the silk soaked in meltwater. Cassie bundled on flannels and wools. She could have woken with hypothermia. She could have woken with hypothermia and a concussion. I could have not woken at all, she thought.

She heard a sudden snap like a rifle shot—the snap of cracked ice. That sounded like it came from a wall, she thought. And then she heard a sound like a thousand windows breaking.

Oh, God, it wasn’t just the bedroom that was melting. It was the castle. The castle was melting. She had to get out of here—out of the bedroom, out of the castle, out into the Arctic.

Out into the Arctic, but… She didn’t have a choice, she told herself. She had to leave now. Heart thudding faster, she pulled on her full gear: parka, mukluks, gaiters. She’d kept her pack prepared for her trips with Bear, so it took only a few precious seconds to lift the pack onto her back—but with each second, the shotgun sound of cracking ice crescendoed. Securing the pack, she hurried into the hall.

In the hall, it was worse. Cracks raced through the ice walls. Meltwater ran in rivers. Run, run, run! her mind shouted at her. Cassie skidded down the hallway, and the flashlight’s beam swept over dripping walls and ceiling. Gripping the wet banister, she sidestepped down the waterfall stairs. Rumbling shook the floor. Please, don’t let it collapse, she thought. With the ceiling and the spires, thousands of pounds of ice were above her. Catching her balance at the bottom of the stairs, she ran through the banquet hall.

Chandeliers clanked as the banquet hall shook. Shards fell and splashed into an inch of water. A caribou sculpture toppled. Chunks of ice scattered across the banquet hall. Cassie shielded her face. A chandelier plummeted from the ceiling. When the chandelier crashed down, shards flew like shrapnel.

Cassie ran through the water. Faster, faster! Her pack pounded on her back. Frescoes peeled from the walls, and statues tumbled from alcoves. She dodged chunks of falling ice.

Buttresses shook. Pillars crumbled. Overhead, the vaulted ceiling fractured. Plumes of ice filled the air in a thick haze. She sprinted for the crystal lattice gate as the floor heaved. She scrambled over the cracks.

The splintered gate rained daggers of ice. Covering her head, Cassie plunged through it. Ice spikes hit her arms and her neck. Screaming, she burst out the other side. Her pack slammed her tailbone.

Outside, the topiary garden melted. Faces ran into puddles. Limbs fell. Undercut by running water, the sculptures collapsed. Cassie ran for the outer wall. Half of it had fallen.

It was as if a giant were ripping the castle apart. With deafening cracks like an iceberg calving, spires split from the walls and crashed to the ground. Cassie fell forward as the ground bucked. Keep moving, she thought. Must keep moving! She splashed in meltwater, and then she scrambled to her feet while, Jericho-like, the walls came tumbling down.

She scrambled over the remnants of the blue outer wall. Behind her, she heard gushing, like a dam released. Run! A mammoth waterfall crashed down from the parapets. It drowned the topiary garden.

Snow cycloned, and ice pelted her face and arms. Cassie stumbled as the ground shook. Again, she was knocked down. Ice chunks rained down on her like a meteor shower. On her knees, she crawled. She inhaled snow, and tears poured from her eyes as the ice pelted her.

And then suddenly, it was still.

Curled on the ground, Cassie panted. Her muscles were as tense as fists. She heard running water. Ice tinkled. She tried to open her eyes and could not. The tears had frozen her eyelids shut.

Dammit, she had to see! What had happened? The castle, her home… Was she still too close? She couldn’t run if she couldn’t see which direction to run.

She yanked off her gloves and spat on her fingers. She rubbed the warm saliva on her eyelids. Eyelashes broke. Her hands stiffened in the cold. She scraped until she could crack her eyes open. She blinked furiously and shoved her chilled hands back into the gloves and mitts.

She was surrounded by white. Snow hung in the air, and it was impossible to distinguish between ground and sky. The world was devoid of color. It was as if she had fallen into a bowl of milk. Securing her goggles, she stood and squinted into the whiteout. Where was the castle? Had it fallen? What about the gardens? Slowly, the snow-choked air thinned.

And the polar bears came.

One by one, the white bears walked ghostlike out of the snow. Through the blurred air, they appeared to drift. Close by—too close—one brushed past her. She stiffened, wanting to scream, not daring to scream. Bears were all around her, emerging from the white. She was surrounded, engulfed.

As the snow settled, she saw hundreds coming from all directions. Soon she could see the gardens, now a wasteland of icy spikes. Sniffing the snow, the polar bears wandered through the wreckage, trampling the remnants. Cassie swallowed, a lump in her throat. All of Bear’s beautiful sculptures… And then she saw what was left of her home.

The castle was gone. The buttresses were ice boulders; the walls were icebergs. She began to shake. She could have been crushed. If she had woken a few minutes later… if she had run a little slower… She could have been killed. As long as these walls are standing, nothing here will harm you, Bear had said once. The walls were no longer standing. Her home was destroyed.

And Bear was gone.

She’d lost him. She’d truly lost Bear.

Cassie felt icy knives twisting in her gut. Her husband was gone, her home destroyed, she was thirteen hundred miles north of the station, and she was surrounded by polar bears.

More bears came. All around her, the ice was thick with them. Cassie was squeezed between dozens—up to her neck in bears. Fur pressed against her, and the stench of their dead-seal breath made her head pound. In every direction, all she could see was the curve of their backs like waves in a cream white ocean. She was drowning in a sea of polar bears.

Surrounded by predators, she felt short of air. Bears did not gather like this. It wasn’t natural. Run, her instincts screamed. “Keep calm,” she whispered to herself.

Inches from her, a polar bear swung his head toward her face. He poked her parka with his muzzle. She smelled his breath as he snuffled her face mask. “Don’t eat me,” she said. Her voice cracked.

At the sound of her voice, other bears turned to stare at her.

Shivers walked up her spine.

Cassie heard a bear huff. More bears turned their heads, and then more. Hundreds of blank, black eyes bored into her. Don’t move. Just don’t move, she thought. Her skin crawled, and her feet started moving despite her. All the bears were watching her now. She heard the crunch of her mukluks and the breathing of thousands of bears. Don’t run, she thought, but her feet retreated faster and faster. The bears parted like the Red Sea. She backed through them, out of the press of bears and onto open ice, and then she turned and ran. Her pack slapped her back. Wind pounded her face. Leaning into the wind, she ran across the frozen waves.

In an unnatural herd, the polar bears followed.

CHAPTER 16

Latitude 88° 51’ 42” N

Longitude 151° 25’ 50” W

Altitude 10 ft.

Overhead, the sky was palest blue, almost white from the reflected ice. There was not a single bird or plane. Cassie checked the GPS: 88° 51’ 42” N and 151° 25’ 50” W. For five days, she had trekked across the frozen waves. She should have been rescued by now.

“C’mon, Max,” she whispered as she looked again at the sky. “Save me.” Low on the horizon, the permanent sun pricked the corners of her eyes.

Why hadn’t he come?

The low sun rolled along the horizon as she continued on. The afternoon’s white glare increased as the sun passed due south. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of polar bears still plodded behind her. She felt prickles on her spine as she thought about them, her silent white shadows. Dad and his team should have noticed the absence of so many polar bears by now. They should have sent Max in his plane to investigate. He should have followed the signals from the bears’ tracking collars—any signal from any bear—and they should have led him directly to her.

By evening, the sun was to her right. Ice crystals sparkled in a halo around the sun and in gold sheets around Cassie. The powdery mist cut visibility even more. She forced herself to concentrate on the ice in front of her. But even with all her concentration, she stumbled over invisible frozen waves. She had no depth perception in the glare of infinite whiteness. Her remaining eyelashes were icicles, framing her view of the world. Her nostril hairs had also frozen. She exhaled through her nose to keep it warmer. Her Gore-Tex pants rustled as she stumbled along. It was the only sound in the emptiness besides the huffing of the bears.

Even if all the collars had malfunctioned at once, someone would have had to notice that hundreds of bears had disappeared. For miles, the ice fields were clogged with bears, yet in five days, she had not heard a single engine from the Eastern Beaufort Sea Research Station or from anywhere else.

Maybe they all thought it was an equipment malfunction. No station would risk a Twin Otter this far north on an equipment malfunction. And none of them would admit to the others that they had lost track of this many bears. It would be weeks before Dad would swallow his pride and contact NPI. But she had only one week’s worth of food supplies, and she’d already used five days’. If she stretched the freeze-dried food packets and cut her rations in half… she might have four, at most five, days left.

Dammit, Dad should know better, she thought. He knew about munaqsri. He knew impossibilities could happen. But if Dad didn’t send a plane soon… She sucked in air, and the air burned. She had to stay positive. Someone would come.

She hiked for two more days before she reached the Lomonosov Ridge. Still no Max. Still no plane. Still no rescue. She camped in the shadow of ice monoliths, leaning towers and half-fallen pinnacles of ice, and she ate a dinner of half rations.

In the morning, Cassie scrambled out of her sleeping bag as her stomach forced last night’s dinner into her throat. She clapped her hands over her mouth. She could not lose the nutrients. Bits spurted through her fingers. Warm, the oatmeal chunks steamed on the ice. She swallowed hard and clenched her teeth. Hold it in, she told herself. Come on, hold it.

Her own body had never worked against her before. She felt as if she were being sabotaged from the inside. She swallowed back bile and patted loose snow on her forehead. With a baby growing inside her, she’d need more food, not less. She might have even less time than she’d thought. How could Bear have done this to her?

Shakily, she stood. She looked out across the wasteland of ice. Brilliant in the morning light, it made her eyes water to look at it. The sky was a startling blue, and the horizon was lemon yellow. She wiped her hands on her pants and then found her gloves. Her hands had chilled fast. Her mouth was sticky, and her head was light. Exposed to the frozen air, her cheeks had begun to stiffen. She warmed them with her mitts before putting on her solid-ice face mask. The polar bears, she noticed, had returned. Expressionless, they watched her. She told herself to keep ignoring them.

She shoved her sleeping bag into her pack. It crackled, and she could feel lumps of ice in the down. She wished she had a little of Bear’s warmth magic. She remembered all the rides across the ice. She had been able to leave her hood back and her coat open, and the arctic wind had felt like a summer breeze on her face. She remembered snowball fights in the castle ballroom, where she’d used her bare hands without any chill—Stop it, she told herself. She had to concentrate on surviving. Stay focused. Be strong. Keep moving. The farther south she went, the better the odds that Max would find her. After that, she could think about Bear.

Cassie hefted the pack onto her sore shoulders and fastened the waist strap. She’d have to pick her route carefully today. The ice around her was shattered. She could hear the low grumble of the tides deep beneath her. Picking an ice boulder, Cassie climbed it. On top, she scanned the landscape. The ice did not improve for at least ten miles. She automatically wrinkled her face to prevent frostbite as she checked the sky. Clouds were beginning to mar the brilliant blue. The clouds reflected the patchy ice below: bright white over thick ice and gray over thin.

She checked the horizon, and her heart went cold. Wind slapped into her, but she didn’t move. Squinching her eyes, she stared at a smudge darkening the distance. Was that… Yes, yes, it was.

The winds were bringing a storm.

Oh, no. Please, no.

Maybe it would veer. Maybe she was wrong.

She didn’t think she was wrong.

She had no choice but to continue on. Fine packed snow plugged the paths between pillars of ice. At times, she had to slog through it and trust that she would hear the cracking of ice underneath fast enough to jump to safety. She tried to keep to the exposed ice, listening for the telltale crinkling sounds as the ice throbbed underneath her. She climbed over a pile of ice rubble and looked again to the south. The clouds looked like a writhing mass of bruises. The storm was coming.

She wondered, as she looked across the shattered ice, if she was looking at her own death. She remembered Gram’s voice: With the strength of a thousand blizzards, the North Wind swooped down onto the house that held his daughter, her husband, and their newborn baby. She could be swept away by her mother’s winds.

If she’d had some warning of all of this… Bear’s bargain had stranded her alone on the Arctic ice pack. He should have known that she’d encounter a storm at some point in her trek. If he’d found some way to hint at the truth… He could have found some oblique way to warn her. Had he tried and she’d missed it? As she hiked across the ice, she played through her memories—and with each moment she relived, she missed him more until it felt like an aching wound.

Two hours later, the wind howled through the pressure ridges, kicking snow into the air. She was pelted with ice particles. After every other step, she wiped her goggles. Cassie tried to calculate how far she’d hiked. The layer of ice around her collar made it difficult to move her head. Not far enough, she thought.

More ice particles hit her, and she staggered backward. Arms over her face, she pushed through the wind, away from the leaning ice towers. It was tempting to hide in the shelter of one of the mammoth ones, but the ice around them was weaker. She needed the thick stuff if she did not want to end up underneath waves. Wind-driven snow stung like BBs. Visibility was low. Cassie stumbled over the rubble.

She hit flat ice. Leaning into the wind, she forded across it. She knelt down and dusted the surface snow away so she could see the base ice. Green-blue-brown, it seemed like old, thick ice. Please, let it be old, thick ice. “It’s coming, guys,” she called to the polar bears. “Better batten down the hatches.” Her voice shook. She saw only a half-dozen bear shapes in the swirling snow. Please, let me survive this, she thought.

Fighting the wind, Cassie set up her sleeping bag. Stiff with ice, it did not want to unroll. She swore at it and flattened it with her full body weight. Hands aching, she tied it with spare straps to her pack and anchored it all with an ice screw.

Momentarily, the wind died, and she saw the storm. It sounded and looked like a cloud of hissing bees. “Oh, Bear,” she whispered, “how could you do this to me?”

The boiling mass disappeared behind a wall of white ice shards. Cassie wiggled into her sleeping bag. She secured the zippers. Coming closer, the storm roared like a 747. Cassie prayed, and the storm hit.

CHAPTER 17

Latitude 87° 58’ 23” N

Longitude 150° 05’ 12” W

Altitude 8 ft.

The world fell apart.

Like an angry god, the wind punished the ice. It tore the ocean open, and it slammed it shut. Plates of ice rode over one another, jutting into the black sky. The ice screamed.

She curled inside her fragile cocoon. Black in the false night, her world had shrunk to six feet by two. The ice underneath her shook. Clenching her teeth, she hugged herself into a ball, as if that would hold the ice together.

She heard thunderous grinding as if the ground were being squeezed. Her heart beat in her throat. Sweat chilled her flesh. Any second, the ice could split and she could be dropped into the ocean. She could disappear without a trace. Dad, Gail, Gram… they would never know what had happened to her.

The wind slammed into her sleeping bag. She skidded in a circle around the single ice screw. Clockwise, with the screw. Cassie rolled inside the sleeping bag. She clutched at the nylon sides. Like a sail in irons, the nylon flapped. Wind whipped under her, and Cassie bounced on the ice. Slamming down hard, she hit her elbow, then her knee, then her hip.

A banshee scream, the wind shifted. She skidded again. Counterclockwise, loosening the screw. Soundless against the howling, she yelled. She pushed against the confines of the sleeping bag. “Let me out of here! Please, let me out!” Shrieking, she started to cry.

Inside a prison, Cassie was tossed back and forth, bruising with each roll. Outside, the storm boiled.

