Snowhook by Jo Storm

“Let’s go, Nook, get up! Get up, Sencha, let’s go!” called Hannah. The Dalmatian ignored her and tried to bump Nook back, but Nook moved at the very last second and Sencha swiped into thin air, stumbling again.

And so it went for a few minutes, with Sencha trying to get the upper hand and Nook explaining in plain actions that no, that was not the way to behave. When Sencha bumped Nook, the husky either ignored her or pushed her off course enough to make her flounder. Finally Sencha tripped up and fell, dragging in the traces for a few heartbeats. Just as Hannah’s foot began to press on the brake, the plucky Dal gained traction and began running again. For a while she ran very close to Nook, and Hannah could see them trading shoulder rubs in quick succession. But each time there was contact, the Dal’s tail went lower and lower, until finally she spread out about a hand’s width away from Nook, put her head down, and ran.

“Get up, Nook, good girl, good girl!” sang Hannah. The lead dog looked back for a second without breaking stride, and Hannah could have sworn the old girl grinned at her.

Then they were running, and the white world shushed by as they sped on.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It all went right for long enough for Hannah to relax. She let Nook set the pace — a fast lope that was about the same as Hannah’s stride when she was doing the long-distance run at school. The air was still, and the clouds hung like magnets stuck to the sky. The sled pulled straight. Hannah began to feel the sled like a memory; she remembered riding it when she was younger with her dad, with her mom. Remembered how the sled was one thing, but also it was many things, many individual pieces of thin wood lashed together with rope and even sinew, for Pierre had made their sled the old way, the way his father had done. The sled creaked and bent and bowed under the pressures of winter: the dogs pulling, and the snow pushing up, and the ice pieces reaching in to hook the underbelly of the basket and scrape the brushbow. But it held, the pieces leaning on each other. For a few minutes Hannah was both the driver and the sled, feeling the trail through her feet on the long runners, her soles pressing down in the small dimples set on the top of the runners to provide traction for the driver. She was both in her memories and present. It was a very lulling feeling.

Then the line started to slacken as Bogey slowed down again.

“Get up, Bogey, get up!” she called, and the brown Lab took three, four more strides, pulling, then he shied sideways heavily, the sled nearly tipping over as his big body pulled everything askew.

Hannah yelled and tried to stamp on the brake, but the sled had lurched sideways and she was thrown into the handlebars. The breath went out of her for a moment. The sled tilted dangerously and she thought, Things happen very fast out here, and chastised herself for not paying attention as the sled slowly, slowly tilted back and settled on the ru

nners, creaking and groaning like the trees around them under the weight of snow. They stopped.

Bogey ignored them all, his flanks heaving as he barfed up everything he had just eaten and then moved a few feet away from it, still dry-heaving. She quickly realized her error as the rank smell of half-digested meat sifted through the dead air around them, realized why Nook and Rudy had not eaten. They were better at this than her, and she felt a flush of shame creep up her neck as she remembered thinking badly of them. They had not eaten because running was hard, and on a full stomach it made one sick, so they would rather go hungry than end up like Bogey was now.

“Stupid, stupid!” she muttered to herself as she walked forward and unclipped the Lab’s neckline and tugline. He wandered off, still heaving and hacking, looking miserable as only a Labrador retriever could, with the skin under his eyes sagging and his thick, otter-like tail flat against his crouching body. He moved off a little more and hunched over again, this time letting loose a stream of diarrhea.

Hannah looked at Sencha. The Dalmatian did not seem to be affected, but Hannah let her off anyway, to do her business and just in case she was feeling sick. Hannah herself was feeling sick, too, and the smell of barf and stool made her stomach turn tightly. Her stomach definitely felt … wrong somehow, as though it were trying to digest a lump of coal. She wiped sweat off her forehead and used her shirt to mop up the sweat under her arms. She got out the water dish and filled it for Bogey, and he drank.

She looked at the low clouds. She was getting a headache, so it was going to snow any minute now, she guessed. She called Sencha over; the Dalmatian trotted over expectantly, and Hannah reached over and hooked her up to the sled. Bogey’s tail was wagging again, a sure sign he was feeling better. When he was back in his place in the lineup, Hannah pushed off. It was time to get going.

