CHAPTER TWO
There was no other word for it.
I’d intended to stay the night at Ripley’s so I wouldn’t have to negotiate the twisty road that led to her condo complex in the dark, but I knew I could not remain at her party one more second, treacherous road or not. I hoped she’d forgive me for ghosting like that, but I’d text her when I got home so she wouldn’t worry about me.
The sidewalk was icy and I slipped twice but managed not to fall as I made my way to where I’d parked my car. I’m sure anyone who saw me wobbling away from the house assumed I was drunk. I’ve never been good in really high heels and the pair I had on had been worn so rarely that the soles were still slick. Not the best footgear for walking around in what was fast becoming a major snowfall.
My hand was shaking so badly from the cold that it took me three tries to get the car key aligned with the lock on the driver’s side.
When I finally yanked the door open, I practically fell into the seat, catching the skirt of my brand new dress on something sharp. Of course it ripped.
Damn it.
The heater blasted frigid air when I turned on the ignition and I swore again, wishing I’d put on my coat before I’d belted myself in.
Because I’d wanted to make a grand entrance to the party, I’d left my coat in the backseat of the car and walked the few feet to Ripley’s front door without any more protection than the gossamer chiffon wrap that had come with the dress. Now I was freezing.
So much for making grand entrances, I thought sourly, wondering if anyone besides Leo and Henry had even noticed I was there.
I wasn’t half a mile down the two-lane road when the snow really started to come down in big, fat, fluffy flakes. Visibility quickly deteriorated. I turned on the wipers but they didn’t help much.
I could feel my shoulders tense up. I turned the radio on but heard nothing but static until I tuned in a station playing round-the-clock Christmas music. John and Yoko’s supremely depressing “Happy Christmas” suddenly surrounded me.” Terrific, I thought, because I wasn’t already feeling bad enough.
I turned the radio off and gripped the steering wheel tighter. I was leaning so far forward I could have licked the windshield. On top of everything else, the windows were starting to fog up and the defroster wasn’t working. Bracing myself, I powered the driver’s side window down to let the cold air in.
That helped clear the windows but also let in a freezing wet wind. Within seconds my hands were so cold they went numb.
I could barely see over the hood of my car. It was the 21st and the solstice moon was full, but so obscured by clouds and falling snow that it might as well not even have been there.
And then the sky was split with a bolt of lightning followed by the crack of thunder so loud and close it made me jump.
I’d heard of thundersnow but had never experienced it. The lightning flashed through the clouds and snow and I saw all the colors of the rainbow, like the Northern Lights had somehow been trapped by the weather. It was strange and beautiful, but I was too nerved up to really appreciate the show. I flinched every time the thunder rolled.
The temptation to just pull over somewhere and go to sleep was almost overwhelming but I made myself keep going. And then, just as I was about to make a turn onto a freeway feeder road, the sky cracked open with light as multiple lightning flashes went off like synchronized fireworks at a rock concert.
I looked away to keep from being blinded and in that instant, I hit a patch of black ice and lost control of the car. I tried steering into the slide but it was no use. The car slipped off the narrow track and slid toward the edge of the forest just beyond the blacktop.
I saw a huge Douglas fir looming in front of me and had a split second flashback to a Christmas when Hugh and I were children and we’d helped our parents decorate a Douglas fir so tall the top had to be cut off so it wouldn’t brush the ceiling.
Daddy had lifted me up so I could put the angel on the highest branch. Hugh had cried because he wanted to put the angel on the tree. I tried to grab it down to give it to him but instead pulled the whole tree down, smashing the delicate glass ornaments our mother had collected for years.
She had cried.
The memory vanished, swallowed up by the terror of what was about to happen next.
I knew I was going to hit that tree and there was nothing I could do about it.
I tugged my seatbelt even tighter and put up my arms to protect my face.
The car was old. I wasn’t sure the air bag would deploy.
And then the car and the tree collided.
I heard a sound like bells and thought, I can hear the snow. And then I collapsed into a black hole.
***
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. When I came to, I had a ferocious headache and every muscle in my body ached. Nothing seemed to be broken which did not even seem possible given the state of the car, which had folded around me like a fortune cookie.
The windshield was so cracked it was opaque and I had to wriggle my left foot out of a vise that had been created by the crumpled metal.
I caught a glimpse of my face in the rearview mirror and was shocked to see bright blood pouring down the side of my face where flying glass had cut me.
I looked like Carrie at the end of prom night.
I used the pretty chiffon wrap to bandage the wound, and then felt around the front seat for my purse, which had my phone in it.
I didn’t have much hope of getting a signal out here, but at least I could use the flashlight app. After I retrieved that, I snagged my coat out of the backseat.
