One by One

by Ruth Ware

  I know all that in theory. It’s just that it’s more than three years since I’ve skied off-piste. And I don’t know if I can put any of it into practice with a broken ankle.

  My heart is in my mouth. But Liz will have seen my tracks in the snow. She’ll be following after me. I have to do this.

  My downhill leg will be bearing most of my weight. I clip my ski boots into their bindings, and then turn and angle myself so that my good ankle is down the slope. Then, with a sick feeling, I tip off.

  At first it goes okay. I schuss sideways in the fresh, fluffy snow, feeling like someone trying to swim with a duvet around their legs. But I’m heading rapidly towards the trees. I’m going to have to turn—onto my bad leg.

  I manage an awkward kind of parallel turn, but I’d forgotten the physicality of skiing in thick drifts. The snow drags at my skis, nearly sending me over, but the real problem is the shock as I complete the turn and land on my bad leg. It sends prickles of pain up and down my spine, and I hastily turn back, trying to keep my sound leg down the slope.

  But it’s no good—I have to turn again to avoid a tree that looms out of the darkness, and this time my trailing ski catches in a drift, twisting my ankle with such excruciating force that I scream, the noise echoing off the steep walls of the valley. I land heavily on my bad leg, try to save myself with a flailing pole, and then—I don’t know what happens after that. All I know is that my leg gives way and my pole sinks, and I am falling, tumbling in the soft snow, my arms around my head to try to protect myself from the half-buried boulders that stud the slope.

  One ski is ripped off, my poles are wrenching at my wrists, I am upright, and then head down, then sliding bum first, then I somersault—and land with a bone-shaking jolt against a rock, at the bottom of the pass.

  For a second I can’t do anything except lie there, gasping, winded, trying not to shriek from the pain pulsing through my leg. But I have to move.

  My spine makes a sound like crunching glass when I try to sit up, and I think I might throw up from the pain in my ankle—but I can see straight. I’m not concussed. At least, I don’t think I am. And when I drag myself to kneeling the pain in my leg is intense, but it’s still bearable. Just.

  I pull myself to standing using one pole and then I rest for a moment, panting, shivering with shock and pain, forcing myself to breathe long and slow. It works… to a point. Then when I’m calm enough, I shake the snow out of my hair and collar and take stock. I have one ski still on, and I’m holding one of my poles. The other is leaning against a rock on the far side of the gully, and I hobble across and grab it with hands that are still shaking with adrenaline. Okay. This is good.

  The other ski though… where is it? I could ski with one pole, but I can’t do anything with only one ski. If I can’t find the missing ski, I’m screwed.

  And then I see it. The tip is sticking out of the snow a few feet up the cliff face I just fell down. I sigh, unclip my remaining ski, and crawl up the soft, shifting side of the crevasse to try to pull it out, but it’s too deep, the bindings are stuck against something deep in the snow, and so I begin to dig with my mittened hands. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I am hit with a sickening, jolting flashback—the most vivid I’ve had since those first, awful days when I woke up sweating every morning, fresh from a relived nightmare.

  Digging. Digging through the snow. Will’s hair. The end of his ski. His cold, waxen face…

  Nausea rises in my throat.

  I push it away.

  I scrabble at the snow with my fingers.

  The snow in his eyelashes, the frozen tip of his nose…

  I want to sob, but I can’t. I can’t afford to make any more noise than I already have. Liz could be very near.

  The torn edge of his scarf. His blue lips—

  And then I have the ski. The bindings are clear of the snow, and I can pull the rest of it out of the hole.

  Every part of me is shaking as I slide back down the slope to where I left my other ski. My teeth are chattering, my hands are trembling so hard that I can’t get them through the loops in my poles, and I have to try to force my boots into the bindings six or seven times before I finally hear the answering click and feel the firmness of the clasp.

