Rimwick

How To Win A Snowball Fight

At the clearing, Anvil volunteers us to track Roman. I'm thinking that, since Roman is a wolf, he'll probably be difficult to follow but I don't say anything. At least we don't have to track a girl made out of smoke, like Fallon does.

I can find the pawprints easily enough. They're massive, larger than my hand, partially masqueraded by the thin dusting of snow that's slowly obscuring the clearing floor. Like a ghost, they haunt a set of human footprints in the form of a tennis shoe pattern. Echo, who's quarry is Felix, walks with Anvil and me through the woods. Fallon goes in the opposite direction to follow signs I can't see.

"What is she looking for?" I ask as we hike through the wet trees.

"Marks from the wind that shouldn't be there," Anvil whispers. "Brooke blows snow off trees when she passes them."

I lower my volume. "And Fallon can see that?"

He nods. A few minutes later, the trails diverge, and Echo splits away from Anvil and me. We walk on, snow slipping into the tops of my boots and staining my ankles with cutting wetness. Every once in a while the tracks will disappear, and we'll search between the trees and snowbanks until we find them again.

"Something isn't right," Anvil says softly.

"Why?" I ask, startled.

"Because this is too easy. Felix is smart- he must have guessed that Fallon would want to track them. So why didn't he make it harder for us to follow Roman?

It seems hard enough to me, but I don't say anything. We're at the edge of the creek now, it's bed of ice reflecting the yellow light of the moon. The trees grow more sparsely alongside this strip of glacial ribbon, but clouds cover most of the stars above us. It's strange, but the moonlight shining off the snow masks the world around me in a golden tone, a soft yellowed copper that bathes the Earth in serenity. I'm standing in a sunrise; fleeting, stunning, a fiery heart beating inside winter's boreal might.

Our path winds through the hills with no discernible goal in sight. Anvil's frown deepens. Sometimes the prints spread apart, as if Roman was running, and sometimes they circle around boulders before returning to their course. Never do we see an imprint of a leg or muzzle to indicate that Roman paused on his expedition through the woods. He seems to have had an ending in mind, even if we can't see it.

"So, if you're a wick-"

"Riley, shh! We aren't supposed to talk out here."

"Why?"

"Because what we're tracking might hear us. Then he could attack us or run away. We'd never be able to catch a running wolf."

Oh. Like the snow, I fall silent.

We're close to the valley now, closer to Rimwick, and the hills are gently dropping us into a basin of trees. We round a crop of boulders. I almost fall into the creek, which is suddenly lying still and frozen next to us, but steady myself and look up.

"What are you doing here?" Echo whispers. Her glowing eyes illuminate the distance between us. It's only a few feet, but the snow is falling thick and fast now, and I hadn't seen her.

"Tracking." Anvil looks surprised, then concerned. "But the trail ends. This stupid snow."

"But... but we ended up in the same place. Do you think-"

A hand digs into my shoulder. "What are you all doing just standing here?" Fallon hisses.

"Brooke lead you here too?" Now Anvil sounds very shocked. I don't know much about the woods, but I'm aware that something is wrong here. All three of our opponents meet up in the same spot for the first time since the clearing, and then their trails disappear? No way is that a coincidence.