Page 45

45

Once Wylie shut the door, the girl immediately got to her feet and began pounding on the front door. She tried the knob. It was locked. The cold wind bit at her exposed skin. “Mama,” she shouted, slapping at the door. “Mama, let me in.”

The cold seeped through her body. She wanted to go back to her little room with her bed and her books and her television and her small window. But she wanted her mother even more.

They were shouting inside the house. The girl squinched her eyes tightly shut. Then she heard the bangs. With each blast, she cried out.

The girl had known Wylie for such a short time, but it felt like much longer. Did she trust her? She didn’t know. She felt a nudge at her knees. It was Tas looking up at her with his amber eyes.

Wylie told her to hide. She would hide.

She ran to the barn with Tas at her side. She tried not to think of her mother back in the house with her father and the sound of the gun. Wylie told her to run. She would run. The cold bit at her face and her fingers, and every few yards, she would fall through the snow up to her waist, but still, she forged forward.

She slipped into the barn with Tas right behind her and scanned the dark space for somewhere to hide. Her eyes settled on the ladder and the hayloft, and she began to climb.