The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [27]
“I want to tell you what I saw when I blinked, okay?” she asked. “Are you still awake? I want to tell you what I saw when I blinked, okay? Are you still awake?”
He was, but he couldn’t say anything.
10
The other entrance to the school, the back door to the gym, wouldn’t budge. He thought about trying to shoot the lock, but he knew better. No amount of bullets would do the trick. He’d have to go through the double inside doors and it would take an axe or a torch if he could be so lucky.
Thoughts of the man on skis kept him searching the horizon as he started down the steps toward the small brown outbuilding that held the school’s generator and, if it was anything like the school’s maintenance building in Nunacuak, a small shop. If that building had been left alone like the school, he’d find what he needed to get through the door.
The sound of crunching snow startled him. He turned, with the pistol drawn. The girl stood at the edge of the school building, her left hand bare and gripping the silver metal fencing that enclosed the school’s underbelly, steadying herself.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said.
“You didn’t scare me. What the hell are you doing out here?” he asked as he tucked the pistol back into his parka pocket.
She started toward him. Her feet moved slowly through the snow, each footstep a little more confident than the last.
“I told her I wouldn’t let you go in the school. She says you need to stay out of there.”
“Go back and wait with her. Go.”
When she was within an arm’s length of him she stopped, and then took one final step. “I’ll go in with you,” she whispered. “You can’t go in there alone.”
He took hold of her sleeve and turned toward the outbuilding. She lifted her arm and took his hand.
“Come on,” he said, gently squeezing it. Her fingers were cold, but the inside of her palm felt warm against his.
To the west the wide grey sky had a dark line of blue near the horizon, threatening another snow squall. He hoped it wouldn’t bring too much precipitation. A heavy snowfall would mean slow going without skis or snowshoes, and the new layer of insulation would guarantee the river ice wouldn’t thicken.
“This isn’t the school,” she said.
“It’s the maintenance building.”
They climbed the steps and stopped at the open door. A light skiff of snow covered broken glass and debris on the corrugated steel floor. Nothing like the orderly school.
“What did she tell you about the school?”
“She said no one goes in there.”
“Sit down here.” He picked up a black metal folding chair and set it beside the doorway. She sat down and he surveyed the small room. The workbench had been flipped over, the toolboxes rummaged through. Tools covered the floor, but nothing useful jumped out at him. No hammers, crowbars, not even any long screwdrivers. Someone had probably picked through anything that could be used to get wood loose for fires or break into other places. Except the school. Of all places, why had they left it unmolested?
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
He turned toward her and saw what he needed. Leaning against the inside of the door jamb was a long steel ice pick, taller than the girl, with a yellow piece of rope tied to the handle and a thick, double-welded chisel four inches wide at the base.
“I think you just helped me find it.”
“What?”
He hefted it and thumped the pick against the floor. She reached out and wrapped her hand around it. She smiled.
“A pick? You going ice fishing? My dad had one just like this. You wrap this rope around your wrist, so it doesn’t break through the ice and plump! Gone. Here.”
She took his hand and slid the rope loop around it and closed his fist on the icy metal. She held her warm palm over his and then quickly took it away.
“We’ll need this on the trail,” he said.
“Are we going into the school now?” she asked.
He took her by the sleeve and helped her out the door, down the steps, and toward the school’s entrance. The long pick slung over his shoulder like a lumberjack’s axe.
“You want me to take you back?” he asked.
“No. But I’m scared,” she