The Icarus Project (27 page)

The perfect ending to a terrible day. I was going to be eaten by a polar bear.

It dropped to all fours and ambled toward me.

“No!” I yelled. The bear could eat me if it wanted to, but I wasn’t about to let it hurt Dad. “No! Go away!” I waved my arms, but the bear just stared at me. It roared again. Its hot breath was a puff of smoke in the cold air.

“Ya! Ya! Get out of here!” I tried to shoo the bear away, but it just moved closer to the sled until finally it was right on top of us. It was so close that I could touch its fur. I fell back in the snow, scrambling, trying to move as far away as possible, but there was no way that I could outrun a polar bear on the ice and snow. He was built for this environment—tough and strong, with claws for gripping the ice and lots of protection from the cold.

I closed my eyes.
Please be quick.
One swipe of the huge paw, with its sharp claws, and it would be all over. Dad had been right all along—expeditions were dangerous. The elements, the treacherous terrain, the wildlife can all harm a person who got in the way.

But nothing happened, and when I opened my eyes, I noticed a green bit of plastic dangling from one of the
bear’s ears. It looked like the same tag that was on Charlie’s ear. But it couldn’t be. I searched the horizon. Through my snow-crusted goggles, all I saw was the desolate landscape receding for miles.

“Charlie!” I yelled, my voice scratchy and foreign, sounding like a croak for help. But
Charlie
was gone. Only the bear remained.

I heard a rattle and clanking jingle. The bear had grabbed the reins of the sled and begun to pull it easily, as if it were a toy. It nudged my leg with its muzzle to move forward and then roared with a deep rumble. So I followed. What else could I do?

The polar bear pulled the sled, and I walked along, side by side with this huge majestic creature that could rip my head off in one second flat. And then I could have sworn I heard a word, a single word, drift on the air. Maybe it was my imagination. Or just in my head, but the word was
strong.

I was snow-crazy, for sure. Hypothermia made people crazy with cold, made them see things like giant polar bears pulling a sled. But I wasn’t about to argue with a bear. If it wanted to pull the sled, I was going to let it. I wasn’t strong, but with a little help I was stronger than I had been.

We just had to keep walking. We had a long way to go. I was so cold. I leaned into the bear, which blocked the wind with its massive body. It never wavered. We were
a strange team, plowing our way through the blinding, snow-crusted wind. The light grew darker and darker. I was so tired. I couldn’t help pull the sled anymore, and I wondered if Dad’s pockets were stuffed with gold and that was why he was so heavy, and just like a magical fairy tale, a spirit bear had ambled into my dreamscape to save me.

The bear made me climb up onto its back. I clung to its thick white fur. He was warm and strong and pulled the sled along behind us.

I don’t know who or what Charlie was: an angel or an alien being. Was he the boy Icarus, fallen out of the myth, fallen from Mount Olympus, who never landed in the sea but in a frozen bed of snow, drowning in wind? White roared around me. The cold was a cocoon that clung to me. I was delirious. That’s what dehydration and hypothermia do to a person. They make you see things like snow ghosts and polar bears. West was right. The cold was a monster, biting at me with its razor teeth.

White had a wide mouth. White had come alive.

My goggles were so crusted with ice that I could barely see. In the distance I saw my mother standing on the ice, wearing her stained T-shirt and mud-caked boots, her nose sunburned. I smelled the sweat on her neck. She had come to rescue me and take me home. She had dug me up like a frozen doll buried in the snow. She cradled me in her arms and rocked me like I was her precious daughter. Tears fell from her eyes in frozen droplets of ice like diamonds. I
was going to be OK. I would be home soon. I wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep. I leaned into the soft fur of the bear.

Mom just stood there. She would die dressed like that; she would freeze to death. Her skin would shatter like glass. I waved to her. “Mom! I’m over here!”

She didn’t move, not even a shiver. She was a mythical goddess, and so was I, riding my polar bear with a prince magically trapped inside. The cold was no match for us—let the angry white world eat us alive.

“Mom!” I yelled. “You came for me!”

Then I saw what she had in her hands. She raised a tranquilizer gun. “I’ve come for the bear.”

But I knew what she really wanted. “You can’t have him. He’s mine. I freed him from the ice.”

“One last chance,” she said, and raised the gun.

“You’re just jealous because everything you dig up is dead, and I found a living thing, a real boy with wings. He can fly, and he can mimic things, and change himself—he speaks through dreams, Mom. He’s incredible.”

I paused, my brain stalling out, screeching to a stop. That was it. Charlie was alive. That was what mattered.

I was not interested in the dead, their bones or tusks, fossils, old clothes, clay pots, or buried stuff—precious as they were to my parents—I was looking for the living, for breathing, talking, walking people. I wanted to make friends and meet interesting people, like Kyle and Charlie,
Justice and West. I might even make a few adversaries, too, like Katsu and Ivan, and a few in between like Randal and Jake. In that second, I understood what I was digging for, and it was all the colors bleeding into one—that’s what the color white was—all the colors.

White wasn’t alone.

I gasped, a smile cracking the ice on my face. I was thrilled to be awake and alive, and more than anything I wanted to go home. I waved my arm high in the air, but my mother just adjusted the sight on the tranq gun.

She fired. But I was too quick and dove in front of her prey. The dart pierced my snowsuit down to my skin and flooded my body with hot venom. I tumbled from the bear’s back. Sinking into the snow, heavy as a feather. The sled was still there, but I couldn’t move. I had to sleep, to rest, to close my eyes and dream.

