Ice (11 page)

Managing a halfhearted wave, Cassie backed into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. She heard her parents’ voices receding, and then their door shut too.

Cassie flopped down onto the bed. Yellow fluorescent light reflected on the photographs that her younger self had taped to the cement walls. She rolled onto her stomach to look at the shrunken images of snowdrifts and mountaintops. She leaned over and smoothed the crumpled corner of one photograph. She had scrawled: “Lomonosov Ridge 89° N.” She remembered it: the fierce jumble of ice blocks, the expanse of sky, the burning cold. “Oh, Bear, what are you doing now?” She threw a rolled sock at the light switch, and it bounced off. Third sock, she got it. In the darkness, she missed Bear more. She knew she shouldn’t. She was home now. She had her life back, plus her mother. So why wasn’t she happy?

Tossing beneath her comforter, Cassie thought about her life in the castle, how she’d never gotten tired of the afternoons they’d spent in the garden, of the evenings they’d spent playing chess (even when he’d won three out of four games because she’d never had a backup plan), or of the late nights when they’d drunk hot chocolate in the dark and he’d made up stories just for her. She remembered how he had laughed the first time she’d slid down the banister, and how he had cried when that first cub had been stillborn. How many more stillborns had he had to face alone? If only she could find a way to be with him and help the polar bears.

Cassie sat up in bed—she was on the verge of an idea. She could feel it. Bear missed births because he did not know where and when they would be. But she had access to the precise denning dates for hundreds of expectant bears.

Cassie threw off her comforter and hurried to Owen’s workroom. She clambered over boxes and engine bits to the new computer. After yanking the protective cover off, she hit the power button.

She paced as it booted. Births were not random. She could predict them—or at least their likelihood.

Cassie perched on the desk chair and clicked to the denning file.

“Let me do that,” a voice said.

Cassie jumped. Owen was two feet from her elbow. How on earth had he heard her from back in the sleeping quarters? “Do you have a baby monitor on this thing?”

“You’re not exactly light-footed.”

She relinquished the desk chair. “Be my guest.” He sat, and she leaned over his shoulder. “I want an extra column on the denning sites spreadsheet.” He inserted the column. “Mmm. Okay. Now put in a formula to add two months to each of the denning times to account for the final stage of the gestation period.” He did. “Can you print a page?” she asked.

“It’s going.”

The printer whirred, and Cassie hovered over it. “Slow.”

“Ink-jet. Leave it be.”

“You think I’m going to break every piece of equipment, don’t you?” Owen shrugged.

“I am not a klutz,” she said.

“Excitable,” he said.

She yanked the page out before it finished, blurring the ink. Pacing, she scanned it. “Label that column ‘Predicted Birth’ and sort the data by date and location. Date first. Please.” He made the adjustments and printed. After grabbing the pages, Cassie perched on a stool. She chewed on her lower lip as she read. Could this work?

Owen cleared his throat. “The grant said nothing about predicting births,” he said. “Up to your father, but I doubt we can change the basic premise now.”

“Uh-huh.” She barely heard him. Dates overlapped for disparate locations, but it was not impossible.

If he had a route that took him from Hudson Bay . . . It would be a challenging project to determine the route and to update it, adjusting probabilities, on the fly. It would need someone with training and skills. . . .

Owen waited for a response. Cassie smiled at him. “Can you print a few more files for me?”

* * * * *

Cassie rolled her sleeping bag and stormproof bivy sack into the bottom compartment of her backpack. She was packing full expedition gear this time, in preparation for trips out on the ice. She added freeze-dried food packets, oatmeal flakes, nuts, dried fruit. If her plan worked, she’d be out on the pack ice every day—just like she’d always wanted.

As she packed, Dad hovered beside her. Flushed, his face looked like angry lava. He leveled a finger at her. “You’re not going. And that’s final.”

Cassie examined her MSR stove and tested the fuel pump. She wasn’t going to fight with him.

“I won’t let you ruin your life.”

