Page 74 of Holly and Ivar
Twenty minutes later, the snowmobile’s headlight swept across a small clearing and caught the gleam of Rowan’s car.
Ivar had barely cut the engine when Chad jumped off and sprinted toward it.
“It’s empty!”he shouted, running back to the snowmobile.“Come on.Let’s go!”
“Wait.I need to think.”Ivar killed the engine.The snow was tapering off, and the wind was dying down.Still, the infrequently used trail would be hard to follow.
“What are you doing?”Chad yelled, his panic reverberating inside Ivar’s helmet.
“Trust me, I need a minute.”There was something in his voice.Authority?Whatever it was, it made Chad sit still.
Meanwhile, Ivar’s mind was spinning—too many paths, too many sounds, all blending together into static.He needed it clear.
He gripped the handlebars tighter and took a deep breath.Sometimes it’s not magic,Holly had said.It’s observation.
Fine, he’d observe.
He shut out the noise, even Chad’s breathing through the Bluetooth headset, and listened.Really listened.
Images, sensations, memories began forming a cohesive message.The day they’d found the tree.They hadn’t forced their way forward; they’d followed.
I’m listening.He pushed the thought out into the night.
And the forest answered.
It began as a pulse beneath the snow, subtle as a heartbeat.The trail appeared, as clear as daylight, cutting through the trees where there’d been only darkness.
“Hold on,” he said.
He turned on the snowmobile, gunning the engine, and the snowmobile launched forward.The path unfolded before him, bending and widening as the forest itself guided them through.He knew every turn, every hidden rock, every low branch before it came.
While one part of his brain remained locked on the trail, another part fractured open—falling, spinning, expanding.
It was like slipping through time.
The darkness burst into color, flashing in wild succession: flocks of birds rising over lakes; fish twisting through sunlit water; flowers blooming and wilting in fast motion; trees budding, greening, turning gold, then bare again.He felt the tremor of roots under ice, the deep groan of rivers, the flicker of firelight under snow.
He saw himself—a boy standing beneath the Yule Tree, light spilling over him like a golden dawn.Then, as a man holding Holly’s hand in his, their hearts beating as one, and then, it changed again.A flash of blue.A small boy, lost in the forest.Chad.
Another flash.Rowan, stumbling through the snow, her scarf whipping in the wind.
“There!”Ivar shouted.“She’s up ahead!”
“How do you—”
But Ivar was already accelerating, eyes locked on the invisible path only he could see.
The forest opened, and as they tore through the clearing, the hum beneath the ground rose like a wild, ancient song and guided him straight to her.
A flash of red reached him through the darkness, followed by movement at the base of a slope.He cut the engine, and quiet rushed in like a tide.
“There!”
They ran, boots sinking into knee-deep snow.Ivar reached her first.Rowan was curled against a fallen log.She’d made a partial shelter out of pine boughs, but was shivering, and her face was almost as white as the snow.
“Rowan!”Chad’s voice cracked, half shout, half prayer.
“Hey,” Ivar said softly, dropping to his knees beside her.“You’re okay now.We’ve got you.”