Seconds, minutes, hours later, the storm howled north, the ice fell silent, and the air was full of snow. Cassie, knotted inside her sleeping bag, whimpered.

Fitfully, she slept. She dreamed she was entombed in ice. Seven-foot trolls chased Bear, and she could not move. She screamed, but her throat did not work. A troll touched Bear, and he dissolved. She screamed again, soundless, and the troll turned toward her. Its face was a grotesque mask of moving shadows. She woke screaming, in blackness and in sweat.

Out! She had to get out! Cassie fumbled for the zipper to her sleeping bag. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Out, out, out! Cold streamed in as she squirmed out.

She crawled into surreal whiteness. She could see nothing: no color, no shadow, no ground, no sky. “Help me! Someone! Anyone!” she called.

Surrounded by the false white night, she was utterly alone. Cassie felt around her. She found the strap she had used to tie herself to her pack. She shook the ice off it and pulled the pack toward her. At least she had not lost it in the storm. She hugged it as if it were a teddy bear, while snow seeped into her fleece.

It was the cold drip down her neck, more than anything else, that convinced her she was still alive. Her survival instincts kicked in as she started shivering, and she crawled back inside her sleeping bag.

She lay there for several hours, imagining her joints locking and her muscles stiffening like a corpse in rigor mortis. She pictured herself turning into the sculpture that Bear had carved… She closed her eyes, and she could see Bear leading her by the sleeve to the center of the garden, and her following, laughing, until she saw what it was he wanted her to see: the sculpture of her. He’d carved it for her, a late birthday present. Carved it from memory, a perfect likeness. Said it was the heart of the garden. And he’d proceeded to serenade her. Artist he was; singer he wasn’t. Remembering how she’d laughed, Cassie felt like crying.

He’d loved her, hadn’t he?

Did it matter anymore if he had? The sculpture was gone now. Bear was gone.

“Stop it,” she said out loud. It would kill her—the cold, the hunger, the exhaustion, her own thoughts. She felt like the storm had seeped inside her and was now tearing through her brain, her heart, her everything.

With an effort, she pushed her thoughts away and lay in her silent prison and listened to her heart beating like the sound of steady footsteps that were always the same distance away.

She lost track of time. At some point, her bladder demanded that she go outside. She emerged into the whiteout. Snow spat into her face. Visibility was still zero. She could not even see her feet. She felt her way to the end of the sleeping bag and squatted under her parka. She did not dare go any more than a foot from the sleeping bag. She could almost hear Dad’s voice telling her it was too dangerous to move in a whiteout. She’d heard stories of people lost in whiteouts five feet from their tent, and inside the solid whiteness, she believed it.

After crawling back into her sleeping bag, she lay listening to the wind. She wondered about Bear. What was it like for him in the troll castle? What were the trolls doing to him? Gail had screaming nightmares of her time there.

He’d risked so much to marry her. He had to have cared about her. Cassie thought of the way they used to talk late into the night until they were both falling asleep midsentence. She thought of how they’d worked side by side on her maps and numbers, devising better routes for patrolling. She thought of how he’d held her at night, stroking her hair, and whispering to her. And now he was trapped like her mother had been because she’d turned on a single flashlight.

Hours later, she checked on the conditions again. In some ways, they were better. The snow had thinned enough for her to see the red blur that was her pack, though she still could not see her full sleeping bag. From her waist down, the bag disappeared into the white as if it were an apparition. In some ways, though, conditions were worse: Thinner snow also reflected more sun. The white glare hurt, and she blinked back tears. Her eyes felt pierced by sand—the first symptom of snow blindness.

She crawled back inside. Admit it, she thought, your plan has failed. Max had not rescued her, despite all the polar bears. He certainly wasn’t coming now, when she was lost in a whiteout. He had failed her. Dad had failed her—just like he’d failed Gail. And just like Bear had failed her, abandoning her one mile north of the North Pole. Or like she had failed Bear, betraying his trust after he had pleaded with her never to look at him.

The look in his eyes…

She had to escape the ice. But there wasn’t an escape.

The closest land was Ward Hunt Island at 83° N and 75° W. Too many miles, her mind whispered. Too many miles and too little food. All the possibilities played through her mind: starvation, dehydration, freezing, drowning. Curling into a ball, she hugged herself. “Oh, Bear,” she whispered, “I’m sorry.” Hours passed.

CHAPTER 18

Latitude 87° 58’ 23” N

Longitude 150° 05’ 12” W

Altitude 8 ft.

Enough waiting.

Enough fear.

Enough of the damn whiteout. She was not going to continue to lie here, obsessing over Bear, until death or insanity claimed her. Whether he had meant to betray her or not, staying here wouldn’t help.

She was an Arctic explorer, dammit. She could survive this. She had her goggles to prevent snow blindness and her GPS to keep her from going in circles, for as long as the batteries lasted. She had her own skill and Dad’s training to keep her from falling through the ice. Even with the risks, it was still her best shot at survival. She had to get further south for there to be any chance of Max (or any other pilot) spotting her, and she didn’t have enough food left to wait for the whiteout to lift. I’m going, she thought. Joints as stiff as wood, Cassie put on her gear inside the sleeping bag, and then she crawled out.

Standing, she felt dizzy. Her knees shook and she sat down hard. She was weaker than she’d thought. The half rations and forced inactivity had taken a toll. Cassie waited until her vision cleared. Visibility was at five feet, maximum. Moving slowly, she wrapped an extra silkweight long underwear around her goggles to cut down on glare, and then she tried to roll her sleeping bag. She had sweat into it, and it had frozen. It fought her for each bend. Finally, she forced it into a squashed polygon and secured it to her pack. She lifted the pack onto her back. The straps cut into her shoulders. Numbly, her hands tried to buckle the waist belt. The belt was encrusted in ice. It took her three tries.

Then she walked into the snow-choked air.

Within minutes, her stomach hurt and even her bone marrow felt cold. The dryness of the air sucked moisture from her mouth, and she felt frostbite prickles in her cheeks under her frozen face mask. She shouldn’t be out walking in a whiteout. Only idiots went out in whiteouts. Kinnaq, her mind whispered—lunatic. But if she stopped here, in the ice rubble, then Max would never see her even when the whiteout cleared. She needed to be on flat ice for him to rescue her. I have to at least try to make it possible for him to find me, she thought. This is smart, she told herself, not crazy. Giving up was for the crazy. As she’d once told Bear, she didn’t give up.

Cassie kept walking, listening for the familiar crackle of breaking ice. Around her, the whiteout gradually—very gradually—dispersed. She caught glimpses of the bears—still out there, still following. Let them, she thought. She didn’t have the strength to fear them anymore. She shuffled across the ice with her eyes only on the next step. When she finally remembered to look up, she could see fifty feet. Beyond, the world was swallowed by snow.

The storm had pulled the ice apart at the seams.

Leads, riverlike cracks, crisscrossed the ice. A dense haze rose off the open water. New pressure ridges had been born, and others had caved. She stared at the landscape. She hadn’t imagined the damage would be so severe. She had been lucky to find a solid floe. Another few feet and… Very lucky.

It took Cassie several minutes to work up the courage to move on. She stepped across a lead onto the more fractured ice. In some leads, the water had frozen into a smooth road. She followed one, watching for mouse gray thin ice. Elastic, the ice bent under her weight. She scrambled forward as the ice fractured behind her. Plates of ice tilted like seesaws under her. The ice made faint grating sounds beneath her. It was so hard to focus. Bear wasn’t here to save her from freezing or drowning, she reminded herself; she had to save herself. “Don’t miss,” she whispered.

Cold permeated her. Her blood felt sluggish in her veins. She placed her foot down, and a plate of ice shot up. Cassie dove forward and grabbed for the top. Her feet slid out from under her and dangled over black water.

All around her, the polar bears watched.

Squinching her legs up, she forced the plate to tilt. Cassie dove for the next pan of ice. Her legs splashed into the water as the plate leaned in the opposite direction. Ice tore her Gore-Tex pants as she, with a burst of adrenaline she did not know she had, hauled herself out of the water.

She forced herself to stand. The cold… It burned. It sliced. She heard her father’s voice in her head yelling out instructions. Shedding her pack, she dropped into the snow and rolled as if extinguishing a fire. Snow absorbed the water on her legs. Her pants crinkled as the outer layer froze.

She had to move. It will dry if you move, Dad’s voice told her. Shivering uncontrollably, Cassie lifted her pack and walked on across the ice. Wind pushed right through her. She wished she were at the castle. She wished this were over. No, she wished it had never begun. She would have given anything, done anything, to have everything back the way it had been. Bear, where are you? She missed him so much that it hurt, like a fist squeezing her stomach. Or was that the cold? Or the hunger?

She missed him with every single cell of her body. It didn’t matter how he felt about her. Whether he loved her or not didn’t change how she felt about him. She loved him independent and regardless of whether he loved her. She wished she had realized that sooner. If she had, she’d never have switched on that flashlight. She’d be with Bear right now.

She kept walking mile after mile, hour after hour. She became coated in snow. Her face mask molded to the shape of her face, stuck to her skin, and her parka and pants were plastered with a sheen of solid ice. A chunk of it had wormed around her hood. Rivulets of ice water ran down her neck. She had a crust of ice between her parka lining and the down. Her parka felt like a straitjacket. Hoarfrost coated her goggles. Creeping cold infused her joints. It hurt to walk. Hell, she thought, has nothing to do with fire. Jeremy was right: Hell is frozen.

She could have frostbite, she knew. She could be slowly freezing to death. Killed by the ice she loved. She kept moving, mostly from habit now rather than conscious choice. Cassie picked her way through the chaos of ice, birthed by the storm and the pull of the moon on the tides. The low sun lengthened the mounds and made the spaces between them dark blue and cold. She shivered in the shadows. She could think of nothing but how cold she was. And Bear. Always Bear. Seeing a patch of warmer gold ahead of her, she tried to hurry toward it.

Instantly, her empty stomach cramped. Clutching it, Cassie lost her balance. She fell forward. She tried to catch herself, but she felt as if her arms were moving in slow motion. She collapsed forward before her arms were half-raised.

She needed to stand. Keep moving. Must keep moving. Not moving meant death—how often had Dad told her that?

She heard the familiar creaking from deep within the ice. It sounded like a ghost, a tired and sad murmur. She imagined it was speaking, but she could not understand the words. With her pack like a turtle shell weighing down on her, she crawled forward. Her elbows shook. She inched across the frozen waves.

Enough, she thought. The ice was flat enough. She could rest here. Spread full-length, she would be more visible from the air, from Max’s plane, than if she were standing. It made sense to lie here. She closed her eyes. Rescue me, Max. Dad. Bear. Bear.

A voice inside her whispered he was not coming. She was never going to see him again. She didn’t have the strength to cry.

Snow drifted over her.

Cassie basked in warmth. Pillows pressed around her, and it was as dark as a womb. She cuddled the cushions. Her cheek squashed against them, pressing her face mask into her. Half-thawed, the fleece soaked her skin. She itched to tear it off, mask and skin. She wormed into the pillows. She was comfortable at long last, and no stupid face mask was going to—

A cramp squeezed her left leg.

That half-woke her. Her thigh was wedged between the pillows at an awkward angle. She shifted again and sniffed: sour sweat. Must not be dead yet, she thought vaguely. Soon maybe. She turned her face so that the rim of her goggles was not digging into her cheekbones, and she drifted back to sleep.

She dreamed about Bear. She dreamed that he lay beside her in his polar bear form, warm fur pressed against her and hot breath on her cheek. Cassie woke again. Fuzzy-eyed, she blinked at the warm darkness.

She wasn’t dead. The realization rushed through her, and she wanted to cry or shout. She wasn’t dead! Thank you, thank you!

She tested her muscles. They still worked. Cassie pushed at the pillows, and her mittens sank four inches, but with mitts, gloves, and liners, she could not feel the texture.

The pillows breathed.

Cassie recoiled, and the sudden movement turned her empty stomach upside down. She felt the world pressing in on her as if she were again trapped in a sleeping bag in a storm. “Let me out!” she shouted. She elbowed the warm darkness and wriggled upward.

She squirmed out of the press of fur and emerged in a sea of polar bears: sleeping bears as far into the misty white as she could see. Blackness swam up over her eyes and then retreated. The bears were still there when the dizziness passed. “Oh, my,” she murmured.

At the sound of her voice, a dozen bears raised their heads. She swallowed. Expressionless, another dozen bears also turned to look at her. As one, the mass of bears—bears, not pillows—shifted, freeing her. Her legs shook, and the wind bit into her.

They had kept her warm while she slept. The bears had saved her life. “Oh, my,” she repeated as her knees caved. Bears rolled back to support her as she slid to the ground.

Cassie turned her head—and stared directly at the nose of a polar bear. He huffed at her. She ogled back. “You’re bears,” she said. “You aren’t even magical bears.” She didn’t understand. The fog in her brain wouldn’t lift. She couldn’t think. Why had the bears saved her?

A bear prodded her with his muzzle.

“What? Don’t eat me.” Her words were slurred. She leaned backward and felt another bear behind her. This one pushed in the middle of her back. “What do you want?” Another push. Did they want her to stand? She tried to make her brain function. Was she dreaming? She didn’t feel like she was dreaming. She hurt too much to still be asleep. Wincing, Cassie lurched to her feet.

Had Bear sent them to save her?

The bears parted, uncovering Cassie’s pack.

“I can’t,” she said. Her eyes felt hot, near tears. The bears were helping too late. She didn’t have the strength to go on. “I’m tired. I’m hungry.” She mimed chewing. “You know, hungry?” She made sucking noises.

Obligingly, a female bear rolled, exposing four round nipples. Cassie licked her cracked lips. Lolling her head, the bear looked at her. Half-falling to her knees, Cassie knelt and crawled to the sow’s stomach. She looked over at the bear’s face, and the bear placidly closed her eyes.

Cassie pulled off a mitt and her face mask. Taking a deep breath, she touched the nipple. It felt as firm as a thumb. She squeezed it, and milk welled at the top: life. When the bear did not maul her—in fact, did not move—Cassie leaned in and held her tongue catlike under the milk. She squeezed hard, and the milk squirted onto her tongue. It was oily, tasted of seal. Rich and thick, it clogged her throat.

She managed three swallows, then had to rest, leaning her head against the sow. She drifted into sleep and woke a few seconds later to swallow more milk. She alternated, drinking and sleeping, until she felt human again.

I’m going to live, she thought as she lay against the mother bear. From beyond the ends of the earth, Bear had found a way to save her. And somehow, she thought, I’m going to find a way to save him.

CHAPTER 19

Latitude 84° 42’ 08” N

Longitude 74° 23’ 06” W

Altitude 3 ft.

Squinting into the sun’s glare, Cassie scanned the softening ice. In the twenty-four-hour sun, icicles dripped into melt pools. The constant drip sounded like the second hand on a clock. Heading toward Ward Hunt Island, she’d traveled with the bears for three weeks, stopping only to drink bear milk and eat the strips of seal and fish that the bears had brought her. Often the bears had carried her while she slept so she wouldn’t lose time. But it hadn’t been enough.

I’m not going to make it, she thought.

