Chapter 3 - Echoes in the Whiteout
By the time they reached the crest of the ridge, the temperature had plummeted into the double digits below zero. Caleb could no longer feel his toes. His hands, shoved deep into his pockets to hold Maisie’s legs secure, were numb past the wrists. Every breath felt like swallowing crushed glass.
To keep his mind from drifting into the dangerous, comfortable sleep his body craved, Caleb forced himself to count his steps. One, two, three, four. But with every hundred steps, the shadows of his past seemed to step out of the storm to walk beside him.
He saw the faded floral wallpaper of the trailer in Superior. He heard the rhythmic, wet cough of his mother sitting at the kitchen table, trying to smile through the pain as she braided his hair. “You’ve got strong shoulders, Caleb-bear,” she used to whisper. “Strong enough for whatever comes.”
She hadn’t known what was coming. She hadn’t known about the twenty-one days after her funeral, when his father stopped speaking altogether, packing a single duffel bag before driving off into the rain, leaving an eleven-year-old boy to face the county social workers alone. Caleb remembered the foster homes—the cold stares, the locked pantries, the feeling of being an extra piece of furniture nobody wanted. He had run away because being invisible in the woods was better than being unwanted in a house full of strangers.
A sudden violently icy blast tore across the open field, sweeping Caleb off his feet. He hit the icy shoulder hard, his elbow cracking against frozen asphalt—fall number six.
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Maisie let out a high, terrified sob. “Caleb, I’m cold! My feet hurt!”
“I know, kiddo,” Caleb gasped, dragging his frozen body back onto all fours. He couldn't feel his fingers, but he reached back, feeling the faint warmth of her breath on his wrist. “I know. But we don’t stop. If we stop, the storm wins. And we don’t let it win.”
