The Children's Blizzard(36)

“If we can pick up the pace a little, I think we’re not too far. We have to be careful of that creek, it’s not deep but it wouldn’t do to get wetter than we are. But I think we’re only a few rods away.”

“Right. Can you carry Rosa, too? Untie Eva and bring her up to me. I’ll see if I can carry them both.”

“Miss Olsen, I can walk,” little Enid whispered, and Raina almost cried. She shook her head.

“No, dear, I don’t think you can, but you’re so brave, Enid! Such a brave girl!”

“Miss Olsen,” Tor began, but Raina placed her hand on his arm.

“Raina,” she said, looking into his eyes. He’d earned the right to call her by her name. Whatever happened after this, the two of them couldn’t go back to being teacher and pupil. They were equal, now.

Tor might have blushed, had his face not already been burned by the freezing wind and snow. He did look embarrassed.

    “R-Raina. I don’t know that you can carry them both.”

“I can. So can you.” And that was all there was to say; Tor trudged back to the end of the line, untied Eva, and half carried, half dragged the child up to Raina. Raina smiled at her, whispered into her ear, “We’re almost there, we don’t have far to go.” And then she—with Enid still on her back, the girl’s arms tightly around her neck—bent down and lifted Eva up.

Raina snuggled the child in her arms. Then she shifted her around until she could find the right balance, and started moving again.

It was much harder to stay upright with both girls clinging to her, but there was the added benefit of their body heat, such as it was; she wasn’t as cold, at least her torso wasn’t. Her feet still felt like blocks of ice, and her fingers were losing feeling.

She walked and the children trudged behind her. One more step. Another. Someone in the middle fell over, she felt the tug at her waist, a jumble of cries, then whoever it was scrambled back up, and the bunch of them inched forward, forward, forward.

How much longer? How long could they take it? Children were crying behind her; she wanted to tell them not to, to conserve their energy, their body fluids, but she couldn’t stop now. She didn’t even dare pause to take the roll call; if she stopped, she wouldn’t be able to go on. Enid and Eva were quiet, too quiet; they did occasionally stir, but she could almost feel their heartbeats slowing, like clocks winding down. They were fragile, delicate. Bodies were sturdy things—hadn’t Papa always said that? But he was wrong. Bodies were no match for this ferociousness, it wouldn’t stop. There were no breaks at all in the snow dancing up from the ground to meet the snow plummeting from the sky. If only it would stop, just for a moment, so she could see something, anything. If only God would make it—

    Stop.

For a miraculous moment, everything stilled; the winds paused, as if the heavens had taken a collective breath. It would be let out again in an instant, Raina knew, so she paused, and desperately looked about her; nothing was familiar. She didn’t see anything of note, just the grey landscape, and she was about to burst into tears of frustration when she heard a shout behind her.

“There!” It was Tor; there was pure joy in his voice. “There—see, Miss Olsen! To the right! We’re almost there!”

Squinting to her right, Raina looked and looked, and finally she saw it—a light. Faint, barely yellow, but a light, and then she could make out the greyish blob surrounding it, and she knew it was a house. Then she saw that there were more lights, lights in every window.

“That’s our house! There! So close—we can make it now!”

She would have sworn it was miles away but then her eyes adjusted further, and she realized they were practically upon it. But they had been heading slightly to the left, south of it; if they’d continued on in that direction they would have missed it entirely. It was a miracle, pure and simple. A miracle that the clouds had parted to show them the way.

Raina had just enough time to see the footbridge over the little creek; she turned slightly, aimed right at it, and started forward just as the clouds descended once more, obscuring the house, the bridge; they were enshrouded again. But now she knew she was headed in the right direction, and all she had to do was take about thirty steps and she’d be at the footbridge. She counted them, aloud—one, two, three.

    She was at twenty-one when her foot hit the edge of the rough wooden planks. She stopped, felt bodies running into one another behind her, heard Arvid wheeze in surprise. Turning, she shouted back at Tor, although she couldn’t see him; in the span of twenty-one steps the storm had descended with fury, more terrible than before.

“The bridge!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “We’re at the bridge!”

Carefully, she knelt, settling Eva on the ground; the little girl’s eyelashes were glued together with sticky ice, so Raina gently tried to melt the ice with her own frozen thumb until she realized she was rubbing the child’s cheeks raw. But Eva was finally able to open her eyes; she looked dazed, stupid. Raina tugged at Enid’s arms, and the child slid down off of her. “See the footbridge, Enid?”

Enid, her face pinched with fatigue, nodded.

“We have to cross it, and you get to be the first! I’ll let you children cross first in case it can’t hold up for us all, and then somehow I’ll get over and we’ll race to Tor’s house, where I bet there will be cookies and a hot fire! Don’t you want to be the first one there?”