Page 52 of Winter’s Teeth

Without turning around, Fox replied, “We’ll be fine. The temps will drop again soon, and there’s a lot of snow on the right-of-ways. I doubt it will all be melted by today.”

I stopped short, my boots crunching in the snow and leaf litter. “Wait. Did you just say the right-of-ways?”

I had been under the impression we’d be cross-country skiing. Minor slopes. Little deer trails that would be faster to get down with the right gear.

“Yeah. Did you think we’d be cross-country skiing?” He chuckled, turning around to smirk as he waited for me to catch up.

I stiffened. That was exactly what I had been thinking, but damn if his smirk didn’t placate me for the time being.

“Well...if you’re sure it’s safe.” I started following him again.

Maybe we’d be going down totally open space and gentle slopes. Nothing major. Nothing black diamond level difficulty.

If I was being honest, I only trusted myself on the bunny slopes.

Either Fox had a little too much faith in my skiing abilities, or he understood how desperate I was. The latter seemed the truest, so I swallowed my fear to the back of my throat and marched on.

The sun’s rays waned before it was even close to sunset as gray clouds choked out the sky. As Fox promised, it grew colder with every passing minute. I slipped on my gloves, straightened my cable knit hat, and zipped my coat up tight while trying to balance my skis under my arm, but Fox left his coat hanging open. He didn’t bother with a hat or gloves. It was as if he was immune to the cold. Which could partly explain why he survived the frigid waters of Penn’s Creek the day I found him half dead. I still hadn’t puzzled that out entirely yet, but his family quirks would have to wait to be unearthed until I got my sister back.

This was no time to be greedy with information. I would take what I could get if it helped me find Everley.

We walked through the half-frozen woods for over an hour. Then two. My ankle hadn’t had nearly enough time to heal properly, so my steady pace soon became a trudge, and by the time Fox stopped to set down his board, I was a limping mess.

Did I let him see my pathetic gait though? Of course not. Anytime he glanced over his shoulder to be sure I still followed, I forced the evenest gait I could manage for three seconds before my joints protested and gave up.

“Are you ready? This is the first drop,” he explained while holding back a branch for me to pass by.

I wasn’t ready at all, but I ambled past him to peer out.

At the first glimpse of the view, my stomach bottomed out.

This was no black diamond.

This wasn’t even a double black diamond.

This was a near straight drop to the bottom of a cliffside. One base of the giant lattice tower grew up out of the forest like the king of all trees, the wires hanging low and slack all the way down to the base where the second tower connected. No towers sat in between, for the slope was too steep to construct anything.

“Fox?” I croaked.

His boots snapped into his snowboard beside me. “Yeah?”

I gulped. “So now might be a bad time to mention this, but I’ve only ever been on a black diamond slope once in my life, and I wiped out so bad that the ski patrol had to collect me and take me the rest of the way down.”

In reality, what was the number of successful runs down a steep slope I had?

Zero.

I had zero...

He exhaled heavily, then he muttered a curse, but after a few seconds of rubbing his jaw, he said, “Alright. Just go slow then. Carve. You know how to do that, right?”

I nodded.

“I’ll go as slow as I can and lead the way. There are a few bare patches and roots to avoid, so as long as you can carve—”

I didn’t know where the sudden fire came from, bubbling up fast and hot inside me, but I jerked my hat down tight over my ears as I said, “Of course I can carve. I can carve just fine. Let’s do this.”

There was no other way down that saved us time, and the longer I worried about it, the more time we wasted. The more time Everly had to wait.