Frozen Magic
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It’s cold out here, even with the wind at my back and my arms raised to block its icy fingers. Snow has been falling for hours. It’s coming down thick, so there isn’t much light left. My eyes are getting gritty from all the moisture.
And I’m hungry again, but there aren’t any edible plants around this time of year. Not that you could call it a “time” anymore—it just feels like days have passed since I got separated from the group on the mountain.
But I can see the moon overhead now, bright as a spotlight in the sky over me. That means there must be more than one day gone by since we last had contact with each other. Or maybe not. We don’t know what kind of magic they have out here. Maybe they’ll find some way to communicate that doesn’t require the sun or stars or something.
There’s nothing else for it; I’ve got to keep going north until I reach another village. Then I’ll try calling for help and hope to hell the others didn’t go through a snowbank or anything like that where they’re stuck. If so … then maybe I’ll be okay anyway.
Maybe I’ll freeze myself enough in this cold to pass out and die of hypothermia, but at least it won’t be slow. And maybe if we get lucky I’ll wake up dead and free them too.
I hear the sound of hooves before I turn to look. An animal is galloping through the snow beside me. The horse is black and white and has a little silver star on his forehead. He snorts and snuffles the air with wet nostrils, blowing the snow away in front of him.
There’s an old man riding behind him, wearing a big black hat with a red feather in it and a huge fur coat. His face is hidden in shadow except for the top of his head, but he holds a long, pointed knife in one hand.
“Hey!” shouts the old man, when he notices me turning to look. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He raises the knife into the wind. A moment later he’s pointing it at me. I take off running toward the horse, and he does too. It doesn’t make sense, but I can see him clearly without my goggles anymore because the light is brighter and warmer. I can smell the animal’s sweat and dirt when I brush against it with my hands. I climb onto the saddle and wrap myself around its neck.
The old guy laughs as he pulls away from the tree line. “I’m just a traveler, boy. Don’t worry about me.” He rides past me, then turns to say, “And whatever you do, kid, don’t eat that thing—that horse. They bite.”
My fingers tangle in the reins and I grip tight to hold on. The horse picks up speed as we move southward across the plain. The old guy keeps yelling stuff at me through his mouthpiece, mostly questions about how I ended up alone out here. He wants to know why I didn’t wait for the others, especially after hearing their voices over the radio.
But I don’t feel like explaining myself to anyone, especially not a stranger. So I ignore his words and concentrate instead on keeping from passing out. I’m still cold. I’m hungry again. Everything hurts. And I’m afraid to look around because I know I’ll only see more death, like the frozen lake and the broken body lying at the bottom of it.
So I shut my eyes tight and close my mind to everything else, except what’s directly in front of me.
“You’re a strange one,” says the old guy finally. “I thought maybe for a second that you were one of those kids who come wandering around here every few months. But you’re different. You’re tougher.”
“Tougher than you?”
“Well, you did manage to keep yourself alive all by yourself when no one else could, didn’t you? And you made it all the way up Mount Fuji. That took balls—and brains.” He pauses a moment, probably trying to figure out if I’m being sarcastic or not. Either way, he doesn’t press the issue.
Instead, he tells me a story about a young girl traveling by herself. She gets caught in a blizzard while crossing the desert, loses her bearings, and falls asleep at night when she’s supposed to be making camp. When she wakes up early the next morning, she finds that a pack of wolves is digging a grave beside her sleeping bag.
She runs screaming in terror, but there’s nothing she can do to fight them off. The wolves tear apart her body and leave nothing but bones behind, leaving her to slowly die beneath the sand.
“Why was she left alive?” asks the old guy as I sit straight in the saddle. My back is aching and my arms are getting tired, but I don’t care. “Why couldn’t the wolves kill her too, so she’d never have to wake up to such horror? How is it possible for someone to live even though they’ve been torn to pieces?”
He stops riding for a moment to ask me some more questions about how I managed to survive, and why I chose to travel by myself. I try to explain that I wanted to find something important out about myself, and I knew I would only get answers on my own journey, not with other people.
“Yeah, well,” he replies with a laugh, “it seems like you found what you were looking for. Just look at you. No wonder that boy’s so pissed off.” He nods toward where we’re headed.
We ride for two more days before reaching a rocky hilltop. The ground is covered with rocks ranging in size from pebbles to boulders, and we skirt the edge of a shallow canyon, which we descend into until we reach a flat section where we can make camp.
It feels good to stop walking—even if I have to work for it, climbing up from the valley floor to the top of the mountain. The air is cooler and much drier up here, and the snow is melting faster. We’re surrounded by trees, most of which are pine, and the grass is thick and green. The sky above us has a pale blue cast, rather than the dark gray shade down in the plains. The sun hangs low and bright in the west, throwing shadows everywhere.
