Chapter Twenty-One Willa

Chapter Twenty-One

Willa

Now: Saturday, 12:10 p.m.

We're processing Delaney's words as Camille bursts into the room, binder clutched in her hands.

"I have it!" She huffs, shuffles the binder open. "The addressis—"

"It's no use now," Delaney snaps.

I realize I'm gripping the tourmaline around my neck so hard the pointy end digs painfully into my thumb. The sear of pain brings me back to the moment. To Delaney's words.

They're not coming.

We find a phone, despite the cell-phone dead zone and no bars, we manage to connect to 911, we tell them where we are, we tell them what we've been through, and it's all…for nothing?

"What do you mean they're not coming? Call them back!" Camille shrieks. A million questions punctuated with a rising desperation to get out of this house. Off this mountain.

"It's use," Delaney says. "The call dropped because the signal is too weak. The storm has to have knocked out the nearest cell tower."

"Try the Emergency SOS," Liam suggests, a voice of reason.

Delaney nods, then fiddles with Eden's phone, tapping through a series of screens before moving toward a window on the far side of the room.

I don't know what Emergency SOS is, but I send every prayer I can think of into the universe that it works as Delaney rises up on her tippy-toes at the window, holding the phone as high as she can.

But after a minute of waving the phone in increasingly desperate arcs toward the sky, she hisses a curse. "The Emergency SOS can't connect to the satellite. The storm and cloud cover must be too heavy. That's a thing with satellite phones. See?"

She holds up the screen so we can see the positioning circle with no connection. Then, after a deep breath, Delaney regroups. "We have to wait until the storm stops. Emergency services can't do anything until then, anyway, since it's an active snow emergency. That's what the 911 operator said before the call dropped. She also advised that we keep a fire burning, dress in layers, and put some water in the bathtubs in case the pipes freeze."

"Fuck." Camille drops the binder noisily onto the bedside table.

"That all makes sense." Liam moves toward the en suite bathroom. I remember that Liam actually has wilderness-survival skills. It sends a small frisson of relief through me. Liam knows what to do in these sorts of situations. "I'll fill the bathtub now. Camille, can you manage the fire in the living room again?"

And then we hear the squeak of a pipe reluctantly coming to life, water tumbling into porcelain.

So, with no signs of help coming to us, we begin to help ourselves.

We spend the next half hour preparing. Those with wilderness and cold-weather experience take the lead: Liam, Wyatt, Delaney, Camille. Piper and I do our part by helping with lunch. We eat together, yet worlds apart, each of us silently sipping on tomato bisque, lost in thought. Eden doesn't join, even after Wyatt hollers down the stairwell at her to "stop sulking and come eat!"

As spoons scrape at near-empty bowls, Delaney pipes up. "We didn't debrief properly after the search. Did anyone else find anything?"

We all shake our heads. I realize, though, that finding Eden's phone truncated our hunt. We probably didn't look through everything. But I don't say a word. Who cares at this point? Even if we find our phones, there's no one to call.

It becomes ironic how we end up fulfilling the prophecy of Silva's schedule even in her absence: the afternoon is spent reading, working on a puzzle, sitting in mindful silence. Delaney even updates the inventory of the pantry, since we don't know how long we'll be stuck here. All the things that seemed unpalatable yesterday fill the hours as we wait today. It's almost possible to forget about the dead body in the basement. To delude ourselves that this really is a cozy day in the mountains among friends.

I scoff at the idea. Like any of us were ever or could ever be friends. Buzzkill, Goody Two-shoes Willa who doesn't know how to have fun. That's what they said, didn't they?

The faraway memory brings back last night's fresh humiliation. It rolls over me like a frigid wave. First the game of Oh, the Humanity! with the strange…specificity of some of the cards. Wyatt's eyes burning over my near-naked body, making me hate it, hate him.

The only thing worse than being invisible to people is being seen by the wrong person.

Then Never Have I Ever, where each person's volley seemed designed to inflict pain.

Well, the joke's on them. I kept my worst secret close. Worse than sleeping with Liam, than being a cheater.

Never have I ever…

No. I can't even think it. I can't go back there.

I grow impatient with a jigsaw puzzle half-formed on the coffee table and the too-hot fireplace at my back. I watch the drifting white through the patio doors. It's surreal to imagine the frigid cold outside as the steady warmth from the central heating cushions my whole body. I press my fingertips to the frosted pane to feel the bite of the cold.

Then I hear a distant crack. In a panic, I check the wall of glass before me. Nothing's broken. Did I imagine it?

Chhhck!

My head whips around at the sound. Closer this time.

Piper, reading a book next to the fire, hears it too: we lock eyes and sweep the ground floor. Everyone's accounted for except for Eden.

But then there's a bang like a gunshot. And another, and another. Building in a crackling crescendo. A cacophony all around the house.

