Page 12 of Double Exposure

I nod.

She starts to stir just as I reach down to pick her up again. Her eyes flutter open for a moment.

This time without fear.

Her skin is dewy and damp, her cheeks flushed, and the small, curved, planes of her face look beautiful in the firelight. Her head rolls against my chest and her body trembles in my arms. She can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. It’s like picking up a bird.

As I lay her down on the mattress, she mumbles something.

“Mylar?” asks Ryan, holding out a plastic square.

I nod and then rip the pack he tosses me open with my teeth. I drape this over her body, tucking it all around her like some silvery cocoon. As I wrap it around her feet, I’m startled by how perfect every toe is, each nail dotted with bright blue polish.

I feel her ankles. There is no mottling, no bruising. But with hypothermia, broken bones can present hours later. She starts to stir, and I roll her to her side for a moment in case she gets sick.

She mumbles something again and then sighs. Her drowsiness is not exhaustion, it’s hypothermia.

Ryan hovers with another blanket unfolded, ready to go. There are two more ratty wool blankets, all dark blue. I pile them on top of her and tuck the edges along both sides and the bottom under the mattress.

Ryan turns his attention to the fire, going out for more wood.

A wide finger of hair covers her face, and I gently lift it back over her shoulders as she mumbles something incoherent, looks around, and tries to get up. I gently push her back down, reminding her what happened, who I am, and who we are.

Her heart beats hard under my fingers when I try to ease her back down. Then I get it.

She’s scared. She has no idea who we are, or what we might do.

After stacking two armfuls of wood by the stove, Ryan bangs around in the kitchen. “No propane,” he says, returning with a cast iron kettle. He sets it on the wood stove.

“She’d be more comfortable with a pillow.”

Ryan makes a face. “There’s one,” he says. “But it’s nasty.”

“Then I’ll make one.”

I stand, strip off my coat, sweater, fleece, and get all the way down to my long underwear shirt. I roll up the sweater and stuff it inside the fleece, turning it into a makeshift pillow. When I try to lift her head to slip it under her, she struggles again to sit.

“Lay down.”

This does not need to be repeated.

She’s on her back, one hand under her chin. Her body begins shaking again.

I turn to Ryan. “Did you find a hot water bottle?”

Ryan shakes his head. “No, but we could heat up a couple of those bricks on the porch.” He moves to get them and within a minute, has two warming on the woodstove. The cabin is probably about fifty-five degrees now and I bet it won’t get much warmer.

There’s no insulation at all and drafts from the windows stir the stiff gingham curtains.

Outside, the wind beats around the tin roof, scattering twigs and pine needles. It’s quite a racket.

“It’s nearly three now,” says Ryan watching her sleep. “I say I ski back to homebase and get Ross or Brock to bring the helicopter.”

I shake my head and wave him into the kitchen area. As preparing for an argument, he pre-emptively snatches his coat from the back of the sofa. A draft catches on the plastic red and white checked faux curtain stapled above the window sill.

“This could get even worse, fast,” I start to explain.

“It’s March. It can’t get that bad.”