Read Online A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) by Thomas Randall Christopher Golden - Free Book Online

just because we're girls!" she shouted into the wind, blinking away
snowflakes.
    Hachiro shook his head
vigorously. "No! Yes, I want you safe, but someone needs to get back to
the group and tell Mr. Yamato we're still out here."
    Kara hated parting from him, but
Hachiro was right. Someone had to go back. As much as she would have liked to
stay with him, she worried about Sakura and Miho as well and wanted to make
sure they reached the group safely.
    "If you get back to the
rocks and you haven't found him, don't search. Not in this. I'm going to be
waiting for you," she said.
    Hachiro gave her a quick kiss
and then he turned and started back down the path, shouting for Sora. Ren
joined in the shouting and the two of them picked up their pace, jogging into
the whiteness until it swallowed them completely.
    "Kara, come on!"
Sakura said.
    With one final glance — the
snow already filling in the prints Hachiro and Ren had just made — she
turned and started up the left-hand trail. Miho and Sakura linked arms with her
on either side and the girls raced along this new path, branches drooping
overhead, the storm buffeting them.
    They rushed along, huddled
together, but had gone no more than a hundred yards before their path joined
another. Kara thought it might be the one they had originally taken to get out
to that stony bluff overlooking the city, but she dared not express her hope
aloud. They kept on, trudging through the deepening snow. Her fingers and toes
and face were numb, her legs like blocks of ice, and she knew that her friends
must feel the same, though they traveled in silence.
    One moment the trees were
sagging and swaying in the storm all around them, and then they were surrounded
by nothing but white. They had arrived in the clearing without even realizing
it. Through the storm she could see vague figures all around them.
    "Dad! Mr. Yamato! Someone
help!" she called.
    Shouts came in reply and the
figures rushed through the blizzard to reach them. She heard her father's voice
calling her name, and then he appeared out of the storm and took her in his
arms, asking if she was all right, tearing off his gloves and using his hands
to rub her cheeks and warm her face.
    "I'm okay," she said,
barely aware that she had reverted to English. "We'll be okay. But the
boys are still out there. We lost Sora somehow, and Hachiro and Ren doubled
back for him."
    She quickly described the paths
they had taken, the rocky overlook they had found, and where she thought the
boys would be. By that time Mr. Yamato, Miss Aritomo, and Mr. Sato had joined
them and listened carefully. With their hats and jackets coated in snow they
looked like they were being slowly whited out, erased from the world.
    "Where is everyone else?"
Sakura asked, for the clearing was nearly empty.
    "I sent the rest of the
group on their way to get the students off the mountain," Mr. Yamato said.
He looked scared and confused. "I don't know how the weather turned so
quickly. There was nothing in the forecast about a blizzard like this. Just
light snow, and even that wasn't supposed to come until tonight."
    Her father cupped her cheek in
his hands. "Keep moving, Kara. Go down with Mr. Sato and Miss Aritomo. The
rest of us will find the boys and follow."
    "No!" Kara said.
"Dad, please. Come down with us."
    Hachiro was already out there in
the blizzard. Now that she had her father back, the idea of leaving him behind
up there on the mountain made her frantic. She didn't even want to go back down
without Hachiro, but she knew that they all risked frostbite if they stayed up
here much longer.
    "Kara, Mr. Yamato and I are
going to —"
    "Harper-san," Mr. Sato
said, his big glasses spider-webbed with ice, "please go with Kara. I will
search with Mr. Yamato.
    Kara's father hesitated and she
grabbed his hand, silently pleading with him. Then he nodded.
    "All right," he said,
looking up at Miss Aritomo. "Let's get these girls off the mountain."
     
     
    Hachiro's throat was raw