Snow flew sideways across the white landscape. Visibility became almost 0 after twenty feet, then everything just vanished into a white wall. Gale pushed through snow halfway up his knee, and Rachel followed behind. Her dark red hair stuck out from her hood, wearing her usual light jacket in the storm. It looked like she was more concerned about her hair being blown chaotically than the actual cold.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Rachel yelled over the howling wind. “We could barely see the hotel from fifty feet out.”

“We need food.” Gale pulled his scarf up to cover half of his face. “Besides, I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, I know. But aren’t you scared of getting lost?”

Gale paused, looked back at her for a full 6 seconds. Technically, she was right. If he was mundane before, this kind of snow would even make him have a hard time of getting back to camp.

“Right. You have that senses thing,” Rachel said.

Turning back forward, he pointed to a patch of snow near a fallen log. “See that?”

Rachel squinted. “Just looks like more snow to me.”

“That’s a rabbit run,” Gale said. “They use the same paths over and over. Creates these little highways under the snow.”

He crouched and brushed away powder, revealing a narrow tunnel.

“How do you even spot these things?” Rachel asked, kneeling beside him.

“Mom taught me,” Gale said. “She could spot animal signs I’d miss completely. Took me years to get even half as good as she was.”

Rachel watched Gale set a simple snare with wire from his pocket he got from the twins.

“Now we wait,” he said, standing up. “Or set more. Better to have multiple chances.”

They moved through the forest. Gale pointed out more signs of stripped bark on branches, Y-shaped bird tracks, berries on bushes, wolf tracks, and at least one moose.

“These ones,” he said, pointing to small, dark berries, “are edible. Winterberries. Very bitter, but they won’t kill you.”

Rachel plucked one and looked at it. “How do you tell what’s safe?”

“Colour, shape, where they grow. My mom drilled it into me.” Gale moved a few feet away to set another snare. “Those red ones over there? Don’t touch them.”

Rachel nodded and popped the winterberry in her mouth. Her face scrunched up. “God, you weren’t kidding about bitter.”

Gale chuckled. Mom even forced him to eat it even though it was bitter. She’d eat it with him and do the same stink face at the bitterness.

They spent the next hour setting snares and gathering berries. Rachel caught on quickly, finding a rabbit run without help and spotting more winterberries.

“You know,” she said, “this reminds me of the Eclipsed.”

Gale looked up at her as he set up another snare. “Yeah?”

“The way we had to live off of the forest” She said.

“Yeah. Though that place now just feels like it was a bad dream.”

Rachel pulled her jacket tighter. “When you were gone, sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night, thinking that I was still there.”

In the first couple of weeks, even Gale thought he was still in the Eclipsed. He’d jump at anything that moved in his apartment. Every sound set off adrenaline. “Are you ok now?”

“Yeah.” Rachel wandered off to the side. “I’m more worried about you, though. I remember throwing out a report that mentioned a boy taking out a sword in the middle of the street around Yorkdale.”

Gale’s face flushed. “W-well, that was my first weeks back. The honking got me.”

“Sure, Mr. Jump-at-anything-that-moves.” Rachel laughed.

First of all, he had the right of way and the pedestrian light was green. And most important is that no car would get a free hit on him. But how’s he supposed to explain? He sighed.

“Hey, Gale,” Rachel called to him by a bush with bright red berries. “What about these? They look good.”

“Rachel, don’t!”

Too late. She’d already popped several into her mouth.

Gale rushed over. “Those are baneberries. They’re poisonous.”

Rachel froze mid-chew. “What?”

“Spit them out,” Gale urged.

She had already swallowed. “Are they bad? Like, hospital bad?”

“They can be,” Gale said, checking her face. “How do you feel?”

Her face flushed. “Fine, actually. Just tastes like hot cinnamon. Kind of spicy, I like.”

The air around her shimmered, and immediately the snow at her feet melted. The heat itself radiated off her, hitting Gale’s face, contrasting against the snowstorm.

“Oh.” She looked down. The heat stopped, the air returning to normal. “Didn’t see that one coming. Guess my body’s immune to this poison.”

“Let’s stick together,” Gale sighed. “I’ll point out what’s safe before you eat it.”

“Yes, wilderness guide sir.” Rachel said.

