Chapter 20: Rope

I got her through the cabin door with Moose pressed against my legs, and I did not remember the three miles at all.

"Stove," I said, to nobody. "Wood. Dry."

Astrid's lips were the color of slate, and her breath came in small, hitching sips.

I dropped her on the bunk and opened the stove wide, and the fire roared up so fast that it frightened me.

Then I knelt and began to unlace her boots, and my hands shook so badly the knots tangled.

"Let me," she whispered.

"No."

"Bea, I can help."

"You can sit there and let me."

I cut the laces with her own pocket knife.

I peeled the soaked wool off her, layer by layer.

First the jacket, then the flannel, then the pants frozen stiff to her thighs.

Every one fell to the floor with a wet slap.

Her skin was icy and mottled, and the scar on her forearm stood out white.

I stripped my own clothes just as fast, because they were soaked from the ice.

Then I dragged every blanket in the cabin onto the bunk.

I climbed in with her and pulled her against my chest.

She was so cold that I gasped.

"I'm sorry," she said through chattering teeth.

"Don't be."

"You're freezing."

"I'm fine. Keep talking."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Anything. Your name. The dogs' names. Tell me what you had for breakfast."

"Oatmeal," Astrid said. "Burned."

I laughed, and the laugh broke, and it turned into something wet.

I pressed my face into her wet hair and rocked her.

Moose lay down on the floor beside the bunk, still shivering, and Juno and Birch curled against his sides.

For a long while we did nothing but hold on.

The stove ticked, and slowly, so slowly that I counted her heartbeats to be sure, the cold began to leave her.

Her shoulders loosened first, and then her jaw, and then her hands unclenched from the blanket.

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