The bear picked me up in its arms and carried me. The bear would save us. It would save Dad. The stars spun above me in their dark painted sky. Only humans would make a fake sky. That’s what Zoey said. The little green aliens were laughing their butts off at us. I turned to the bear and said, “Look out for Pluto, will you? It needs all the friends it can get.”

Then I closed my eyes.

I felt myself sinking into a dark pool of calm.
Snow buried me inch by inch, like the sand-swept deserts of Egypt swallowing up its kings. I felt the moist, earthy soil of the jungle pulling me under, snaking vines tying me down, like a doll played with by little girls a long time ago. But like Charlie, I was still alive, awake deep inside, a flame flickering in my chest. A rumbling sound penetrated my sleep, rousing me, pulling me back to the bright white surface.

Exhaustion had frozen me in place. The sound grew closer and closer, and I could see a spot of light moving toward me. Within seconds, I was lying in the center of the circle of light, the helicopter hovering above me like a giant metal bee, whipping the snow around my head. Justice’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “Hold on, Maya. Help is on the way.”

I tried to wave, so he would know I heard him. With a lurch in my stomach, I realized the bear was gone. The helicopter must have scared him off. But the sled was still behind me. Where had Charlie gone, and what had happened
to the bear? Were they the same creature? I searched the small sphere of light, but there were no tracks in the snow.

As the rumbling motor of a snowmobile got closer, relief flooded through me, and I relaxed into the snow.

When I woke up in the infirmary, I was warm, too warm. Buried under an electric blanket, I felt sweat drip down my neck. I kicked a feather comforter off my flannel-clad legs. That was when I noticed that I was surrounded. West, Kyle, and Justice were positioned around the room, trying to stay out of Dr. Kernel’s way. When our eyes met, Kyle’s face lit up with a goofy grin. Justice gave West a high five. And West said, “Rescue mission accomplished.”

Dr. Kernel maneuvered around my bed to check my IV. The first thing she told me was that Dad was going to be fine. Randal had arranged to have him flown to the nearest hospital. The fall on the ice had left him with a mild concussion and a broken ankle. Dr. Kernel said that head wounds sometimes looked worse than they really were. He needed some stitches for the nasty gash, but that was all.

Relieved that Dad was going to be fine, I told my story about what had happened out at the skeleton site with Ivan, Charlie, and Dad. I also told them about the polar bear and Charlie. (Well, almost all of it. I left out the part about Mom and the tranquilizer gun. As fantastic as everything else was, I knew that part had to be a hallucination.)

“Honey, the cold does things to people’s minds,” Dr. Kernel said, clearly not buying my polar bear story.

“What do you mean? I was there. I think I would remember a bear.” My throat was raw.

“When we found you, you were dehydrated and had hypothermia. You were barely conscious,” Dr. Kernel said, her face tight with concern.

West stood in the doorway to the infirmary. “Happens to the best of us.”

“No, I was fine. And the bear helped me. He saved my life.” I realized this sounded made up, but it was the truth. A giant friendly polar bear with a tagged ear, just like Charlie’s, had carried me through a snowstorm. Kyle sat at the foot of my bed. Justice listened intently.

When the doctor and West stepped out of the room, I squinted at Kyle. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“Of course. But no one else does,” he whispered. “What do you expect? They don’t know Charlie like we know Charlie.”

“You know what I think?” Justice said, lowering his voice. “I think you’re telling the truth.”

“Really?” I asked, relieved that another person—a grown-up person—believed me.

“I think you’re special. One day, stories will be told about your adventure. The myth of Old Girl, who called to the gods and was so strong of heart and spirit that a bear was sent to aid her. You are a strong and wise girl. You asked for help, and help arrived.”

“The myth of Old Girl. My mom would love that. I’ll have to tell her.”

“At least you’re OK,” Kyle said.

“What happened to Ivan?” I pushed my pillows up so I could sit up better.

Kyle answered. “After we realized that Ivan hadn’t gone to town, we came back. We caught him trying to raid the supplies. With some convincing, he told us what had happened and where you two were.”

“Where is he now?”

“Randal let him go.” Justice stared at the floor. “I wouldn’t have done it, but this is Randal’s station.”

“Let him go?” I couldn’t believe it. “Why let him go?”

“Randal didn’t want any trouble from Ivan’s family. Technically, Ivan didn’t hurt anyone. He just freaked out and stole a snowmobile. Randal thought it best to just get him off the station. He had West take him to the airport and put him on a plane home.”

“That’s not right. He kidnapped Charlie!” Kyle said.

“What happened to Charlie?” I asked.

No one would meet my eyes.

“Is he here? Did you find him?”

“The snow doesn’t seem to have any effect on him,” Kyle said.

A pang of guilt hit my stomach. “I had to leave him back there. He
disappeared
when the bear came, and then
I didn’t see him again. Did you find him? Please tell me that he’s OK.” I would never forgive myself if he was hurt. Never. I still believed Charlie and the bear were one and the same, but neither of them was around when my rescue came.

Justice answered. “Yes, we found him. He returned to camp a few hours after we brought you back.”

Charlie had to walk the whole way back to the station by himself. My throat tightened. I should have been there for him, but all I could think about was myself and Dad and getting back to safety.

“Where’s he now?” I asked.