Winter Door (5 page)

Rage frowned and wondered if that was it. What had happened in Valley
had
made her feel different from other people; how could it not? And maybe it was her awareness of being different that Logan and Anabel saw as pride and conceit. Neither of them had paid any attention to her before she had gone to Valley. But knowing the reason for a problem, and solving it, were not the same thing.

Rage felt tired and lonely and close to tears again.

She had tried so hard not to lose herself in memories of Valley, but not thinking about it was like constantly holding something in one hand and trying to do everything with the other. And it was all the harder because the sicker Mam became, the more Rage’s thoughts escaped there. Going to Valley hadn’t saved Mam before. But so many important things had happened there to change Rage, and turn her into the person who had been able to wake Mam, that part of her insisted that if she could only go back, maybe she would figure out another way to help Mam. But the wizard had closed the gate as he had promised to do.

“You can’t go back,” she told herself aloud.

Rage was standing by the dam, only now it was winter, and snow was flying. She half expected to dream of the firecat, but instead, she heard the sound of howling in the high, distant hills.

“That doesn’t sound like a wolf,” she murmured.

“It doesn’t smell like one, either,” Billy said, and Rage whirled to find him standing beside her in his human form, frowning and staring up at the hills.

“Billy!” she cried, hurling herself at him.

He gave a laugh and his arms went around her as they stumbled backward and went sprawling in the snow. Rage hugged him and kissed him, delirious with joy. She noticed with a little shock that he looked older—more young man than boy now, but was that possible when less than a year had passed?

Suddenly shy, she pulled away from him and got up, brushing off her clothes.

But as they stood up, a wave of joy flowed through her again and she caught his hands in hers. “Oh, Billy, you can’t imagine how glad I am to be able to talk with you again!”

“I have tried to come to you in this form, but you would never let me come except as a dog.”

Rage gaped at him. “What do you mean I wouldn’t let you come? Isn’t this a dream?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” Billy said easily. “Dreams are dreams, and you can’t mistake them for anything else.”

“But then what do you mean by saying I wouldn’t let you come?”

Billy didn’t answer. He was looking around at the frozen hills under their snowy pelt and at the dam. He lifted his chin and gave the air a serious sniff. “The cold smells wrong,” he murmured.

“Wrong?” Rage echoed stupidly.

“
You
couldn’t smell it. Humans can’t smell wrongness,” Billy said.

Rage woke.

As soon as Rage stepped out the front door, it began snowing heavily, as if it had been waiting for her. The snow fell more and more thickly as she walked, so that by the time she reached the front gate of Winnoway, she could see nothing in front of her. The flashlight she carried almost made it worse, but she couldn’t bring herself to stumble along in the darkness and snow. She trudged down to the main road, telling herself that snow was a lot better than ice. It was deathly quiet except for the loud sound of her breathing and her boots crunching into the snow crust. If there were wolves howling now, she would not have heard them, but no animal would be out hunting in such a snowfall. Only humans tried to go against nature.

Rage was relieved to see the Marrens’ Range Rover loom out of the whiteness just as she reached the road. She could hear the twins screaming at one another even before she opened the door. She climbed into the noisy warmth with gratitude, barely hearing Mrs. Marren complaining bitterly about the unreliability of weather forecasters.

It turned out to be a strange sort of day at school. A lot of kids from outlying farms had not come in, and many other children were absent as well. A lot of teachers were away, too, so year-levels were combined under the watchful eye of substitute teachers, or of teachers of other classes. Most students were instructed to read texts for the next term in whatever subject they would normally be in, or do homework based on old test questions for that subject.

At the end of fourth period, Rage made her way to her homeroom. There was a note on the board saying that afternoon classes were suspended. All students except those with specific permission to be elsewhere were directed to the central hall after lunch, where a movie would be shown. Since this could be anything from one she would like to see to a movie on dental hygiene, Rage didn’t know whether to be glad or not. She wouldn’t mind seeing a real movie. She noticed a smaller note on the board announcing that pink and green forms for the new program were to be left in a tray on the reception desk in the main office. Her hand crept to the pocket where she still had the form. She was trying to decide whether to sign it in her uncle’s name and turn it in, when lunchtime was announced. The bell sounded eerily loud in the white and silent day. Relieved, Rage decided to decide after lunch.

Snow had ceased to fall at some point in the morning, and teachers shooed students outside for what they called “a gasp of fresh air.” Rage noted that none of the teachers felt the need of fresh air. The strangeness was even more pronounced outside because everyone was so subdued and well-behaved. Instead of the rowdy school ground full of laughter and shrieks, there was silence as unnatural as the winter. Rage sat on a seat under a little stand of pine trees that offered a view from the rooftops of the school buildings to the hills clumped at the edge of town.

Unwrapping her lunch, she noted how many students were sitting alone to eat because their friends were absent. This reminded her of the dream of Billy in his human shape. It had been so wonderful to see him and to hear him talk again. She wondered what it had meant that he was older. Was it because animals aged more quickly than humans?

Rage threw her crusts under the tree for the birds before making her way back to the library. She needed to get some material about the Antarctic for a geography project. She was still photocopying when the bell rang for the end of lunch. She quickly finished, then hurried through the empty passages to the darkened auditorium and slid into a seat right at the end of a row and near the exit door, hoping there had not been a roll call. The movie turned out to be something that she had already seen, but at least it was a real movie.

