Page 98 of A Winter in Wonderland
Chapter 42
Esteriwas asleep when I got back that night, and she left for work before I was even up in the morning.
My memories were weighing on me heavy, and every direction I turned something else was reminding me of them. I had the day off, and a hangover, and a heart full of sorrow, so I waited until early afternoon, with the sun at a whopping one degree above the horizon, and then I headed out.
Though the temperature outside was noticeably sub-zero today, and the snow so thick it reached the top of my boots and then some, I made my way to the activities’ lodge and borrowed a snowmobile. I needed to clear my head, and what better way to do that than by rushing as fast as I could through the open air. Besides, while the sun was poking up, I wanted to see Lapland in all its glory again, before I quit and went home and left all this behind. Just one last time.
Taking it outside and manoeuvring it away from the lodgeand towards the path that led into the forest, I paused, and took a breath. Everything was silent. Still. I let the pale blues and glittering whites and streaks of yellow and pink envelop me. My hands gripped the handles of the snowmobile, and I felt the dull remnants of ache along my arm where the sprain hadn’t fully healed.
I flexed my fingers. It waspretty muchfine now, though. Really, they should just let me go back to being a guide for the last two weeks here. Things were better back then, even though I found them hard at the time, I … I was enjoying myself.
Why was I doing this? Was it really about seeing the views again, or was I trying to prove something to myself?
I climbed on the seat and started the motor. The machine hummed to life below me, and I took off, driving carefully and slowly, but confidently, the headlamp helping to guide me through the dense trees. In this world I was isolated, and when I reached the top of the fell I stopped for a while, breathing in the unspoilt scene in front of me, trying to breathe out the memories, and the feeling of how I knew I shouldn’t have come to Lapland. I knew it would all go wrong again.
But, actually, I have enjoyed Christmas this year, a small voice in me piped up. I told her to hush but she persisted.And that’s thanks to Lapland.
I cut the engine, hearing nothing but silence, and my thoughts stopped whirring and instead drifted, settling down into one simple fact:I love it here.
Shaking my head, I decided to push further, run further.I wanted to keep feeling the snow spray onto my legs, smelling the pines, tasting the icy air, hearing the carving of the skidoo. Maybe I wanted to stay in this moment, just for a little longer.
Onwards I went, faster, the rushing scenery causing my eyes to stream, or perhaps it was my heart.
Esteri was right, even though she hadn’t said it directly. I held those memories, those experiences, so close that year after year I let them define me. And now I looked for bad things to happen, just so I could say, ‘See, I was right.’
But I couldn’t change how I felt, I couldn’t force myself to not care.
I drove upwards, climbing a long, gently sloping fell I hadn’t travelled before, reaching for where the stars soon would be, wishing on every one of them to fix me.
Reaching the top, I jolted to a halt and switched off the motor, and my breath was taken away. Before me were miles upon miles of the most serene landscape, a glowing white vista bathed in the sunset pinks and purples, undisturbed other than by twinkling pockets of lights from villages afar. Soon, the sky, large and colourful and domed above me, would drift through the last of its slow-motion sunset into twilight above the distant fells. Whispers of clouds hung silently, that might be replaced by aurora borealis come nightfall.
I hugged my arms around myself, imagining they were Josh’s.
After I don’t know how long, the purples began to turn mauve and the pinks seeped into the shades of blue known here in the Arctic as the famous ‘blue moment’, when thetwilight causes everything from the sky to the snow to glow a glorious sapphire.
I sat for a long while, my back against the snowmobile, my knees up to my chest, just watching the sky and letting emotions and thoughts wash over me, too tired to keep running from myself and my story.
Eventually, since I was beginning to feel like the cold was seeping through my clothing, I called my sister; something I wanted to do before I headed back to the chalet to start making arrangements to come home.
‘Hey, everything OK?’ Shay said, down the phone, picking up on the first ring.
‘Hi, Shay … ’
‘Hi. What?’ she asked. She sounded kind of annoyed, like she was in the middle of something.
‘I just wanted to call and tell you that, um, Shay, I want to come home.’
‘Nope. No, you don’t.’
‘I do. I can’t do this any more. It sucks.’
‘It does not suck, get over yourself. Don’t forget I know a thing or two about these jobs and what you’re doing is both fun and a privilege.’
Wow, OK. ‘But—’
But Shay was going off on one now. ‘Dad filled me in on what you spoke about yesterday, and it’s crap, so don’t call me and tell me you’re giving up because you need to escape from the job I gave you specificallybecauseyou wanted to escape.’
‘But how could I ever really escape, here, or anywhere? I can’t escape my own head.’
