Far above him there was a square hatch. Pure light outlined the hatch and flooded down into the room where he stood. Tor put a hand out and touched the gray wall. It felt like concrete, cold and smooth, and it curved slightly as though he was standing in front of some huge column buried in the earth. The other walls in this strange room were also painted gray. Tor looked back at the hole he’d crawled through and saw chunks of plaster on the ground. His breath smoked in the cold air and drifted upward toward the hatch.
The ladder was solid and just as real as the walls. Finally he tucked his snowboard under his arm and put his hands on the ladder. The hatch had to be the way out.
He started to climb. Halfway up, the ladder began to thrum like a plucked guitar string. Tor almost lost his grip. He clung to the ladder, panting, the thrumming sound making his very bones vibrate. He forced himself to keep going, though he was shaking. He shoved away the tiny, miserable thought that he’d had enough already, that somebody should help him, that he was only a kid and he’d gone through too much to go on. Thinking like that was halfway to giving up, and Torin Sinclair didn’t give up.
“Torin Sinclair always gets back up,” Tor muttered to himself, and he reached the hatch at last.
The hatch looked very ordinary. It was made of a shiny metal, and there was a latch and a handle so a person underneath could lift it. Tor rested his snowboard on his knees, took a deep breath, and tried to open it. It resisted, and he braced himself and shoved, hard. The hatch opened.
He climbed out into blazing sunshine and deep white snow. Tor sat on the edge of the hatch, his eyes smarting in the light, and realized he had been climbing a ladder on the side of a huge gray tower, a column of concrete. He followed the tower up to the sky and saw cables, and then he saw the chairlifts go sailing smoothly by and the tower thrummed as the chairs thumped over its support bars.
He’d found his way to a chairlift pylon. He’d been at the bottom of the pylon, buried deep in the earth, and he’d climbed up the mechanic’s access ladder. The hatch was sheltered by an overhang and surrounded by padding, but some snow still blew in and that was what he’d had to move when he’d opened the hatch.
He was back on Snow Mountain. Tor felt something inside him come bubbling out. It was laughter, and he let it go free. He laughed and laughed, holding his snowboard in his hands, his feet still dangling in the hatch, and the blue sky overhead was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. He was alive. And he was sitting right next to a chairlift pylon on the groomed slope of the Snow Park resort.
Tor put his goggles on. He closed the hatch and climbed the protective orange padding that surrounded the pylon. He’d never looked closely at a pylon before. He’d always just avoided them like everyone else did. Now Tor could see that the padding surrounded the pylon and the access hatch. Once he was up and over the padding, Tor could see the slope and the town below. He sat in the snow for a moment and just looked at it.
Snow Park had never looked so pretty. The roofs were covered in snow and the streets sparkled in the sun. Cars drove down Main Street, heading toward the resort parking lot. The resort must have just opened, because only a few coats were milling down by the chairlift and the parking lots were just starting to fill up. The lodge looked busy, with lots of people wearing red Ski Patrol jackets standing outside.
To his left and just downslope was a small warming hut and snack bar. Tor had never been in there. It was used mostly by small kids and their parents, who needed to warm up and let the little kids take breaks.
They serve hot chocolate, Tor thought, and his stomach growled savagely at him. A single hot chocolate, he thought, and then he remembered what he carried.
If he was caught before he found his mom, or Drake and Raine, he’d lose the evidence he’d nearly died to save. No matter how cold and hungry he was, his job wasn’t done.
Tor sat and worked his boots into his snowboard bindings, clipped in, and hopped to his feet. He glided downslope. The cold air bit at his exposed nose and cheeks but it felt great.
He had to keep that paper safe and get it into safe hands. Tor stopped to settle his goggles around his eyes. He looked up at the chairlift, wishing with all his heart that he would see Drake and Raine up there.
And there they were. Tor nearly fell down. Raine was on the chairlift, wearing her yellow-green coat. Drake was right next to her, his mittens clutching the lift bar and his head thrust forward from his shoulders like he was trying to get the chairlift to hurry up. Tor filled his eyes with the sight of them, his friends. They were coming to look for him.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Raine! Drake! Hey!”
