“What?” Forsythe looked puzzled, as well he might; Gavin was not one for taking exercise of any kind save for inside the bedroom of the closest bordello.
“It’s nice, the weather.” Gavin shrugged. “Warmer. I just want to walk around a bit, maybe go down to the river and walk across that new bridge myself, check in on the party.”
“Suit yourself.” Forsythe waved at someone at the bar and shut the door behind him.
Gavin turned, but he found himself tugged in the other direction, away from the river and toward the prairie. Something called to him—maybe it was the wind, gently stirring the few flat, lazy flakes; maybe it was the desire to get away from the stuffy indoors where he’d been cooped up the last week or so. Maybe it was the ghost of his conscience.
Whatever it was, he turned. And followed it.
CHAPTER 3
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ANETTE THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING to cry.
Only once had she done so. Only once in the time since her mother sent her away to the Pedersens’。 Not when her hands blistered from the lye soap Mother Pedersen made her wash the floor with. Not even last week, when she saw and heard—
Not even last week.
But the moment that Tor Halvorsan slammed the door to the schoolhouse, she stuffed her fist into her mouth, stifling a sob; every nerve strained to erupt, the atmosphere was so suffocating, she was suddenly fretful, fearful. This, she thought, is how it is when the world ends.
The sun had vanished, swallowed by the cloud that wasn’t a cloud, but a black wall of fury—sparks of lightning preceded it, bluish flashes of electricity tumbling over the snow like wagon wheels. She’d felt that shock, when she and Fredrik touched in the schoolyard; she swore she’d heard a hissing sound when she felt the jolt. They’d fled from it, leading the children back into the schoolhouse just in time.
And now, inside, the air was too close, squeezing her chest, and the howling sound wasn’t just the fury of the winds pounding the rickety building; it was also the strangled cries from the smaller students, tiny Sofia Nyquist sobbing uncontrollably, wrapping her arms around Teacher’s legs.
Teacher, too, looked shaken; she stared out the window, at the blackness, the electric sparks—even the little stove in the middle of the room was giving off eerie flares. What was it that was so crushing, that made Anette want to clamp her hands over her ears and fall to the floor? It was a blizzard, for sure—but every one of them had seen prairie blizzards. Every one of them had witnessed the furies of prairie weather; the tornadoes in the spring, the fires, even grasshoppers forming living clouds and marching across the land eating everything in their path. Floods when all the year’s rain fell at one time, and when all the snow melted.
But this was different and Anette couldn’t begin to figure out why; she only knew that the furious cloud that had now completely blotted out the sun and was pummeling the schoolhouse until the boards creaked and the windows rattled seemed to have overtaken her heart, too, and made her want to howl with terror.
She was shivering, but it wasn’t only from the fear; the temperature had plummeted. Teacher shooed them all away from the window toward the stove. But it didn’t seem much warmer there.
“Go put on your cloaks, children,” Teacher said, her voice unnaturally high and singsong.
They shuffled into the cloakroom—even colder there—and hurriedly bundled themselves up before rushing back to the stove. Anette looked around; hardly any of them had worn their usual winter layers, heavy cloaks and coats and wool stockings and petticoats, knit hats, mittens, scarves. Only one or two children were adequately dressed; the rest of them, like Anette herself, had gleefully left most of the layers behind this morning. It was so warm—
It had been so warm.
“Good,” Teacher said, but her pretty blue eyes betrayed some fear. Probably only Anette saw it, though; she’d seen it before, many times, back at the Pedersens’。 “Now, Tor, can you fetch the rest of the wood?”