Day 6
Erica
‘Hey,’ Molly called out over the noise of dog barks.
The yelping, whimpering, high screech-like barks, and low rumbling-growling barks, had become a constant fixture in their lives for the past six days. Erica was sure she’d hear the sound of the huskies barking in her dreams for the rest of her life. Somehow though, the pitch of their chatter still rattled in her eardrums, piercing a spot right in the centre of her brain.
The sun above their heads as they packed the sleds for another day was bright in a clear blue sky that stretched as endlessly as the ubiquitous snow. Bright white snow that stung her eyes with the same sharp pain as the dog barks in her head.
Erica looked over Ridder’s grey fur back towards Molly, her grip on Ridder’s collar loosening just a fraction as she wobbled in her crouched position. Ridder, the most playful of her pack, who always gave her the most trouble with the harness, sensed the change in Erica’s grip and thrust his body around, pushing against Erica and forcing her backwards, toppling her into the snow. A second later she felt the weight of the dog writhing over her body until she ran her gloves over his back, giving him the attention he craved and pushing him aside.
Erica craned her neck to one side anticipating Ridder’s slobbering tongue. Her jerking movement did nothing to dissuade the dog from his mission and a second later his nose launched towards her, knocking against her, and he licked her face anyway and filled her senses with the smell of his rank breath.
Erica shifted onto her knees, stretching her arms around the dog’s grey and white belly, and securing the harness into place. ‘There,’ she said, scratching Ridder’s ear. He whimpered from her touch and thumped his tail against her leg. She glanced at Molly’s dogs. All six of them were sitting calmly amidst the incessant noise of the other dogs.
Molly hopped over her dog line and stepped closer to Erica. ‘I didn’t see you last night after your call from Henry. Is your mum OK?’
‘Oh.’ Erica bent over Ridder, fiddling with the harness she’d already fixed into place. The dog twisted his head and eyed her with a questioning human-like glance.
Give me a break, Ridder.
‘Erica?’
‘It was … nothing.’ Tears swam in her eyes as she stood up. Even with the goggles on her face she couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Molly. Erica blinked and a moment later her goggles fogged from the mist of her tears. She ripped the goggles from her head, along with her hat, and dropped them to the snow, relishing the icy sting on her face.
‘Oh my God, Erica. Your eyes – you look like shit. What’s happened?’
‘Thanks.’ Erica forced a smirk, picking up another harness from the pile and leaning over Svord’s brown and white back.
Without her goggles the sunlight bounced off the white snow – one giant spotlight – burning the back of Erica’s retinas. She squinted, her eyes sore from the hours of crying and a night without sleep, lying awake with the springs of her mattress digging into her back whilst she’d grappled with the should-I-shouldn’t-I urge to shake Molly awake and tell her everything. Erica had done this to Molly. If it wasn’t for Erica’s Facebook tags Rachel would never have known Molly would be on this trip, and none of this would’ve happened.
Erica’s stomach, rotting with the lie and guilt, had churned in the early hours of the morning, and yet she had to protect Molly. She had to get back to civilization first. It was her fault Noah and Rachel were on this trip, and it was her job to protect Molly from it now.
‘Seriously,’ Molly said, stepping closing and laying a hand on Erica’s shoulder. ‘What happened?’
Erica inhaled a deep gulp of cold air and sighed. ‘My mum’s fine. That’s not why Henry called,’ she said. ‘The truth is … the truth is that I’ve been lying to Henry for months. I’ve been lying to everyone in fact. I’ve been living a double life. I got made redundant from Channel 6 three months ago, but instead of telling Henry I carried on pretending to go to work every day.’ A tremor took hold of Erica’s arms as if she hadn’t eaten for a day. Not even her matter-of-fact tone could mask the enormity of what she’d done.
Erica unclipped Jagerfly from the line and set off across the snow to the sled where Kriger was already waiting at the front of the line. The alpha dog barked a single piercing sound, startling Erica. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, shaking her head at why she was even bothering to reply to the alpha dog. ‘I’m going as fast as I can.’
She’d formed a grudging respect for her leading dog, which sometimes, just sometimes when he didn’t bound up to her shoulders at the end of a long day, she thought might be mutual. Lee had been right about Kriger – he kept the other dogs in check on the line and a bark from him could see the whole pack pick up the pace.
‘And Henry found out?’ Molly asked a moment later, fastening one of her own dogs onto the gang line of the sled. Molly lifted her goggles from her eyes, resting them on her hat and fixing Erica with a worried stare as they strode back to the dog lines.
Erica nodded, straddling Svord between her legs and wrestling on another harness. ‘Yep.’
‘Are you all right?’ Molly asked, continuing to stare at Erica whilst slipping a harness onto one of her dogs, as easy as if she were pulling on a boot.
‘Me?’ Erica gave a small ha of a laugh. ‘I don’t know. Henry’s so upset and hurt, and he has every right to be. I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ She shook her head, rubbing at the tension throbbing in her forehead and catching the rotten stink of wet dog fur in her nose. The scent caught in her throat and for a split second she could taste the foulness of it in her mouth.
‘But it was you who got made redundant and lost your job,’ Molly said, raising her voice to be heard as they set off together with the dogs hopping on two legs beside them; Molly with a dog in each hand and Erica struggling with just Svord. ‘You were at Channel 6 for years and years. You loved your job. You must have been devastate –’ The rest of Molly’s sentence was lost to the sound of Kriger’s impatience.
‘I’ve been burying my head in the sand,’ Erica said as they set back across the snow once more to collect up the empty lines. Behind them, the barking became one constant noise of excitement. ‘And … oh God … this sounds so stupid now that I say it …’ She pulled in a breath and glanced at Molly’s face. Somehow it was easier to tell Molly than Henry. ‘I’ve spent the last three months writing a book.’
To Erica’s surprise a wide smile spread across Molly’s face. ‘I don’t think that sounds stupid at all. You were always writing in those notebooks when you came to ours in the summer. I always thought you’d be a writer. Mum still has a load of your stories in the back of her wardrobe. You used to read them to me at bedtime, do you remember? There was that one about the boy who could fly, and the haunted house with all the hands coming out the walls. That gave me nightmares for a week.’
Erica pictured the stack of old notebooks she’d scribbled her stories in, and the stack of paper, the same stark white as the snow, and the lines of words that had poured out of her. She’d been so proud when the printer had churned out the final page and she’d leafed through the pages before tucking them into the desk drawer in the study.
A small smile touched Erica’s face. ‘I’d forgotten about that, but I don’t suppose it matters now. Henry and I, our problems, it feels like they run a lot deeper than me losing my job and not telling him, although that’s bad enough.’
Molly reached out and squeezed Erica’s hand. ‘You’ll get through it. I know you will. You and Henry are made for each other. Who else would put up with you, eh?’
‘Ha ha, very funny.’
An ache gripped Erica’s chest, like grief – for her relationship with Henry? For Billy? For hiding the truth from Molly? For not telling Henry about the book when she’d had the chance? Erica didn’t know, but she was glad this would be their final long day of sledding, their final night in the wilds of the Arctic.
However much Erica wanted to avoid the problems waiting for her at home, she missed Isla more than she ever imagined. She missed Isla’s squealing giggle, her bright blue eyes, the feel of her warm body against Erica’s chest when they looked at storybooks together.
If Erica could skip the last night, grab Molly and board a plane for home this very second she would. The thought unleashed a guttural longing in the pit of Erica’s stomach.
In the glaring light of day, she felt more lost, more confused, more terrified about the future than she had before setting off on the challenge.