The resort would cover four mountains after this summer, he suddenly thought. What would the spirit of Leaping Water do when her beloved mountain was bulldozed and groomed and turned into a playground for winter sports? Would there be an earthquake, like Raine had suggested? Or perhaps Drake was right, and there would be a fire. Or plague. Somehow they had to stop it, and he still had no idea how.
Tor propped his elbows on his knees, his board resting in the snow, and watched as the helicopter landed and three tall red-coated figures and one tiny one came out of the lodge with a sled that held a carefully wrapped patient. The tiny figure in charge was his mom, and Tor smiled as he saw her directing everyone else around her. He knew his mom loved being a doctor. The way her face lit up from the inside when she was talking about patients. The way she took charge. Her anger when Brian Slader died.
Tor waited until the helicopter took off and the plastic fencing was removed and the chairlift whirred and rumbled to life again, and then he picked himself up and made his way to the bottom of the mountain. He’d ride down the mountain one more time, because he nearly had that arc of movement that looked like a cat swishing its tail, and then he’d quit and go home. He got onto the chairlift, thinking hard, and let it take him up the mountain.
He didn’t want to go back to San Diego, where the most important part of his dad’s life was selling the next big house to the next big client, and the beach was a promise that never quite happened. He didn’t want to live in a place where there were so many people nobody knew each other at all. He wanted to stay here, in Snow Park. He felt like he’d been waiting his whole life to come here and never knew it.
Tor strapped in after exiting the chairlift—he was managing nearly three in four exits now without crashing—and had just stood up when something slammed into his chest and lifted him off his feet and sent him backward into the snow. He hit hard on his back and didn’t realize what had happened until he heard loud, ugly laughter. Tor painfully raised his head to see Jeff Malone high-fiving his friend Max. They were wearing their blue snowboarding team coats. Tor watched, admiring despite himself, as Jeff shot down the slope, angled his board up against a snowbank, and did a twisting leap in the air. He came back down, whooped in delight, and he and Max disappeared down the mountain.
“They should stick to their own side,” someone sniffed, and Tor turned his head to see an angry-looking dad in skis holding a tiny tot on a leash. The tot was so muffled in a yellow snowsuit, goggles, and helmet that Tor couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The tot yanked at the leash and crouched down, feet angled in a skier’s snowplow, obviously dying to get going.
“Let’s go, Dad!”
“In a minute, Morgan,” the dad said. “Let’s let those teenagers get downslope first. They’re way too advanced to be on this side of the mountain,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “If I see them again, I’m calling the patrol.”
Good, thought Tor as he levered himself to his feet. He didn’t tell the man that he knew why Jeff and Max were on the gentle learners’ slope. They were after him.
Tor stood as the father and his child carefully skied away from him. He knew who was waiting for him beyond the curve of trees, and he couldn’t wait here forever as though he was scared. But there was no point in trying to face them, either. He just wasn’t good enough to outrace them.
He looked around, wondering if there was another way down the mountain, and saw the other, smaller chairlift that went farther up the slope. Gloria had shown him the map of the resort as they’d gone up in the chairlifts the first day, so Tor knew the second chairlift led to something called Lucky Charms. Gloria had explained to him what a bowl was—a huge open slope, usually at the top of a mountain, cupped so that it resembled a bowl and containing some great riding at the most difficult levels.
He’d be slaughtered if he tried to ride down Lucky Charms, but it looked like there was another, gentler slope that led down under the chairlifts. If he took the chairlift up and carefully made his way right back down under the chairlifts, he was sure that Max and Jeff would give up and go somewhere else by the time he got back to the beginner’s slope. Tor decided he’d try it and sat down to unhook one foot from his board so he could slide over to the other lift.