  When it’s done I just stand for a moment, resting wearily on my poles, giving my poor, quivering muscles a moment’s respite. I’m honestly not sure if it’s pain, or exhaustion, or the memory of Will’s and Alex’s deaths that’s getting to me most. Maybe it’s all three. But I can’t allow myself to rest. I can’t.

  There is a noise from the slope above me. It might be a marmot, or just the snow I disturbed shifting and falling in my wake, but I can’t afford to stay to find out.

  I push off with my poles, and begin to ski cautiously into the mouth of the pass.

  LIZ

  Snoop ID: ANON101

  Listening to: Offline

  Snoopers: 0

  Snoopscribers: 1

  Have I made a mistake? Erin’s tracks stop at the top of what looks like a sheer drop into a gully below. The ravine itself is in deep shadow, and I can’t see the bottom. There could be anything down there—jagged rocks, a mountain stream, a thousand-foot drop…

  And yet, when I peer closer, I can see marks in the snow. Something—or maybe someone—has been down here. I can’t believe that anything except for a mountain goat could make it down this slope in one piece, but as my eyes adjust to the shadows, I can see two deep grooves in the snow that look like someone sat back on their skis, catching their breath, before making a turn.

  I stand, hesitating, wondering what to do. Surely Erin hasn’t skied down here with a broken ankle? Even for someone experienced in off-piste skiing, it looks like suicide.

  But her tracks definitely lead here. And they definitely stop here. Did she climb down? No. Whoever went down there was wearing skis. Did she fall down? If she did, my problems may be solved.

  Or is it some kind of elaborate trick?

  I pause for a moment, looking up and down the valley, but I can’t see how it could be a ruse. There are only two sets of tracks leading up to this cliff edge, Erin’s and mine, and neither of them lead away. And she didn’t have enough time to do anything Sherlock Holmes–like. If she had retraced her own footprints to lay a false trail, I would have met her coming the other way.

  This must be a route down to St. Antoine. And somehow, Erin has managed to clamber down to it.

  Well, if she can do it, so can I.

  I am definitely not skiing down there. I don’t care whether Erin did—I have not done enough off-piste skiing to trust myself on anything this steep. Instead, I unclip my skis and, holding them in one hand, I sit on the edge of the drop and lower myself down into the soft snow to try to walk down the precipice.

  I know immediately that it was a mistake. Without skis to spread my weight, I sink deep, deep into the feathery drift. I scramble up, clawing for purchase, using my skis as a support, but as I struggle, the snow begins to shift underneath me. All of a sudden, it gives way, and we slither down the slope with terrifying speed—me, my skis, and a slippery, moving mass of snow. At first it is scary, but okay. I manage to stay upright, I can see where I am heading, and I am able to steer myself away from the trees, slow my descent—but then my boot catches on a rock. I can’t stop myself. The weight of snow at my back is too great. I pitch forward. My skis are ripped from my hands. I am falling—falling in a terrifying white blur of snow and rocks and skis.

  I have my arms wrapped around my head. I feel something hit my cheek, and my shoulder crunches against something hard. I think I scream. I think I am dying. This isn’t how I wanted to die.

  And then there is an almighty thump, and I realize I have stopped moving.

  I am lying on my back, my head pointing down the slope, and there is hot blood coming from my cheek. My shoulder is pulsing with pain. I think I may have broken my collarbone.

  I try to pull myself to sitting, but the snow slithers treache
rously beneath me, and I suppress a scream as I begin to fall again, but it grinds to a halt after just a few feet, and I lie, panting, sobbing with fear, before I realize that that last slide took me almost to the bottom of the slope. There is a path just a few feet below me. I can see one of my skis lying across it.

  Slowly, painfully, I swivel myself around so that my boots are down the slope, and I let myself toboggan the last few feet. Then I am down. I am lying on the valley floor, practically crying with relief.

  Everything hurts. I can taste blood in my mouth. But I am down. And now that I am at the shadowy bottom of the ravine, I can see that I was right, and the realization gives me a little pulse of excitement that helps take my mind off my throbbing shoulder.

