Page 14 of A Bear Ski Instructor Christmas

“Holy…” A pang filled her stomach as the implication of Reba’s words settled into her mind. If the woman was telling the truth, then… “Is this some kind of science-fiction thing?”

“No,” the woman said, and with utmost seriousness, she added, “it is magic.”

Rachel froze in her tracks in time for a snowball to whiz past the bridge of her nose. She glimpsed a few children chasing each other around the side of a building, lumps of snow intheir small hands. She heard their giggles as if from a mile away, inconsequential against the startling information she’d just learned.

“Magic,” she repeated.

“You sound surprised,” Reba remarked. “You’re an elf, are you not?”

Rachel nodded, subconsciously reaching up to check if her ears were visible. The people here didn’t seem too fazed by her. No doubt, a lot of them were also supernaturals like Michael. That had to mean they were okay. Not that it made her want to leave here any less. The second she got to Michael, she’d remind him of who she was, and they’d leave this mountain, or dimension, or whatever the heck it was.

“That’s great,” she said. “But I’ve got to get back to Vegas. I need to let Sam know I’m okay. And I’m taking Michael with me.”

A sad smile played on the older woman’s lips. “You’re not the only one who wants to return to that world, Rachel. If only it were possible…”

Something about the tone of her voice filled Rachel with unease. “What are you talking about?”

Reba said nothing at first but resumed walking, and Rachel had to double her pace to catch up with her. Feeling a shiver race through her body that she doubted had much, if anything, to do with the cold, she asked again, “What do you mean?”

“The only reason you’ve never heard of Frost Mountain until now is that no one who’s entered this dimension has ever escaped from it. Your plane breached a portal leading here; it’s the reason you crashed. But you’re not the first, as I’m sure you’ve already deduced. There are several portals all over your world, with openings leading to Frost Mountain. People breach them by accident all the time, stumbling into this dimension with no idea where they are or how they got here.”

Rachel felt her eyebrows knit together in contemplation. “If there are portals, why don’t they just go back through them?”

The older woman glanced in her direction. “I’m sure you can figure that one out yourself, dear.”

She thought for a moment. “Wait…you’re saying the portals only go one way?”

“You are as intelligent as you are beautiful.”

Too stunned to be even the least bit bothered by the compliment, Rachel let the comment pass. “I don’t understand. Whatisthis place?”

“It’s a prison,” Reba told her solemnly. “One that has been in existence for hundreds of years. Frost Mountain is designed to trap its inhabitants. You may have noticed already that there doesn’t seem to be a bottom.”

Rachel nodded slowly.

“I’m afraid this mountain is all that there is. The mountainisthe dimension. Nothing more, nothing less. Frost Mountain is the offspring of a war that raged centuries ago between witches and shifters. You can guess who won that war.” The woman gave a stiff shrug. “The shifters were trapped here as a punishment. The problem is, they’re not the only ones who’ve had to deal with the consequences.” She spread her arms wide. “There are many portals leading into Frost Mountain. Not a single way out. This place has been taking permanent guests since before the French Revolution. For many, this is the only home they know. They were born here, and like others, they, too, are prisoners.”

Reba paused and walked on in silence, allowing the information to really sink in. Rachel suppressed another shudder as the reality of her situation hit her in waves. She was trapped here. There was no returning to Vegas, no getting back to Sam. Whatever this place was, she’d taken a one-way trip when she boarded that flight.

And that wasn’t all. If everything Reba had just told her was true—and Rachel doubted the old woman had any use for lies—then Michael’s disappearance years ago hadn’t been intentional. She’d always thought there was something odd about the fact that he’d simply gone off the radar. He hadn’t walked out on her; he’d simply gone missing. And lost his memory somehow.

Rachel resisted the urge to smack her forehead. She’d slapped him earlier after she realized he was still alive. In her defense, it was a perfectly normal reaction to finding out your long-lost boyfriend was having a fun time skiing down some mountain after you’d bawled your eyes out years ago, thinking he was probably dead.

Whenever she got to see him again, she owed him an apology. And maybe another kiss. God, she’d almost forgotten how amazing it felt to lock lips with that man. She’d been unable to control herself, and it had taken every fiber of her resolve to extricate herself from his ever-gentle touch. Left to her whims, she might have ended up beneath him in the snow.

She tried to suppress the whirlpool of emotions that welled up inside her as a thought occurred to her. “What about you? You come from my world, too, don’t you? You sound like you do.”

Reba gave a tiny smile as they rounded a bend into another street. “I do, actually. I served in the military in ’91, around the time that bastard Saddam Hussein sank his claws into Kuwait.”

“You mean the Gulf War?”

The woman waved her hand dismissively. “I was a pilot in the war. One of the few women who managed to get into aerial combat at the time. It was kept secret, of course—Bush himself authorized us to join Operation Desert Storm.

“The mission was going great. Knocked out Iraqi supply lines for days. And then it happened. There I was, just shooting over the enemy’s forces, and the next thing I knew, the air turned funny around my jet, and everything spun upside down. BeforeI could right the jet, I’d crashed on Frost Mountain. I thought I was going to die, but someone pulled me out of the wreckage before the tank exploded.”

She chuckled, but Rachel could see the flicker of sadness in her eyes. A wave of disbelief and pity washed over her. This woman had been stuck on this mountain for over thirty years. Long enough to have adjusted to the harsh conditions here. Long enough to have a daughter of her own. Like Rachel, she’d arrived here purely by accident, and she was paying for it with years of her life, years that could’ve been spent living comfortably in some apartment in the heart of Boston. Hell, her daughter could’ve grown up telling everyone in school, “My mom kicked Saddam Hussein’s butt.”

Not to mention, the woman had obviously dealt with a lot of trauma. There was no telling what horrors she’d witnessed during the war. Getting sucked into this dimension had to have been just as terrifying. Rachel found herself nursing the hope that Diane would somehow find her way onto Frost Mountain, too. Both she and Reba, and she suspected most other people in this village, could use a therapist session right about now.

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