Page 8 of Golden Star

She dragged me all the way home on that sled. And, much to my embarrassment, my ankle ended up being totally fine.

I finally reach the water, and as I rip off my gloves, I catch sight of my bracelet. The string of sapphires on a silver chain that my aunt told me was a gift from my mother, wherever she is. It’s the only thing of hers I have, and I can’t help feeling like there’s a part of her in the bracelet. Like somehow, she’s watching out for me from the stones.

But my bracelet isn’t going to save me. I need water. Now.

I scoop up a handful of icy water from an area of the stream that’s wider and clearer than the rest of it and bring it to my lips. The first sip burns, but the fire raging inside me fades just enough to keep me from collapsing.

Then, the world tilts.

There’s no time to scream—no time to catch myself—before I’m falling. Hard.

A sharp branch slices across my cheek as I tumble down, rolling over roots and jagged rocks. The world is a blur of trees, dirt, and silver leaves swirling around me like paint mixing together, each slam of my body into the earth driving the air from my lungs.

Pain explodes through my head as I crash into something—a rock, maybe—and land in some bushes at the base of a tree.

The last things I see are shimmering silver leaves before black haze creeps in at the edges of my vision, and everything goes dark.

Sapphire

Someone tugs at my shoulder,rolling me over, startling me so much that I nearly jump out of my skin.

Suddenly, I’m not looking up at whoever found me in the woods.

I’m lookingdownat him. From up in a tree. Specifically, the silver-leafed tree that just tried to kill me.

Or…didit kill me?

Because right now, I’m looking down at my possibly dead body, and at the man crouched beside it.

Not just any man.

The man from the bar.

He’s studying me—no, mybody—his eyes narrowed in concentration as he checks for a pulse. I can’t bring myself to speak, or to scream down at him to let him know I’m okay. Because I’m clearlynotokay. My dead body at the base of this tree more than speaks for that.

Because that’s what happened, right? The fall killed me? I hit my head anddied?

I look down at my hands, and while they seem relatively normal, I swear there’s a silver sheen to my skin. Sort of like the skin of the woman who tried to kill me, although not anywhere close to as intense.

As I continue to examine this strange ghostly form of myself, another figure moves into view.

Not a person.

A huge white leopard, its fur blending into the snow so perfectly that it looks like a creature sculpted from the ice itself. It prowls forward, toward the man from the bar, and panic surges through me.

It’s going to kill him.

I have to save him.

Suddenly, I’m pulled back into my body like a snapped rubber band.

I sit up and gasp for air, and my arm flies out, as if trying to shield the man from an attack.

“No!” I scream, and water explodes from the stream, slamming into the leopard in a violent wave, knocking it back and drenching all three of us in the process.

The cold crashes over me, seeping through my clothes, and I crabwalk backward as quickly as possible to get away from the beast.

The man’s also soaked. He’s glaring at me, the calm,brooding expression from the bar replaced with something much colder.

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