"Guys," I say like a warning.

CHHHHHCK!

"Get away from the windows!" Delaney commands. "It's the trees."

I jump back, watching in abject horror as a giant evergreen crashes to the ground in the distance. I imagine it tearing through the glass. I stumble back in alarm, hitting the dining table hard with my hip. Pain radiates up my side.

Another loud snap.

And the whole house plunges into darkness.

I scream.

"What just happened?"

"I think we lost power."

My eyes adjust in the dim light. There's a scant glow from the embers in the living-room fireplace. The snow refracts the blues and grays of dusk through the windows. Camille springs into action, grabbing several dry logs from a basket beside the fireplace and feeding the hearth until it roars back to life.

A step ahead of us as always, Piper tries the stove. There's the tick-tick-tick of the gas starter, but no telltale whoosh of flame. Following her cue, Liam opens the fridge, and we can all see that the inside is dark. "Damn it," he says low under his breath.

"How are we going to make dinner?" Piper tries the stove again, but it simply tick-tick-ticks.

"You can use a match to ignite the pilot light," Wyatt offers, only a slight unsteadiness detectable in his voice. He's the last person I expected to be handy. "Grandfather. Cabin," he says by way of explanation.

"The food's going to go bad," Liam says, closing the fridge door. "We should cook the most perishable stuff now. And open the fridge as little as possible to conserve the cold."

Wyatt's already retrieved the fireplace matches and hands them off to Liam. "Did anyone see a flashlight when they were searching earlier? Someone should check the breakers." He not-so-subtly adds, "Not it."

"I did," I say. It only takes a minute to locate the utility drawer in the kitchen and find it again. "Here." I click the flashlight on, the harsh beam illuminating the others' wide eyes staring back at me.

"Oh good," Delaney chirps. "Cam, you should go with her. Wyatt, you and I can grab a bunch of towels and blankets to put on the doors and windows. We need to conserve heat."

Before I can blink, I process what's just happened. Delaney has elected me to go into the basement to find the breakers. The freezing, dark, dead-body-containing basement.

"Come on, let's get this over with," Camille says, heading for the stairs. Resigned, I follow, but not without one last glare at Delaney. I see you, I will my eyes to say.

We creep downstairs, the beam from the flashlight doing little to alleviate the heebie-jeebies I get descending into the frigid dark. Camille doesn't exactly exude safety. Her head barely comes to the top of my shoulder blade. I wish Liam were here.

We reach the landing, and I shine the beam straight against Silva's door. If I were a circuit breaker in a ski chalet, where would I be? We hang a right toward the ski room and sauna. I jump when Camille grabs hold of my elbow.

"What are we actually looking for?" she hisses as we hunch along the corridor. "The power's clearly out. This is pointless."

"We just have to find the box and…throw the breakers."

Camille gives my arm a tug. "Do you actually know what that means?"

"They say it all the time in movies."

"Jesus Christ," Camille mutters under her breath. We've stopped at the ski room. Our silence says everything we are imagining.

"I think I saw a door by the sauna," I say, eager to move on. "Feels like the right place for a boiler room, which is probably where you'd put a circuit breaker, right?"

"I fucking hope so. Let's make it quick."

We turn the corner, the flashlight sweeping in an arc over the hallway. The long passage ends in a T. I spot two doors across from the sauna. I try the first, and let out a triumphant whoop. It's a storage room with a boiler at the far end and a metal circuit breaker on the wall.

"I knew it!" It takes a second to open the metal box, and my confidence promptly snuffs out. There are a lot of switches. I scan them top to bottom. Luckily, someone took the time to label them. I flick Main Power and wait.

Nothing happens.

I try the switch a couple more times. On. Off. On. Off.

"Shoot. You're right, Camille. It didn't work." I turn, expecting to see her in the beam's light, but I'm alone.

"Hey, Willa, come here," comes a half-haunted whisper from the hall. Reluctantly I leave the breaker behind. I find Camille frozen in front of the sauna door, her eyes glued to the black square window. "I…I thought I saw something, but it's so dark, and I couldn't tell…. It's probably steam, right?"

"I'm sure it is. We used it earlier."

"That was hours ago, though," Camille says as I inch forward. The wavering flashlight beam betrays the shaking in my hands. The glow bounces off the floor, rendering Camille in spooky shadow.

"I'm sure it's—" I shine the light onto the door, and the beam catches red. "F-fine," I finish with a stutter.

Blood. Blood on the window. It's blood.

"Sh-shine the light inside," Camille says, nudging me forward as she slinks back.

I don't want to. This can't be happening again. My feet plant, refuse to budge. But Camille is pure muscle and pushes me forward. I stumble, and nearly slip on a puddle of water outside the door. My hand catches on the door handle. I don't even think. Just pull, wrenching it open.

And Eden's body tumbles over my feet.