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Chapter 2

作者: Tilly
I reached the foot of the mountain at seven the next morning.

Mr. Brooks, who watched over the snow trail, looked past me as soon as he saw me.

“Where are those three boys? They’d usually fighting over who gets to carry your backpack. Not one of them today?”

“They’ll be here later.”

He glanced at the sky. “Then you’d better hurry. It’s warm today. The snow at the summit won’t last until evening.”

I nodded.

He hadn’t seen me head up alone in years. He gave me another look but didn’t ask anything else.

A row of trail passes hung at the entrance.

Every year, Ethan insisted on taking mine, saying he was afraid I’d lose it.

Noah would tease him for not even letting me carry my own pass. While they bickered, Lucas would slip my backpack onto his shoulders.

Today, I took just one of the four passes.

Halfway up the mountain, my right index finger had melted down to the second knuckle.

I pulled off my glove. The sodden fabric hung limp. There was no longer enough of my hand left to fill it.

Ethan had knitted that glove.

That first year, he’d only known one basic stitch. He’d made the thumb too narrow, and it squeezed painfully whenever I wore it. Still, I’d never had the heart to replace it.

My phone rang. I hurried to answer with my left hand.

It was a video call from Lily.

She stood by the ocean, her eyes shining.

“Claire, look! The water really is blue!”

She turned the camera around. Noah was taking pictures of her. Lucas held her coat, and Ethan carried her shoes.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Lily asked.

“It is.”

“How’s it going over there? Ethan said you went hiking on your own.”

I watched the wet patches spreading across my glove.

“Lily, could you put Noah on?”

Her smile faltered, but she handed him the phone.

“You’re there already?” he said. “Didn’t I tell you last night there was no rush?”

“The snow will be gone this afternoon. If you leave now, you can still make it.”

“Lily just got to the beach. She’s barely had any time here.”

“You can come. Ethan and Lucas can stay with her.”

“Why does it have to be me?” His voice dropped. “They’re both here, too.”

As a boy, he’d been afraid there were hidden hollows beneath the snow. With every step, he’d cling to the hem of my coat.

Only after I’d packed the snow down beneath my feet would he dare to follow.

When he grew older, he started taking the lead. Even from far ahead, he’d turn and call back to me.

“Claire, step in my footprints.”

“Because you’re the one who answered,” I said.

He didn’t reply. After a while, he said, “I’ve got to go. Lily’s waiting for me to take more pictures.”

The call ended.

I stuffed the soaked glove into my backpack and kept climbing.

At ten, Lucas sent me a photo.

Lily sat on a rock by the water, holding a seashell.

His blue scarf was draped over her shoulders.

I’d knitted it for him when we were children. The stitches were terribly crooked.

He’d called it ugly, but he wore it up the mountain every year.

“She’s a little cold,” he wrote. “I’m letting her borrow it for a bit.”

“Can you come?” I asked.

His reply came almost immediately.

“I need to keep an eye on her. The rocks are slippery, and she’s never been to the beach before.”

“Ethan and Noah are there, too.”

No reply came.

The snow at the summit glistened wetly in the sun.

I stopped at the fork in the trail to wait.

My thumb, too, was slowly melting away.

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  • Spring by the Sea, the Last Snow on the Mountain   Chapter 10

    The Snow Realm had no calendar like the human world’s.After returning, it took me a long time to get used to not checking the weather forecast, not counting how much snow remained at the summit before spring.The people of the Snow Realm noticed how often I looked back at the human world.“Are you still waiting for them?”“No,” I said. “I was just wondering—if I’d told Ethan that I wouldn’t disappear as long as one of them came, would he have left sooner?”“Didn’t you tell him?”I thought of the messages I’d sent.I’d told them when the snow would melt and how long the drive from the beach would take. I’d said I couldn’t walk the trail. I’d asked if they could come.“I did.” I lowered my head. “Over and over.”“Then stop making excuses for them not listening.”I didn’t ask again.Later, the people of the Snow Realm took me farther north.The winters were long there. Fresh snow fell at night, covering the old footprints, but there was still a path to follow the next morning.Sometimes,