He had second thoughts after he was on the lift, as his chair climbed toward the top of the mountain. It looked pretty steep. The snow was taking a break, but the clouds looked heavy with the promise of more. Tor wondered if the chairlift would carry him right into the thick clouds. Finally the end of the lift came into sight and below him Tor saw a group of snowboarders all sitting in the snow. They were all watching something downhill. He turned in the chair and saw a terrain park to his right. The terrain park was an area that looked like a snow-covered version of a skaters’ park; there were railings poking out of the snow and a series of huge bumps. As Tor watched, a rider came flying over a bump. The snowboarder twisted in midair and landed, snow flying in an arc from his board as he skidded to a stop.
The group of snowboarders clapped and applauded, and Tor saw another one get to his feet. He started sliding into the terrain park and suddenly Tor realized he was about to miss the chairlift exit.
He fell, of course. Crawling away, he realized no one else was falling as they got off the chairlift. The sense that he wasn’t in the right place grew. He sat for a moment and looked over the curving edge of the bowl that was named Lucky Charms. This part of the mountain was enormous, dotted with skiers and snowboarders and covered in white snow. There wasn’t a single tree in the whole bowl. Tor could see at the bottom of the bowl how different trails led to two other chairlifts, which headed toward other mountain slopes in the distance.
Only one mountain had nothing on it but trees; only one mountain was untouched—Raine’s mountain. The chairlift he had just ridden was right next to the silent, snow-covered trees of her family land. The mountain was so huge and so silent next to the busy slopes of the ski resort that Tor felt as though it were looking at him. Or maybe something was looking at him out of the darkness among the trees.
Tor stopped a shiver before it began. It was time to make his way down the hill. He stood and then sat right back down again. The slope below him looked vertical, as though he was trying to snowboard down the side of a white building. He stood up again and immediately turned into the falling-leaf stance, but he started going far too fast. Finally he managed to slow himself and stopped, trembling. He realized he was really in trouble.
“I can do this,” he said to himself, and pushed his board forward.
As he started sliding down, he heard a shout behind him and knew instantly that he was caught. He’d made his way all the way up here only to be caught by Max and Jeff, and this time they were going to wreck him so badly he’d never be able to get to his feet again. Tor felt his stomach drop.
He was already going way too fast. He hadn’t been careful enough, and as he tried to turn into the mountain he realized he wasn’t going to be able to stop. His board rocketed across the slope of the mountain, climbed a lip of snow, and shot into space. Tor came down on the other side, and he was in the trees of Borsh Mountain, thick and green, and he was still going too fast. Tor was out of bounds and out of control and he couldn’t stop.
TOR THREW HIS board to the left and missed the snow-crusted brown trunk of a tree. Another branch lashed across his helmet. He flailed his arms, kept his balance by a miracle, and avoided two more trees. A pine tree loomed up, large and ancient. He couldn’t possibly avoid it. Then he was past it, and still heading down through the trees. Powder flew up around his board. He skidded around another tree, saw trunks like spears set into the snow, and he knew he was going to fall, when another snowboarder shot in front of him.
“Follow me!” the rider yelled, and Tor realized his coat wasn’t blue. This rider was wearing brown and a sweater hung down below the back of the coat. The sweater was a riot of green and purple threads. It was Drake.
Tor felt his
board slip into the path carved by Drake and he concentrated on making sure he stayed there. Behind him he could hear the panting of another rider—Raine? Trees whipped by his head. Most were pine but some were the knotted white of aspen, skeletal in the winter light and reaching for him with bare branches. He knew he couldn’t hang on much longer; he was going to fall, and it was going to be terrible. There was a taste like pennies in his mouth.
He didn’t fall. He followed Drake’s path. The dreadful slope of the mountain wasn’t so bad anymore. Drake shot across an open meadow and Tor followed, watching nothing but the flapping edge of Drake’s sweater, trying to keep his board upright and going.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, Tor saw that Drake was slowing ahead of him, and Tor was slowing, too. They’d ridden across the dreadful steep side of the mountain and found a gentler slope. Drake came to a stop, and as Tor came up to him, his legs simply gave up and folded under him. He flopped back into the snow.
