In the Bleak Midwinter

She set the trip odometer to zero, turned, fishtailed, over-compensated, then recovered. The MG pulled steadily along the line of ascent. The trees closed in heavily, shrouding the road, giving some protection against the full force of the snowfall. The twilight turned the sky, the air, the snow shades of underwater blue, as if she were piloting through a drowned world. She downshifted, and the engine growled as her tires churned through the light, dry snow. The headlights picked out a few well-covered tracks, but no one had driven through recently enough to compact the snow, which made it easier for her front wheels to get the traction she needed.

The road wound its way up the mountain, never stretching more than a few car-lengths before disappearing around another bend. There was still light enough to clearly see the outlines of the culverts on either side and Clare kept her speed to a steady twenty-five miles an hour, grateful she wasn’t trying to navigate the twisty turns in total darkness. She passed an opening in the trees and realized it must be another camp road. She bit her lip. Kristen had better have been dead-on accurate about the miles to the turnoff, or she was going to be lost but good on this God-forsaken road.

Rounding the next bend, she saw twin lights, small and bright as halogen bulbs, windshield-high in the middle of the road. She slammed on the brakes at the same moment the lights resolved themselves into eyes and her car skidded past harmlessly as a buck bounded off the road into the cover of the brush. She swore out loud for the first time in three weeks and it felt so good she continued to rain down curses on every deer in New York State as she coaxed her car into a straight line and slowly, slowly accelerated.

A mile up the mountain, there was another narrow, unmarked road, barely visible through the encroaching trees. Unplowed, of course. She was beginning to worry about getting through the camp road to Kristen’s cousin’s cabin. The snow was piling higher with every minute, deep enough to seriously impede her car, deep enough to make the mile walk an unthinkable misery in her lightweight boots. She turned off the radio, the better to hear the sound of her tires slurring through snow. She would just have to chance making it as far as she could toward the cabin, and if she got stuck, she would lay on the horn until Kristen came. Let her bear the burden of finding some decent footwear for slogging through the rest of the way.

The trip odometer crawled toward the six-mile mark. She speeded up the wipers, peering through the curtain of snow for the entrance to the camp road. The light had leached almost entirely away by now. She tried switching her high-beams on, but the dizzying flurry of snowflakes through the field of light and the reflected glare from the snow on the road was disorienting.

Up ahead there was a gap in the wall of trees. She slowed, and unrolled her window for a better look. It was hard to tell, but the faint depressions under the new-fallen snow seemed to be tire tracks from earlier in the day. She rolled the window back up and carefully turned onto the camp road.

Thankfully, it sloped downhill in a gentle, hillside hugging curve. Nothing requiring agile maneuvering from the already-overtaxed car. She glanced at the odometer. Almost there, although between the watery blue darkness and the screen of trees and brush and the snow, she could probably drive into the front door before spotting it. Ahead, the road rose along a lengthy, uneven incline. She groaned. On a clear fall day, that hill would be nothing but a pleasant surge under her tires and the fun of watching the leaves scatter. Now . . .

She clutched the steering wheel more firmly, downshifted again, and stepped on the gas. Hard. The back end shimmied, then lurched forward, pulling hard. Clare leaned toward the windshield, as if shifting her body weight could tip the balance in favor of an uphill climb. The engine keened.

“Come on. Come on,” Clare hissed between gritted teeth. The car crept upward. “Almost there, almost there . . .” She tromped down on the gas pedal a final time, laughing in triumph as the front wheels dug in, held, and hauled her over the crest of the hill. She instantly surged downhill, the car twisting violently to the left, as if the roadbed were half eaten away. The steering wheel nearly jerked from her grasp. Clare yanked her foot off the gas and slammed on her brakes. The front wheels locked. She skidded downhill, the car swinging sideways, tipping. Clare fought for control, pumping the brakes, steering out of the high-velocity skid.

She shrieked involuntarily as the car’s undercarriage slammed into something low and hard, then shrieked again, louder and longer, as she tipped for real this time, crashing and bouncing and crunching over and over.

CHAPTER 23