She tried to ignore the knot of fear that lodged inside her rib cage. Sweat pricked the back of her neck underneath the flannel and wool. Everywhere, the ice was splintering. In five-foot-wide cracks, the ice was packed mush that moved with a hollow sound. Murres and gulls wheeled overhead, diving for cod in the widening cracks. She was not going to make it to land before the ice receded from the shore. Not going to make it, her mind whispered over and over. Not going to make it.

Summer was coming.

Facing a stretch of thin ice, Cassie mounted one of the bears. With giant paws like snowshoes, he walked across the green-gray ice. It wobbled in waves. Holding her breath, she watched the frost patterns for cracks. She stayed mounted as the bears continued to plod over thin ice and alongside ice rivers.

Five days later, Cassie and the bears reached the end of the ice.

Ahead of them, ice tossed in the waves, and then crumbled into semifrozen gruel. The slush undulated. Eventually, it dispersed into open ocean. Miles and miles of open water lay between her and land.

Cassie stared at the water. It was over. She was too late. She was stranded on the pack ice. All her grand resolve to reach the ends of the earth… All she’d done was reach the end of the ice.

The sun sparkled like golden jewels on the ice and the water. Blinking fast, she focused on the dancing waves. She knew better than to cry in the cold. Her father had taught her that years ago. And did he also teach you to quit? she asked herself. Was it to be a family tradition to fail to reach the troll castle? Like father, like daughter? “Snap out of it,” she whispered. “You aren’t dead yet.” She had options: Max could still come, or… She could not think of a second option.

Hoping for inspiration or a miracle, she looked around her at the army of polar bears. An arctic fox, diminutive beside the behemoths, trotted among them. Light as a cat, he didn’t have to worry about weak ice, she thought. If she were the size of the fox, maybe the bears could have swum her across any open water without drenching her. Cassie looked at the glittering black water and shuddered. As Dad would have said, it was death water: In fifteen minutes, the muscles would seize, consciousness would fade, and death would come. As things were, without a munaqsri to warm her, she’d freeze if she tried to swim.

So all she had to do was find herself another munaqsri. Problem solved.

She snorted at herself. Like it was so easy. Billions of people spent their lives without seeing a munaqsri or even knowing they existed. Of course, she did know they existed, even if they moved too fast to see, but unless she just happened to know of an imminent birth or death…

The answer came so quickly that she nearly shouted out loud. If she were present at a creature’s death… Cassie slid off the polar bear, her eyes fixed on the arctic fox. She’d seen foxes dogging the polar bears for weeks now. Arctic foxes were scavengers, living off the remains of bear kills. But with so many bears together, every kill was thoroughly stripped—there were few remains. She felt her heart race, thudding against her rib cage.

Somewhere on the ice behind them, there had to be a starving arctic fox.

“We’re going back,” she said, slapping the bear’s shoulder. “Come on. Back the way we came.” If she could find another munaqsri, he could help her off the ice. Even better, he could take her to Bear!

Cassie trudged north through her sprawling polar bear army. The bears milled around the ice and watched her with their black, inscrutable eyes. She stroked their fur as she passed, trying to reassure them. “I’ll save him,” she said. “I promise I’ll bring your king home.”

After five hours of walking, she saw a small dusty white shadow, nearly yellow against the blue-white ice. Loose snow swirled like fast-moving clouds around it. The shadow raised its head as she approached—it was an old fox. He was so thin that she could see his ribs pressing up through his fur. Poor thing, she thought. If the polar bears hadn’t banded together, he might have had a chance at one more season, but he hadn’t been able to compete with all the bears.

Shedding her pack, she knelt on the ice beside the fox. He laid his head back down and closed his eyes. His breathing was labored. She watched his ribs jerk up and down, his breath a harsh huff against the hiss of the wind.

Behind her, Cassie heard the soft puffing of bears. She saw them out of the corners of her eyes, blurred by the frost on her goggles. “Just a little longer,” she promised them. And then she’d be off the ice and on her way to Bear… if this worked.

It had to work. The fox munaqsri had to come, didn’t he?

No one would come when a polar bear died, she thought. Their souls would… She didn’t know what would happen to their souls. And with no one to transport the souls to the newborn, then these bears, these beautiful bears, would be extinct in a generation. No soul, no life.

Bear had risked all of them to marry her. He’d trusted that she’d respect his one and only request. And she hadn’t. Cassie hugged her stomach. Even through all the layers, she could feel the slight bulge. This… what he’d done… didn’t excuse the damage she’d done, however unintentionally, to all these beautiful bears. She had to reach Bear.

The fox shuddered, and his ribs sank down, down, as if folding into his fur. They didn’t rise again. “Munaqsri!” she called.

She saw nothing.

“Fox munaqsri!” Cassie said. “I need to talk to you on behalf of the bear munaqsri!” He had to be here. She had no backup plan.

“You know the polar bear?” a voice said. Suddenly, a second arctic fox perched beside the dead fox. Spiking his fur, the fox arched his back like a cat. “You tell him I blame him for the fate of my foxes. While his bears herd, my foxes are starving.” His muzzle curled back, and sunlight glinted on sharp incisors. “I will bring my complaints to the Arctic overseer—” With his thick white fur and delicate snout, he looked like a cross between a Pekinese and a Persian cat, hardly anything threatening. But he was an angry fluff ball with the power of a munaqsri.

Cassie scrambled to her feet. “Wait, listen! Bear… the bear munaqsri… is in trouble. I need you to speed me to the troll castle, east of the sun and west of the moon.”

The effect of her words was instantaneous. He switched from furious to distressed in an eyeblink. “He has forsaken his bears? Oh, my foxes!” The fox tilted his head back and yowled. “My foxes will starve! No one has ever returned from there. He will never return!”

The fox’s cries sliced into her. She clapped her hands to her ears. “Yes, he will!” Cassie shouted. Her mother had returned. If Bear could rescue Gail, then Cassie could rescue Bear. She would bring him back. She would fix everything. “I can bring him back!”

His howl died in yet another split-second mood change. Now silent, the fox stared at her. “Who are you?” he asked finally.

“Cassie Dasent,” she said. She couldn’t read the expression on his fox face. He’d already gone from furious to distressed to contemplative in less than thirty seconds. Please, let him help her.

“You are not a munaqsri,” he said.

“I’m the wife of the polar bear,” she said.

“Interesting taste,” he said.

Cassie gritted her teeth. Now he was mocking her? Her husband was missing, suffering with trolls; the polar bears and arctic foxes were in danger of extinction; and she was stuck on the ice, at least four months pregnant, with summer rapidly approaching. “I didn’t trek here from beyond the North Pole to be insulted by something cuddly,” she snapped. “It’s your choice, Fluffy: Help me and help your foxes, or don’t help me and watch them die.”

Fluffy licked his nose. Cassie held her breath. She’d either reached the erratic munaqsri or utterly antagonized him.

“I cannot take you there,” he said finally. “The castle is east of the sun and west of the moon. It is beyond my region. I cannot leave the ice. Another munaqsri is responsible for foxes on land.”

“Then help me find another munaqsri,” Cassie said. There had to be a munaqsri who could cross from the ice to the land. Quickly, she scanned the ice, the sky, and the sea.

Out in the ocean, a whale lifted its spiral tusk. Slow and stately, a second horn rose out of the water. As if in an ancient ritual, the two narwhals crossed their unicorn horns. “Call a whale,” she said.

“A whale will not help you,” he said. “You are not a munaqsri, and they will have no interest in the fate of the polar bears or of my foxes.”

One problem at a time, she thought as she lifted her pack onto her shoulders. “Just do it. Please, Fluffy?”

The ocean buckled at her feet. Screeching, seabirds recoiled from the water. For an instant, their bodies blackened the sky. “He comes,” the fox said.

Cassie stumbled as waves rocked the ice. Inches from the ice edge, a dark smooth curve as large as a submarine rose out of the water. And then it kept rising, larger and larger. As Cassie stared, the bowhead whale lifted its mouth above the swirling waves. Its maw gaped open, and Cassie saw fringed plates of baleen, enormous sheaths that filled the whale’s mouth. Algae, barnacles, and seaweed clung to the dripping sheaths. No ordinary whale could have been this huge.

The colossus shut its mouth, and waves swelled onto the ice. Cassie scrambled backward as freezing water splashed her mukluks. Behind her, the ice cracked. She looked over her shoulder to see a split in the ice widen from the stress of the waves. On either side of the split, her polar bears waited, shoulder to shoulder—her beautiful bears. Seeing them gave her strength.

“I need your help,” she said to the whale.

“You are not a munaqsri.” His voice pounded like a drum. She shuddered as each syllable hit her ears.

“My husband is,” she said. “He’s the polar bear munaqsri.”

Rising higher in the water, as massive as a monster from a myth, the bowhead drummed, “He may be, but you are not. You have no ties to us.”

The ice rocked as if in an earthquake. Spray and wind hit her face. She spread her legs to keep her balance and held the shoulder straps of her backpack. He didn’t care if he drowned her, she realized. Looking up at the leviathan, she said, “I’m tied to him. We made vows.”

“We are all bound by our promises,” he intoned.

Cassie pushed her hair out of her eyes and squinted up at the bowhead. He eclipsed the sun. “Please. You have to help me reach the troll castle.”

“Nothing living ever goes there,” the bowhead said.

“Then take me across the ocean,” she pleaded. “Just to the shore. I’ll find the way myself from there. But please, help me off the ice!”

“I do not help humans.”

“The bears will die if I don’t save their munaqsri,” Cassie said. She couldn’t fail. Her beloved bears would vanish from the face of the earth. “Help me for their sake.”

The bowhead drifted against the crumbling ice. Cassie flailed as the ice rocked. “The bears are not my concern,” he said.

He had to care about something! She cast around for another idea, and she hit on inspiration. “I’m carrying the Bear’s child,” she said. “One of you. A future munaqsri.”

The bowhead sprayed water from his spout. Screaming, Cassie threw her gloved hands over her head and ducked as it rained ice-cold seawater. “You risk a munaqsri,” the bowhead boomed. “It cannot be allowed.”

Beside her, the arctic fox hissed and growled. “You hold a species’ future inside you, and you undertake this quest? You seek death.”

Oh, no, she’d made it worse. “But I have to save—”

“I cannot allow you to endanger a future munaqsri,” the bowhead said.

“Nor I!” Fluffy said.

“You must stay on the ice where you belong.” With that pronouncement, the bowhead submerged. A vast wave of water surged in his wake.

Cassie scrambled away from the wave. “I’ll die if I stay!” She would die, the bears would die, the foxes would die. Bear would be trapped in the place that had made Gail scream.

“The bears will care for you until the child is born,” Fluffy said. “And when he is grown, the bears will have their new king. My foxes shall live, and all will be as it should.”

She shook her head. Her throat felt choked. She had to make him help her. She couldn’t lose her one chance at Bear. “Bowhead!” she shouted at the waves. Could he still hear her? Please, let him hear her. The glittering black waves still churned in his wake. Cassie called to the deep, “You want your precious child to live? Then keep its mother alive!”

She ran and dove into the Arctic Ocean.

CHAPTER 20

Latitude 84° 10’ 46” N

Longitude 74° 22’ 53” W

Altitude -32 ft.

Cold seared her skin. Knives sliced her bones. She kicked the water. Thirty feet down, she shed her pack. It sank. I’m not dying, she thought. This isn’t the end. She saw the surface: golden green. Clawing the water, she swam toward it.

She could not feel her hands. She had no arms. No legs.

Numb, she burned. Her lungs screamed.

Golden green turned black.

Fifteen minutes. Death water.

It hurt to die.

And then it didn’t hurt. Cassie was cocooned in currents. She swept through silver fish and translucent jellies. Cod eddied around her body, and comb jellies grazed her with their rain-bow cilia. Light—green—hung in the water like dust in air.

She looked down at a garden of brilliant orange starfish and golden sea anemones. Was this heaven? Small lobsters crawled over rocks. Crabs with spider legs scrambled over mud to hide in soft strands of algae. She looked upward. Belugas undulated through the green light. The water filled with the sounds of their chirps and whistles. She watched them swim, singing, overhead. No one’s heaven had lobsters and off-pitch belugas. It would even be odd for a hell. She smiled and tasted salt. She was underwater. Alive.

But how? She’d hoped the bowhead munaqsri would save her, but she didn’t see him. He would have to be touching her to save her. Oddly, no one was touching her. So who was keeping her alive? And warm? And not in pain? “Hello? Anyone?” Her words burbled in the water.

The tide carried her through strands of algae. Soft ribbons of green brushed against her. The algae coated the loose ice overhead and the floor below so that they looked like an overgrown lawn. Cassie eyed the dustlike krill. “Hello? Do any of you talk?”

No shrimp answered. At least she wouldn’t have to hold a conversation with something almost microscopic. She nearly laughed at the image, but then the sea darkened. Cassie looked up; the bowhead blocked the sun. He looked as if he could swallow her entire universe. Cassie shrank from the living eclipse, acutely aware how much she didn’t belong here. She was alive only by someone else’s decision. What if whoever it was changed its mind? The bowhead passed over her, and in his wake, sunlight flooded the water. She didn’t want to be down here a second longer. She swam toward the sun.

Current slammed against her, sending her tumbling sideways. Her hood fell back and her hair swirled. She tried again, aiming diagonally upward.

Fish swarmed her. Cod, their silver bodies streaking in the slanted light, surrounded her. She could not move her arms without slapping them. The fish butted their heads against her, pushing her down and then propelling her through the water. She flailed like a windmill, and the fish scattered.

As the water cleared, she saw a shape—it was coral, a city of coral, rising out of the muddy sea floor. Teeming with fish, the city was an organic Manhattan. In its own way, it was as grand as Bear’s castle.

She heard a laugh. Cassie spun in the water. “Who’s there?” she called. Really, it could be anything from the pink crustaceans to the comb jellies.

It was a mermaid.

Perched on a salt-encrusted rock, the mermaid had codlike scales on her tail that spread into silvery skin at her navel. Her human skin rippled in soft wrinkles, like a bloated drowned body. She laughed in streams of air bubbles.

Without thinking, Cassie said, “You’re mythical.”

The mermaid’s laugh grew wilder and harsher. It sounded like waves breaking.

Cod nibbled at the mermaid’s hair. Made of kelp, her hair drifted around her face like Medusa’s snakes. Cassie noticed the mermaid had no fingers, and a memory tugged at her, one of the local stories. This was the creature who had spawned the Sedna stories, the Inuit sea woman whose father had chopped off her fingers. “You’re Sedna,” Cassie said. Months ago, Bear had mentioned Sedna as the overseer of the Arctic Ocean.

With a flick of her fin, the mermaid rocketed toward Cassie. Instinctively, Cassie shielded her face, but the mermaid veered around her and circled her in a jet stream of bubbles. “I have heard of you as well,” Sedna said. “You are the girl who was forced to marry the polar bear to save your mother from the trolls.”

“No one forced me,” Cassie said. “I chose to save her.” And now she was choosing to save him, whether he loved her or not. “I need to reach the castle that’s east of the sun and west of the moon. Will you help me?”