“It’s my choice to make.” She kept her voice calm. She didn’t know when she’d see Dad again. She didn’t want to leave angry.

He gripped her arm. “Cassie, I only want what’s best for you.” Cassie yanked out of his grip. Turning her back on him, she packed quickly with practiced skill—

heavy items braced by clothing. “I know I’m not making the choices you would, but—” Red nail polish flashing, Gail wrung her hands. “Cassandra, you don’t have to go. You fulfilled my promise. He has no hold over you.”

She shook her head. She wasn’t going back because of promises or because of Gram’s story or to save her mother. “I want to return to him,” she said.

Owen wordlessly handed Cassie a stack of printed data. She thanked him and packed it. Scanning her desk, she found an ice screw. She added it to a side pocket.

“Cassie.” Dad dropped his voice low. “He’s not even human. You told me yourself you don’t know what he looks like when he isn’t a bear. You don’t know what he is.” She was not going to fight with him.

Without a word, she marched through the lab to the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her and shoveled her toothbrush, deodorant, and shampoo into the bag. “I know perfectly well what he is,” she said through the door. “He’s Bear, and he’s my husband.” She rooted through the cabinets until she found one more item: birth control pills, left by an intern who’d worked at the station prior to Jeremy. She packed the pills and zipped the bag.

Flinging open the door, she added in a low voice, “And isn’t all this a little hypocritical coming from the man who married the North Wind’s daughter?” His jaw fell open, and she brushed past him.

“Owen,” she called, “do you have the rest of those maps?”

“Just a minute here, young lady . . .” Dad strode after her.

Max emerged from his bedroom. “What’s going on? Cassie-lassie?” He followed Cassie and Dad back to where Gail waited. “What’s she doing?” Max asked.

“Ruining her future,” Dad said.

“Following my future,” Cassie corrected. Owen handed her another stack of maps, and then, with a quick glance at Cassie’s father, retreated across the room.

“You have a future here,” Dad said. “You have family and friends here. You’re giving up everything to be with this ‘husband.’ You’re giving up college. You’re giving up your goals. What about your plans to be a professional tracker? You always said that’s what you wanted.” Cassie put on her hat and zipped her parka. Sweat heated in her armpits. “I shouldn’t have expected you to understand. After all, you left your wife in a troll castle.”

“Dammit, Cassie, I did that for you! You’d been born. I had to keep you safe! I couldn’t go traipsing off to the ends of the earth. I had to be a father to you!” He thumped a desk with his fist for emphasis. Papers scattered, and Owen jumped. “Do you think it was an easy choice?” It hadn’t been a choice; it had been cowardice. Why else had he lied to her all these years, leaving it to Gram to finally tell her? Shame was a powerful motivator. She knew he wished he had rescued Gail. She’d heard the regret in his voice that first night when she’d eavesdropped on her parents.

She slung her pack over her shoulder.

“I forbid it.” Dad blocked the exit. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” Cassie turned to her mother. “You talk to him.”

“But I don’t . . . ,” Gail began.

“History is repeating itself,” Cassie said. “Your father didn’t want you to leave either.” Startled, Gail looked at her husband.

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Dad protested. But Cassie could see her mother understood. It was the same. Cassie watched her mother’s face as her father blustered. Every night, her mother woke screaming, afraid she would be imprisoned again. Would she let her daughter be kept somewhere against her will? Cassie didn’t know her well enough to be certain, but she was betting not.

Gail touched his arm with her red fingernails. “Laszlo, let her go.” Aghast, he turned to her. “Do you know what you’re saying? You want to send our only child, our baby girl, back to the mercy of a bear?”

Gail lifted her chin and did not back down. Max, wide-eyed, looked back and forth among the three of them like he was watching a convoluted Ping-Pong game. Owen ducked behind the doorway of his workshop. Dad broke first. Lowering his eyes, he said, “Cassie, please, don’t do this. It isn’t safe. It isn’t smart. You’re rushing in again. Wait for a while and then decide. Don’t leave so soon.” Gail reached toward Cassie and then let her hand fall. “Cassandra . . . Cassie . . . I was just getting to know you.” Cassie looked at her mother. What could she say? That no matter how much time she spent here, it wouldn’t be enough to bridge the lost years? Cassie couldn’t say that. Better just to leave.