The end-of-day bell sounded louder than usual, waking her from a light drowse. The small number of students quickly left school as Rage collected her coat and bag from her locker without hurrying. It took Mrs. Marren at least half an hour to get across town to the bus stop where she picked Rage and Anabel up, and Rage saw no point in catching the early bus and freezing for twenty minutes. There was no sign of Anabel when the late bus trundled up, but that was not unusual. Anabel often took the first bus so that she and her friends could stand and talk. Rage always wondered what they could find to talk about after spending lunchtime, class time, and even recess gossiping.

When Rage climbed out of the bus, she found that she was alone at the bus stop. Either Anabel had missed both buses, or she was staying in town another night. The latter was more likely, and Rage’s heart lifted. She turned to wave to the friendly bus driver, who frowned at her as if she were a stranger. Disconcerted, she dropped her hand. She stared after the bus, wondering if it was possible that he hadn’t recognized her.

She had been at the stop for a good fifteen minutes longer than usual, and the cold had begun digging its claws into her when it occurred to her that maybe Mrs. Marren had picked Anabel up right from school. Mrs. Marren might have called the school to say that she would pick them both up there because of the weather, and in retaliation for the previous morning, Anabel had neglected to tell her. Rage’s heart sank at the thought of having to call Uncle Samuel to come and get her. She waited another fifteen minutes, then, teeth chattering like castanets, began to walk back to the school. It was only about six blocks if she cut through two lanes, but the heavy snowdrifts made it hard work. The first phone booth she saw, she stopped and called the Marrens’ number. There was no answer. She tried to call home and got the answering machine, with her own voice inviting her to leave a message or call back later. She left a message telling Uncle Samuel that Mrs. Marren had not come and that she would be in the school library. The only problem was that it might be hours before he came.

Rage considered going to the office, but the staff were sure to contact Mrs. Somersby. It was beginning to snow very lightly again, and it had grown darker by the time the school came in sight. It was deserted, all the classrooms dark and the street empty, but the library lights were on.

She had gone only a few steps along the school street when she saw someone standing by the gate leading to the school’s second bike shed. Rage would have to walk right by him, and her steps slowed at the realization that there were no houses on the other side of the street: only a white wasteland that in any season but winter was a park with clumps of trees and swings and a climbing frame.

Rage felt ridiculous imagining that she might need to scream for help. “Whoever it is must be waiting for someone,” she murmured to herself.

Who would be waiting outside for someone in weather like this?
Mr. Walker’s sharp little voice demanded inside her mind.

Rage was unable to bring herself to turn back or to cross the road because it would be too obvious why she had done it. She was so nervous that she thought if the person sneezed, she would probably have a heart attack. The idea made her want to laugh, and all at once the clouds let through more light. Then she did laugh because now she could see that the person was just Logan Ryder.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, too relieved that it was someone she knew to worry that it was someone who disliked her.

“Waiting for you,” Logan said.

Rage’s heart skipped a beat. Logan’s green eyes flared at her like neon lights as he straightened up.

“Why did you call me last night?” she asked. To her surprise, it was Elle’s voice that came out, light and strong and challenging.

“Call you?” Logan sounded puzzled enough that Rage wondered if she had dreamed it after all. Then he gave a snarling laugh. “Yeah, I gave you a wake-up call.”

“I
don’t
think I’m better than anyone else,” Rage said quietly, hitching her schoolbag onto her shoulder so that she could run if she needed to.

“You think you’re special because your mum is in hospital. A lot of kids have dead mothers and fathers,” Logan growled.

“I told you I don’t think I’m special,” Rage said. “But even if I did, why do you care?”

Confusion passed fleetingly over his face. Then Logan glowered at her. “Tough talk for a little girl out all alone in the night.”

“It’s not night and I’m not a little girl,” Rage said evenly. She forced herself to start walking toward him again. He stepped into the middle of the path, blocking her way.

“I have a message for you,” he said in a sinister voice.

Rage was surprised to hear him use exactly the same words as the firecat in her dream. She gave a startled laugh.

Anger distorted Logan’s features and he lunged, grabbing the handles of her bag and wrenching it off her shoulder. Rage clung to the bag, and to her belief that this was just a school-ground scuffle.

“Leave me alone. I don’t want to hear any message from you,” she shouted.

“So you don’t want to hear about what happened?” Logan jerked the bag lightly and Rage stumbled closer. She let the handles slide down to her fingers so that she could step back, and she glared at him.

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Logan Ryder, now let go of my bag!”

“You don’t want to know what happened to Mrs. Marren?” Logan taunted, giving the bag another light tug that unbalanced her and further loosened her grip.

Rage felt a hot little dart of shock. “Mrs. Marren? What are you talking about?”

“So you
do
want the message?”

Rage’s fear melted into an intense weariness and she stopped struggling. “If you have a message from Mrs. Marren, Logan, then just tell it to me instead of acting like some stupid gangster in a movie.”

Logan’s expression grew uglier. “You think you can give me orders?” He wrenched the bag out of her hand, unzipped it, and emptied it onto the snow, then threw it down.

Rage gave a cry of dismay. “You rotten pig,” she yelled. She would have flown at him despite the disparity in their sizes, but suddenly there was a sound that made them both freeze.

It was a deep, savage growling.

Rage turned toward the sound. She saw with dreamy horror that three enormous wolves with pale, silver-tipped pelts and flaring green eyes were hurtling across the football oval beyond the park on the other side of the road. All at once she registered that the wolves were running
toward them.