“The bowhead says that you have a future munaqsri inside you,” the mermaid said. She swam faster. Bubbles cycloned around Cassie.

Cassie pressed her hands to her curved stomach. It was only a fetus right now. “It’s not even born yet, and it might not want to be a munaqsri. But Bear’s alive now. Please, help me. If not for me, then for the polar bears.”

“Land creatures,” said the mermaid dismissively. She kept swimming, tail flicking through the water.

Cassie tried to watch the mermaid, but the mermaid swam in a blur now, still circling her. “They’re almost sea mammals,” Cassie said. It was a controversial theory, but her father had done a paper on it. Maybe the caretaker of the sea would like the theory. “Blubber. Water-resistant fur. Streamlined ears. Webbing between their toes. They’re evolving into the sea.” Please, let her believe!

The mermaid laughed, and the bubbles spun in waves. “I am helping you,” she said. “You have not drowned.”

The mermaid swam even faster. Cassie felt dizzy. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the vertigo stayed. She opened her eyes. “But I need to find Bear!” she shouted. Bubbles cycloned faster and faster. She was surrounded, as if in a net. Cassie swam at the bubbles. She was thrown back into the center. She could not see through the bubbles. “Wait!” The mermaid blurred into silver and green.

The cyclone lengthened. Cassie saw it stretch like a Slinky through the sea. “Hush, child,” Sedna said. “Trust the munaqsri. We want what is best for our world, as all creatures do.”

“Not the trolls,” Cassie called through the bubbles. “The trolls don’t want ‘what’s best.’ They want the polar bears extinct!”

“No one knows what the trolls want,” the mermaid said. “You must go to Father Forest. He knows best how to help you.”

“Who is he?” she asked eagerly. “How do I find him?”

The cyclone collapsed around her. Bubbles hit Cassie’s skin. She kicked, yelling, and the bubbles squeezed. Cassie flew. Like paint squirting from a tube, she shot down the cyclone through the water. The roar of the water drowned her screaming as she sped through a tunnel of bubbles. Just when she thought the ride would never end, she felt the sea undulate beneath her and the cyclone of bubbles thrust her into the air. She broke out of the water. Sun hit her eyes. “Whoa!” she yelled as she rushed to meet the shore.

CHAPTER 21

Latitude 68° 32’ 12” N

Longitude 89° 49’ 33” W

Altitude 2 ft.

Cassie skidded on her tailbone. “Ow, ow!” Shielding her face, she slammed into a dune of snow. For an instant, she lay there, limbs tangled. She was alive. She had dived into the Arctic Ocean and lived.

Closing her eyes, Cassie inhaled. The air tasted wonderful, like salt and sun and earth. Opening her eyes, she turned her head. Her pack lay beside her. The nylon had ripped in three spots, and the frame had warped into an S, but it was dry and whole.

Gingerly, she untangled herself and tested her joints—no broken bones. Just a lot of bruises. She pushed herself up to sitting and looked around. Glacier-scoured rocks stretched for miles, patches of snow alternating with windswept expanses. She was on the tundra.

A brown blur scooted over her mukluks. She jerked her feet under her.

“I am here,” a voice said.

“Where? Who said that?” she asked. She looked around at the rocks, the waves, the sky.

The brown blur shot past her, darting from rock to rock. Suddenly, it stopped, and she saw a roly-poly brown rodent, like a furry toy football perched on a rock—a lemming. Cassie grinned. Sedna had said she’d help. Cassie just hadn’t expected that help to take the shape of a magical rodent. She pictured herself telling Bear about this. He was going to laugh for days.

“Come on,” the lemming said. “Pick me up. We must be off. I have responsibilities to tend to, you know.”

With the lemming cradled in her hands, Cassie sped across the tundra at munaqsri speed. The world sped by like a film on fast-forward. She saw clips and heard snippets of the landscape as it changed around her. Geese flew overhead, and unseen birds called across the grasses. In hollows, purple saxifrages and arctic white heather flourished. Poppies bloomed in snow patches. She was heading south (quickly), and summer was heading north.

Late in the sunlit night, they halted. “I feel a call,” the lemming said. “Camp here. I will return for you.” Before she could protest, the rodent was gone.

Her one link to Bear, gone.

Cassie swallowed hard. He’ll return, she told herself. He said he’d return. And Sedna had said to trust. Ordering herself to stop worrying, she looked around. She was beyond the shrub tundra now, deep in tussock tundra.

Stretching out her legs, Cassie threaded between headsize clumps of grass. Filled with stagnant water, the tussocks would burst if she stepped on them. To walk through the minefield, she had to lift her knees high like a stork. She imagined how she’d retell this to Bear: She’d march around the banquet hall as if she were walking through tussocks, and he’d laugh in his low rumble. He’d serve that chicken in white wine sauce, and she’d tell him how she’d picked lichen from rocks for her dinner on the tundra. She’d say how much she’d missed him, and he’d say he loved her and had never meant to hurt her…

But all the apologies in the world wouldn’t undo anything that had happened. Cassie laid her hands on her stomach. Even if she found Bear… everything would be different. She swallowed hard. She didn’t just want Bear back; she wanted the life they’d had.

She camped between tussocks. Overhead, the northern lights chased each other in pale ribbons as the sun continued its low roll along the horizon. She dreamed about Bear, and she woke expecting him to be beside her like he used to be. She nearly cried when she realized he wasn’t.

To her relief, the lemming returned shortly after she woke, and again they raced across the tundra. The next time they stopped, she was surrounded by cottongrass. Thousands of flowers that looked like gone-to-seed dandelions covered the tundra in a fine white mist. She took out her GPS. After a dip in the Arctic Ocean, it shouldn’t still have worked, but the numbers flickered. She tilted it until she could read it. Latitude 66° 58’ 08", longitude 110° 02’ 13". Whoa. She’d come hundreds of miles in less than two days. At this rate, she’d be in the boreal forest before she knew it. “Thank you,” she said to the lemming. She’d never imagined it would be a rodent who would be her savior.

“The owl will hunt for you,” the lemming said. “She enjoys it.”

“What owl?” Cassie scanned the skies. She didn’t see… Wait, she saw a white splotch to the north. Silent, the snowy owl drifted over the tundra. Her feathers were like a cloud against the sky. Cassie saw her dive—right toward the lemming. “Watch out!” Cassie yelled as the owl’s talons wrapped around him.

The lemming did not flinch, and the owl released him and glided a few feet away before settling in the cottongrass. “You invite me to play,” the owl said, “And you do not even run. Where is the sportsmanship in that?”

Cassie exhaled. It was the owl munaqsri, and they obviously knew each other. Cassie wasn’t going to lose her transportation.

“I did not invite you to hunt me,” the lemming said in his piping voice. “I invited you to hunt for her. She travels to Father Forest. She is the wife of the polar bear.”

The owl swiveled her head a hundred eighty degrees. “I see. And the child is his?”

Cassie threw her arms around her stomach. The sun was warm, and she had shed her parka and wool. Her curved stomach strained her flannel. More than four months now. “I need to find Bear,” she said, her voice rising. “Father Forest has to help me.”

The owl studied her for another moment. “Of course he will help you,” the owl said. “You may rely on him to do what is best. What do you wish to eat?”

Cassie’s knees wobbled in relief. The owl wasn’t going to argue, and she was going to get her dinner. Food! She wanted chocolate cake and stacks of hamburgers and Dad’s beans and Max’s sausage omelettes, but she tried to think of what lived in sedge meadows. Dad used to refer to lemmings as “wild fast food.” Cassie glanced at the lemming munaqsri. “Rabbits?” she suggested.

In a few minutes, the owl returned, soaring low. Her feathers brushed flowers. Petals flew like confetti. Cassie saw the grass sway in front of the owl. Cassie stood on top of a hummock for a better view. With wings spread a full five feet wide, the owl herded rabbits. Lots of rabbits. Politely, the owl called to her, “Would you like to kill one, or may I?”

She felt a twinge of pity for the hares being hunted by a superowl. The owl, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying herself. “Please, be my guest,” Cassie said.

Cassie set her stove as the owl neatly killed a hare.

Seconds later, a live hare appeared beside the corpse. He hopped from paw to paw. “Filthy predator!” the new hare shouted. “Return the soul you stole immediately.”

The owl ruffled her feathers. “You did not come to claim the soul. It was free for me to take. You would not have wanted it to be lost, would you? It is better for it to become an owl than for it to be lost.”

“I am here now!” the hare munaqsri cried. “Return it immediately.”

“As you wish,” the owl said. She opened her beak. Mist, the soul, drifted across the grasses. The hare chased after it. It melted into him.

The owl dropped the carcass beside the stove. “Thank you,” Cassie said. “Sorry for causing problems.”

The owl shrugged, an interesting feat with wings. “The hare has no sense of humor,” she said.

The hare munaqsri returned. “Disgusting predators.” The irate rabbit fixed its eyes on Cassie. “You are an omnivore. Why must you eat my hares?”

“Find me some wild tofu, and I’ll eat that,” Cassie offered.

The owl chuckled. Sputtering, the hare disappeared into the grasses.

Cassie smiled. How strange that she could now joke with talking birds and rodents. Months ago, Bear had said he could show her a new world with wonders she didn’t know existed. She certainly had never imagined she’d be out on the tundra with a magic lemming, owl, and hare.

“Are we close?” Cassie asked.

“I will bring you to the end of my region,” the lemming said, “and the owl will arrange for a guide to bring you into the forest. You will be with Father Forest by tomorrow afternoon.”

Cassie felt her heart leap. She could see Bear tomorrow! Finally, after the ice and the sea and the tundra… Cassie ran her fingers through her hair, and her fingers snagged a few inches from her scalp. She hoped he didn’t mind that she smelled. Cassie laughed out loud and shook her head. Her hair flew around her in a red cloud of tangles. “I’m coming, Bear!” she said. She’d bring him home. She touched her stomach. And then? She didn’t know.

CHAPTER 22

Latitude 64° 04’ 50” N

Longitude 124° 56’ 02” W

Altitude 1281 ft.

She’d be met by a guide, the lemming had said before he’d left her, but Cassie didn’t see anything that looked like a guide. She was alone at the foot of a hill. Spruces studded the low rise, and an aspen grove blocked her view over the top. The air crackled with birds and tasted faintly of evergreen. “Hello?” she called. She wondered what kind of creature she was supposed to meet. Rodent? Bird? Mosquito?

One of the aspen trees halfway up the hill began to shiver. Aspens, northern aspens, quiver in a breath of wind. She remembered one of Dad’s lessons: Populus tremuloides, they were called. Quivering aspens. But this was the only tree in the grove that was moving. She walked up to it. Its trunk was as thick as her arm, with bark a peeling pale green. Thin branches jutted out at uneven intervals.

It jiggled harder, as if it were doing a belly dance.

And then suddenly it laughed. Or, more accurately, a girl perched in the branches laughed. Cassie squinted—the sun was directly behind the tree and, oddly, made the girl appear greenish.

“Hellooo!” The girl waved. She swung out of the branches and landed lightly on the ground. “I am the aspen.”

Cassie blinked at her. She was green. Her skin looked like layered leaves, and her hair looked like twigs. “You’re the aspen munaqsri?”

“Yes,” the girl said. Her voice was high, whistlelike, and cheerful.

“You’re a tree,” Cassie said.

Again, the green girl laughed. “Yes!”

Cassie decided that she’d seen stranger things than this. Or maybe she hadn’t. She tried to imagine describing this creature to Owen and Max. They’d never believe her. Gail might. If Cassie went back to the station now, maybe she and her mother would have something to talk about.

Following the aspen, Cassie climbed to the top of the hill, and the view banished all other thoughts. All Cassie could do was stare. “Wow,” she whispered. It was gorgeous. Far in the distance, she could see mountains, the Mackenzies. Dark purple with streaks of glacial white, the mountains crowned the horizon. Max had always wanted to fly his Twin Otter in the Mackenzies. Now she could understand why. Rivers cut through the foothills. She saw enormous rock faces. And the green… oh, the green. Spruces, thick and tall, dominated the landscape for the hundreds of miles between her and those foothills. Pale green tamarack and the slender spines of aspens stood out like lights against the rich spruce green.

“Father Forest is within the boreal forest,” the tree-girl said. “We will ride there.”

“Ride what?” Cassie asked.

Seeming to ignore her, the aspen pointed. “I like that one,” she said. She was pointing at a nearby caribou, a young buck. His back was to them. He had shed most of his winter coat, but remnants hung like rags on his broad neck and back. He lowered his head into a thicket and thrashed his antlers against the branches. It sounded like a dozen snare drums; it drowned the chirps of birds. Finishing, he lifted his head. His antlers were tinted red. Cassie could hear larks and thrushes again. The tree-girl sprinted to his side, as fast as a blur.

Grinning, Cassie followed her. This was even better than traveling by lemming. The aspen-girl sprang onto his back and beckoned to Cassie. Grasping the caribou’s mane, Cassie pulled herself onto his back. The length of her pack forced her to lean toward his neck. His vertebrae stuck into her legs.

“Run!” the aspen commanded.

He broke into a gallop, and the other caribou scattered. His tendons clicked with the unique caribou sound, like rubber bands snapping. Cassie bounced on his bony back as he accelerated to munaqsri speed under the aspen’s power.

She knew the moment they left the taiga and entered the boreal forest: The light changed. Shadows surrounded them as conifers blocked the sun. The caribou ran over needles that crunched, and he leaped over fallen trees. Spruces were swathes of dark green punctuated by the white flash of an aspen. Finally, she was almost to Father Forest!

The aspen shouted a command, and the caribou stopped. Cassie was tossed into his neck. “Ow!” Her stomach squished. She scooted back behind his prominent shoulder blades. “Why did…,” she began to ask, and then she stopped.

Ahead was a picturesque cottage nestled in spruces. It looked as if it were part of the spruces. The bark of the trees bled into the wood of the walls. The roof was made of mossy stones. Cassie smiled—the cottage defined “quaint.” Wild roses curled appealingly around the door and windows. The air smelled of rosemary and mint. Smoke curled invitingly from the chimney. Ferns covered the tiny yard, and wide slate stones made a path to the door. Cassie slid off the back of the caribou, and the caribou trotted away.

Opening a wooden gate, Cassie stepped on the first stone. She heard a chime like a chorus of birds. Passing her, the tree-girl skipped, laughing, down the path. Each stone sang out under her feet. It sounded like a bird-call xylophone. Cassie tested another stone. It chimed for her. Grinning, she went down the path toward the cottage door. She could smell bread baking. She inhaled deeply.

The tree-girl flung the door open. Cassie stooped in the doorway. She squinted, her pupils expanding. Inside, the cottage was as dark, snug, and comfortable as a bear den. It took a second for her eyes to adjust before she saw the cottage’s occupant.

The old man was as bent and gnarled as a black spruce tree. Broom in hand, he scuttled around the tiny home sweeping dirt from the corners and the ceilings. Dust hung in the air like morning haze. He muttered to himself. The tree-girl threw her arms around him. He patted her absently on the shoulder. “Yes, yes, dear,” he said. “But everything must be perfect for our guest.”

Father Forest. She wanted to shout or sing. Bear seemed so close she could almost feel his fur under her fingers and smell his seal-tinged breath. Cassie cleared her throat.