  Because I can see ski tracks in the snow leading away down the valley, towards St. Antoine. One set, pressed deep into the snow, marked with divots either side where the skier pulled themselves along with their poles.

  Erin was here. And if I hurry, I can catch up.

  ERIN

  Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

  Listening to: Offline

  Snoopers: 5

  Snoopscribers: 10

  This is harder than I could ever have believed. I remember doing this route in daylight—the sun sparkling from the frosted trees high up above, blazing back at us from the bright snow at our feet. I remember twisting, turning, laughing, leaping over half-buried boulders and dodging moguls.

  I cannot see any of those now. Traps loom out of the darkness—tree branches that swipe at my face, jagged projections rearing up without warning so that I have to swerve with sickening force, my ankle screaming with every jolt and twist.

  In a way, it helps that the gully is thick with fresh snow. It makes the skiing slow and arduous, and I have no tracks to guide me, but it means I don’t have to constantly try to slow myself down. When I came this way last time, the route was hardpacked by skiers who had gone before me. I could see where they had twisted and turned, where they had misjudged an angle and wiped out against an unexpected tree, or plowed into a drift they didn’t see coming. But at the same time, it made the going fast and furious, and with a track far too narrow for proper turns, most of my attention was taken up by trying to slow myself down to a safe pace.

  The thick snow makes this much less of an issue. But it gives me an urgent problem. Liz will be coming up behind, skiing in my tracks, where I have already pressed down the snow. She will be going much faster. And she has my tracks to guide her.

  I have to go faster. But if I do, I could end up killing myself.

  I give myself a shove with my poles, ski around a tight turn, my ankle screaming with protest, and then thump over what must be a concealed hummock in the snow. The shock of agony that runs up my leg makes me cry out, and I wobble, and fall with a crash, thumping painfully into the rocky side of the couloir. For a few minutes I just lie there, panting, hot tears running down my face. I cannot believe how much this hurts. I don’t dare open up the ski boot to find out what’s inside, but I can feel my whole leg throbbing with my pulse. I don’t know if I will be able to ski again, after this. I don’t know if I will be able to walk again.

  But Liz has killed three people already. I have to keep going.

  I take a deep breath, and go to push myself up on my pole. But I can’t do it. My muscles are shaking so hard, I can’t make myself do it—I can’t force myself to put weight on my leg again, it makes my whole body tremble when I think of doing it.

  And then, from somewhere up the gully, I hear sounds. There’s a cry—the sound of someone who has just been hit in the face by an unexpected branch, maybe—followed by the rough scrape of skis being forced into an emergency snowplow.

  Liz is coming. And she is very close.

  I have to do this. I have to do this.

  I force my pole into the snow, and heave myself upright, sweating and shaking.

  And then I push off.

  LIZ

  Snoop ID: ANON101

  Listening to: Offline

  Snoopers: 0

  Snoopscribers: 1

  Where. Is. She.

  Where. Is. She.

  The words keep repeating inside my head as I twist and turn, doggedly following in Erin’s tracks. She cannot have been that far ahead of me, and her ankle is in a much worse state than my knee. I should have caught up with her by now. But I haven’t. And that fact is making me… not worried exactly. I am not at that point yet. But definitely frustrated.

  Part of the frustration is because this is difficult skiing, more difficult than I had imagined it would be. Even after my eyes have got used to the moonlit dimness at the bottom of the crevasse, I can’t see very much except for Erin’s ski tracks, and I have no choice but to follow them blindly, as fast as I can, hoping that if she didn’t mess up or wipe out, I won’t either.

  There is a long straight stretch coming up and I give myself a push with my poles and hunch down, making my body more aerodynamic. I feel the wind in my face, and then I thump into a mini mogul, invisible in the dim light. I feel air for a moment beneath my skis, and then I slam back down, all my weight on my bad knee in a way that makes me catch my breath. I ought to slow down, recover my balance, but before I can do so a tree branch comes out of nowhere, whipping me across the face so that I cry out.