Tor laid there, his breath coming so fast he couldn’t speak, his legs burning with exhaustion, and turned to look at Raine. She was dressed in green and yellow, and her braids hung down the front of her coat like black commas. She sat down in the snow and panted hard. Tor turned his head to Drake. It was the only part of his body he could reliably move. Drake looked as winded as Tor felt.
“Thanks,” Tor gasped. Drake was lying flat on his back and his chest heaved. He turned his head to Tor.
“Thank Raine,” he said. “Stupid. Following you like that. I had to—had to follow.” Drake stopped and panted.
“I couldn’t let Tor get killed,” Raine said. “I saw you go in here, Tor. I had to—follow you.” She stopped to pant some more, too. “What were you doing?”
“I—Max and Jeff were after me,” Tor panted.
“Those idiots. They could have gotten you killed,” Raine said. “Chasing you around like that, and you’re just a beginner.”
“Now we’re all probably dead,” Drake snarled. He was furious.
Tor looked around for the first time and realized that he, Drake, and Raine were sitting at the lip of a steep drop. Before him was a tangled, snow-filled valley covered with aspen, pine, and some kind of tall bush that was spiky and reddish. He could see a creek or a stream very close to them, and as their panting breath started to slow, he could hear the chuckle and gurgle of ice-choked water.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“We’re on Borsh Mountain,” Drake said. “But I don’t know where. I’ve never been here.”
“Neither have I,” Raine said in a hushed voice.
“Does anyone come up here?” Tor asked in a whisper. It seemed right to whisper, somehow. The sounds and the noise of Snow Park were completely gone. Tor couldn’t even hear the hum of the chairlift machinery. The forest around them was completely deserted and silent. There were no tracks in the snow, either, nothing except their own tracks that led back into the woods and disappeared. They were a long way from the resort. Half a mile? He had no idea how far a snowboard could travel across a mountain, but he knew Drake and Raine had taken a long time to get him under control so they could all stop.
“Nobody,” Drake said. He was whispering, too. “This is dangerous. Really dangerous. We’re probably all going to die in here. Seriously.”
“Why would we die in here?” Tor asked. “The curse?” He didn’t say Bigfoot, but he thought it.
“No, silly. Remember, I told you. The mines,” Raine whispered back. “This whole mountain is riddled with mines dug by my great-great-great-grandfather. Or so the legend goes. But honestly, Drake, how many mines could one man dig in his lifetime?”
“Enough to kill that hiker back in 1978,” Drake said. “Tor, nobody from Snow Park explores this mountain. It’s all fenced off wherever there are roads. Back in ’78, a hiker went missing. Took a search party a week to find him, and the way they did it was by Mr. Ewald falling into the same mine shaft the hiker had fallen into. Mr. Ewald survived, but he had two broken legs. He landed on the hiker, who was totally dead.”
“Mr. Ewald? The math teacher?”
“The very same,” Drake said. “Only then he was a teenager helping his dad with the search party. I don’t think he was ever the same after he landed on that guy. It took them hours to pull him out.”
“Yechh,” Tor said.
“I guess there’ve been other lost people, over the years. The hiker story, that’s the only one I know for sure. I heard about one guy they never found. The searchers didn’t make it a third of the way up the mountain,” Drake said. “They got turned back by aspens so thick you couldn’t walk between them, by deadfalls of pines so tall you couldn’t get over them, ravines rushing with water, and thickets of raspberry bushes with stickers all over them.”
“The mountain doesn’t like visitors,” Raine said. “That’s what my grandma says. I suppose when the mayor takes over the mountain they’ll bulldoze down the deadfalls and tear up the aspen trees. They’ll fill in the mine shafts, too.”
“Unless Bigfoot gets them,” Tor said.
“Or he gets us,” Drake said.
“We’ll be okay, Drake,” Raine said. “All we need to do is go downhill, and eventually we’ll hit the highway that leads into town. I know we can find that highway.”
“Remember that cross-country skier who went missing two years ago? They found him about half a mile from the highway, nearly frozen. But he lived. I guess that’s something,” Drake said.