He clapped his hands together. “Our guest!” All his wrinkles seemed to smile. “Please, come in, come.” He fussed around her as she ducked inside.

The cottage kitchen was full of cabinets and drawers, all carved with pictures of rabbits and squirrels. Shelves were stacked with wooden plates, bowls, and pitchers. The sink even had a wooden faucet. The only metal was a wroughtiron stove with an old-fashioned teakettle. Corners of the kitchen receded into shadows. She saw a small, cozy living room through an open doorway, and through one of three other doorways, she glimpsed a bedroom. It was nothing like Bear’s castle with the open ballroom, the buttressed halls, the spiral staircase, but she liked it. It felt warm and safe and a welcome change from ice and tundra. “You are Father Forest?”

The old man bobbed his head. “Do you like it?”

He must mean the forest, she guessed. “It’s beautiful.”

He beamed. “You must see the Aberdeen Lake area. Beautiful white spruces. And the Peacock Hills. Some of my finest work. Yes, you must have a tour! You should see my aspen groves. And the riverbanks with the balsam poplars. The rivers are not my region, of course, but, ah… the riverbanks!”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Oh, you must see the willows! Riparian willow thickets!” Unable to restrain himself, he hopped from foot to foot. He reminded Cassie of a Christmas elf. Or Santa Claus himself.

“Next time,” she promised, and she smiled at him. His enthusiasm was infectious. It was impossible not to like him. “I’m sure you do wonderful work.”

“It is a noble calling.” For an instant, there was something in his eyes—a seriousness. “Munaqsri make the world work.” And then he was all smiles. He patted her hand. “Come, sit,” he said. Guiding her to an empty corner, the old man tapped the floor with his broom. In the spot it touched, a tree root bubbled up from out of the floor. It flattened under his guidance. He molded it as easily as Bear sculpted ice. She thought of Bear’s topiaries—all destroyed now. Soon they’d be home, she told herself. The forest munaqsri patted the root chair. “Please, let me get you something to eat. You must be famished.”

Her stomach rumbled as he scurried to the kitchen. “Thank you, but I don’t have time. You’re right. About munaqsri, I mean. Without Bear, the whole polar bear species will be extinct in a generation.”

On tiptoe, he peered into his cabinets. “We have all sorts of delicacies here in my forest. Fresh fronds? Pinecone hearts?” Father Forest filled a tray with out-of-season berries and odd-shaped leaves.

She was not going to be distracted, not this close, though the thought of food was tempting. She hadn’t eaten since the hare yesterday. “I was told you could help me get to the troll castle.”

He opened the iron oven, and the smell of bread wafted across the room. Her stomach cried. He lifted out a luscious loaf. “Rest first. Then we’ll talk about your polar bear.”

Fresh bread. She salivated. How could it hurt? Wouldn’t it be better to rescue Bear on a full stomach? For all she knew, it was thousands of miles to the castle and she would need the energy. Urgency argued with hunger, and hunger won. Cassie took off her pack and rested it against a wall. She sat on the root chair. It felt as solid as ordinary wood, even though it had just grown. He served her the tray and the bread. She wondered why he hadn’t magicked the food here the way he had the chair. Then she bit into the bread and lost interest in the question.

The bread tasted like honey. It melted in her mouth. She devoured it in three mouthfuls. “This is wonderful.” Some of the leaves tasted like lettuce, some were tinged with mint, and others were nut flavored. “Thank you.”

He smiled fondly at her. “You are the wife of the bear. We take care of our own.”

She smiled. The owl had been right. She’d said that Cassie could rely on him. She had nothing more to worry about. Thanks to Sedna and Fluffy and the lemming and the aspen, she and Bear would be home soon. “How far is it to the castle?” she asked as she finished her food.

“Tea?” he asked. He patted a finger on the root. Cassie moved as a green shoot sprouted out of the bark beside her. It unfurled, and its tip swelled into a bulb. It fattened until it looked ready to burst. Green sides peeled away, and it opened like a tulip. From its base, color spread up it as it darkened from a light pink to a deep red. Delighted, she laughed out loud. How magical—just like something Bear would do. The forest munaqsri snapped the blossom at the base. The green shoot withered into dust. He fetched the kettle from the stove and poured tea into the flower. He handed it to her. The petals felt soft and warm. “You will like it,” he said, smiling. “It’s a special blend. Extra strong for you.”

Steam rose into her nose as she brought it to her lips. She took a sip. It tasted of herbs and pine. Immediately, she felt calmer. “Thank you again,” she said.

“I have prepared a bed for you,” he told her. “You need a good night’s sleep.”

Cassie shook herself. “No, no.” Her tongue felt thick. “So close.” She stood, and her knees felt suddenly weak. Father Forest took the tea out of her hands and set it on the root chair. Gently, he took her elbow and guided her to one of the doors. He said, “If you need anything, you have only to call out. The trees have ears, you know.”

Sitting in a corner, the tree-girl giggled—a shrill sound. It grated inside Cassie’s head like metal filings. She shook her head to clear it, and felt dizzy.

He led her through the door into a green room with a downy bed. She frowned at the bed. She did not want to sleep; she wanted Bear. “No, no sleep.” Her words slurred. It was hard to think. Dimly, she thought, It was the tea. But he was such a nice old man. “See Bear when wake?” She tried to look at him, but her eyelids felt as heavy as granite. She sank onto the bed.

He patted her arm. “Rest tonight, dear. Please, do not worry. It will be all right. You will see.”

On an impulse, she hugged the gnarled man.

“Yes, yes, dear,” he said. “You will see.”

CHAPTER 23

Latitude 63° 54’ 53” N

Longitude 125° 24’ 07” W

Altitude 1301 ft.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Cassie peeled the clothes from her skin—long johns plastered to her with dirt and dried sweat. It felt like pulling off a Band-Aid. She grimaced at herself. She had flecks of blood from a thousand scratches, and she was mottled with purple and yellow bruises. How lovely. She turned on the shower, and the water spilled through a crevice and then was funneled out between roots on the floor. She flinched as she ducked under the stream.

Mud dripped down Cassie’s legs, and the runoff turned a Mississippi brown. Father Forest had told her she would find fresh clothes in the bathroom closet, so she rinsed all her long johns and silkweights. Even considering the knockout tea, which (she had to admit) had provided much-needed sleep, he was proving to be a generous host. She felt like a hotel guest, or what she imagined a hotel guest would feel like—she’d never been one. Cassie sanded her skin with pine-scented soap. Wow, she had missed being clean! She scrubbed her hair. Grass clumps plopped onto the shower floor. She noticed one was seaweed.

She shook her hair and splattered the walls. Father Forest should be nominated for sainthood, she thought. She finally felt human again. First thing she would ask Bear to do when all this was over would be to resculpt the bathroom. She imagined herself and Bear rebuilding the castle side by side.

Glorying in her daydream and in the water, Cassie stretched. And she felt a fluttering in her stomach.

Her hands flew to her curved stomach. She felt the fluttering a second time. It was like wings inside her abdomen. Cassie grabbed the shower wall as her knees caved.

Oh, no. No, no. How could she have a baby? She huddled against the bark wall of the shower. Her hair stuck to her skin as water streamed over her. She wasn’t ready to be a mother!

She had so cleverly avoided thinking about it too much. But the baby wasn’t waiting for her to adjust to the idea. Every day, it marched closer to birth.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. She had to keep calm. Bear would help her. She wasn’t going to be alone. He’d know what to do with a baby—a munaqsri baby. Once she and Bear were together again, they could face this.

Cassie got to her feet and dried herself with a towel made of woven ferns. It fell apart on her skin. All she had to do was find Bear in time and it would all be fine. With Father Forest’s help, it would all be fine.

Cassie pulled the clothes out of the cabinet, and the clothes unfolded into a dress with a leaf green blouse and a shapeless bark brown skirt. Cotton underwear fell onto the floor. She stared at the dress. No one who was going to be trekking across a boreal forest wore a dress. Cassie searched the cabinet for other choices. She found only doll-like slippers. The slippers were worse than the dress—they would shred in the forest. What was Father Forest thinking?

Cassie glanced at her wet clothes, now hanging on a branch towel rack. She didn’t have much choice. If she didn’t want to be naked, she’d have to wear the dress. She put it on and scowled down at herself. “Ridiculous,” she said.

She pulled on her old mukluks and found Father Forest outside, waist-deep in ferns. He raised his head as she stepped on a singing stone. He beamed at her. “Sleep well?”

“Completely rested and ready to go,” she announced. “Thanks for the hospitality.” She decided not to say a word about the dress. It was probably all he had. His gnome pants would have been knickers on her. She shouldn’t be ungrateful after all he was doing for her and Bear.

He screwed up his face like a prune. “Not now!”

She’d felt the baby move; she didn’t want to wait another minute. “Why not?”

Father Forest waved at the yard of fronds. “The ferns are ready to seed.”

She was waiting for ferns? She had not crossed the entire Arctic to be delayed by ferns. “Bear is waiting for me,” she said.

“Ferns cannot wait,” he said.

Clenching her teeth, she reminded herself that he had fed and clothed her. A little yard work was a fair trade. “Fine,” she said through her teeth. “Let me help.”

He smiled with eyes crinkling like Santa Claus’s. Kneeling, he demonstrated how to pluck the seeds from the undersides of the ferns, scatter the seeds around the yard, and smooth pine needles over them. He acted like a child showing off a new toy. “Gravity and wind will do that, you know,” Cassie said.

“You are so innocent,” he said fondly. “It’s really charming.”

She scowled. “After the ferns, we go to Bear.” Bending over the ferns, she scraped the seeds with her short fingernails. She tossed them into open patches.

“Good, good,” he said, watching her.

It was as pointless as plucking autumn leaves. Cassie scraped and tossed, scraped and tossed, as fast as she could. Bear was waiting for her. She pictured him pacing in a cage while trolls prodded him and laughed. She hated the thought of him trapped and helpless. She scraped so fast that she shredded the tender leaves.

Whistling to himself, Father Forest leisurely bent over the ferns, picked the seeds one by one, examined each one in the low angled sunlight, considered the full yard, and placed the seeds individually on the ground. Cassie wanted to shake him. She had to bite her lip to keep from shouting at him to move.

Cassie worked through lunch and dinner. Father Forest came and went, tottering off to do munaqsri business (or, she thought, scratch his elbow for an hour or two). She stretched her back, wincing, as he sniffed the roses that curled around the cottage windows. He peeled back the petals until the roses were in full bloom. The old man, she decided, was a kinnaq, a lunatic. But as long as he brought her to Bear, she didn’t care. She finished with the ferns. “Now can we go?”

Father Forest arranged the petals like an artist. “All the seeds?”

She surveyed the yard. “Yes.”

He gestured to the forest. “And those?”

Cassie looked over her shoulder at the expanse of boreal forest beyond the picket fence. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

He left her looking out at the forest.

Cassie felt the baby shift inside her again, and she automatically placed her hands over her stomach. If she cooperated, this kinnaq would help her find Bear. Sedna had said he’d help her. Even the owl had said she could rely on him to do what was best.

For the first time, she wondered exactly what “best” meant.

She turned back to the cottage. Silent and peaceful, it looked like a painting. The amber light of the permanent sun warmed the roof. She didn’t want to spend another night without Bear. Father Forest would simply have to understand.

She marched into the cottage and through the kitchen. She found him lounging in a wooden rocking chair in the living room. He looked up as she entered. “Finished already?”

“I want my husband back,” she said.

“And I want my tea,” he said. “Come, have tea with me, and we will talk.” He tottered into the kitchen and fetched the kettle.

“Bear needs rescuing,” she said as evenly as she could. Rescuing Bear was more important than tea or ferns or showers or sleep. Rescuing Bear was more important than anything else in the world. She followed Father Forest to the kitchen. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your hospitality, but every second Bear is in that troll castle is a second too long. Please, try to understand.”

He poured two cups of tea. “Won’t you have some?”

She wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, she gritted her teeth and tried to smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were delaying me on purpose.”

He shuffled to a root chair and sat. Not looking at her, he stirred his tea. “You cannot travel with that child inside you. It risks too much.”

Cassie froze. She had to have heard wrong. “Excuse me?”

“I am sorry to disappoint you.”

She opened and shut her mouth twice before saying, “I don’t understand. You have to help me. You were supposed to help me. The mermaid said… Munaqsri are supposed to be good. You’re supposed to do what’s best.”

“I do want what is best. You cannot be allowed to risk a future caretaker.” Perched on the root chair with his feet dangling above the floor, he looked like a wrinkled child.

She clenched her fists. “I don’t care about the risks. I have to try!” Her father hadn’t tried, and look what had happened: She’d grown up without a mother, and Gail screamed at night.

His wrinkles darkened. “It is not safe… ”

“Bear needs me to do this.” She stalked to the guest bedroom and returned with her pack. “I need to do this.” This wasn’t open for debate.

Bones creaking, Father Forest rose. “I am sorry, but I have to insist.”

“You and what army?” She marched to the door.

In a quiet, sad voice, he said, “I do not need an army.” Flicking his wrist, he commanded the walls. Shoots sprouted out at her and wound around her wrists. Cassie shrieked. Vines tightened around her arms and coiled up to her armpits. Wrapping around her chest, they lifted her off the floor. She kicked, and her feet ran on empty air. She spun in the vines. “Let me go!”

“Of course, I will,” he said, “as soon as you understand that you must stay until the child is born. Your child is needed.” His voice was so calm that it chilled her. “The world is short of munaqsri, and munaqsri make the world work. Please, try to understand. It is for the best.”

Cassie fought, but the vines held her like a scarecrow—arms out and feet dangling. Her head was between the rafters. “You can’t do this! You can’t keep me here!”

He fetched his tea. “As soon as you agree to behave, you can come down.” He went to the door.

“Where are you going?” She twisted to see him open the door. “Come back here! Don’t leave me like this!” She kicked the air.

Sipping his tea, he walked out the door and shut it behind him.

Pedaling in vain, she spun in the air. “Get back here!”

She heard the last singing stone, the creak of the gate, and he was gone into the forest. Pumping her legs, she tried to swing. She was able to stir the vines. She swayed back and forth, increasing momentum.

Sensing movement, the vines shortened. Her head bumped into the ceiling. She swore. Sedna, the lemming, the owl, the aspen… Had they known that Father Forest would want to imprison her? Had they deliberately misled her, or had she willfully misunderstood?

Cassie clawed at the vines. They squeezed her wrists. She had to stop as they bit off circulation. She hung in the air, panting. Oh, Bear, I’ll find a way!

Dangling from the living ceiling, she swung in a lazy circle.

Cassie heard Father Forest boil his morning tea. She did not lift her head. “You need to let me down for the bathroom,” she said.

“Birds and squirrels do not use bathrooms. You will not disturb me.” He poured tea from the kettle. The sound made it worse.

She clamped her legs together.

The vines twined themselves around her legs, locking them tight. “Unless,” he said hopefully, “you have decided to stay?”

Straining against the vines, she swore at him until she ran out of words.

“Such language for a child,” he said mildly, and then he left the cottage.