They continued through the forest, checking snares and gathering berries. Two snares had caught rabbits. Gale killed them quickly and stuffed them in his pack.

Instead of spearing them before with speed, it’s better for Rachel to learn how to do things. And besides, sometimes it’s just fun to take their time. Anytime he saw Rachel smiling was always a good time. It’d be over too fast if he just threw his spear at the rabbits anyways.

“That should be enough for tonight,” he said, standing up. “If we get one more, we’ll have breakfast covered too.”

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Rachel looked around their surroundings. “This was fun. Never thought I’d get to hunt with you like this again.”

“Hunt with me?” Gale laughed. “Really?”

“I helped! Mentally and spiritually.” Rachel laughed as well.

“Well, you better get used to it,” Gale said. “Maybe we’ll get to hunt together a lot more.”

Suddenly, something around them rustled the frozen bushes.

“Did you hear that?” Rachel said.

“Hooves.”

Gale’s hand moved to his left pocket, ready to materialize the Weber.

“There.” He pointed between two trees. “Stay here, I’ll check it out.”

“Like hell,” Rachel said, following him.

They moved through the trees, steps muffled by snow. Breath of the Void’s tendrils spread forwards to search for any presence. A deer grazed at a patch of exposed grass just ahead of them.

“There,” Rachel whispered, pointing.

Before Gale could respond, Rachel had already moved, lunging at the deer from downwind. At the same time, a cold wet snowball hit him in the back of his unhooded head.

He spun around, seeing something small running between the pine trees, a familiar child in an indigenous fur jacket. It was Dyani, already picking up another snowball.

“Found you!” she shouted with a giggle.

Gale glanced back at Rachel. She had already disappeared into the white wall of snow, probably chasing after the deer.

Dyani giggled, stepping out. She wore the same outfit as yesterday, yet she showed no signs of cold.

“Come on, let’s play again?” she asked.

Gale hesitated to say yes. Rachel might get lost in this kind of weather, especially when chasing a deer.

“Pleeeease?” Dyani said with big eyes.

Drats! He could just find Rachel again with Breath of the Void anyways.

Hooking the bag onto a branch on the side, he scooped up a handful of snow into a snowball and threw it gently at Dyani. He grinned, “Your cruelty ends here today.”

“Well, your doodoo face ends here today!” Dyani ducked behind the tree. “You missed!”

Gale crouched, packing another snowball. “Won’t happen twice!”

They fell into the game. Dyani darted between trees to avoid Gale’s snowballs while Gale matched her. For twenty minutes, they chased each other with a snowball of their own.

Dyani moved quick and seemed to know every tree and rock. Gale could’ve caught her easily, but what would be the fun in that? He’d throw in one carefully aimed snowball per 5 snowballs while letting most of Dyani’s hit.

After landing the last snowball on his head, Gale raised his hand. “Okay, okay! You win.”

Dyani’s eyes beamed up at Gale with the widest smile he’d ever seen. “Told you I’d get better!”

Brushing off the snow on Dyani’s jacket, Gale picked her up and sat her on a fallen log. The snowstorm continued, but between the thick trees, the storm felt serene.

“Dyani,” Gale said gently, “do you know anything about a wendigo?”

The girl’s smile faded. She kicked her feet in the snow, focusing on her boots. “Mom says not to talk about them. She says it brings bad luck.”

“But you’ve heard of them?” Gale pressed.

Dyani nodded. “They’re bad spirits. They eat people. Mom says they come from people who get too hungry in winter and eat other people. Then they turn into monsters.”

“Have you ever seen one?” Gale asked.

“No! And I don’t want to. The elders put protections all around our homes.” She drew a circle in the snow with her finger. “Special marks to keep them away.”

The circle she drew matched a couple of the circles on the sixth floor. Gale leaned forward towards her. “What about that hotel near here? You know anything about it?”

“Hotel? What’s a hotel?” Dyani tilted her head.

“The big building,” Gale said. “Where people stay when they’re travelling.”

Dyani shook her head. “There’s no big buildings here. Just our houses on the reserve.”

The hotel wasn’t that far away from this forest. And if Dyani walked here, there was no way his tendrils wouldn’t be able to pick up the mundane signatures all over.

“What do you do when you’re not playing in the forest?” he asked.