  I go into an instant, reflexive snowplow, the snow shushing beneath my skis, my heart thumping, and grind to a halt.

  That was very close. If I hadn’t been wearing goggles, that branch could have blinded me. As it is, it has opened the cut on my cheek again. I feel a ticklish trickle of hot blood run down my chin.

  I cannot afford to stop though. I just have to be more careful. I push myself off again, peering into the darkness. I must be catching up. I must be.

  Then, just a hundred meters further on, I hear it—the hissing sound of skis on snow. Someone up ahead is whisking around a tight turn, throwing up snow with the backs of their skis.

  My pulse quickens, and I race to catch up.

  ERIN

  Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

  Listening to: Offline

  Snoopers: 5

  Snoopscribers: 10

  It is very dark now, at the bottom of the gully. The rocky walls rise up so high that no moonlight makes it down, and there are tall pines leaning over the top, their canopy blocking out the sky. But I don’t dare slow down.

  This is the part of the run I remember the best. The part just before it shoots you out into the village. I must be almost there. Here is the long sliding turn that takes you up the side of the couloir, between two scraggly little saplings. I shoot up between them, trying to ignore the scream of my ankle, and the trembling thumps of my heart, flooded with more adrenaline than it knows how to cope with.

  Then a swerve to the right.

  And then—oh fuck.

  I’m almost on it before I remember. What looks like a sheer rock wall, and a breakneck left turn, at a point in the path so narrow it’s virtually impossible to slow yourself down.

  Its blackness looms out of the dark, and I fling myself into a desperate sideways slide, my skis throwing up a glittering, hissing mist of crystals all around me. One ski catches on a rock and I almost lose control. My ankle is on fire with the pain, but I can’t stop the frantic attempt to brake—if I hit the turn at this speed I won’t just wipe out; without a helmet I will be dead.

  I’m turning, I’m turning, my skis almost perpendicular to the slope—and then I’m round, and almost immediately I hit a tree root, my ankle gives way, and this time I do wipe out, in a tumbling flurry of skis and snow.

  I have to get up. Liz is very near now. I can hear the hiss of her skis coming closer, the sound growing louder, funneled by the couloir. I have to get up. Only, when I try to push myself to standing, I can’t do it. My ankle won’t bear my weight. I try—and my knee goes out from under me. I try again, sobbing this time, no longer caring about the noise I’m making, and collapse into the snow, weeping and swearing.

  Sh
e is almost here. She is coming, she is coming fast.

  LIZ

  Snoop ID: ANON101

  Listening to: Offline

  Snoopers: 0

  Snoopscribers: 1

  I am very close to Erin now—and then I hear it. A cry from up ahead, and a clatter of skis. Yes. She has fallen!

  I feel a surge of triumph, and it quickens my pace. This is going to be okay. I am going to catch her up! I don’t think about what will happen when I do. Time for that later.

  I crouch down again, I feel the wind in my face. This is it. I can do this.

  I thump over a hummock, and I feel that same sense of exhilaration I did when I skied the black run, only this is even better. I am skiing by pure instinct now, like a bird, flying in a slip stream, wheeling and turning with effortless skill. It’s almost—

  And then it happens.

  A wall of rock looming out of the darkness, just feet away.

  I think I scream, I’m not sure—someone does.

  I try, desperately, to snowplow—but the path is too narrow, and I’m not slowing down, I’m not slowing, I’m—

  ERIN

  Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

  Listening to: Offline

  Snoopers: 5

  Snoopscribers: 10

  The sound when she hits is like nothing else I’ve ever heard.

  It is the sound of skis snapping and bones breaking. It’s the sound of flesh hitting rock.

  It’s wet and yielding, and it’s hard as stone all at once.

  Was she wearing a helmet? Was she wearing a helmet?

  There is silence. Total, unbroken silence.

  “Liz?” I call shakily, but there is no answer, not even a whimper.