After a few minutes, Cassie had to stop struggling. It hurt too much. Her arms pulled at their sockets; she felt like she was being crucified. Tears sprang into her eyes, but she blinked them back. She would not give him the satisfaction. He could not beat her. Nothing could beat her—not ice, not sea, not tundra, not this damn forest.

She wormed her fingers through the vines. Responding, vines split and wound around her fingers, paralyzing her hand. She twisted, and the vines thickened around her. “Oh, God,” she whispered. Panic started to rise—she couldn’t help it. She flailed against them. But more vines piled on top of the initial vines. She was cocooned from the neck downward in bark.

Soon she would be swallowed entirely, like she had been in her sleeping bag in the storm. Panic bubbled in her throat. “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I can’t. I can’t.” She could take anything but this: trapped, helpless, not in control of her own body. She took a deep breath, forcing down the fear. Her ribs strained against the wood. She took another breath, and the vines responded, squeezing the air out of her. She couldn’t help herself—she begged, “Please, don’t crush me. Please. Please.”

The vines loosened a centimeter, and she took minibreaths. She reminded herself she could still think and talk. The vines could not hold her mind or tongue. She shuddered at the image of vines wrapping around her tongue. Her shudder was constricted to a tiny shiver by the cocoon. She hadn’t known that Father Forest had this kind of power. She should have known—Bear had it too. But Bear had never used his power like this. When she’d wanted to go, he had let her go.

He had used his power on her only once without her consent.

For the hundredth time, she replayed their conversation in her head. He’d claimed a misunderstanding. He’d said he’d hoped that once she knew how important a munaqsri child was, she’d be as happy as he was. Now that she’d seen firsthand how all the other munaqsri reacted to her unborn baby, she finally believed he hadn’t meant to deceive her or use her or betray her. He may have deluded himself, but he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

Nine hours later, she heard the chime of the stones. Her cocoon, as thick as three bodies now, and immobile, positioned her so that her back was to the door. She saw sunlight spill across the floor as the door opened behind her. “Father Forest?”

“Yes, my child. How are you?”

She was aching and sweating inside her wooden shell. Her ribs hurt, her bladder pinched, and her skin itched, and he had the nerve to ask how she was? He dared call her “my child,” as if he were some benevolent priest? She was not a child, and she wasn’t his. “You need to let me go.”

He shut the door, closed out the light. “I am sorry,” he said, “but you give me little choice.” She heard feet shuffle. She could not see him. Neck paralyzed, she had to face the carved cabinets.

“You’re making a mistake,” she said.

Father Forest hobbled into view and put a pot onto the stove. “You are reckless. The young often are. In the meantime, it is up to your elders to ensure your selfish behavior does not cause lasting harm. You risk the life of a munaqsri, and that cannot be allowed.”

“Bear is a munaqsri!” Why wouldn’t anyone understand that? She was on their side—trying to help one of their own! She fought to keep her voice calm and even. “If you keep me here, you condemn the polar bears.”

She saw pity in his face. “The bear is gone,” he said gently. “I know it is difficult for you to accept, but he is beyond the world. He is as dead.”

“He is not dead!” Cassie thrashed, and the vines squeezed.

“You have the baby to think of now, and the polar bears are a dying species regardless,” he said. “You must accept his loss, and—”

“I will not. He’s not dead!” Never dead. She couldn’t think it. It wasn’t true. He was a prisoner, waiting to be freed, like her mother years ago.

“Some nice stew will make you feel better. Carrots, potatoes, onions”—he fetched vegetables from the cabinet—“tomatoes. If you truly love him, you will let him go.”

“He promised me,” she said. “‘Until my soul leaves my body.’” A munaqsri couldn’t break a promise. Right? Unless it was countered with another promise. Cassie remembered Gram’s story: The North Wind’s Daughter had countered her father’s promise with her own. Cassie felt despair tighten around her, tighter than the vines.

Father Forest peeled and sliced the vegetables and then added them to the pot. “Is that what your bear wanted? For you to seek your death and your child’s? No one has ever been east of the sun and west of the moon.”

“Not true,” she said. Gail had gone there, blown by the North Wind. The North Wind… Cassie cursed herself. She should have gone to the North Wind. He could have taken her to Bear. Stupid idiot. Now she had a plan, now when she was trussed up like a snared hare.

“No, my child, any attempt to reach the castle is doomed to fail. It is best for you to stay here. It is what the bear would have wanted.”

Promise me you will not try. “He didn’t mean it!” If you love me, let me go. “He doesn’t want to be a troll prisoner. He wants to be with me!” She was surprised at the strength of her conviction. When push came to shove, she did believe he loved her. The realization took her breath away.

“Sometimes bad things happen to good people.” Father Forest ladled stew into a bowl. He carried it to Cassie and commanded the floor to raise him up until his face was even with hers. The smell of the stew filled her head. Betraying her, her stomach cried. “Everything will work out for the best,” Father Forest said. “You will see.” He lifted a spoonful to her lips. “Open up, now. You need to keep your strength up.” Saliva flooded her tongue. “Come on,” he said. “For the baby.”

Cassie spat in his face.

Father Forest wiped his eyes. “Foolish child. This is for your own good.”

“I hope you have a forest fire,” she said. She would not let him see her fear.

“You will stay up there until you understand.” At the flick of his hand, the floor lowered him down and the vines jerked her arms. She bit back a scream. He turned his back on her and emptied the stew back into the pot.

Tears pricked her eyes as her arms ached. She blinked her eyes clear.

“Someday,” he said, “you will thank me.”

And he left her alone.

Cassie wet herself during the sunlit night. She felt the warmth run down her thighs and pool at her knees, where the vines were a tight ring. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to think about anything but where she was. She thought of the station. Dad, Gram, Max… She’d always assumed that if she had a child, they’d be there with her. She pictured herself as a little kid, surrounded by scientists and snowmobiles. She’d been so lucky.

In the morning, she watched Father Forest putter in the kitchen, fixing himself breakfast. She hoped his eggs tasted like urine. But when he brought her some, she ate it. “There’s a good girl,” he clucked. He poured water into her mouth. Most of it spilled down her neck and seeped in between the vines. “Are you ready to cooperate?”

“I don’t want to starve before I rescue Bear,” she said.

He frowned at her. “Perhaps in another day, you will feel differently.”

“Don’t count on it.”

He left her again, and she hung from the ceiling for the rest of the day. It was hard, harder than she ever could have imagined, to not despair. She thought of her mother, prisoner of the trolls for eighteen years. No wonder Gail had nightmares. The wonder was that she had survived as sane as she was.

Father Forest returned in the evening. She heard the door open behind her. She couldn’t move to see him.

“You are evil,” she said flatly.

“Not true, my child. I have your interests at heart.” On his command, the vines loosened. Cassie collapsed to the floor. Her cheek pressed against the wood. She tried to remember how her muscles worked. She heard the munaqsri kneel beside her. “It hurts me to see you like this,” he said. “Please, be sensible. Cooperate, and your stay here will be pleasant. You will be my guest.”

Arms shaking, she pushed herself up. She reeked, and her thighs felt sticky. Blood rushed into her stiff fingers. Her eyes met Father Forest’s.

He had tears in his eyes. “I am not a cruel man,” he said. “All I want is what is best for you and your baby. Please, do not fight me. I am not your enemy.”

In a burst, Cassie scrambled for the door. Her legs failed her. She threw herself at the doorway, and then the vines snapped her back, like a dog on a leash. She sank back to the ground.

Vines lashed her to the floor. Clucking his tongue, Father Forest said, “Another day then.” He stepped over her. She heard the bedroom door open and shut.

Alone, tied to the floor, she watched the shadows from the shutters move across the floor. “Oh, Bear,” she whispered. How could she rescue him now? Who would rescue her? If she were in these vines for another day, she thought she would lose her mind. Anything else she could have endured—any pain, any challenge—but not this horrible helplessness. “I’m sorry.”

She had to be free of the vines.

A small voice inside her whispered that once she was free, she could earn Father Forest’s trust, lull him into complacency, and escape when he least expected it. She tried to convince herself it was a plan, not an excuse.

It felt like she was betraying her husband, betraying her father, and, most of all, betraying her mother. It made her sick to think about it. But her joints hurt, and her muscles burned.

She heard Father Forest enter the kitchen. He stepped over her to put the kettle on the stove.

“Fine,” she croaked. “You win.”

He beamed like a cartoon character. “Release.”

The vines retracted, and this time, Cassie did not run. She lay silently on the floor, telling herself it was part of the plan, but feeling like crying.

CHAPTER 24

Latitude 63° 54’ 53” N

Longitude 125° 24’ 07” W

Altitude 1301 ft.

Cassie bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she tasted blood. Meek, she thought, concentrating. Beaten. Using sheer willpower, she lowered her eyes. She could have seared a hole in the wood floor with her stare.

Father Forest beamed. “Good girl.”

How could anyone think Bear was a monster? Father Forest was a true monster.

He handed her a broom. She took it, wanting to snap it over her knee. Last night, after her surrender, he had simply fed her and let her sleep. But this morning, he’d greeted her with instructions. Become a good mother, he had said. Be the woman that Bear would have wanted her to be.

He was wrong. Bear loved her for who she was. She wouldn’t let this gnome poison her mind. She may have doubted Bear once, but never again.

Half her height, Father Forest could not pat her on the head, so he patted her on the elbow. She gripped the broom handle with white knuckles. Just until he’s lulled, she told herself. After she’d fooled him into thinking he’d won, she’d escape.

“Set a good example for your little one,” he said.

He went out into his garden of ferns. For an instant, sunlight flooded the kitchen. She saw dust hanging in sunbeams. Then the door shut like a cell door. Her insides screamed. She wanted Bear now.

Follow the plan, she told herself. Cassie swept viciously. She pounded at the floor with the broom bristles. Dust plumed around her. Cassie whacked at cobwebs. “Die, die, die!”

In the doorway, Father Forest sneezed.

Cassie froze midswing.

“Energetic,” he said dryly.

The broom fell out of her hands. It clattered to the floor. Both of them looked at it. Maybe “meek” wasn’t her forte. She swallowed and then plastered a smile on her face. She’d be free soon, she promised herself.

Three nights later, while midnight sun leaked through the shutters, Cassie inched across the bedroom. She saw the outline of her pack. Kneeling beside it, she placed her mukluks inside and packed it all down hard. She could not afford a single sound. Slowly and silently, she lifted the pack and settled it onto her shoulders. She slipped out the bedroom door.

Listening, she stood in the shadowed kitchen like a deer on alert. Her heart thumped in her throat. To her ears, her breathing sounded like a wind tunnel. Father Forest snored.

Barefoot, Cassie crept across the kitchen. She watched for coils of vines. Like sleeping snakes under the cabinets and chairs, the vines were quiescent. She put her hand on the doorknob.

Without warning, wood encased her hand. Biting back a scream, Cassie tugged. Bark spread. It grew over her wrist. She hit it with her free hand. It spread up her forearm. She pried with her fingers. It covered her elbow. Father Forest kept snoring.

Oh, no, please, no. Bracing her feet against the door, she pulled.

She couldn’t be trapped again. She reached behind her. Her ice axe was lashed to the pack’s outside straps. If she could reach it… She yanked at the straps with her left hand as the wood oozed over her right arm.

Clasps on her pack clinked as loud as bells. She did not care—the wood was covering her right shoulder. She swung backward and hoped she had good aim.

Cassie slammed the wood with the axe.

Father Forest screamed.

Cassie lost her grip. She caught the axe handle before it fell. He was awake! As Father Forest tore into the kitchen, Cassie hacked at the wood. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Wood chips flew.

Vines stirred. Father Forest shouted. She yanked at her encased arm. Not enough. She chopped as the vines snaked around her body and up her left arm, the one with the axe. She fought them and brought the axe down hard. The wood splintered. Sunlight pierced through the cracks. She wiggled her right hand free.

The vines squeezed her left elbow. Cassie yelled as her muscles spasmed. Her hand opened. The axe fell. It hit the ground. She dove for it. Vines snapped her back.

She swung in the air.

“I can feel it bleed,” Father Forest said softly. Cassie shivered. Vines coiled around her legs. She hung, spinning gently, watching Father Forest stroke the axe marks. “How could you? Have you no heart?”

Hating him, she said nothing.

He ordered the vines to swallow her supplies.

Through the kitchen shutters, Cassie could hear him cooing at his ferns. She wanted to claw the windows. The fact that he hadn’t found it necessary to cocoon her in vines this time only underscored how thoroughly trapped she was. She paced the length of the kitchen. The wood was warm under her bare feet, as if it were reminding her it was alive, as if she were likely to forget. The vines had absorbed her pack, mukluks and all, like an amoeba. She wasn’t likely to forget that. How was she supposed to escape from a living prison when a magical being was the jailer and she had no equipment and no supplies?

Searching for her pack, she tested the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen, the living room, the two bedrooms, and the bathroom. But the drawers wouldn’t budge, and the cabinets behaved as if they were solid wood. The entire cottage seemed carved out of a single tree. Everything—furniture, fixtures, walls—grew out of the floor. She returned to the kitchen. There had to be something here that could help her.

Cassie tugged on a cabinet under the kitchen sink, and to her surprise, it popped open. She shot a quick look at the vines (the vines were sleeping like coiled ropes) and at the shutters (Father Forest was just outside, humming an Irish jig). She knelt and peered into the cabinet.

The cabinet held cleaning supplies. Her heart sank. “Subtle,” she said to the shutters. He must have known she’d search the cottage. He had wanted her to find this.

Cassie weeded through the cabinet, in case it miraculously held anything useful. She emptied out Comet, Pledge, Lysol… until all that remained was the sink plumbing. It seemed strange to her that the cottage had ordinary plumbing and that such a powerful munaqsri owned everyday cleaning supplies. Couldn’t the magic do it? Maybe he preferred it not to?

Cassie shook her head. To think she had come to a point where plumbing and Lysol surprised her more than magic. She remembered back to when she’d first met Bear—She squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Concentrate on escaping. She rocked back on her heels, considering the cabinet. She didn’t see a single crack large enough to lose a paper clip, much less a backpack. She would have to escape as she was, barefoot and without her supplies. Dad would help her. He had prepared her for this. He’d taught her to forage—she could eat berries, bird eggs, and bark. She’d do her best to avoid giardia, dysentery, and the other joys of Mother Nature. She’d drink from running streams. But first she had to escape this cottage.

Cassie stood and looked around. The only part of the cottage that she had not explored was the vines themselves. Gathering her courage, she poked the vines. They were as inert as an ordinary plant. She picked up one end with her thumb and forefinger and held it at arm’s length. It dangled, as limp as a garden hose. Braver, she uncoiled it. She traced it back to its source.

The vines had grown from the floor, walls, and ceiling. She stretched them across the room to the other side of the stove. There was no place the vines could not reach. As long as she was confined inside, she would never make it past them—or the doorknob.

She had to return to her original plan: Lull Father Forest into complacency and convince him to trust her enough to let her outside. From there… She peered through the shutters at the trees beyond the picket fence. If she could outdistance the vines, she could disappear between the trees.

It could be weeks, though, before he trusted her enough. Or months. She did not want to think about the possibility of never.

She could do this, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she were afraid of work. She knelt again by the kitchen sink, tore open a package of sponges, and began scrubbing the kitchen floor.

After three hours, her knees, back, and shoulders ached. She was sweating, and her stomach felt like a furnace. Cassie sat up and rubbed her neck. She looked around her. For some reason, the kitchen had seemed larger while scrubbing.

She had to be patient, she told herself. She had to be more patient than she had ever been in tracking polar bears. She had to sneak up on her freedom. As she took her sponge and Spic and Span (pine-scented, of course) into the living room, she thought of her mother surviving for years in the troll castle. She wished she’d asked her mother more about it. She wished she’d talked to her more in general, about real things, “feelings” things, instead of the conversations they had had about station minutiae. She promised herself she’d rectify that someday—if she ever made it out of here. Gingerly, Cassie got back down on her hands and knees. She winced as her back twinged.

Father Forest hovered in the doorway. “Good girl,” he said.

CHAPTER 25

Latitude 63° 54’ 53” N

Longitude 125° 24’ 07” W

Altitude 1301 ft.

The long afternoon of summer slipped away. As the autumnal equinox crept closer, the stars appeared earlier, the sun rose later, and the aurora borealis rippled like a closing theater curtain over the northern forest.

Cassie pressed her cheek against the window shutters and peered up at a sliver of sky. She wrapped her arms around her broad stomach and felt her skin roll as the baby shifted inside her. Bear had said she was due in the fall. She was nearly out of time.

As she watched the sliver of sky lighten from deep blue to rosy pink, she tried to keep from screaming. She’d lost the summer to pointless chores. She was sure that Father Forest could have commanded his cottage to do them. His reliance on man-made plumbing and Spic and Span was an odd quirk, as if he’d forgotten a munaqsri’s powers could affect ordinary chores. But she had done it all without complaint. Still, she was trapped inside this wooden cage and was no closer to rescuing Bear.

Stepping back from the window, she checked around her to make sure she wasn’t crushing any vines. Father Forest would feel it. Four months of worrying about what Father Forest would think or feel, and still no opportunity to escape. She thought, as she often did these days, of her mother in the troll castle. Now Cassie sometimes woke screaming at night. But no one came to comfort her.

“Hellooo, little mother!”

Cassie looked out through the shutters. Outside at the gate, the aspen waved her twig arms over her head as if she were waving in an airplane.

Oh, not again.

The aspen skipped down the singing stones. “Tell Father Forest that I am here!”

Without fail, the aspen came every morning, but today Father Forest had other visitors too. Tree-people from the southern part of the boreal forest had come to the cottage to discuss placement and exposure and color of autumn leaves, as if they were artists participating in a vast art gallery. “He said he can’t see you today,” Cassie said through the shutters.

Racing at the window, the tree-girl hissed at Cassie—eyes wild yellow, sharp green teeth bared. In that instant, she’d transformed from a childlike tree spirit into something feral. Cassie instinctively flinched away from the window, and then the aspen burst into wailing. “Oh, my aspens! They suffer! It’s the spruces. Their roots spread—they steal soil from my aspens!”

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said, eyeing her through the shutters. No matter how cute the tree-girl could look, she wasn’t a child. The perky innocence was an affectation, as much as Father Forest’s Santa Claus image.

The aspen shrieked. Her leaves spiked, her eyes rolled, and her mouth widened into a gash across her bark face. “He must come see! Spruces crowd my aspens back into the valleys. My aspens lose mountain exposure. My aspens starve for sunlight!” Her stick body shook. “You must let me see him!” Launching herself at the window, she clawed at the shutters.

Cassie retreated fast. “I’ll tell him you’re here,” she said.

The aspen beamed, again a green child. “Goody.”

Cassie escaped into the living room. Phosphorescent moss lit the walls in a faint green glow. Open flames, Father Forest had said, made his visitors nervous. Six visitors, birches, sickly green in the moss light, had planted themselves into the wood floor.

Stepping over their roots, Cassie whispered to Father Forest about the aspen. Father Forest grimaced—an odd expression on a Santa Claus. “Can you tell her ‘not now’?”

“You know how she is,” Cassie said.

“Oh, dear,” Father Forest said. “I should go—”

“This is not acceptable.” One of the birch-men flopped the leaves on his head. Another birch frowned and said, “We have traveled a long way.” A third spoke up: “We have important decisions to make.”

“Oh, dearie dear,” Father Forest said. “Cassie, my child, can’t you pacify her?”

Cassie began to refuse, and then she stopped. Maybe this was her chance. If she could use the crazy tree-girl… Cassie’s heart thudded, and she tried to sound nonchalant as she said, “I could convince her to show me the spruces. Tell her that I will report back to you.”

He frowned. “Surely, she can wait a few—”

“She is seconds away from bursting in here,” Cassie said. “As you can imagine, I would prefer not to walk so far.” She patted her round stomach for emphasis. “But if it would help you…”

“Let the human go,” one of the birch-women said. Another birch said, “Yes, let’s get on with it.” Another added, “Please, we have limited time.”

Father Forest surrendered. “Very well. Go, then.” He waved his hand to dismiss her as one of the birches tapped Father Forest’s knee and said, “About that shade of yellow…”

“Golden tones are better, don’t you agree?” Father Forest replied.

Cassie backed into the kitchen, certain he’d change his mind. Any second now, he’d realize his mistake. Her hand shook as she laid it on the door latch. Always before, it had behaved like solid wood.

She squeezed the latch and pulled—the door swung open, and Cassie fell outside. Her knees shook. She leaned against the door frame. She sucked in oxygen. It smelled of spruce and soil. It smelled of shadows and sunlight.

“Little mother, is he with you?”

Cassie barely heard the aspen. She walked to the gate. Brown and brittle ferns brushed her skirt. She felt the warm crunch of spruce needles under her bare feet.

Run, her mind whispered, run.

“Little mother?” The aspen’s voice held a dangerous note. She stomped her twig foot, and Cassie focused on her. She had to keep the aspen pacified if her escape was to work.

“He asked me to observe in his place,” Cassie said. “I am to report back to him.”

“All we want is our due,” the aspen said, sweet again. “It is not fair. Other trees have much better exposure.” Cassie opened the gate. Legs shaking, she walked out as the aspen continued, “Some trees have such good exposure that they can speak to the winds. Never aspens, though. It is not fair at all. It is injustice.”

Just beyond the picket fence, the dark of the forest was primeval. Shriveled ferns shrouded the forest floor. Above, leaves and branches were knit so tightly that they choked light. She could lose herself in that darkness. She could disappear.

Cassie glanced back at the cottage. Innocent as a gingerbread house, the cottage glowed in the warm pink of morning. She could hear the rise and fall of the birch voices through the shutters. She expected Father Forest to tear out after her any second. Her heart beat as fast as mosquito wings. Forcing herself not to run, in case he watched from the window, Cassie walked into the forest, and the shadows swallowed her.

The aspen bounced beside her, again childlike. “What do you think?”

She knew it was her imagination, but it felt as if the trees were leaning in on her, suffocating her. As she squeezed between shrubs, she missed the openness of the pack ice. Out on the ice, her soul expanded—but here, she felt boxed in, claustrophobic even. Filtered through the canopy of evergreen branches, the light in the forest was an underwater green. Ferns and horsetails filled the spaces between the spruces. She stepped over roots and brown-leafed bushes.

“Are you listening to me?” the aspen demanded.

Cassie hadn’t been. “You want exposure?”

“Yes!” The aspen’s yellow eyes flashed. “Some trees on mountainsides can speak to the winds. Is that too much to ask? Some space to be heard?”

Cassie looked back over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the cottage anymore. Now it was time to run. She didn’t know how much time she had before Father Forest realized his mistake, but she had to be well beyond the reach of his vines when he did. She broke into a jog, cradling her oversize stomach. Rocks jabbed at her bare feet.

“Slow down, little mother.”

“We have to reach the spruces!” Cassie said. “You want me to see them quickly, don’t you?” As soon as she had enough distance, she’d distract the aspen and lose her. Her skirt snagged on bushes and wrapped around her ankles. Reaching down, she hiked it up to her hips. She ran faster.

The aspen loped after Cassie. “But you’re going the wrong way. My aspens are east! Little mother, stop!” Her shrill voice pierced the wind. She let out a screech.

Needles quivered overhead.

Holding her stomach protectively, Cassie ducked under a low-hanging branch. It slapped her forehead. She pressed her hand on her stinging head. Blood or sweat, it felt wet.

Ahead of her, bark melted like molten metal.

Cassie veered to the left, and a second wall of bark blocked her. She looked behind her. Bark sealed all the gaps. Caught! Cassie stumbled to a stop. All around her, wood ringed her in a solid circle. She spun.

Perched up in the branches, the tree-girl peered down at her. “I said east!”

Cassie heard a horrible cracking noise as the wall of trees split. It fell open as if lightning had struck it. Father Forest stood where the wall had been.

Cassie retreated until her back hit the wall of bark.

“You disappoint me,” he said softly. “I thought we had an understanding. After all, it is your own interest that I am protecting.”

“I wasn’t… I mean, I didn’t…” Cassie wanted to weep. Months, wasted!

“Oh, my child, you have to know it is pointless. You cannot run from the forest when you are in the forest, any more than you can escape the sea from within the sea.”

“I wasn’t trying to escape,” Cassie lied. “I was confused, and then the trees began to move and I was scared. That’s why I ran.”

Father Forest tsked with his tongue. “Come, come, now…”

Dropping from the branches, the aspen landed on the soft needles. “It is my fault. She was hurrying to help me, and she went the wrong way.”

Cassie stared at her. The crazy aspen was unintentionally saving Cassie.

“Truly?” Father Forest said.

The tree-girl shrugged. Disgust colored her voice. “She’s a foolish child.”

Please believe it, Cassie thought at him. She said out loud, “She was upset. I wanted to hurry. I only wanted to help you. You’ve been like a real father to me.” She nearly choked on the words.

Lines eased on his face. He nodded. He knew how insistent the tree-girl could be, didn’t he? He could understand how it could make someone run, couldn’t he? Cassie did not breathe. “Forgive me, child, for doubting you,” he said. “Come back to the cottage.” Smiling at her, he looped his gnarled arm around her waist. She tried not to tense.

The tree-girl bristled. “But my aspens!”

He put his other arm around the aspen. “Come too. We can discuss it.” Arm around each of them, Father Forest propelled Cassie and the tree-girl forward through the rift in the wood wall that he’d created. Cassie glanced over her shoulder and saw the spruces slowly reverting to individual trees. She shivered. “Cold?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Cassie said. “I’ll make her some tea to calm her.” As soon as she saw the cottage, she strode forward, breaking out of his circling arm, and walked down the singing stones. The stones chimed cheerfully at her. She entered the cottage, and the latch clicked shut behind her. She did not let herself look back.

Inside, the birches were gone. Stepping over their root stains, she carried the kettle to the sink. Hands shaking, she filled it with water. Her mind ran in circles. She had not known he could control trees from a distance. Outside his home, Bear hadn’t been able to affect molecules he wasn’t touching. But Sedna could, Cassie thought. The mermaid had saved Cassie without touching her, and Father Forest was an overseer like Sedna.

How would she ever escape if he had that kind of power? How could she run from the forest within the forest? What part of the forest was not forest? The kettle overflowed. Water poured down the drain.

“Cassie, the water?” Father Forest said, entering the cottage. “It is not an endless well.” Mechanically, she turned off the faucet. She stared at it without moving her hand.

Water was not part of the forest. She remembered: The rivers are not my region. Suddenly, she knew how to escape. She needed a river, a stream, a bog. Yes, a bog would be perfect. He could not watch the whole circumference at once. She could lose him in the middle and come out on an unexpected side. But how would she ever get to one? Father Forest would never let her outside again, much less near water. What excuse did she have to get near water?

The aspen let out a screech.

“Tea here, please,” Father Forest said.

Cassie put the kettle on the stove, and after a few minutes, it whistled. She poured the steaming water into his cup. She thought she sensed an idea forming as she poured. He needed water for his special tea.

She brought the cup to Father Forest for the aspen. Father Forest concentrated on the tea for a moment and then encouraged the aspen to drink. After a few sips, the tree-girl was calmer. Father Forest gave Cassie a grateful look. “Thank you.”

Cassie smiled sweetly.

The next morning, as soon as Father Forest secluded himself in the living room, Cassie completed her preparations. Checking over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she shoved a wad of mud, sticks, and stones into the kitchen faucet. She jammed it farther in with the broom handle and then added more, mixing it so it was as thick as mortar. All the while, she listened for the telltale xylophone chime of the stones outside the cottage.

She was certain the tree-girl would return. She’d listened to Father Forest the day before. He’d only soothed her; he hadn’t solved her problem. The aspen would be back.

Cassie finished plugging the faucet, and then she straightened. Her stomach sank. “Whoa, kiddo, what’s going on in there?” She clasped her hands over her abdomen. It felt lower. What did that mean? Her heart thudded faster. She had time left, didn’t she?

She could not give birth here. No doctors, no nurses, no hospitals. No Max to airlift her to Fairbanks. Just Father Forest and his crazy trees. She closed her eyes; the world spun. Oh, God, not now. Not here.

She could not let this child be born here with Father Forest. It would grow up a prisoner. she couldn’t let that happen.

“Hellooo, little mother!” she heard.

“Work with me,” Cassie whispered to her stomach, and then she called through the shutter slats, “So sorry to hear about the spruces.”

Several octaves too high, the tree-girl squeaked, “Hear what?”

“Father Forest awarded the foothills of the Mackenzies to the spruces,” Cassie said. “He decided last night. Didn’t he tell you?”

As she’d hoped, her words were a match to kindling. The aspen exploded. Shrieking, the tree-girl slammed her stick body into the door. With a mighty crack, the cottage door burst open.

Father Forest ran into the kitchen.

The aspen was screeching loud enough to fell trees.

“Cassie, tea!” Father Forest shouted. “She’s hysterical!”

Cassie ran to the kettle. Conveniently (and intentionally), it was empty. She brought it to the sink. She glanced over her shoulder. With his back to her, Father Forest wrung his hands over the tree-girl. The aspen whirled around the room, scratching gashes into the wood walls and tearing at leaves. Cassie turned the sink handle. “Plumbing’s clogged!”

“Fix it!” Father Forest cried.

Cassie opened the cabinet under the sink. She squatted. She’d inserted the clog in the faucet to prevent drips, but the real problem with the plumbing was down here. She knew she could not fix it—not after all the trouble she had gone through to break it. This was one time when Father Forest’s dependence on man-made things instead of magic worked to her advantage. She patted the Spic and Span fondly. “Doesn’t look good,” she said out loud. Pulling herself up by the counter, she said, “I’ll try the bathroom.”

“Hurry!” She could barely hear him over the aspen. For a tree, she had quite a set of lungs. Ears ringing, Cassie waddled to the bathroom.

“No luck,” she called. “The well must be dry!” She returned to the kitchen.

He was near tears. “She needs tea!”

Cassie went for a pitcher on a shelf. Now here was the final step. She uttered a silent prayer. Heart beating in her throat, she said, “I could fetch some. Where’s a stream?”

