“By climbing the trees,” Macy tells me.
Before I can express my utter incredulity at the thought of climbing one of the gigantic, leafless aspens—the lowest branches are more than fifteen feet off the ground—she runs straight at the trunk of the closest tree, then jumps and kicks out hard enough to send herself soaring up several feet at an angle, arms extended, to grab the branch of a neighboring tree. She hangs there for a few seconds, swinging back and forth to gain momentum, then thrusts herself up and onto a nearby branch.
The whole thing takes about ten seconds.
“Did she just do parkour against that tree?” I ask Flint before turning to Macy. “Did you just parkour that tree?”
“I did,” she says with a laugh, then reaches down to catch the hat full of snowballs Flint sends flying her way.
“That’s freaking awesome. But if you guys expect me to be able to do that, I think we’re all going to be disappointed.”
“Don’t worry, Grace,” Flint tells me as he thrusts his snowball-packed scarf into my arms. “Just hold on to these for me, will you?”
“Of course. What are you going to—？” I let out a screech as he grabs onto me and throws me over his shoulder.
“Quiet down or you’re going to give away our hiding place,” he tells me as he starts climbing the tree like some Alaskan version of Spider-Man, hands and feet practically sticking to the tree’s bark as he carries me up the gigantic trunk. “And don’t drop the snowballs.”
“You should have thought of that before you decided to hang me upside down,” I snark at him. But I tighten my grip on the scarf.
I don’t know how he’s doing it, and I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t witnessing—or should I say experiencing—it for myself. But thirty seconds later, I’m straddling a tree branch, snowballs in hand, as I wait to ambush the first people who come by.
Flint’s on a branch several feet above mine. It’s high enough off the ground to make me whimper just looking up at him, but he’s standing there with a huge grin on his face, like balancing on a snow-packed tree branch is the easiest thing in the world.
Which, to be clear, it definitely is not. And I know that because I’m sitting on one and I still feel like I could slip off at any second.
“Someone’s coming!” Macy hisses from one tree over.
I glance down at the ground and realize she’s right—Quinn, Marc, and two other guys are heading our way. They’re moving stealthily instead of quickly, almost like they know we’re here. And maybe they do—it’s not like I was exactly quiet while Flint hauled me up this tree.
Either way, it doesn’t matter, because all we need is for them to get a few steps closer and—
Bam. Flint sends a snowball soaring straight into the leader’s chest. Macy follows up with a one-two shot to the guy in the back. Which leaves Marc and Quinn. Which I’m definitely not going to complain about. I send a volley of snowballs straight at them, one after another. I hit Marc twice and Quinn at least four times, which—if their curse-laden complaints are anything to go by—knocks them completely out of the game. Something I’m also not going to complain about.
Flint is all but crowing in triumph as he dispatches a second group that made the mistake of coming this way, and Macy takes care of a couple of loners trying to sneak in from behind us. I restock from the thick snow on the branches and wait for whoever comes next.
Turns out it’s a couple of girls dressed in teal and navy outerwear, who look like they’re having about as much fun as I do at the dentist.
I think about pulling my punches—no reason to make them even more miserable—but I figure it’s only putting off the inevitable. The faster I knock them out of the game, the faster they can head back to the castle. And the faster we can win this thing.
I reach for my last three snowballs and am just waiting for them to come within range when a powerful wind comes up and knocks me off balance. I make a grab for the tree trunk and manage to hold on while the wind shakes the whole tree.
Flint curses and makes a grab for the trunk, too. Then calls to me, “Hold on, Grace! I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Just stay there,” I call back. “I’m fine.”
Then I turn to look for Macy, worried my cousin might be in worse shape than I am. But just as I turn my head to look behind me, another gust of wind hits the tree, hard. It’s an eerie sound, and as the trunk starts to sway under the wind’s assault, I get more nervous. Especially when another gust comes through and hits me hard enough to threaten my grip on the tree.