“Wait,” C.P. said, slinging his large pack off his back and rummaging around in it. He removed a small object that Mattie couldn’t quite make out in the gloom and waved it at Jen. “Wrap him in this. I keep them for emergencies.”
“Good idea,” Jen said.
“She actually said I had a good idea,” C.P. said to Mattie. “I should mark this day on the calendar.”
“Unwrap it for me, dummy,” Jen said, handing the item back to C.P.
“Aaand everything’s back to normal,” he said, pulling off the wrapping and unfolding the object.
It was a large silver blanket, very shiny even in the deepening gloom.
“It’s a space blanket,” C.P. said in response to Mattie’s questioning look. “They don’t look like much but they really do keep you warm, and they don’t take up a lot of room in your pack.”
Jen and C.P. carefully wrapped Griffin in the blanket and lowered him down to the snow, propping him against one of the boulders. Griffin didn’t move or protest. His eyes were closed and he appeared completely unconscious.
Mattie shivered. Now that they’d stopped moving and the sun was gone, she realized how cold it was and how unprepared she was—for the second time in just a few days—to be out in it.
（Think how disappointed William would be if you died of the cold instead of at his hand）
I’m not going to die. I’m going to get off this mountain. I’m going to tell people what he did, what he did to me and my mother.
C.P. and Jen were both rooting around in their packs. C.P. threw several items out in the snow.
“Take something,” he said to Mattie. “You have to be starving.”
She stared at the variety of wrapped objects. It was packaged food, something she hadn’t seen in a very long time, and most of it was unrecognizable except for one item.
Even in the deepening gloom she could see the word on the package clearly, white letters against a dark background.
HERSHEY’S
“Can . . . I . . . have . . . that?” she asked, pointing at the chocolate bar.
“Have whatever you want,” C.P. said. He picked up a bag, tore it open noisily, and began stuffing something crunchy into his mouth.
“Do you have to eat like a cow chewing cud?” Jen said. “Close your mouth, for god’s sake.”
Mattie tentatively picked up the chocolate bar. She felt the ridges of the bar through the wrapper and suddenly remembered breaking up a large bar into the smaller squares, lining up all the tiny Hershey’s bars on a napkin at the table and eating them one by one. She could almost taste the chocolate on her tongue, feel the creaminess melting inside her cheek. She drew the bar near her face and sniffed at it. The faint sweet aroma permeated the wrapping.
She had to take off her mittens to open it, and almost immediately her hands started shaking. It was too cold to have bare fingers, but she wanted the chocolate. Mattie couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted something so badly.
After a few minutes of struggling she managed to tear the packaging enough to expose the top of the bar. The scent of chocolate wafted out, and with it, a rush of memories that she’d forgotten, an avalanche of the past that threatened to bury her completely.
Standing in the hallway wearing a Sleeping Beauty costume, a pink ribbon in her hair. She held a plastic pail shaped like a pumpkin and so did Heather. Heather was Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Mom was holding up a camera that kept flashing in their faces as she said, “Just one more, one more, say ‘cheese.’”
Saving her allowance so she could buy her own candy from the grocery store. She always selected a Hershey’s bar, even though Heather said she was boring for picking plain chocolate when there were Reese’s cups and Milky Way bars in the world.
Carefully placing half a chocolate bar on a graham cracker and smashing down with a scorched marshmallow on top before adding another graham cracker and stuffing the whole thing in her mouth. It was sweet and dry and sticky at the same time and also tasted of the campfire.
Mattie carefully broke off a piece of the chocolate with her teeth and let it float onto her tongue, just resting there. She’d forgotten what sweet things really tasted like. The memory was nothing compared to the reality.
Jen put her hand on Mattie’s shoulder. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”
Mattie stared at Jen in confusion. Then she noticed that she was weeping, hot tears warming her cold cheeks.
“It’s . . . been . . . so . . . long,” she said. “Chocolate. I . . . forgot.”