“Quarter mile north.” He pointed. “Go!”

Cassie went.

The trees did not stop her.

CHAPTER 26

Latitude 63° 55’ 02” N

Longitude 125° 24’ 08” W

Altitude 1296 ft.

Cassie ran, soft steps on the needles. She clutched the pitcher to her chest. Her breath roared in her ears. She felt the baby kick as if running with her. “Hang in there,” she told it. “We’ll make it. Just hang in there.” Ligaments tugged as her stomach bounced.

She heard the stream gurgling like a drowning man.

She jumped over a root and landed on feather moss. Her feet slid, and she flailed for a branch. Catching one, she steadied herself before remembering it could be an enemy. She let go fast, and the branch snapped back.

The ground softened as she neared the stream, and Cassie sank into it like it was a sponge. Mud sucked at her feet, slowing her. She spotted the stream. Oh, no. It wasn’t wide enough! It wasn’t safe. The narrow stream was still within Father Forest’s reach. Balsam poplars and alders leaned over it. Horsetails and ferns draped in it. Cassie plowed through them and splashed into the water.

Bare feet on the wet rocks, she ran through the stream. She clenched her teeth as the rocks pinched. Miniature rapids swirled around her toes. Please, let it lead to a river, she thought.

Cassie saw a fern unfurl. Her gut tightened. He knows. Bushes rustled, and horsetails whipped her ankles. Branches stretched to scrape her skin. How could he know so quickly?

She heard the red squirrels chittering from the treetops—spies.

Branches waved like octopus tentacles. She kicked through them. She jammed her toe on a rock, and winced, slowing. Branches snagged her hair. She wouldn’t get another chance at this. She had to make it now. She yanked. She felt strands rip from her head as she splashed downstream.

Shadows fell across the stream. Cassie glanced up to see branches weaving and bending into a net. She chucked the pitcher at the tree. It recoiled. She ran under it. Shrub willow seized her skirt. She heard it tear.

“Little mother, wait!” Waving her arms, the tree-girl sprinted through the spruces. Father Forest could not be far behind.

Holding her bouncing stomach, Cassie bolted down miniature waterfalls. Rocks and twigs flew under her feet. She had to run faster—for Bear, for Dad, for Gail, for the baby inside her.

“Stop!” Leaping over bushes, the aspen raced beside the stream. She stretched out her stick arms to Cassie. “It’s too dangerous!”

Avoiding the aspen’s arms, Cassie tripped over loose rocks. She fell, and her hands slapped the rocks. She clutched her stomach and propelled herself onto her feet.

In the distance, she heard a crashing.

“No, no, no,” the aspen cried. “Danger! You must stop!” Her voice rose, approaching a shriek. “Stop!”

Cassie heard the sound of a waterfall. Suddenly, she saw it through the spruces: the river! Blue, beautiful, and wild, it rushed through the forest.

Branches slapped her. She shielded her face as she ran. Up ahead, the stream narrowed between boulders, spilled through them, and tumbled down ten feet into the stormy water below. Squatting on the boulders, Father Forest waited for her.

Cassie lowered her head like a bull. Father Forest was ten feet ahead of her. She barreled into the gap. As if scolding a toddler, he said, “No, Cassie, no. You’ll hurt yourself. You’ll hurt your baby.”

Five feet ahead of her.

He held out his gnarled hand. “You must trust me. I promise you will be safe with me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll raise your child like my own.”

Inches ahead of her.

“Think of your baby, its future,” he said. “That’s a good girl, take my hand. Come home with me.”

She was there. “Like hell I will,” she cried, and ducked under his hand and slid down the rock face. Scrambling, the aspen tried to stop her. “No, little mother!” Her fingers scratched Cassie’s arm like claws.

Cassie spilled over the rocks. She hit the water feet first. Her bare feet slammed down on the sharp rocks of the river floor, and she doubled over, hissing. The stream crashed down onto her back. She heard the aspen scream.

Cassie straightened, and water tumbled over her shoulders and down her stomach. Her feet throbbed. Blood tinted the water and then swirled with the fast-moving current.

“Oh, please, come back!” the aspen called, again a little girl’s voice.

Cassie fought the churning water. She lifted her foot, and the current grabbed it. She forced it down and wormed it between stones. She lifted her other foot. Wet, her skirt pulled with a weight that smacked against her legs. She raised her arms as the water deepened, and she gasped when the wet coolness licked her stomach.

Reaching the middle of the river, she forded downstream. Pleading with her, the aspen and Father Forest followed onshore. Mouth pressed into a grim line, Cassie focused her eyes on her feet over the broad curve of her stomach. Blood stopped swirling around her toes after a few minutes. Salmon darted through the clear water as passing streaks of silver. She hoped Father Forest was not on speaking terms with their munaqsri. How soon until the river was also her enemy?

The shore was suddenly quiet. She spared a glance at it. Father Forest and the aspen were nowhere to be seen. Bracing herself between the stones as the current pushed against her back, Cassie scanned the trees. Was it paranoia if the trees really were watching? She managed a grim smile.

Cassie waded to a boulder midriver and pulled herself out of the water like a whale beaching. In protest, the baby in her writhed. She stroked her undulating stomach and leaned back on one elbow. “Rest first. Then stage two,” she said to it.

She should not have difficulty finding a bog. In a boreal forest, it was harder to not find one. In fall, the woods were riddled with them. Cassie rubbed her aching thighs, chilled into gooseflesh in the wind. The trick would be after the bog.

She knew where she was going; the aspen had told her: Some trees on mountainsides can speak to the winds. She remembered seeing the Mackenzies back when she’d been in the tundra. But the journey there…

First things first: Find the bog, lose her pursuers. Cassie slid off the rock. The water felt almost warm after the chilling air. She waded downstream of the boulder, then lowered herself in up to her shoulders. She lifted her legs. Her stomach buoyed with her torso. Floating, she was swept downstream.

“Charming,” Cassie said, half to herself and half to the bog. Steam rose around her from the rotting ferns and logs. Hell could not have more humidity. Or smell worse. She wrinkled her nose. The bog smelled cloying, the sweet-sour of decomposing vegetation. “Whose bright idea was this?” she asked aloud.

She waded across the muck. It squished between her toes and oozed over her bare feet like melted tar. Stepping into a patch of rotting leaves, Cassie sank to her knee. Mud slurped as she lifted her foot out. She grimaced. It was nearly impossible to distinguish depth. One false step, and she could drown in mud.

Cassie looked across the bog. Straggly spruces clung to the muck like sickly scarecrows stuck in an abandoned field. Roots need ground, she thought. The mud will be shallow near the trees. But were these trees in Father Forest’s domain? She did not want to risk it. But she did not want to risk sinking into bottomless ooze either.

Mosquitoes descended en masse as she debated. In a cloud, they rained down on her unprotected skin. She swatted the air. “Bloodsucking vampires,” she said. “This just gets better and better.” She wondered if her slapping was attracting the attention of the mosquito munaqsri. Anything could be an enemy, she thought. She stopped slapping. Quickly compromising, she tugged a sapling out of the mud. Waving away mosquitoes and poking the ooze, she slogged forward.

She used her makeshift walking stick as a guide. If it sank less than two feet, she waded forward; more than two feet, she went in another direction. She did not bother to test the pools of black water. Purple orchids and pitcher plants marked those bottomless pools. She steered wide around them, and worried she was doing figure eights through the bog. She missed her GPS.

By the time that sunset flared across the sky, she missed her water canteen even more. Cassie wet her lips, and she tasted mud. Her throat felt like sandpaper. The baby squirmed, and she felt an elbow in her rib. “Sorry,” she said, patting her stomach. “It’s not purified.” The bog water looked like chocolate syrup in the fading light.

She had to stop—the growing shadows made it impossible to distinguish between the bottomless pits and the harmless puddles. Cassie curled up on a moss patch as Orion’s belt poked through the deep blue. Hours later, she woke three inches deep in muck.

She extracted herself with the aid of her walking stick. Mud made her skin itch. Her hair was clotted. She stretched her back, and mossy mud slid off her shoulders.

Cassie eyed the muddy water. Do you know how many bacteria are in that water? her father’s voice said in her head. Could one sip hurt so much? she argued with him. Her tongue felt swollen. It hurt to swallow. Indigestion was better than dehydration. Dehydration would kill her faster.

Kneeling, she swirled her hand in a pool of light brownish water. Water bugs scattered. Algae bobbed in the ripples. She tried to think of it as iced tea. It had the same color and consistency. She scooped some into her hands and sipped. It spilled over her chin. “Oh, ew,” she said. It tasted as vile as she imagined raw sewage would taste. She wiped her mouth with a muddy sleeve. Her stomach churned. But she needed the water. Her baby needed it.

Midway through the day, she drank again, and then she drank again in the evening. Thinking constantly of water, she had trouble concentrating. Jab the stick down, walk forward, jab the stick down, walk forward. She repeated it to herself as a litany.

During her second sunset in the bog, she found a patch of cloudberries. She fell to her knees in the muck. She tore the fat yellow berries from the bushes and shoved them into her mouth. Berries exploded like fireworks on her tongue, and the juices slid down her throat, as sharp as liquor. She tasted mud from her fingers, but she did not care. She ate until the bushes were bare, and then she slept beside them.

Her feet tingled, waking her near dawn. Reaching awkwardly around her stomach, she rubbed them. They were clammy to the touch. Skin that showed through the mud was red. She had to find dry land soon.

She combed through the patch of cloudberries. She found three uneaten berries, no more. The night before, she had been thorough. This morning, her stomach hurt. Taking up her walking stick again, she slogged on.

Cassie saw a phalanx of spruces, shooting tall into the air. She leaned on her stick and hobbled on numb feet. Her stick sank five inches, then two, then one. The carpet changed from sphagnum moss to spruce needles. Ferns and club mosses replaced orchids. She hesitated five feet from the first white spruce. Dripping from her skirt in clumps, mud plopped irregularly to the ground. The forest could hold a thousand spies. Father Forest himself could be waiting for her.

She told herself he would not recognize her, caked with mud. Even if he did, he would keel over from the stench of her. Slowly, painfully, she climbed up a hill, out of the bog. Needles stuck to her feet, crackling softly.

At the top of the hill, Cassie stopped again and lowered herself onto a fallen log. Dark spruce green, broken by autumn leaves, stretched for miles and miles over the foothills of the mountains. The mountains, outlined in the sun, crowned the horizon. Honey golden and brushed with glacial white, the mountains were beyond beautiful, but it was hard to care when everything hurt.

Bending awkwardly around her stomach, Cassie wiped mud from the soles of her feet with ferns. Her feet were swollen and cold. As she wiped, she saw skin. It looked waxy and was mottled with burgundy splotches. She touched it, and it felt as spongy as moss. “Lovely,” she said, swallowing back bile. She dried her feet as well as she could. She knew she should not walk on them, but the longer she stayed in one place, the more likely Father Forest was to find her.

She stood and winced. She felt the baby shove its knee (or elbow) outward. “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up,” she told it. “I’ll keep you free.”

Using her stick, she picked her way over rocks and roots down the hill. In spots, the hill was sheer. She had to snake down it, avoiding the drop-offs. Below her, she could see the reflected blue of a stream. If she had to, she told herself, she could move river to river, bog to bog, across the forested foothills. So long as she did not have to move faster than a shuffle.

She made it to the bottom. Her feet felt like blocks of wood, and she moved painfully slowly as the terrain went uphill again. Something rustled above her. Wind or munaqsri? Squirrel or spy? Heart thudding in her ears, she scanned the trees. She saw nothing.

Cassie sank against a spruce. “I hate this,” she said to the tree. “I just want you to know that I hate this.” She bent around her swollen stomach to examine her feet. Blistered now, they felt like they were burning. She picked off needles and dirt that had stuck to the blisters. There was nothing she could do for her feet, except hope that the trench foot did not worsen into gangrene. She felt her stomach skin ripple as the baby squirmed like a bird bashing its shell. It did not like her bending. “Just a little while longer,” she said to it as she straightened. “We can do this.”

Limping, she made it another mile on the strength of bravado before the rain began. On the slope of the next hill, she heard it before she felt it. Rain pelted the coniferous canopy. Aspens quivered. Rain burst through. She tilted her face up, and water spattered over her. Mud streaked down her neck as the bog muck sloughed off her. She caught drops in her hands and mouth and drank. Rain washed over the forest floor.

Needles underfoot became as slippery as soap. Cassie hurried to the shelter of a fallen spruce. She huddled under it as rain soaked the trees.

A steady trickle ran down her back, and Cassie shivered. She pressed against the cold bark. She imagined the baby inside her shivering too. She wondered if she was hurting it, being out here—and then she wondered when she’d begun to care what it felt. She couldn’t remember a moment. It had sneaked up on her gradually with each kick, each hiccup, each shift she felt inside.

Cassie curled into a ball. Resting her head on a root, she wrapped her arms around her stomach as if she could cradle the baby within. Water pooled under her head. Her wet hair chilled her neck. In fits, she slept. She dreamed about Bear; she dreamed about Gram; she dreamed about a child with wide eyes and a distended stomach. The child stared at her without speaking until Cassie’s eyes snapped open.

She was hot and shivering. Arms shaking, she struggled to sit. Water dripped onto her. Outside her makeshift shelter, it drizzled. She lurched out.

The world spun as she stood too fast, and she had to close her eyes. She put her hand on her forehead—hot to the touch. She knew she had a fever. Gram used to take care of her when she had a fever.

Opening her eyes, she looked for Gram.

She stumbled forward. “Gram, I don’t feel well.” It came out as mush. Her ears rang, and her vision blurred. She felt as if she were underwater. “Gram?”

Gram was a white bear. Then she was a starving child, eyes as wide as Father Forest’s tea saucers. Cassie held her arms out.

The bear-child ran.

Cassie ran. Her head pounded and her feet throbbed. She saw fine white lines imposed over the forest. She saw a flash of darkness.

Cassie cradled her forehead in her hands. She wanted to outrun the throbbing in her head. She ran faster and, blind, burst through the trees.

She did not see the drop-off.

She did not see the rocks.

She fell. Sharp rocks hit as she somersaulted down the slope. Pain lanced through her. Screaming, she rolled.

She hit bottom. A stream gurgled beside her. Her hand dangled in it. Wet, she thought. She lost consciousness.

She had fever dreams: blood and heat and searing cold. As the dreams and the fever faded, the pain jolted her awake. She lay, twisted, on the rocks. Her skin felt tenderized. Her ears rang. Her head spun. Her stomach… She writhed and gasped for air. Her guts squeezed.

Oh, what have I done? Please, please, don’t be dead. Cassie tried to sit. She could not seem to get enough air. Please, live. Live, damn you.

Blackness swam up in her eyes as she moved. She vomited. Sharp pain sliced through her body as she heaved. She brought her hand, shaking, up to her mouth. And she saw the blood. She spread her fingers. Neon scarlet blood. It was all she could see. It consumed her world.

She was vomiting blood.

Cassie closed her eyes. Still saw red. She shuddered. She knew what it meant, alone and hurt. She had not only killed her baby. She had killed herself.