There’s nothing around except hills, cliffs, and trees. Nothing to hear but birds chirping and insects buzzing; no wind whistling through the leaves of the forest overhead. No one or nothing at all.
When I stand up and stretch, it’s like my body knows exactly how to react, like I’m suddenly whole again. Like the pain in my muscles, the ache in my feet, the burning inside my stomach has vanished. It’s almost as if the last couple of weeks have been just another dream.
“Did you hear that?” I point to the east. “Sounds like gunfire.”
The old guy shakes his head. “Probably hunters. Or maybe a stray dog.”
“A dog?”
“Yeah. They like to wander around here during mating season. Don’t worry about them. It won’t come this far into the forest.” He looks over at me then with a frown. “What happened to your clothes?”
I tell him about the wolf attack. “And my shoes too.”
My right sock is soaked through with blood, and my left heel looks swollen and painful. I wince as I pull it off, wondering if I’ll ever be able to walk properly again. But the old man doesn’t show any sympathy. “You’re tough,” he mutters as I peel the wet leather away from my foot, but it sounds like he’s already forgotten what I said a moment ago.
I try to keep the conversation going while I strip down and change out of my muddy clothes.
“So, why do you live up here?” I ask him while slipping my dirty shirt over my head.
“Don’t know. Didn’t choose to. I guess this is where fate dumped me. Probably got lost trying to cross the mountains.” He laughs again as he sits back against the trunk of a tree. “But that happens sometimes. People get trapped between two passes and freeze to death in winter; fall off the trail and smash their legs in the mud; stumble across a bear den and end up getting mauled. Happens every year without fail.”
We both stare out over the valley in silence for a time. Then I ask, “Have you lived here long?”
“Long enough. And you?”
“Just two months now.”
He chuckles. “Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
He points at his face, but he’s staring at something different. At first, I think it must be an illusion, created by the sunlight, but then I notice the tiny white scars along the bottom of his nose—not many, but a few more than there should be for someone who’s lived so long. “Who did this to you?” I ask.
His expression changes to a pained grimace. “Nobody, I promise you. These are mine. A few scrapes here and there are part of being alive. You get used to it. That’s all there is to life—just a never-ending string of small hurts.”
The scars are faint, hardly even noticeable, but I can still see that they’re there.
“How’d you manage to survive?” I ask.
The old guy turns away and stares out across the valley, as though the answer lies somewhere beyond our view. I feel a sudden impulse to apologize—to offer him some kind of comfort, but I can’t find the words to do so.
Finally, he speaks. “I’ve had plenty of friends die over the years. More than you could possibly imagine.” His voice is quiet and calm, but his eyes seem to be fixed on something else entirely, as though he’s watching the events of his youth unfold behind those cold, black orbs.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper before we both look out toward the distant mountains again.
“No need to be,” says the old guy. “People come, people go, it’s only nature’s way.”
“Is it?” I ask quietly. “Does it really have to happen that way? Can’t anyone help themselves?”
“Sometimes. But not everyone wants help. Too bad for them when they find out too late.”
I sit back on a rock nearby and lean my head against the rough surface. It feels warm under my cheek, comforting, and I wonder if it was meant for me. If maybe I’m supposed to take shelter here, to rest for a while, until the sun sets and the moon rises once more.
That would be nice. The thought seems unreal, yet somehow it’s also very real.
For a long time, I watch the sky turn from gray to black. The stars come out and brighten in a clear line above us, shining brightly over everything.
As we wait for night to arrive, the old guy tells me that he spent a long time living with a pack of wolves. “Not exactly domesticated dogs,” he explains. “They were wild, just like any other creature. But they were smart too—smart enough to recognize that a person who wasn’t afraid of them could lead the pack well. So they let me be their leader, and they followed me wherever I went.”
“Where did you take them?” I ask.
“All over. We explored all the mountain passes, and we roamed far away into the desert. Once we got as close to the coast as we could go. Took us weeks to reach it. No one’s ever been that close.”
A strange sensation fills me. My chest tightens and my skin tingles. It’s like I’m remembering something from a dream that I can’t quite grasp. Something important, and beautiful, but also frightening and painful…
The old guy reaches out his hand and rests it gently atop mine. I glance at him, wondering if he’s about to tell me another story of his past; something he might have learned in prison or on the streets of New York. Instead, he offers me a simple explanation:
“You’ll understand what I mean soon enough,” he says simply.
It takes me several minutes to realize the truth of his statement. When I finally do, I’m no longer able to move. The feeling becomes stronger, spreading through my whole body, and suddenly I remember what it’s like to live without fear of death.
What it’s like to have friends in a world filled with people; what it feels like to have meaning and purpose in each day. It reminds me of the time I fell in love. For the first time since my parents passed away, I feel alive.
The End