Degree by degree, my hope whittled down to despair. I wasn't sure the mountain would ever end. I dreamed of stumbling across a cabin, any cabin. I dreamed of thick walls and a hot fire. I dreamed of escaping the gale-force winds that ripped and chafed.
Out here, there was so much to escape. Wind and cold. Snow. Starvation.
Death.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The night Calvin taught Korbie and me how to play the Quija board was the first night I ever remember being completely alone with him. There may have been other times, but that night I remember feeling like we were the only two people in the world. I loved Calvin Versteeg. He was my world. Every look he gave me, every word he spoke in my direction, felt forever etched on my heart.
"I have to pee! It's coming ouuuut!" Korbie giggled, yanking up the tent zipper. "I'm not gonna make it to the bathroom. I might have to pee on your shoes, Calvin!"
Calvin rolled his eyes as Korbie hopped dramatically from one foot to the other, cupping her crotch. He had left his tennis shoes outside the tent entrance, right next to my flip-flops. Mr. Versteeg never let us wear shoes inside the house. I doubted he cared about the tent getting dirty, but by now it was habit: no shoes inside.
"Why do you put up with her?" Calvin said to me, after Korbie stumbled out. We could hear her shrieking hysterically as she raced across the yard toward the cabin.
"She's not so bad."
"She's seriously short on brain cells."
I didn't want to talk about Korbie. Calvin and I were finally alone. I could have touched him; he was that close. I would have given anything to know if he had a girlfriend. How could he not? Any girl would be lucky to go out with him.
I cleared my throat. "You don't really believe ghosts use the Ouija to communicate with us, do you? Because I don't,” I added with an eye roll, hoping I sounded sophisticated.
Calvin picked up a blade of grass one of us had tracked in, and began peeling it lengthwise into curling green ribbons. Without looking at me, he said, "When I think about ghosts, I think about Beau, and where he is now."
Beau had been the Versteegs' chocolate lab. He had died the previous summer. I didn't know how-Korbie wouldn't say. She cried for a whole week after he was gone, but refused to talk about him. When I asked my brother, Ian, how dogs died, he said, "They get hit by a car. Qr they get cancer and after a while you have to put them down."
Since Beau died suddenly, it wasn't cancer.
"He's buried in my backyard at home,” Calvin told me. "Under the peach tree."
"Under a peach tree is a good place to bury a dog." I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I was scared he'd push me away.
My greatest fear was that he'd walk out and I'd lose my change to really connect with him.
I scooted closer. "I know you really loved Beau.”
”He was a good bird dog."
I placed my shaking hand on Calvin's knee. I waited, but he didn't jerk free or shove me away. He looked directly at me, his green eyes glassy and hurting.
"My dad shot him."
I hadn't expected that. It didn't fit with the picture in my head. I'd always imagined squealing tires and Beau's crumpled, broken body in the road. "Are you sure?"
Calvin gave me a cold look.
"Why would your dad shoot Beau? He was the best dog."It was true. I'd begged my dad for a dog. I wanted a chocolate lab like Beau.
"He was barking one night and the Larsens called to complain. I was asleep, but I remember the phone ringing. My dad hung up and shouted for me to put Beau in the garage. It was after midnight. I heard my dad, but I fell right back asleep. Then I heard the shots. Two of them. For a minute, I thought my dad had fired his rifle in my bedroom, the noise was that loud. I ran to the window. My dad kicked Beau to make sure he was really dead, then left him there. He didn't even lift him into a box."
I put my hand over my mouth. It was hot and stuffy in the tent, but I started shivering. Mr. Versteeg had always intimidated me, but now he seemed to transform into a frightening monster in my eyes.
"1 buried Beau,” Calvin said. "1 waited until my dad went to bed, then 1 got a shovel. 1 spent the whole night digging. 1 had to lift Beau into a wagon, that's how heavy he was. 1 couldn't carry him by myself."
Knowing Calvin had to bury his own dog made me want to cry. "1 hate my dad,” Calvin said in a low voice that gave me goose bumps.
"He's the worst dad ever,” 1 agreed. My dad would never shoot a dog. Especially not for barking. Especially if 1 loved it.
"Sometimes 1 wonder if Beau's ghost is around,” Calvin said. "1 wonder if he's forgiven me for not putting him in the garage that night."
"Of course he's around,” 1 said, trying to give him hope. "1 bet Beau's in heaven right now, waiting for you. He's probably got a tennis ball in his mouth so the two of you can play catch. Just 'cause you die doesn't mean you stop existing."
"1 hope you're right about that, Britt,” he murmured in a quiet, vengeful tone. "1 hope when my dad dies, he goes to hell and suffers there for eternity."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
At dusk, I saw chimney smoke rising above the treetops. I had walked the whole day without food or water and, delirious, I plodded heavily toward it. When the cabin loomed out of the swirling snow ahead, I thought it must be a mirage. It was too beautiful to be real, with its gold-burning windows and a puff of gray smoke twining up from the chimney.
Staggering to keep my balance as the winds toyed with me, I trudged toward it, mesmerized by the idea of warmth and rest. As I came up the slope of the snowed-under driveway, I gasped at how expertly my mind deceived me. Idlewilde towered before me in grand detail.
Icicles as thick as my arms hung from the gables, which were pitched one after another, replicating the glacial mountain peaks in the backdrop. Snow, inches deep, frosted the roof. I stared at the cabin hungrily.
A man's shadowy form crossed the expansive bank of windows. He gazed absently out at the yard, tipping a mug to his lips.
Calvin.
I heard myself say his name, a frozen, strangled sound. And then I was stumbling toward the cabin. I slipped and scrambled through the snow, never pulling my eyes from the door. I was terrified that if I looked away for even a moment, Idlewilde and Calvin would vanish into the growing dusk.
I pounded on the door, my frozen hands feeling like they would shatter. Wincing and crying, I scratched ineffectually at the thick wood door. I drove my boots against it, sobbing Calvin's name.
The door opened and Calvin stared at me. For a long moment, there was no recognition on his face, only confusion. All at once, his eyes sprang open in shock. "Britt!" He tugged me into the cabin, wasting no time taking off my pack and stripping off my wet coat and gloves.