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breath, but she called Mina to heel and tipped a cheery wave The

crows perked up as Eli neared shore, but when he passed to his horse

without stopping, they lifted in a black cloud to scold hi: seven-inchers that she released With Mina trotting alongside, she hooked a handle of an old plastic primer bucket she used for her tackle and headed over the ice to holes she’d drilled thiswaaay out there

This lake, which was very deep, was fed by a spring located somewhere off the western shore Thatwas much warmer and the lake never entirely froze Instead, the ice sheet petered out in a ragged scallop of slushy ice from which she always kept a healthy distance As she neared the far tip-up, she saw the orange flag standing upright and felt a burst of elation

"All right," she said to the dog "We got so the last little way, she dropped to her knees and worked at unhooking her line As soon as she felt it--how light the line was--her exciterabbed the bait and split But then she sa the monofilament line curled and realized there was no sinker at the end, no weight at all The dripping line had snapped in two She’d used ive and cushioned the set of the hook so the fish’sfish" And big Walleye liked deep water So did pike Lots of meat on those fish "So maybe I should use braided line," she said to Mina, who only licked water frooing for the big boys"

Unclipping her knife, a stainless steel Leek, from a pants pocket, she deployed the blade with a practiced flick of her thumb In a very small, dark closet of her mind, she wished she could show Tom and Alex what she kne to do now But she alished that

You have to stop this She used the Leek’s sharp point to pick out the knot of ruined line, then dumped the tip-up into her primer pail For the past week, ever since Chris, she’d been thinking way too often about Toood for her

This is your hos she could actually do so their slointer dreams in deeper water under the thinner, weaker ice of the shelf More holes h Crunching back toward shore, she worried the problem Grandpa Jack used rubbera car h Isaac and Hannah and a bunch of other kids were once A into God All the places they stayed were Aular carpet or cut-up rug?

"I should ask Jayden," she said to Mina "He’s like Tom You knowa fixer-upperer? Like, re down on thattear She had to cut it out, this du back to Tom and Alex, or her dad and Grandpa Jack Her hand snuck to her neck and found a length of leather cord froled a small wooden pendant Hannah said the char, would protect her frohts Ha It was just an upside-down peace sign Duood for all theout of that dark closet The ones of Tom always led to Alex and vice versa Each caony as the snow bloo; and Alex, her hands painted with his blood, screa, You bastards, you bastards!

Good-luck charers fell from the leather cord She was total bad-luck juju It was her fault To to take care of his people and Alex saved me from the mountain and now look, because of ht the moan with a cupped hand Another fast tear chased down her cheek Now she wished she’d kept Alex’s whistle Du you could use, not a stupid piece of ith a dumb German doohickey The whistle was Alex, too Just like the letter fro a palm over her heart, Ellie felt the envelope crinkle in its Ziploc, folded in an inner pocket She hadn’t been able to stop Harlan froot your mom’s letter, Alex I saved her for you

As, perhaps, Alex and Toht save her? Not that Hannah or Jayden or Eli were so horrible, but Ellie just couldn’t shake the idea that things would never be right again until they were all back together Which had led to the whistle Giving Alex’s whistle to Tobe had been partly i left behind She’d hoped the whistle--that Alex, she guessed--would cheer hi the same way it made her feel both better and really sad at the saet well, she’d said

But in the back of her mind, a place she didn’t visit often because it hurt too ht before Harlan and Marjorie and Brett, Tom and Alex had talked about Rule She re there after Harlan, only she’d gotten so lost It was just luck that Jayden found her So, et better, someone would find the whistle and then show Alex (Why anyone would, she didn’t know It was stupid But it was soe in a bottle) Then Alex would knohere to find her, and she’d tell Tom--because, of course, Alex would’ve saved him--and they would come for herjust like that

If Tom was really okay, too If he was still alive If he wasn’t like poor Chris, the boy froone and done what she’d done and couldn’t take it back

From the sky came more hard, ht, west to east, followed by six lide of several seagulls Frowning now, she craned a look behind her, toward shore That gull was still there, but the crows had vanished Even deeper in the trees, soreen--and then a cedar swayed with a sudden shake and shiver, spilling a fine curtain of snow

"Well, that’s weird," Ellie said Crows loved fish guts or just about anything dead or dying (Well, except the people-eaters) This was so Jayden said, too: if you want to knohere that deer you clipped had got to, don’t follow the blood Look for the crows

But they’re all gone now She jureens That still-billowing cloud of fine snow Where there’d been plenty of birds before, now there was only that one gull Which was a little strange

Shouldering the auger over her left and a 22 on the right, she grabbed up her prie toward shore The gun, a Savage, hat Jayden called a plinker, ht, but it er wasn’t a thirty-pounder like Grandpa Jack’s, it was long and unwieldy--essentially a spear tipped with two incredibly sharp, stainless-steel blades

Ahead, she could see Mina squirting after that one gull With an alaro of a long, drippy streah A stringer of green-white goo splashed her ull-laughs: Ah-hah-hah-hah!

"Serves you right," she said, while Mina only snorted and groveled in the snow As they passed into the woods, she saw the gull, back on its rock, and could swear it was still laughing

This particular farazillion acres and lots of outbuildings Eli had gone left, following a wooded path back to the farht on her horse, a poky, h oaks and tall ta, the trail elbowed right and left One look at that fork and Bella spooked, prancing and shaking her head in a clatter of le" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>