“Wait for mom to come home. She works cleaning houses for the people in town. Goes early, comes home late.” Dyani sighed. “I get bored at home, so I go out here and play adventure!”

“You really don’t have any friends at the reserve? Even just one to play with you?”

“They don’t like me. They bully me and say I’m weird.” Dyani clutched at her sleeves. “They make fun of me because I don’t have a dad. They say my dad was one of the city men who came here and left my mom with me.”

Her small shoulders dropped. “But it’s not all that bad. Mom loves me a lot. She works hard for me. She says I’m special and brings me yummy candies all the time when she comes home. I know she’s working really hard. I have to be a good child and stay home safe until she comes back. But it’s boring being alone.”

Gale’s heart ached. Kids were always so horrible at picking on the ‘weird’ kid. He was one too. He knew how bad it felt, and that made him want to protect Dyani even more. “Hey. Look at me. You know what I think? They’re just jealous because you’re braver and faster than them and you know how to adventure by yourself.”

“Maybe.” Dyani smiled a little, still looking down at her kicking up the snow.

“What else does your mom tell you about?” Gale asked. “About the forest or the spirits?”

Dyani brightened. “Oh! She knows lots of stories. She says there’s a spirit that looks like a wendigo but isn’t one. People mistake them all the time.”

“What kind of spirit?” Gale asked, leaning closer.

“An animal spirit. Mom says they protect places. They can look scary with antlers and stuff, but they don’t eat people,” Dyani said. She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. “Here. You can have this.”

She put a small object into Gale’s palm, a bone that was yellowed with age and not bigger than his palm. It was in the shape of a circle, but not fully round.

“What is it?” he asked, turning it over.

“It’s my good luck charm,” Dyani said.

“Gale!” Rachel’s voice carried through the quiet howl of the wind. “Where are you?”

Gale turned toward her voice. Rachel emerged from the trees, dragging a deer by its broken neck.

“Over here!” he called back.

He turned to tell Dyani to stay put, but she was gone. The log beside him sat empty, the snow undisturbed except for his own spot.

“Dyani?” he called, looking around. No footprints led away from the log. She’d vanished into thin air.

Rachel stepped closer, the deer still over her shoulder like it weighed nothing.

“Was there anyone here?” she asked softly.

Gale spun in a circle, looking at the surroundings. “Dyani. She was right here. We were just having a snowball fight and talking and…”

Rachel dropped the deer down and moved closer to Gale. “I didn’t see anyone when I walked up.”

“No way.” Gale knelt down, examining the log where they’d been sitting. The snow showed only his impression. No small footprints, no disturbed snow from their fight, no sign anyone else had been there. “We were throwing snowballs and then she was sitting right here.”

Rachel knelt beside him, her shoulder touching his. “Hey, I believe you. Something strange is happening here. Maybe she can appear to some people and not others?”

“There’s something different about her.” Gale ran his hand through the snow, searching for evidence. His fingers closed around the small bone Dyani had given him. He held it up. “Look. She gave me this.”

“What is it?” Rachel bent closer, examining the yellowed fragment.

“Protection against bad spirits,” he said. Gale turned the bone over in his palm. Smooth on one end, jagged on the other. About two inches long, the colour of old ivory.

“Is it human or animal?” Rachel took it, turning it in her fingers.

“I don’t know.” Gale took it back. He hunted things, not studied them. “You really didn’t see her at all?”

Rachel put her hand on his arm. “Just you. But I believe you. Unexplainable things happen all the time in Aur.”

“I asked her about the hotel and she acted like she didn’t even know about it,” Gale said. “But she said there’s a reservation that way. Her home. That has to be the place Robert was talking about.”

“The abandoned First Nations reserve?” Rachel said. “If she lives there, maybe the place isn’t as abandoned as Robert claimed.”

“Yeah,” Gale said. “I want to check it out.”

“Let’s do it.” She smiled widely, then glanced at the deer on her shoulder. “What about this?”

The deer’s meat could last them for days. Wolf tracks might pose a problem and scavenge the deer, but that’s not a problem if they balance it on a tree.

“Balance it on one of the branches above so that it doesn’t get scavenged,” he said. “And I can mark our path so we can find our way back.”

“Good idea.” Rachel smiled. “Maybe you can teach me some of those tracking skills on the way.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep