I didn't realize how badly I was lost until I tried to find the road again.<\/p>\n
It had been beneath my feet only a short time earlier.<\/p>\n
I remembered the packed surface.<\/p>\n
I remembered the trees beside it.<\/p>\n
I remembered being certain that I was going west.<\/p>\n
Then I looked down.<\/p>\n
There was snow everywhere.<\/p>\n
No wheel marks.<\/p>\n
No clear edge.<\/p>\n
Nothing to tell me which way the road had gone.<\/p>\n
I stood still.<\/p>\n
The wind pushed against my back.<\/p>\n
Snow struck my face.<\/p>\n
I turned in a slow circle, searching for something familiar.<\/p>\n
Every direction looked almost the same.<\/p>\n
Trees.<\/p>\n
White ground.<\/p>\n
More trees.<\/p>\n
And beyond them, a wall of blowing snow.<\/p>\n
I told myself not to panic.<\/p>\n
I had followed the road from Pinewood.<\/p>\n
Surely it couldn't have disappeared entirely.<\/p>\n
I took a few steps in the direction I believed it continued.<\/p>\n
The snow grew deeper.<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
Perhaps I was walking off the road.<\/p>\n
Perhaps I had already left it some distance behind.<\/p>\n
I looked back.<\/p>\n
My footprints were filling almost as quickly as I made them.<\/p>\n
That was when I first became truly afraid.<\/p>\n
Until then, I had worried about finding work.<\/p>\n
About money.<\/p>\n
About having nowhere to sleep.<\/p>\n
Now those worries seemed strangely distant.<\/p>\n
I had a more immediate problem.<\/p>\n
I didn't know where I was.<\/p>\n
And the weather was getting worse.<\/p>\n
I tried to remember everything I had noticed since leaving town.<\/p>\n
The slope of the ground.<\/p>\n
The direction of the valley.<\/p>\n
The way the trees stood beside the road.<\/p>\n
I thought I could use those things to guide myself.<\/p>\n
But every time I turned, the wind made the world look different.<\/p>\n
I couldn't tell whether I was heading toward Greenwater or farther into the mountains.<\/p>\n
I tried to be practical.<\/p>\n
That was how Grandpa had taught me to handle problems.<\/p>\n
Find what you know.<\/p>\n
Work with that.<\/p>\n
Don't waste energy getting angry at what you can't change.<\/p>\n
I knew the mountains lay west of Pinewood.<\/p>\n
I knew I had been climbing.<\/p>\n
I knew the road had followed the valley.<\/p>\n
That was something.<\/p>\n
Not enough.<\/p>\n
But something.<\/p>\n
I continued walking.<\/p>\n
The snow rose over the tops of my shoes.<\/p>\n
Then it worked its way inside.<\/p>\n
At first, I could feel the cold water against my feet.<\/p>\n
Later, the feeling became dull.<\/p>\n
I didn't understand how dangerous that was.<\/p>\n
I only knew my toes hurt.<\/p>\n
My fingers grew stiff.<\/p>\n
I tried bending them.<\/p>\n
The movement was painful.<\/p>\n
I tucked my hands beneath the gray blanket.<\/p>\n
The wool was damp now.<\/p>\n
It gave me less protection with every passing minute.<\/p>\n
I held it close anyway.<\/p>\n
It was my mother's.<\/p>\n
I wasn't ready to put it down.<\/p>\n
The wind caught one loose edge and pulled it away from my shoulder.<\/p>\n
I grabbed it before it slipped off.<\/p>\n
The sudden movement made me lose my footing.<\/p>\n
I stumbled.<\/p>\n
My knee struck the frozen ground beneath the snow.<\/p>\n
Pain shot through my leg.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I stayed crouched there.<\/p>\n
I was angry at myself.<\/p>\n
I had been so certain that I could manage.<\/p>\n
So certain that walking to Greenwater was better than paying for a room.<\/p>\n
Now I was alone in the mountains, unable to tell which direction led back to town.<\/p>\n
I wanted to cry.<\/p>\n
But I was already struggling to breathe in the cold air.<\/p>\n
I forced myself upright.<\/p>\n
My knee ached.<\/p>\n
I brushed the snow from my skirt.<\/p>\n
Then I moved again.<\/p>\n
There was nothing else to do.<\/p>\n
I told myself that I would find a sheltered place.<\/p>\n
A stand of trees.<\/p>\n
A large rock.<\/p>\n
Anything that might protect me from the worst of the wind.<\/p>\n
Then I could decide what to do next.<\/p>\n
But the farther I walked, the harder it became to think clearly.<\/p>\n
I kept searching for landmarks.<\/p>\n
A bend in the valley.<\/p>\n
A familiar tree.<\/p>\n
An opening between the slopes.<\/p>\n
Everything appeared and disappeared behind the storm.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I thought I recognized something.<\/p>\n
I would move toward it.<\/p>\n
Then, as the snow shifted, I realized I had mistaken one shape for another.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty was exhausting.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether each step was bringing me closer to safety.<\/p>\n
Or farther away.<\/p>\n
I began talking to myself.<\/p>\n
Not loudly.<\/p>\n
Just enough to hear a voice.<\/p>\n
"Keep going, Mary."<\/p>\n
The wind swallowed the words.<\/p>\n
I tried again.<\/p>\n
"Find somewhere out of this."<\/p>\n
It sounded simple.<\/p>\n
Almost reasonable.<\/p>\n
But there was nowhere to go.<\/p>\n
My shoes were soaked.<\/p>\n
My legs were growing heavy.<\/p>\n
Every movement required more effort.<\/p>\n
I had been cold before.<\/p>\n
I had carried wood through winter weather.<\/p>\n
I had stood outside helping Grandpa repair things when the air was sharp enough to make my eyes water.<\/p>\n
But that cold had always been temporary.<\/p>\n
There had always been a door nearby.<\/p>\n
A fire.<\/p>\n
A room where I could sit and recover.<\/p>\n
This was different.<\/p>\n
There was no door.<\/p>\n
And I had no idea how far away the nearest one might be.<\/p>\n
I reached for the bread in my bundle.<\/p>\n
My fingers struggled with the wrapping.<\/p>\n
I managed to break off a piece.<\/p>\n
It was difficult to eat while I was shivering.<\/p>\n
I swallowed what I could.<\/p>\n
Then I put the rest away.<\/p>\n
I had to preserve it.<\/p>\n
I didn't know how long I might be outside.<\/p>\n
That thought frightened me more than the hunger.<\/p>\n
How long?<\/p>\n
An hour?<\/p>\n
All night?<\/p>\n
Until morning?<\/p>\n
I didn't know.<\/p>\n
And not knowing made everything worse.<\/p>\n
The light began fading.<\/p>\n
I noticed the change gradually.<\/p>\n
The white snow took on a darker color.<\/p>\n
The trees became harder to distinguish.<\/p>\n
I looked up at the sky, though there was little to see.<\/p>\n
Night was coming.<\/p>\n
I had spent the afternoon trying to reach another settlement.<\/p>\n
Now I was facing darkness without shelter.<\/p>\n
I walked faster for a few minutes.<\/p>\n
It was a mistake.<\/p>\n
My breath grew short.<\/p>\n
My legs began shaking.<\/p>\n
I slowed down.<\/p>\n
I wanted to sit.<\/p>\n
Just for a moment.<\/p>\n
I wanted to stop fighting the wind.<\/p>\n
I wanted to close my eyes and pretend I was back beneath the attic roof.<\/p>\n
I could picture my bed.<\/p>\n
The sloping ceiling.<\/p>\n
The little space beside the wall where I kept my clothes.<\/p>\n
I had never appreciated that room properly.<\/p>\n
I had complained about how cold it became on winter mornings.<\/p>\n
Now I would have given anything to be there again.<\/p>\n
Even with Elias downstairs.<\/p>\n
Even knowing he didn't want me.<\/p>\n
I hated myself for thinking that.<\/p>\n
Then I understood how frightened I really was.<\/p>\n
I wasn't wishing for happiness.<\/p>\n
I was wishing for a roof.<\/p>\n
I staggered into a deep drift.<\/p>\n
One foot sank farther than I expected.<\/p>\n
I lost my balance and fell.<\/p>\n
Snow filled my sleeve.<\/p>\n
I tried to rise.<\/p>\n
My hands slipped.<\/p>\n
I pushed again.<\/p>\n