They rounded a slight corner where the trail skirted one of the many marshes in the area, and the first flakes began to hit her face, thick and splattering. The dogs puffed, but their breath did not make clouds because it had suddenly gotten so warm. Hannah was sweating heavily under all her layers, and she kept her toque off even after they started running again, letting the cool air hit her hair and face unimpeded. It felt good.

The snow started to come down more heavily, in the space of a few seconds going from nothing to making it nearly impossible to see. She squinted and realized she had forgotten to bring her goggles — a modified pair of ski goggles that covered her face and allowed her to keep her eyes open in driving wind and snow. Thankfully, she was not going far.

The eerie silence deepened as the snow crowded close together, blocking out sound. Hannah did not know the trail very well, but she did know that where it split into many small tracks, she needed to take the far right-hand one and follow that. It was a long, slow uphill climb that she knew led to the back of Jeb’s house.

The trail became wider and more packed down as they headed up the hill, and the dogs spread out a little. Even Sencha pulled — though it was more because everyone else slowed down than because she wanted to work.

They pulled into the area around the back of Jeb’s house that was maybe twice the size of their own yard — half an acre that in the summer they played badminton and soccer on. In Jeb’s yard there were old cars and a leaning, dilapidated shed. An ice hut stood on steel runners, ready to be pulled out onto the lake that skirted the left side of the cabin.

This was Jeb’s house, but while she’d been away with the Army, Peter and his father had lived here. Hannah could see the broken and rusted frame of the old dirt bike she and Peter had used when she was ten years old now half-buried in the snow. That was the summer that Jeb had returned and taken her house back, and after that they hadn’t visited as often. Hannah’s dad had said that Jeb needed time alone to get back to herself, because she’d had a tough time while she was deployed. Sometimes he would go into the cabin to talk to her and tell Peter and Hannah to stay outside.

Hannah stopped the sled between the shed and the house, about halfway across the yard. There was a low hum coming from the front of the house, like a large mosquito buzzing. The track she followed swept around in a large arc to join back up with itself; snowmobiles did not turn very tightly. She unmoored the snowhook and set it firmly, stepping on the back plate to drive it securely into the snow. For a minute she debated letting Sencha and Bogey off to run around, but there would be time for that later. Right now, Hannah wanted to make her phone call to the pharmacy and make sure she would be able to get a ride back to the cabin before dark. She walked up the steps and knocked on the splintered wood of the back door.

That’s it, she thought, the adventure is over. The excitement of it was leaving her body, and she felt her headache ebb away as the snow fell with more and more vehemence, until she could barely see the dogs and the sled. She heard movement inside the cabin, but no one came to the door. Hannah knocked again, louder, and the sounds stilled.

“Hi,” she called. “It’s me, Hannah Williams.”

Still no one came to the door, and suddenly Hannah was sick of it all, tired and getting cold, and her stomach ache was back. Probably Peter was ignoring her for a joke, but it wasn’t freaking funny. She pounded at the door with her gloved fist as loudly as she could and yelled, “Hey! I need help. My mom is sick. Open up!”

Then Sencha began to bark furiously at something and Hannah turned to see Peter coming around the side of the house in his snowshoes, his arms full of wood, woodchips all over his thick wool sweater because he hadn’t done his coat up.

Behind her the door opened, and things got very bad very quickly.

CHAPTER NINE

Hannah turned to see who had finally opened the door and immediately felt a hot, stinging sensation in her chest. Then she was lying on her back in the snow, unable to breathe.

She had never had the breath knocked out of her before, but a small piece of her understood that was what had happened. She struggled, instinctively placing her hands against her chest as if to help expand her lungs. Her eyesight dimmed as though she were looking through a playground tunnel. Her breath tasted like rust, and the snow pelted down into her open mouth as she gasped for air.

Slowly, agonizingly, her breath came more easily. With it came her hearing, and finally her eyes began to see more than just the darkened circle of her own chest and the snow in which she lay.