Spring by the Sea, the Last Snow on the Mountain의 모든 챕터: 챕터 1 - 챕터 10

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.Eth

At three, a small patch of black rock emerged in the middle of the snow trail.My boots were so loose they wouldn’t stay on.I sat down and used my scarf to secure them. When I stood again, one pant leg felt so light it might have been empty.Lily sent a photo of them at lunch.Ethan was looking down, carefully cutting her fish into bite-sized pieces.Noah held up a hand to shield her face from the camera while she chewed.Lucas had a napkin ready to pass her as soon as she turned toward him.As children, the three of them had huddled together like that when they were trapped in a snow cave.When I found them, Ethan’s first question wasn’t how I would get them out.It was, “Are you cold?”Back then, I couldn’t feel the cold.Now I could.At four, Noah sent me a message.“Are you down yet? There’s a shop here that sells candy shaped like snowy mountains. I’ll bring you a box.”“I haven’t gone down. I’m at the start of the last stretch.”He called immediately.“You’re still there? Claire

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

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

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,