My arms trembled.<\/p>\n
I managed to get one knee beneath me.<\/p>\n
Then I stopped.<\/p>\n
I was so tired.<\/p>\n
It seemed impossible that a person could become that tired simply from walking.<\/p>\n
I lowered my head.<\/p>\n
The snow was soft beneath my arms.<\/p>\n
The wind sounded farther away than it had a moment earlier.<\/p>\n
I remember thinking that if I rested for just a little while, I might have enough strength to continue.<\/p>\n
Only a minute.<\/p>\n
Only until my legs stopped shaking.<\/p>\n
My eyes began to close.<\/p>\n
And then I remembered Grandpa.<\/p>\n
Not his face at first.<\/p>\n
His voice.<\/p>\n
The quiet way he spoke when I became frustrated over something I couldn't repair.<\/p>\n
When I was young, I sometimes looked at an entire broken piece of furniture and decided the job was too difficult.<\/p>\n
He would make me stop.<\/p>\n
Then he would point to one part.<\/p>\n
A loose joint.<\/p>\n
A damaged board.<\/p>\n
A bent nail.<\/p>\n
He taught me to deal with the next thing I could actually do.<\/p>\n
Not everything at once.<\/p>\n
Just the next thing.<\/p>\n
I thought about him sitting beside me.<\/p>\n
I thought about the old stone wrapped in flannel.<\/p>\n
And I realized that lying in the snow wasn't the next thing I needed to do.<\/p>\n
Standing was.<\/p>\n
I planted one hand against the ground.<\/p>\n
Then the other.<\/p>\n
My arms shook.<\/p>\n
My knee hurt.<\/p>\n
I pushed until I was upright.<\/p>\n
I stood there breathing hard.<\/p>\n
The trees swayed around me.<\/p>\n
I couldn't see far.<\/p>\n
I couldn't think about Greenwater anymore.<\/p>\n
Greenwater might have been miles away.<\/p>\n
It might have been behind me.<\/p>\n
It didn't matter.<\/p>\n
I needed shelter.<\/p>\n
Somewhere close enough to reach.<\/p>\n
I took one step.<\/p>\n
Then another.<\/p>\n
I concentrated on lifting my feet high enough to clear the snow.<\/p>\n
I stopped trying to measure how far I had gone.<\/p>\n
That only made me feel worse.<\/p>\n
Instead, I watched the ground immediately ahead of me.<\/p>\n
One place to put my foot.<\/p>\n
Then the next.<\/p>\n
Sometimes that was all I could manage.<\/p>\n
I don't know how long I continued that way.<\/p>\n
Time had become difficult to judge.<\/p>\n
The sky was dark.<\/p>\n
My body ached.<\/p>\n
My fingers no longer worked as they should.<\/p>\n
I kept walking because stopping frightened me more than moving.<\/p>\n
Then something appeared ahead.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought it was another tree.<\/p>\n
A dark shape between two snow-covered pines.<\/p>\n
I stared at it.<\/p>\n
The wind blew snow across my face.<\/p>\n
The shape disappeared.<\/p>\n
Then it returned.<\/p>\n
I moved closer.<\/p>\n
It looked too wide to be a tree trunk.<\/p>\n
Too straight along one edge.<\/p>\n
I rubbed my eyes with the back of my sleeve.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was a rock.<\/p>\n
I didn't care.<\/p>\n
A large rock might block the wind.<\/p>\n
That would be better than nothing.<\/p>\n
I struggled forward.<\/p>\n
A few steps later, I saw a line that made no sense in the middle of the forest.<\/p>\n
It sloped downward at an angle.<\/p>\n
I looked again.<\/p>\n
It was a roof.<\/p>\n
A roof covered so heavily with snow that it nearly blended into the hillside.<\/p>\n
I stopped breathing for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then I saw part of a wall.<\/p>\n
Dark logs.<\/p>\n
A crooked wooden shutter.<\/p>\n
And above them, the shape of a stone chimney.<\/p>\n
A cabin.<\/p>\n
I whispered the word.<\/p>\n
I was afraid to say it too loudly.<\/p>\n
Afraid that I had imagined it.<\/p>\n
But the building remained where it was.<\/p>\n
Old.<\/p>\n
Crooked.<\/p>\n
Nearly swallowed by winter.<\/p>\n
I had never seen it before.<\/p>\n