  • Spring by the Sea, the Last Snow on the Mountain   Chapter 9

    A few days later, a light snow fell at the foot of the mountain.Ethan, Noah, and Lucas arrived almost at the same time.The snow was too thin to cover the rocks, but they followed the old trail to the pine tree anyway.Noah reached the end first. When he turned, Ethan had stopped halfway.“Come on,” he said.Ethan stared down at the exposed path.“She waited for me here last year.”“This year, too.”After saying it, Noah couldn’t take another step either.Lucas handed them each an orange.No one peeled theirs.They stood there for a long time. Snow landed on their shoulders and quickly melted.Ethan caught a snowflake in his hand.His palm grew wet.“Do you think it hurt?” he asked.“She told me she couldn’t walk the trail,” Lucas said. “I never asked why.”“She asked if I was coming,” Noah said. “I told her to stop pressuring me.”None of them said, “If only we’d known.”Those words were too slight to bear the weight of the day I’d spent waiting.The people of the Snow Realm asked if

  • Spring by the Sea, the Last Snow on the Mountain   Chapter 8

    The pool in the Snow Realm was still.I could see Ethan and the others, but I couldn’t touch anything in the human world.Those first few days, I couldn’t stop looking into the pool. I knew they wouldn’t look up and see me. Still, I wanted to know whether, once they finally returned to the mountain, they would walk the trail.On the third day, Ethan went up alone.He brought no flowers, no food.Only the gloves I’d never had the chance to wear.The snow trail had melted away completely. Wet mud surrounded the pine tree.He reached the stone steps where I’d last sat, crouched down, and laid the gloves across his knees.“Claire, I’m here.”He waited a long time.No one answered.After coming down, he met with Noah and Lucas. He gathered the security footage and my final messages and handed everything over to the investigators.He answered their questions over and over.He no longer hid behind the excuse that I’d been upset with him.Noah handed over his own phone.It held photos I’d sent

  • Spring by the Sea, the Last Snow on the Mountain   Chapter 7

    The footage began at four forty the previous afternoon.I propped my phone against my backpack and sat beside the snow trail, my coat still in place.Ethan pointed at the screen.“There she is. Keep playing.”He turned the volume up high.The voices on the other end of my call were too faint to make out, but mine was clear.“Look at me.”Ethan stared down at his shoes.The footage continued. My right sleeve slowly flattened. The hem of my coat sank onto the stone steps.There were no legs beneath it.“Stop,” Noah said sharply.Mr. Brooks paused the video.None of them moved.Finally, Lucas spoke.“Keep going.”At four fifty-seven, I looked up at the camera, as though waiting for someone on the other end to turn toward me.At five sharp, the snow beneath the pine tree melted.And the person on the screen was gone.My coat fell, leaving only a little water on the steps. The phone stayed lit for a few more minutes before its screen went black.Noah reached out and touched the monitor.“Is

  • Spring by the Sea, the Last Snow on the Mountain   Chapter 6

    It was dark by the time they left the restaurant.Ethan sent me a message.“Let me know when you’re home.”No reply came.“She’s ignored our messages when she’s mad before,” Noah said.“But she wouldn’t leave her bag,” Lucas said.Lily stood nearby.“Why don’t you go check her apartment?” she asked quietly. “I can get back to campus on my own.”This time, no one insisted on staying with her.Ethan borrowed a car and drove back through the night. On the way, he called me more than a dozen times.Every call went straight to the same message: my phone was switched off.At first, he was still annoyed.“Too stubborn to even bring a portable charger. Now look.”Half an hour later, he asked Noah, “Did she leave you a message?”“No.”“What about you, Lucas?”Lucas shook his head and pulled up the money he’d sent that afternoon. I still hadn’t accepted it.Staring at the screen, he suddenly said, “When she called, she told me she couldn’t walk the trail today.”“Of course she couldn’t. None of

  • Spring by the Sea, the Last Snow on the Mountain   Chapter 5

    The video call connected.It was noisy on Ethan’s end. Lily said the frosting on the cake was starting to melt. Noah told her to make a wish first.“Look at me,” I said into the phone.“I am,” Ethan replied.His camera wobbled, then settled on the cake and stayed there.I couldn’t see his face. I only heard him ask Lily, “Should we turn off the lights?”“Could you all look at me for a second? Please?”“Claire.” Ethan lowered his voice. “We’ll talk later. Lily’s about to cut the cake. Don’t make a scene.”I reached out with my left hand, trying to bring the phone closer.That hand could no longer hold anything. My fingertips touched the screen, leaving a few drops of water.On camera, Lily smiled.“Don’t hang up yet. Let Claire make a wish, too.”So the call stayed connected.They sang to Lily. Noah got the words wrong, and Lucas burst out laughing. Ethan warned her not to burn herself.He sounded just as he had on our walks up the mountain, when he’d warned me that my thermos was hot.

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