They turned their heads toward him slowly, as though they were wondering if they were dreaming. Tor shouted again and waved both arms, laughing.
“It’s me! It’s Tor!” he shouted. “I’ve got the proof! I’m alive and I’ve got the proof!”
Three chairs ahead of Drake and Raine, someone turned abruptly and looked at Tor. There was Deputy Rollins, now dressed as Coach Rollins in snowboarding pants and an electric blue jacket. He stared at Tor, his face white and grim, and the look on Rollins’s face told him everything he needed to know. Tor had been wrong the whole time. The vampire wasn’t Mayor Malone, after all. The vampire was Rollins.
Tor looked back at Drake and Raine, and they were looking at Rollins, too. It was so obvious now. Rollins had been the one who was blood doping the team. He had everything to lose if his secret was found out. He’d lose his coaching position, his job, and his reputation. He was Coach Rollins of the Snow Park snowboarding team, the team that won championships, and Tor knew his secret. Tor knew that Rollins had taken too much blood from Brian Slader and had killed him. If Rollins caught Tor, he would never make it off the mountain alive. And Rollins was about to get off the chairlift.
“Tor, go, go!” Raine screamed from the chairlift. Drake was already pulling his goggles down, and both of them were shoving their free feet into their snowboards, getting ready to exit the chairlift with both feet strapped in, a move that Gloria told Tor she’d rip his head off like a daisy if he ever tried.
Tor didn’t wait to see if they made it off the lift. He turned and pointed his board straight downhill and rode for his life.
TOR HEARD MUSIC. He was making it. His snowboard cut through fresh powder with a sound like tearing paper, and as he switched back and forth to keep control, he heard the music of his board and he heard the music in his head. He knew he couldn’t outrace Coach Rollins. He was just a kid and he hadn’t been snowboarding very long.
But there was music in the way his board cut through the snow. There was music in the clear blue day and the sunlight. Tor felt no fear at all. Instead, he felt a goofy kind of happiness filling him. The sun was shining and the powder was perfect, his friends were coming, and his snowboard was singing the “Gloria” in Ms. Adams’s song. The baritone was an easy part. Just a bunch of O’s, like a snowboard gliding down a hill.
He would be at the bottom in a few minutes and he shouldn’t have wished it, but he found himself wishing the run were going to take longer.
Then Tor heard a panting like a wolf and the tearing-paper sound of a snowboarder coming fast. Rollins had caught up to him. Tor crouched down, trying to get more speed. His heart tried to climb up into his throat. His board was singing and he knew he was going to win. He had no idea how, but he knew he was going to win this race.
“Tor, go left!” Raine shouted from behind him, and without hesitation Tor threw his board to the left, toe-side into the mountain. He watched as the snow slid past his nose, and when he reached out a glove to steady himself, an arc of snow sprang up in a head-high spray. Rollins was a blue blur, coming fast. Tor crouched and headed straight for the trees. There was another path on the other side of the trees, a narrow glade called Moose Hollow, and he knew Rollins was forcing him in there because no one could see them from the resort. They’d be hidden until the bottom of the run, which emptied out directly in front of the
lodge.
But Tor knew he had no choice. If he stopped now, Rollins would catch him and take his papers, his proof, and then no one would ever believe him. He had to beat Rollins to the lodge.
He rocketed between the trees and burst into the Hollow. Trees dotted the slope and powder sparkled on every branch. There were no tracks in the fresh snow, and it glittered at Tor like a million diamonds. He had to grin as his board floated into the powder and he curved around the first pine tree. The snow was awesome!
“Tor, right!” Raine screamed from somewhere behind him, and Tor instantly threw his board to the right, missing a tree by a millimeter. A cascade of snow fell from the tree, as though he’d startled it.