I had no idea who owned it.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether anyone had lived there recently.<\/p>\n
The roof sagged.<\/p>\n
Snow piled against the walls.<\/p>\n
There was no light in the window.<\/p>\n
No smoke from the chimney.<\/p>\n
It looked deserted.<\/p>\n
I didn't care.<\/p>\n
It had walls.<\/p>\n
And a roof.<\/p>\n
And a place where a fire might be possible.<\/p>\n
I tried to hurry.<\/p>\n
My legs couldn't manage it.<\/p>\n
I stumbled through the snow until I reached the side of the building.<\/p>\n
Then I dropped to my knees.<\/p>\n
I remember touching the logs.<\/p>\n
They were real.<\/p>\n
Rough beneath my fingers.<\/p>\n
Cold.<\/p>\n
Solid.<\/p>\n
I almost cried from relief.<\/p>\n
I had found a building.<\/p>\n
Not safety yet.<\/p>\n
But something close enough to make me hope again.<\/p>\n
I struggled around toward the door.<\/p>\n
Snow blocked part of the entrance.<\/p>\n
I pushed against the wood.<\/p>\n
Nothing happened.<\/p>\n
I pressed harder.<\/p>\n
The door didn't move.<\/p>\n
I tried pulling.<\/p>\n
It stayed shut.<\/p>\n
I put my shoulder against it and shoved until pain ran down my arm.<\/p>\n
Still nothing.<\/p>\n
The wood was frozen in place.<\/p>\n
I stared at it.<\/p>\n
A door.<\/p>\n
A perfectly ordinary wooden door.<\/p>\n
And I couldn't get through it.<\/p>\n
After everything I had endured, the thought of being forced to stay outside because of a frozen door nearly broke me.<\/p>\n
I tried again.<\/p>\n
My shoulder burned.<\/p>\n
The door refused to move.<\/p>\n
I leaned my forehead against it.<\/p>\n
"Please," I whispered.<\/p>\n
There was nobody to hear me.<\/p>\n
Nobody to open it from inside.<\/p>\n
I knew that.<\/p>\n
But I said it again anyway.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered the crooked shutter I had seen from the trees.<\/p>\n
I moved along the wall.<\/p>\n
Snow caught at my feet.<\/p>\n
I had to push through a drift that reached almost to my knees.<\/p>\n
The shutter hung beside a narrow window.<\/p>\n
Part of it was broken.<\/p>\n
I grabbed the loose wood and pulled.<\/p>\n
It shifted.<\/p>\n
I pulled harder.<\/p>\n
The opening behind it was small.<\/p>\n
Too small to enter comfortably.<\/p>\n
But it was an opening.<\/p>\n
I brushed away the loose snow.<\/p>\n
Then I tried to force myself through.<\/p>\n
My coat caught on the rough frame.<\/p>\n
I twisted.<\/p>\n
The fabric tore.<\/p>\n
I felt the pull across my shoulder.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I thought I was stuck.<\/p>\n
I pushed with my feet.<\/p>\n
Dragged myself forward.<\/p>\n
Then suddenly I fell through.<\/p>\n
I landed hard on the wooden floor.<\/p>\n
The air smelled of old timber and damp dust.<\/p>\n
The room was dark.<\/p>\n
I could barely see.<\/p>\n
But the wind was outside.<\/p>\n
I lay there listening to it.<\/p>\n
For the first time in hours, it wasn't striking me directly.<\/p>\n
I had made it into the cabin.<\/p>\n
I was trembling so badly that my teeth hurt.<\/p>\n
I couldn't yet feel safe.<\/p>\n
I couldn't even sit up properly.<\/p>\n
But there was a floor beneath me.<\/p>\n
There were walls around me.<\/p>\n
And somewhere in the darkness stood a stone fireplace.<\/p>\n
I turned my head toward it.<\/p>\n
If I could make a fire, I might survive the night.<\/p>\n
That became the only thing I allowed myself to think about.<\/p>\n
I didn't realize how badly I was lost until I tried to find the road again. It had been beneath my feet only a short time earlier. I remembered the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-sory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11972,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11952\/revisions\/11972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}