Girl in Ice(48)

The entire panorama—snowcat, Jeanne, Wyatt, sled—disappeared and reappeared through curtains of snow and blowing fog. I had a sense of unreality, or of shifting realities. Beneath me: creaking, pings, atonal twangs as—miles deep—the ice settled ancient scores with itself.

The crevasse, a jagged blue wound, lurked only yards away. It beckoned me. I crunched a few steps closer. It exhaled its deathly cold breath up at me, its green walls darkening to black as they plummeted to unknowable depths. How far would I fall? Would it be lights-out, or would I impale myself on some ice sword a hundred yards down, lingering in agony until I froze to death? I flirted with this ghastly yet seductive choice. It would be easy, so much easier than everything I’d been trying and failing at: discovering the truth about Andy, deciphering Sigrid, battling my grief and fear. For several long, frigid seconds, I was lost.



* * *



WYATT APPROACHED ME, squares and triangles of red and black flashing in the blowing snow. Painfully, I slammed back into my body. Made fists of my freezing fingers in my gloves, couldn’t feel my feet at all. Sobriety edging closer, I extracted my bottle of vodka from an inside pocket and took a long pull. Instead of the soft release a pill usually granted me, the booze spun me off to a rageful, dark place: How much had Andy suffered that dreadful night?

“What are you doing, Val?” Wyatt gestured at the cat. “Come on, we have to get out of here.” He’d seen me drinking; he knew that’s why I raided the Shed; I didn’t care.

“Why don’t you tell me what really happened that night with Andy? You know I can’t prove anything. You have nothing to lose by telling me the truth.”

He stomped his boot on the ice and groaned. “Unbelievable.”

“You haven’t told me a damned thing—”

“Of course I have. Many times. Are you…”

Drunk? Crazy? “Not blow by blow, you haven’t.”

“You’re too close.”

I took a step toward the edge. Chunks of dirty gray ice dislodged under my boot, echoing as they ricocheted, plunging down to nothingness. “What was Andy working on? Where was Jeanne that night?”

“Val, you’ve been drinking—”

“Fucking tell me.”

His face grew strained, mouth thinning into a grim line. Snow crystals lodged in his three-day beard. “Look, Val, I’m just saying I’ve told you—”

“Where was she?”

“She was there. The whole time. In the Shack.”

“That’s not what she said.”

Wyatt turned toward Jeanne. She stood by the snowcat, far from earshot, watching us.

“Well, she’s not remembering right.” He pointed to his head as if to say Jeanne’s a little off, haven’t you noticed?

I ignored his bid for a wink and a nod. Waited. The alcohol like hot ice in my veins.

“Okay. Let’s go over it again. Andy and me were working on our separate projects. I was cataloging the cores. He was… experimenting with different ideas about Odin. But he was pretty depressed. Nothing was working out for him. I know he was looking at some permafrost studies and getting freaked out by them. He was a gloom and doom kind of guy a lot of the time. Look…”

My voice rose to a fever pitch. “Jeanne said she heard you laughing, that you guys were having a great time. Such a great time she went off to work in the Shed, and—”

“Val, you’ve got to calm down, okay? Just calm—”

“I’m calm.”

“You need to take a few steps away from that thing, come on, a few steps toward me….”

“I’m fine where I am.”

He hazarded a few paces closer, arm outstretched. “Just take my hand, okay?”

My body felt wooden with cold, molten with vodka and fury. The always-setting sun bled frozen gold beams across the expanse.

His expression shifted from one of concern to something darker, as if another possibility had opened up for him.

He let his hand drop to his side. “Val,” he stage-whispered, as if someone was listening, “no matter how badly you may want it to, my story’s not going to change just because you keep asking me the same damned questions over and over. It’s not going to suddenly turn into some kind of fucking revelation for you, or for me, or for anybody, okay?” He took another step toward me, ice squeaking under his boots. Spitting distance away. “It’s going to be the same horrible, sad, tragic story, I’m sorry to say. It could have been something as stupid as Andy going out for his chocolate. He was always hiding his stash from me. He liked it frozen, and he knew I’d find it in any of the freezers, so he probably had a place outside. Could have been something as stupid as that. Just that idiotic and simple. Him going out for his chocolate. Maybe he got turned around out there somehow, we’ll never know.”

“Andy hated frozen chocolate.”

Wyatt took another step toward me, closing the gap between us. One push and I would go careening into hell.

“I got him to like it.” His face so close I could see snowflakes landing on his eyelashes, smell the smoky wet wool of his hat.

“I don’t believe—”

“I don’t get you, Val. You’re an enigma to me. I haul you all the way up here to do a job, something I was under the impression you were uniquely good at, by the way, and all you do is fuck me over. Andy’s all you’ve been thinking about. I should have known. No wonder you’ve got nothing on the girl.” His countenance took on an ugliness, as if he were making some terrible calculation; my own pale, small face reflected twice in his lenses. He glanced back at Jeanne, nodded. A signal? She turned away, busied herself with something on the sled.