Cold Falling White by G. S. Prendergast

Author:G. S. Prendergast
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2019-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

XANDER

After hiking south for days, we have fallen into a pattern that feels so familiar, it’s as though it’s carved into my bones or written in the blood that fills up my socks. At night Aurora carefully washes them in a puddle of melted snow while I wriggle my blistered toes over the fire. When she gives back my socks, they are toasty warm. It occurs to me that when a Nahx decides to take you into their care, there is very little they won’t do for you.

Aurora stands guard while I poop behind bushes. She digs a hibernating squirrel out of its den and roasts it on a stick for me to eat. She melts snow in the metal cup, heating it in her hand until it’s steaming, then watches me drink, making sure I finish every drop.

It’s like having a terrifying robot mom.

One night I wake up in the dark, blanketed in snow, with her hanging over me. Bitter cold has set in, along with a snowstorm so dense, I can barely see past the remnants of our campfire.

Go now, Aurora says, urging me upward. She shakes out my sleeping bag and tarp, rolling them up and stringing them over her shoulder with the bungee cords. We trudge off through the storm, her walking behind, guiding me with gentle pressure on my shoulder.

I’m starting to think I might die out here. Cold does that to you. Growing up where I did, I’m familiar enough with the sensation. You stop caring about it. If it wasn’t for Auror, I probably would have stayed in my sleeping bag, let the fire die down, the snow bury me, my heart trickle to a stop. She seems to have a destination in mind, though, and whatever it is, it is probably something I wouldn’t want to miss.

We keep the glowing web to our right, never straying farther than about a kilometer away from it, though sometimes that requires difficult climbs or clambering over frozen rock falls or squeezing through dense forest. When I ask where we’re going Aurora simply signs friend. I don’t know whether this means she’s my friend so I should trust her or that we’re looking for my human friends. She says other things to me sometimes, as though she’s trying to explain, but I can’t understand. I think her sign language might be slightly different to the way August spoke, as though they use different dialects. And I never had time to learn his words anyway.

For the past year and a half I’ve had too much time to do nothing and not enough time to do everything else.

Just as the rising sun crests the eastern peaks, Aurora slows by a frozen stream, pointing to the opposite side. I have to strain to see in the low dawn light, but finally spot what she’s trying to show me. Tracks—and by their size and the distinctive triangular tread, I recognize them. Nahx. My insides curdle.

She turns us away from the

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