Then he saw Drake. Tor had never watched Drake ride. He’d never seen anyone ride like that before. Drake cut in front of Rollins, who threw his board into a turn that sent him toward the trees. Drake cut in front of him again, his board sending up a curve of snow like a surfer’s wave. Rollins dodged again and Drake moved even before the bigger man had finished his turn, blocking him again. Tor saw Drake’s teeth show in a grin that looked as sunny and innocent as a little kid’s, and then Drake threw his board into the air right at Rollins, and Rollins turned desperately to avoid the impact.
Rollins went into the trees and Drake hit the branches of a pine tree. White snow cascaded down as Drake twisted in midair, flipped over, and came down on the slope. He was perfectly in control.
Tor had never seen anything so incredible. He knew he was grinning and laughing at the same time because his teeth were freezing. He turned his board downslope and kept going.
Raine was on the other side now, and the three of them raced together down the mountain. Tor heard the song inside his head, singing about mountains echoing in reply. He didn’t realize he was singing out loud until Raine joined in.
“Angels we have,” she sang, and turned on her board as Tor and Drake turned, too, the three of them together.
“Heard on high,” she continued in her soprano voice. She was short of breath and panting, but she sounded beautiful.
“Sweetly singing,” Tor and Drake sang together, as they turned again on the slope.
“O’er the plains,” they sang together, and it wasn’t nearly as good as everyone sounded in Ms. Adams’s class, but Tor didn’t care. It sounded great to him.
“And the mountains in reply.” They turned again, throwing sprays of white powder into the air in three perfect arcs.
“Echoing their joyous strain.” Tor couldn’t help laughing as he heard their voices bounce off the slopes of the valley and, indeed, echo in reply. They all took a deep breath and came down the final slope, bursting out of the trees and racing toward a waiting crowd, and they were singing.
“Glo-o-o.” Tor lost the last section of O’s because he started laughing again.
“Ria. In excelsis deo.” Tor picked up the last section with Drake and Raine and they came to a stop, spraying snow into the air from the edges of their snowboards. Tor thought that definitely showed some attitude. He felt just fine about it.
Tor saw his mother, and there was Ms. Adams at the very front of the crowd. She stood with hands clasped and her mouth trembling, and she was crying but suddenly she was clapping her mittened hands together, banging them against each other. She was applauding.
Tor reached down to unclip his board. There were more people coming toward them, running, and some were running the other direction and shouting the news to people in the lodge. Tor was still unclipping when he sensed more than heard the sound behind him.
Drake and Raine, who’d unclipped faster than he had, were ready. They turned and held their snowboards like weapons, facing back upslope. Tor stepped out of his board and turned around to see Rollins coming downslope fast, his nose and chin covered with blood and his eyes blazing out of a furious white face.
“You stop!” Raine screamed, and jabbed her board toward Rollins. “You stop right now!”
“What’s going on here?” someone asked behind Tor, and he turned around to see Mayor Malone standing next to his mother and Ms. Adams. The mayor was dressed in an enormous brown parka. His face was flushed pink with the cold and his mustache was frosted with ice.
“Left, Tor,” Drake said casually, and Tor jumped to his left. A split second later, Rollins came through the space where Tor had just been. Tor stood next to Drake and watched as Rollins tried to stop, overcorrected, and smashed to the ground at the feet of Mayor Malone. The mayor was spattered with snow. It was all very satisfying.
“If he’s armed, we’re toast,” Drake said.
“You think he’s that crazy?” Tor asked.
“Yeah, he’s that crazy,” Raine said in a perfectly conversational tone of voice. She moved to Tor’s other shoulder and the three of them stood together. They waited, still panting, their snowboards upright and held at their sides.
“What’s going on here?” Mayor Malone asked again, staring angrily down at Rollins. Rollins rolled over and groaned, then fumbled at the straps of his board.
“I have proof he was blood doping the snowboarding team,” Tor said quickly, before the deputy could unstrap and get up. “That’s why he’s trying to hurt me. I’ve got the proof right here.”
Tor patted his chest, and looked at Drake and then Raine and saw their stunned faces. They didn’t know, he realized. They didn’t know about the blood bag receipt, or Leaping Water in the mine, or any of it. They were protecting him and they didn’t even know why. He felt a hitch in his stomach. Tor turned back to his mother, who looked shocked, then, with dawning comprehension, very angry.
