“Whoa, it’s just me,” Ellie said. Mina was by her side, grinning, her tail whisking in the chill air. The night was nearly over and dawn showed as a dull pewter smudge on the horizon. Snow sifted down in a fine salt.
“Ellie.” She huffed out in relief, her breath coming in a cloud. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t wake up.” Ellie pointed. “The fire’s out. I would’ve started it, but I was afraid I’d burn you.”
“Oh.” Now she saw that the little girl was cradling a stack of kindling. She glanced at Ellie’s watch: seven o’clock. Beyond, she saw that Tom’s tent was still sealed up tight—unusual, for him. “I guess I was tired.”
“Can I go ahead and—”
“Sure.” She crouched alongside the dead fire as the girl slid her kindling onto the frosted grass. Mina came to press against Alex’s side and moaned as Alex ruffled the dog’s ears. “You want me to help?” Alex asked.
“No, I got it,” Ellie said. She worked in silence, sweeping away dead, cold ash and then mounding fuel.
Alex watched as Ellie touched a match to shredded wood and what looked like milkweed. “Where’d you find the fluff?”
“Over by the woods,” Ellie said, not looking up. She blew a slow, even breath, and a tiny, orange bloom flared as the tinder caught with a crackle. Ellie carefully fed thin twigs to the flames. “I didn’t go alone. I took Mina, and I’ve got the whistle.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. You’re doing great.”
“Oh.” Eyes still on the fire, Ellie chewed on her lower lip. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
Ellie’s pigtails were crooked, hair corkscrewing out in unruly tufts. Reaching over, Alex hooked an errant blonde curl behind the girl’s left ear. “You were upset with Tom. Me, too.”
Ellie cut a quick, sidelong glance. “You were?”
“Yeah. I didn’t think what he did was right.”
“What about now?”
“I understand better. I think Tom’s doing the best he can. We all are.”
“I don’t want him to hate me.” Ellie’s eyes pooled. “I don’t want anything to happen to you guys.”
She wanted to promise that nothing would. Instead, she opened her arms. “Come here.”
Face knotted against a sob, the girl slid into her embrace, pressing her face to Alex’s neck as Alex gathered her up and held her tight. Whining, Mina danced back then came to lean against Alex. After a few moments, Alex felt the girl relax and her muscles soften, and then Ellie’s scent became fuller: nutmeg and warm vanilla. No one moved or said anything, except for the dog, which sighed and nosed Ellie’s hair.
Beyond the orange rose of the fire, Alex saw Tom’s tent shiver, heard the smooth zip as he opened the front flap, and then he was pushing his way out. His thick hair was mussed, and his face was still creased with sleep. “Alex, why—” He stopped when he spotted them and stood, uncertain.
Wordlessly, Ellie left Alex and made a beeline for Tom, who knelt as the girl flung herself against his chest. “I’m sorry,” Ellie said, her voice muffled by Tom’s shirt. “Please don’t hate me, Tom.”
“I could never hate you, honey,” Tom said. His arms hugged Ellie, but his eyes were on Alex. “I’m so sorry. I’ll try really hard never to hurt you again.”
“Me, too.” Arming away tears, Ellie gave him a shaky smile. “I made the fire.”
“By yourself?”
“All by herself.” Alex swallowed against a sudden tightness in her throat. “Why don’t you get cleaned up? I’ll get breakfast going.”
“Can I take Mina for a walk?” Ellie asked. When Tom hesitated, she continued, “I’ll be careful. I went out yesterday and it was fine. And I had to get stuff for the fire this morning.”
“Sure.” He chucked her under the chin. “Don’t go too far, okay?”
“Okay,” and then Ellie darted in and startled him with a swift, hard kiss on the cheek. “Come on, Mina,” she called, dancing away.
The dog took three steps, paused, and then, tail wagging, looked back at Alex. “Don’t look at me,” Alex said to the dog. “I have to make breakfast.”
“Mina!” Ellie stood in a thicket of brown meadow grass so high it brushed the girl’s waist. Snow billowed around her shoulders in a soft, fine curtain. “Come on!”
“Go on, girl,” Alex said, puzzled. She watched as the dog gave her a reproachful look before bounding after Ellie. She turned to look up at Tom as he came to stand alongside. “Well, that was weird. The dog, I mean.”
“Probably just hungry,” Tom said absently, staring after the pair, already partially obscured behind a veil of swirling snow.
“She really cares about you.”
“And I care about both of you,” he said, still staring after Ellie, although there was nothing to see now but snow. “I meant what I said, too. I would never hurt her, or you. I’d rather …” He shook his head.
“Hey.” Close up, she saw that his cheeks were hectic with color; his smell was warm and lush. She wished she could be like Ellie and simply go to him, no questions asked. “I feel the same way.”
He looked down at her, the snow clinging in delicate, perfect flakes to his hair. “You mean that?”
They were close enough that she saw the throb of his pulse in his neck. “Yes,” she said. “I mean it.”
“Then I want you to promise me something,” he said.
She heard the wild, hard drum of her heart. “What?”
“Promise me that if I change,” Tom said, “you’ll kill me.”
32
“What?” She stared, openmouthed. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to promise anything like that!”
“Alex, you have to.” His eyes blazed. “This isn’t a game. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I could change; I could hurt you or Ellie. I might not be able to help myself. So you can’t hesitate. If I start to change, you have to do it.”
“Why are we talking about this?” She stumbled back a half step. “I’m not having this conversation.”
His hand flashed and hooked onto her arm. “Running away won’t help. We have to talk about this now, while we still can.”