One by One(91)

I manage an awkward kind of parallel turn, but I’d forgotten the physicality of skiing in thick drifts. The snow drags at my skis, nearly sending me over, but the real problem is the shock as I complete the turn and land on my bad leg. It sends prickles of pain up and down my spine, and I hastily turn back, trying to keep my sound leg down the slope.

But it’s no good—I have to turn again to avoid a tree that looms out of the darkness, and this time my trailing ski catches in a drift, twisting my ankle with such excruciating force that I scream, the noise echoing off the steep walls of the valley. I land heavily on my bad leg, try to save myself with a flailing pole, and then—I don’t know what happens after that. All I know is that my leg gives way and my pole sinks, and I am falling, tumbling in the soft snow, my arms around my head to try to protect myself from the half-buried boulders that stud the slope.

One ski is ripped off, my poles are wrenching at my wrists, I am upright, and then head down, then sliding bum first, then I somersault—and land with a bone-shaking jolt against a rock, at the bottom of the pass.

For a second I can’t do anything except lie there, gasping, winded, trying not to shriek from the pain pulsing through my leg. But I have to move.

My spine makes a sound like crunching glass when I try to sit up, and I think I might throw up from the pain in my ankle—but I can see straight. I’m not concussed. At least, I don’t think I am. And when I drag myself to kneeling the pain in my leg is intense, but it’s still bearable. Just.

I pull myself to standing using one pole and then I rest for a moment, panting, shivering with shock and pain, forcing myself to breathe long and slow. It works… to a point. Then when I’m calm enough, I shake the snow out of my hair and collar and take stock. I have one ski still on, and I’m holding one of my poles. The other is leaning against a rock on the far side of the gully, and I hobble across and grab it with hands that are still shaking with adrenaline. Okay. This is good.

The other ski though… where is it? I could ski with one pole, but I can’t do anything with only one ski. If I can’t find the missing ski, I’m screwed.

And then I see it. The tip is sticking out of the snow a few feet up the cliff face I just fell down. I sigh, unclip my remaining ski, and crawl up the soft, shifting side of the crevasse to try to pull it out, but it’s too deep, the bindings are stuck against something deep in the snow, and so I begin to dig with my mittened hands. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I am hit with a sickening, jolting flashback—the most vivid I’ve had since those first, awful days when I woke up sweating every morning, fresh from a relived nightmare.

Digging. Digging through the snow. Will’s hair. The end of his ski. His cold, waxen face…

Nausea rises in my throat.

I push it away.

I scrabble at the snow with my fingers.

The snow in his eyelashes, the frozen tip of his nose…

I want to sob, but I can’t. I can’t afford to make any more noise than I already have. Liz could be very near.

The torn edge of his scarf. His blue lips—

And then I have the ski. The bindings are clear of the snow, and I can pull the rest of it out of the hole.

Every part of me is shaking as I slide back down the slope to where I left my other ski. My teeth are chattering, my hands are trembling so hard that I can’t get them through the loops in my poles, and I have to try to force my boots into the bindings six or seven times before I finally hear the answering click and feel the firmness of the clasp.

When it’s done I just stand for a moment, resting wearily on my poles, giving my poor, quivering muscles a moment’s respite. I’m honestly not sure if it’s pain, or exhaustion, or the memory of Will’s and Alex’s deaths that’s getting to me most. Maybe it’s all three. But I can’t allow myself to rest. I can’t.

There is a noise from the slope above me. It might be a marmot, or just the snow I disturbed shifting and falling in my wake, but I can’t afford to stay to find out.

I push off with my poles, and begin to ski cautiously into the mouth of the pass.





LIZ


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Have I made a mistake? Erin’s tracks stop at the top of what looks like a sheer drop into a gully below. The ravine itself is in deep shadow, and I can’t see the bottom. There could be anything down there—jagged rocks, a mountain stream, a thousand-foot drop…

And yet, when I peer closer, I can see marks in the snow. Something—or maybe someone—has been down here. I can’t believe that anything except for a mountain goat could make it down this slope in one piece, but as my eyes adjust to the shadows, I can see two deep grooves in the snow that look like someone sat back on their skis, catching their breath, before making a turn.

I stand, hesitating, wondering what to do. Surely Erin hasn’t skied down here with a broken ankle? Even for someone experienced in off-piste skiing, it looks like suicide.

But her tracks definitely lead here. And they definitely stop here. Did she climb down? No. Whoever went down there was wearing skis. Did she fall down? If she did, my problems may be solved.

Or is it some kind of elaborate trick?

I pause for a moment, looking up and down the valley, but I can’t see how it could be a ruse. There are only two sets of tracks leading up to this cliff edge, Erin’s and mine, and neither of them lead away. And she didn’t have enough time to do anything Sherlock Holmes–like. If she had retraced her own footprints to lay a false trail, I would have met her coming the other way.