A bag with a change of clothes and sneakers was in the trunk.
I knew I had to get to that bag but first I had to get out of the car.
I pushed on the door but the frame was so badly bent it was jammed.
The engine had died when I hit the tree, so I couldn’t lower the electric windows either.
I knew I couldn’t just sit in the car and freeze so I considered my options.
I took off one of my ridiculous shoes and started pounding the heel into the fractured windshield, eventually punching a hole in the glass large enough to allow me to climb out onto the car’s hood.
My exit wasn’t graceful. My coat protected me from most of the jagged edges of the crumpled metal but it was sliced to pieces and leaking feathers by the time I managed to maneuver my way to the road. Which was when I realized I’d left the keys in the ignition. I’d have to climb back into the car to get them and that seemed like an impossible feat.
I decided to hike back up to where I’d turned off the road, figuring other party-goers would be coming down and I could hitch a ride.
I broke off the heels on both shoes—which turned out to be surprisingly difficult—and looked around for a branch I could use as a walking stick. I needed the extra traction. I was afraid I’d fall and break something before I walked three feet. And it wasn’t exactly as if I could go barefoot.
Moving slowly and carefully, I set out for my destination, tree branch in one hand and my phone in the other. The feeble, makeshift flashlight bounced off the snow without really giving me much in the way of illumination.
It was very quiet.
And then I heard something moving in the trees. Something large enough to make a noise moving.
A bobcat? A coyote? A bear?
I slipped my phone into my coat pocket so I could grab the branch with both hands, quarter-staff style. I knew it wouldn’t be much good as a weapon against anything much bigger than a mouse, but at least I wasn’t empty-handed and that gave me some measure of comfort.
I tensed as whatever it was got closer and then suddenly, a shadow darker than the snow-filled night loomed in front of me.
It was a magnificent stag, larger than any deer I’d ever seen—almost moose-sized. And his head was crowned with a multipronged rack of antlers that easily spread four feet from tip to tip. And those antlers were shining as if they weren’t made of bone but of …
Silver?
The stag took a step toward me and I stepped back involuntarily. My right heel caught on something and I fell heavily, twisting my ankle as I did so.
I cried out and dropped the branch.
The deer lowered his head so that its dark eyes looked directly into mine and then with a toss of his antlers he invited me to climb onto his back.
I reached up and grabbed the antlers on each side of his head—they were silver—and allowed the animal to pull me up.
I hauled myself onto his narrow back and practically collapsed, still holding onto the antlers as if they were the handlebars of a bike I was steering.
The stag rose to his full height and ambled back toward the trees.
“No,” I said, frantically trying to turn it around by hauling on the left antler. The deer shook its head and grunted to let me know he wanted me to stop.
At that point, a feeling of complete calm came over me. I wondered if hypothermia was setting in and if the next stage would be “paradoxical undressing” where I ripped all my clothes off as if too hot.
I definitely wasn’t thinking straight but the whole situation felt unreal, so I wasn’t sure if my mind was really retreating in a freezing fog or simply reacting to something that was really happening, no matter how unlikely it was.
I’m riding a magical animal into an enchanted forest, I thought, though where the “enchanted” part came from, I don’t know. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I was still back in my car and this was all some sort of dream.
But it felt real.
I let go of one of the antlers to pet the deer’s shoulders. His coat was coarser than I expected, but then, I’d never petted a deer before.
I could feel his body heat warming me as I clung to his back so I hugged him closer and just hung on. Hugh is going to be so jealous, I thought. Growing up we’d lived near an urban trail and often saw deer foraging for berries or vegetables in unfenced gardens. In the spring we’d see does with their spotted fawns drinking from the little creeks that wound their way around our neighborhood but we never got close enough to touch them, even though, despite our parents’ constant cautions not to approach the wild creatures, we tried.
My mind drifted. I realized it had stopped snowing and what looked like snowflakes in the air were actually flower petals being blown about.
Which made no sense at all.
I realized, too, that the sky was no longer midnight black but rather the purplish-blue of twilight and that the air was no longer frigid but warm as summer.
We were no longer moving through an evergreen forest of spruce and fir and pine but a fragrant woodland where the trees were simultaneously in flower, in fruit, and in full fall foliage.
Although not all was what it seemed. As we passed one gloriously orange tree, the leaves lifted off the branches and an entire swarm of butterflies flew away.
I followed their flight with my eyes and when I looked back at the ground I saw we were approaching a small cottage that looked as if it had come right out of the pages of a storybook.
The stag stopped in front of the cottage and lowered his head, making a noise between a snort and a wheeze.
As if in answer, the door to the cottage swung open.