The other ski though… where is it? I could ski with one pole, but I can’t do anything with only one ski. If I can’t find the missing ski, I’m screwed.

And then I see it. The tip is sticking out of the snow a few feet up the cliff face I just fell down. I sigh, unclip my remaining ski, and crawl up the soft, shifting side of the crevasse to try to pull it out, but it’s too deep, the bindings are stuck against something deep in the snow, and so I begin to dig with my mittened hands. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I am hit with a sickening, jolting flashback—the most vivid I’ve had since those first, awful days when I woke up sweating every morning, fresh from a relived nightmare.

Digging. Digging through the snow. Will’s hair. The end of his ski. His cold, waxen face…

Nausea rises in my throat.

I push it away.

I scrabble at the snow with my fingers.

The snow in his eyelashes, the frozen tip of his nose…

I want to sob, but I can’t. I can’t afford to make any more noise than I already have. Liz could be very near.

The torn edge of his scarf. His blue lips—

And then I have the ski. The bindings are clear of the snow, and I can pull the rest of it out of the hole.

Every part of me is shaking as I slide back down the slope to where I left my other ski. My teeth are chattering, my hands are trembling so hard that I can’t get them through the loops in my poles, and I have to try to force my boots into the bindings six or seven times before I finally hear the answering click and feel the firmness of the clasp.

When it’s done I just stand for a moment, resting wearily on my poles, giving my poor, quivering muscles a moment’s respite. I’m honestly not sure if it’s pain, or exhaustion, or the memory of Will’s and Alex’s deaths that’s getting to me most. Maybe it’s all three. But I can’t allow myself to rest. I can’t.

There is a noise from the slope above me. It might be a marmot, or just the snow I disturbed shifting and falling in my wake, but I can’t afford to stay to find out.

I push off with my poles, and begin to ski cautiously into the mouth of the pass.

LIZ

Snoop ID: ANON101

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 0

Snoopscribers: 1

Have I made a mistake? Erin’s tracks stop at the top of what looks like a sheer drop into a gully below. The ravine itself is in deep shadow, and I can’t see the bottom. There could be anything down there—jagged rocks, a mountain stream, a thousand-foot drop…

And yet, when I peer closer, I can see marks in the snow. Something—or maybe someone—has been down here. I can’t believe that anything except for a mountain goat could make it down this slope in one piece, but as my eyes adjust to the shadows, I can see two deep grooves in the snow that look like someone sat back on their skis, catching their breath, before making a turn.

I stand, hesitating, wondering what to do. Surely Erin hasn’t skied down here with a broken ankle? Even for someone experienced in off-piste skiing, it looks like suicide.

But her tracks definitely lead here. And they definitely stop here. Did she climb down? No. Whoever went down there was wearing skis. Did she fall down? If she did, my problems may be solved.

Or is it some kind of elaborate trick?

I pause for a moment, looking up and down the valley, but I can’t see how it could be a ruse. There are only two sets of tracks leading up to this cliff edge, Erin’s and mine, and neither of them lead away. And she didn’t have enough time to do anything Sherlock Holmes–like. If she had retraced her own footprints to lay a false trail, I would have met her coming the other way.

This must be a route down to St. Antoine. And somehow, Erin has managed to clamber down to it.

Well, if she can do it, so can I.

I am definitely not skiing down there. I don’t care whether Erin did—I have not done enough off-piste skiing to trust myself on anything this steep. Instead, I unclip my skis and, holding them in one hand, I sit on the edge of the drop and lower myself down into the soft snow to try to walk down the precipice.

I know immediately that it was a mistake. Without skis to spread my weight, I sink deep, deep into the feathery drift. I scramble up, clawing for purchase, using my skis as a support, but as I struggle, the snow begins to shift underneath me. All of a sudden, it gives way, and we slither down the slope with terrifying speed—me, my skis, and a slippery, moving mass of snow. At first it is scary, but okay. I manage to stay upright, I can see where I am heading, and I am able to steer myself away from the trees, slow my descent—but then my boot catches on a rock. I can’t stop myself. The weight of snow at my back is too great. I pitch forward. My skis are ripped from my hands. I am falling—falling in a terrifying white blur of snow and rocks and skis.

I have my arms wrapped around my head. I feel something hit my cheek, and my shoulder crunches against something hard. I think I scream. I think I am dying. This isn’t how I wanted to die.

And then there is an almighty thump, and I realize I have stopped moving.

I am lying on my back, my head pointing down the slope, and there is hot blood coming from my cheek. My shoulder is pulsing with pain. I think I may have broken my collarbone.

I try to pull myself to sitting, but the snow slithers treacherously beneath me, and I suppress a scream as I begin to fall again, but it grinds to a halt after just a few feet, and I lie, panting, sobbing with fear, before I realize that that last slide took me almost to the bottom of the slope. There is a path just a few feet below me. I can see one of my skis lying across it.

Slowly, painfully, I swivel myself around so that my boots are down the slope, and I let myself toboggan the last few feet. Then I am down. I am lying on the valley floor, practically crying with relief.

Everything hurts. I can taste blood in my mouth. But I am down. And now that I am at the shadowy bottom of the ravine, I can see that I was right, and the realization gives me a little pulse of excitement that helps take my mind off my throbbing shoulder.

Because I can see ski tracks in the snow leading away down the valley, towards St. Antoine. One set, pressed deep into the snow, marked with divots either side where the skier pulled themselves along with their poles.

Erin was here. And if I hurry, I can catch up.

ERIN

Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 5

Snoopscribers: 10

This is harder than I could ever have believed. I remember doing this route in daylight—the sun sparkling from the frosted trees high up above, blazing back at us from the bright snow at our feet. I remember twisting, turning, laughing, leaping over half-buried boulders and dodging moguls.

I cannot see any of those now. Traps loom out of the darkness—tree branches that swipe at my face, jagged projections rearing up without warning so that I have to swerve with sickening force, my ankle screaming with every jolt and twist.

In a way, it helps that the gully is thick with fresh snow. It makes the skiing slow and arduous, and I have no tracks to guide me, but it means I don’t have to constantly try to slow myself down. When I came this way last time, the route was hardpacked by skiers who had gone before me. I could see where they had twisted and turned, where they had misjudged an angle and wiped out against an unexpected tree, or plowed into a drift they didn’t see coming. But at the same time, it made the going fast and furious, and with a track far too narrow for proper turns, most of my attention was taken up by trying to slow myself down to a safe pace.