“We’ll find our way out. Better than Tor going into the White Gates,” Raine said.
“The White Gates?” Tor asked.
“You were about half a step from the White Gates,” Drake said. “The two chutes that lead down through the trees by the chairlifts. You were about to go into one of them. The other one leads out of bounds, too. They’re not double black—they’re out of bounds. They’re killers.”
“I thought the chairlift run looked okay on the map,” Tor mumbled, feeling guilty.
“You were trying to go under the chairlifts, and that’s just a black. Which you’re not ready for anyway. The White Gates are on either side of the chairlift, in the trees, and they’re out of bounds, you idiot,” Raine said. She put an arm out and smacked Tor on the shoulder. Her mittens were caked with snow. “They’re really avalanche chutes and they can’t be ridden.”
“I was just trying to go under the chairlift part,” Tor said. He remembered seeing the White Gates now—the two narrow strips of white that marked the upper part of the mountain. You could see them from the town. They were impossibly high up the mountain and impossibly steep. He felt cold, thinking of ending up in there.
“I know you were trying to get away from Max and Jeff. Drake and I were waiting to go into the terrain park and we saw you on the chairlift,” Raine said.
“What were you thinking, taking that chairlift?” Drake asked.
“I was thinking I could just work my way down slowly,” Tor said. “Give them time to get bored and give up.”
Drake didn’t reply. He put his arms over his head and sighed.
“It would have worked, if you could ride a black diamond run,” Raine said, sounding amused. “And if you’d stayed under the chairlifts. Give it at least a couple of weeks before you try that, Tor.”
Tor laughed, and Drake snorted, and then everything was all right between them. The trembling in Tor’s legs started to go away, and his breath no longer sounded like a dog getting ready to throw up. Drake heaved himself up onto his elbows. Tor copied him and so did Raine, and for a little while they looked over the silent, snow-covered valley. The silence was so intense that Tor found himself hearing things he’d never listened to before: The gurgle of water making its way through ice. A thump of snow falling from a pine tree. The brief chatter of a winter bird, quickly silenced. He felt like holding his breath.
“This valley, why does it look like that?” Tor whispered to Raine. “Those open spaces?”
“That’s water. This area
looks like it’s full of beaver ponds, and you can see where the river runs through the bottom of the valley,” Raine said in a low voice, pointing. “Look at the willow bushes, and those big open spaces, that’s water frozen over. And that’s—oh!”
She stopped and put a mitten to her mouth. Tor felt Drake stiffen beside him, and then he saw where they were looking.
A dark thing was rising slowly out of the water’s edge. It was sleek and brown and looked like an enormous hand.
Bigfoot, thought Tor wildly, and was glad he didn’t say it out loud when the hand-looking object finished coming out of the water. It wasn’t a hand—it was an entire creature. The animal was about as big as a small dog. It looked exactly like a small, fur-covered human being.
Another one popped out of a hole in the water and the two things ran smoothly up a snow-covered hill. One of them raised up on its haunches and looked around.
“What is that?” Raine said in a whisper so light it sounded like a sigh.
“I don’t know,” Drake said, his voice just as soft. A third one came pouring out of the hole in the water and glided up the hill.
Then, to their astonishment, the little animals began to slide down the hill. The first one squealed and launched itself into the snow. It slid on its belly until it splashed into the water. The second slid faster than the first, and plunged into the water right after the first. The third jumped into the air and then slid down the same slope, squealing in glee, and shot into the water.
There was silence. The heads popped up again, and they came back out to play.
“They’re like people,” Raine said softly.
“Like kids,” Drake said. Tor could see his face was alight, almost entranced, and he knew his own face must look the same.
“They’re not beavers,” Raine said.
“Or muskrats,” Drake said. “They’re way too big for muskrats.”
“I know,” Tor whispered suddenly. He knew where he’d seen their like—when he visited the San Diego Zoo. “They’re otters! These must be river otters!”
The White Gates Page 9