Page 38 of Protecting the Flame

AFTER THE STORM

Chapter 1

“Emma.”

She came awake but slowly, her awareness swimming up from a deep, dreamless well of unconsciousness, as if attached to a ball and chain and as likely to sink again as break the surface.

“Emma.” A hand on her left shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep again.”

“Uh.” She’d meant to say she wouldn’t. It still took her another few seconds to actually open her eyes. Instead of only gloomy as it was during the daylight hours, the fuselage was completely dark because they’d let the snow mound up against the windows. She was curled on her right side, as close to Will as she could manage since, with his bad right arm and her noisome left ribcage, they couldn’t spoon. Carefully rolling onto her back, she glanced at her watch. A little after five in the morning. Holy cow. She’d been out since seven the night before. They were all starting to sleep more. Will kept saying it was normal and a way of conserving energy, which was another way of saying when you weren’t eating and using up all your calories to stay warm, the body shut down whenever it could. And it’s been only three days. How much worse would it get? She had a feeling that answer was a lot. “What is it?” she whispered.

Mattie could have been a ghost sighing from the night: only a voice and nothing more. “Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?” A jolt of hope made her sit up, a move she instantly regretted as her head emptied and the darkness seemed to wrinkle.

Mattie’s hand clapped around a biceps. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Slicking her tingling lips, she shook away the cobwebs. “What did you hear?” Had Mattie heard a helicopter? A plane? No, wait, it’s night. They can’t possibly be looking for us now. Besides, snow was still coming down when they’d gone to bed. “Did you hear a plane?”

“Wuh?” Next to her, Will stirred then cleared the sleep from his throat. “Something wrong?”

“Mattie says she heard something.”

“No, I didn’t say that. Listen. No,” Mattie admonished as Will clicked on his flashlight. “You don’t need that. Just listen without anything to distract you.”

They did. Emma listened so hard, a high whine started up in her ears. “I don’t hear anything,” Will said.

“Yeah. There’s nothing.” Mattie heaved an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you guys get it? I think it stopped snowing.”

“What?” asked Emma, though now that Mattie had said it, she knew the girl was right. She’d gotten so used to the moan of wind and relentless susurration of ice against metal and the creak of trees as they swayed and then the scrape of ice over hardpack as the snow got deeper that she’d ceased to actually hear any of it. “Will, I think she’s right.”

“We might be buried so deeply now, we can’t hear,” Will remarked, though his tone was halfhearted. “If it has, this could be really good news.”

“Right. It means they can finally look for us. I’m going out.” Snapping on a flashlight, Mattie clumped for the exit tunnel. “I want to see.”

“Wait for us,” Will called, but the girl was already squirming out.

“I’m going.” Clambering out of their bag, Emma grabbed her boots. “Are you coming?”

“Right behind you. I’m going to check on Rachel first. You go ahead.”

She could tell before she even wormed out of the exit tunnel that the snow had stopped. There was no wind, but the air felt much colder. When she took a breath, the small hairs in her nostrils seemed to crackle.

Mattie was waiting as she made her feet. The girl was staring straight up, a mittened hand to her nose. “I see stars. Why is it colder?”

This one she knew and was surprised Mattie didn’t. “Because there are no more clouds. Clouds are good insulators, too.” The snow glimmered from a combination of starlight and a bright eyelash of moon. There was enough light for her to see that they’d crashed onto a wide plateau hemmed by black walls of thick forest. At a distance, the fuselage was mostly a suggestion with only the tail sticking out of the snow.

“There are a lot of stars.” Mattie let go a relieved sigh. “It’s kind of nice to finally see them.”

“Yes, it is.” She knew her constellations, especially the winter ones, but the night sky was glittery with so many hard, diamond-bright stars she was completely disoriented. She couldn’t even figure out where the North Star was. Wait, where was the Milky Way?

“What are you doing?” Mattie asked as, eyes fixed on the sky, Emma did a slow pirouette.

“Trying to find the Milky Way.” The view was a little dizzying, as if she were a ballerina in a snow globe. Having had only a half an energy bar from Will’s stash the day before probably didn’t help her wooziness either. “December’s out of prime season for seeing it, but if you’re in the northern hemisphere, it’s always in the southern part of the sky. If I can find it, I’ll know which direction to look for—” She pointed to a spot to the right of and behind the fuselage. “There it is.”

Mattie followed Emma’s finger. “I see it. So, that’s north?”

“That’s right.” There was a dull thump of boots in snow as Will made his way over, and she said, without glancing his way, “Found Polaris.”

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