“Stay with us,” Dad said. “We’re your family. This is your home. Please, think about this. Think of what you’re giving up.” Max’s eyes were overbright, and Gail had tears in hers.

Looking at them, Cassie started to blink fast. Her eyes felt hot. “Tell Gram I’m sorry I didn’t get to see her.”

She went outside quickly—before she could change her mind, or have it changed for her. Silence slammed down on her as she closed the outer door. She inhaled deeply, and cold bit her throat.

Feeling her way along the perimeter of the station, Cassie raised the U.S. flag in the blinding white darkness of an Arctic blizzard.

TWELVE

Latitude 79° 48’ 44” N

Longitude 153° 37’ 58” W

Altitude 6 ft.

AS BEAR CARRIED HER NORTH, Cassie laid her cheek against the soft fur of his neck. She breathed in his scent—sea salt and damp fur. Above, the northern lights played between the stars as Bear ran across the endless ice. She thought of the last time Bear had carried her away from the station.

Same ride, but now she knew what waited at the end of it.

Or at least she hoped she did. What if Bear rejected her plan?

After many hours, they reached the castle. Cassie saw the spires, luminous in the light of the moon.

Bear slowed to a walk, his paws crunching on granules of ice.

“We’re home,” Cassie said softly.

Bear paused, and she knew he’d heard her. She wrapped her arms around his broad neck, and then she dismounted and walked through the shimmering castle gate with her hand resting on her Bear’s back.

She led him to the banquet hall and removed her pack. She unzipped it and began to pull out maps, binders, and notebooks and pile them on the banquet table. Frost curled around a map as she unrolled it. “Can you tell the table not to eat this?”

Bear focused on the table, and the frost retreated. “What is all this?” he asked.

Cassie took a deep breath. Time to see if she truly had a future here. For all her fine words to Dad, Bear could squash everything without even knowing he was doing it. If he was unwilling . . . I’ll have to convince him, she thought. She pointed to a section of the map. “Here’s the coast. And here are this season’s dens. One bear per triangle.” Cassie flipped open a three-ring binder. “This is a record of the denning dates with the predicted dates of birth, which I can use to plot routes for you that will bring you closest to the most likely births at any given time for the rest of the birth season.

Predictive modeling. We can use it to change the odds.”

Bear furrowed his broad forehead.

She plunged on. “Eventually, with enough data points, I should be able to be precise . . . within an order of magnitude, of course.” Thanks to Owen, she had printouts of all the files from all the cooperating research stations. It wasn’t a complete record of the full bear population by any means, but it was a start. “Look,” she said, “I’ve already plotted a preliminary course. We can test it out tomorrow.”

She watched him, waiting for his reaction and trying to read his glass black eyes.

“You wish to come with me out onto the ice? Out to the births?”

“I have to,” she said firmly. “For this to work, we need to record more data, and you can’t do both jobs. Besides, you won’t know what data we need.” She tried a grin. “And you won’t have opposable thumbs.”

His laugh was a familiar and welcome soft rumble that washed over her, and then he was serious again. “All munaqsri travel alone. We must avoid detection—”

“All munaqsri miss delivering souls,” she interrupted. “You’ve told me that yourself. I can help.

Maybe we won’t make all the births, but we can improve the odds.” He nodded slowly.

Cassie felt her shoulders unknot. He wanted to save the cubs badly enough. He’d agree. Together, they could save bears.

“You are certain you wish to do this?” he said. “It is not without risk. Once outside these walls, if I am not touching you, I cannot magic you. If we are separated . . .”

“I’ll have my gear,” she said, patting her pack. “If necessary, I can survive an entire week on the ice with this equipment.” All her training, her skill, her education, had led to this. She’d be directly helping the polar bears instead of writing papers and securing grants. If he agreed.