“What are you talking about?” said Mayor Malone.
“Blood doping?” Dr. Sinclair said, shoving her way ahead of Mayor Malone. “Did you say blood doping?”
“Yes,” Tor said. “I found a blood bag receipt and it has Deputy Rollins’s fingerprints on it.”
Tor suddenly became aware of a strange humming noise. It was the chairlift, rolling empty chairs up the mountain and circling them back down. There wasn’t another sound. The crowd that surrounded them had gone absolutely silent. Plumes of white breath rose in the air from a hundred mouths, but no one said a word.
“That’s why Brian Slader died,” Tor said loudly, and his voice, maddeningly, trembled. He forced it lower so it wouldn’t shake. “Deputy Rollins took too much of Brian’s blood. We found blood bags. Blood bags with the snowboarding team’s names on them. He takes blood from them and puts it back in before competitions so they can win. But he took too much blood from Brian.”
“This story is crazy,” Rollins said. He was on his feet and he had wiped the blood off his chin. He looked calm and grown-up, and Tor suddenly felt very small and very young. “This boy ran away from home. He caused the whole town to search for him for nothing, and now he shows up with some wild story.”
“I didn’t run away,” Tor said. “I got chased into one of the White Gates. I went off the cliff. I was in the avalanche.”
“No one could survive in the White Gates,” sneered Deputy Rollins. “No one could survive an avalanche in the Gates. You’re lying. You’re a liar!”
“I found a mine shaft,” Tor said. He glanced at Drake and Raine again and started grinning. He couldn’t help it. That goofy happiness was filling him again. “I found one of the Borsh tunnels and I hid in that. It took me all night to find my way out. That’s the truth.”
There was a shifting murmur in the crowd, which seemed to be swelling by the second. Tor caught a glimpse of Gloria and she was smiling at him but her eyes were bloodshot and red. Could she have been searching for him, too? He knew that she had, as sure as the sky was blue. She’d been searching all night for him, while he was lost in the dark. She hadn’t given up, and neither had Drake, or Raine, or his mother. They’d been looking for him. The whole town had been looking for him.
“That’s a damned lie,” Rollins said. “He comes to this town, his mother comes to this town, and people die. That’s the tr
uth. He sets off an avalanche that nearly kills two town kids—”
“They set it off!” shouted Tor.
“And now he claims he found the Borsh mine. You believe this? Anyone believe this pile of lies?”
“I have proof,” Tor said, and the words silenced the swelling murmurs of the crowd of townspeople.
“Proof?” sneered Rollins. “What—” But he stopped, because Tor had drawn something from his pocket.
“These are matches from Borsh’s General Store,” he said. The hidden envelope stayed in his jacket, a warm secret like a heated coal. He held the box up in the air. “I found them in the mine.”
It was as good as a magic trick, that tiny box. Tor could see the stunned expression on Rollins’s face.
“My son is no liar,” Dr. Sinclair shouted over the excited chatter that burst out. “I don’t need to see proof to know that. And I’m a doctor. Brian Slader died from blood loss, not pulmonary edema. He died because he didn’t have enough blood in his system. Rollins, have you been taking blood from your snowboarding team? Have you been blood doping?”
“I certainly have not!” Rollins shouted, and Tor heard the panicked lie in his voice as clearly as the ringing of a bell. The crowd murmured and shifted again and then fell silent. Tor saw people turning to look at a group wearing blue jackets. The snowboarding team stood, looking at the ground, saying nothing.
Tor looked at his friends. Drake was still holding his snowboard at the ready, shoulder to shoulder with Tor. Raine was at his other shoulder, her eyes glittering like black oil in the sunlight.
“We found a refrigerator from the clinic,” Tor continued. “It was full of blood bags marked with team names. Then I found this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the receipt. It was wrapped in the glove. The glove looked small and pitiful and flabby in the clear morning air.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Tor swallowed hard.
The White Gates Page 15