It took a moment, but a door that had been closed finally cracked open. The small voice on the other side sounded annoyed. “What?”

“I just wanted to let you know that we’re here. Did Dad say what time he was coming back?”

After several long seconds, Violet glanced over to see if the door might have closed again. She thought that maybe his sister had decided to ignore the question, but then, sounding just as bothered as before, she answered him at last. “Does he ever?”

Chapter 28

Violet’s breath caught in her throat as she felt herself being hauled up from behind and lifted into the air.

She knew immediately that it was Jay, because she heard the gravelly sound of his laughter mingled with the warmth of his breath against her ear as they landed sideways in a drift of soft snow. She heard him gasp as her shoulder smashed into him when they hit the ground. Still, he was smiling when she peeked at him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, laughing at the grin on his face. She wondered if she’d ever get tired of that stupid, overconfident look. She hoped not.

“Come here and I’ll show you.” He beckoned, flicking a lazy snowflake away from Violet’s eyelashes with the fingertip of his glove.

It had begun snowing lightly by the time they’d finally gotten all of their things unloaded and decided to go outside. Mike had invited his sister to come along with them, but she’d ignored the request, not even bothering to answer. So they’d bundled up and ventured out to explore, just the five of them.

Despite Violet’s misgivings about the actual structure of the building, the location of the cabin was spectacular. It was secluded, sitting high in the mountains amid a serene backdrop of trees that, coupled with the glistening layers of snow, was nothing less than breathtaking.

They had been out in the woods for over an hour, yet no one complained about the temperature. It was just too beautiful, and the snow too captivating, to grumble over the chill.

Claire had tried to organize teams for her snowball fight, girls against guys, but it quickly turned into a free-for-all, and before long Jay was defending Violet from Chelsea, and Chelsea was protecting Mike against Jay. Claire became neutral, like Switzerland, trying to make up rules to keep a full-scale war from erupting. But eventually she gave up and found a quiet place out of the way, where she could make snow angels.

By the time Chelsea and Violet had joined her, they’d unanimously decided that Chelsea’s “angels” weren’t really angelic at all and had to be renamed. Thus, “snow devils” were born. They even made little horns on them, to complete the effect.

But now that it was just her and Jay, stealing a few minutes for themselves, Violet was happy to submit to the quiet calm of the ice-covered forest surrounding them.

Jay’s lips touched hers. It was like igniting a fire.

Violet closed her eyes and got lost in the warmth that radiated from the pit of her stomach as his mouth settled over hers. She drew herself against him, straining to get closer beneath the thick layers of clothing.

It was the frozen explosion of a snowball overhead that interrupted the moment. Icy debris rained down over them.

Jay wrapped his arms around Violet’s head and covered her while he glanced up to see who had broken the temporary cease-fire.

And then he whispered so that only Violet could hear him, “I’ll be right back.” He gathered a handful of snow, compacting it tightly, eagerly, between his gloves as he stood and hurried away, leaving her alone beneath the shelter of the trees.

Violet heard Chelsea and Claire bickering in the distance over the snowman they were working on.

She lay there, on her back, staring up into the white-capped branches that crisscrossed above her, filtering the falling snow and diffusing the already tenuous light that tried to penetrate the thick gray sky. It wasn’t yet twilight, and already darkness was descending as the low cloud cover deepened, threatening to mask the remaining daylight from view.

Violet blinked as fragile snowflakes battered her face, and she breathed in the cold, crisp air deeply. She listened as, farther away, Jay and Mike attacked each other with snowballs, their laughter booming loudly in the otherwise calm of the day.

It almost would have been easy to disregard the tugging she felt coming from the opposite direction. And she tried, closing her eyes and pretending for a moment that she hadn’t noticed it at all. But it was visceral, the pull, finding its way beneath her skin and slithering there until she itched with it, until she could no longer ignore its enigmatic lure.

The song of the dead.

And it was calling her.

She eased herself up slowly, still trying to decide—as if she’d ever had a choice in the matter—and brushed the snow from her back as she rose. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching. She didn’t want anyone to see her as she slipped between the trees, into the woods, to seek out whatever wanted—no, needed—to be found.

She felt the glimmer of cold pain dawning at the base of her neck, and she shivered against it, rolling her shoulders forward, trying to draw warmth from herself.

It was darker there, underneath the shadowy layer of branches, away from the more open field where she’d played with her friends, and she worried briefly about losing her way as she moved deeper and deeper beneath their cover.

These weren’t her woods; this wasn’t her land to navigate. Here, if she got lost, if no one knew where to find her, she could wander aimlessly for hours and hours, and there would be no familiar landmarks to guide her back again.