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

from
shouting. His head pounded, the cold like a vise on his skull. His gloved hands
were stuffed into his pockets and he could no longer feel much at all in his
feet. He thought he might have to stop and take his boots off, use his hands to
rub some life back into his feet, but didn't know if that would help or if the
exposure would only make it worse.
    "Sora!" Ren shouted at
his side. "Where are you? Can you hear us? Sora!"
    They struggled along together
side by side, Ren peering into the trees to the right of the path and Hachiro
scanning the woods to the left. Another thirty yards and they would be out of
the woods and back at the rocky overlook whose allure had gotten them all into
such trouble in the first place.
    "Sora!" Hachiro
screamed into the storm.
    He opened his mouth to yell
again, but paused, thinking he'd heard some kind of reply from the thickness of
the snow-covered woods. It might have been the wind, or the creak of a tree
felled by the blizzard, but he did not think it had been either.
    "So —" Ren
began.
    Hachiro clamped a hand on his
shoulder, shushing him. "Quiet. Listen."
    They stood still and silent for
the count of ten, but heard nothing but the cry of the wind. Hachiro glanced at
Ren and nodded and the two of them shouted again, this time in one voice,
calling Sora's name into the storm, into the woods.
    A voice cried out in reply.
    "Tell me you heard that!"
Hachiro said, turning to Ren.
    Ren nodded. "I heard it. I
don't know what I heard, but something. Someone."
    "Who else would it be?"
Hachiro snapped, but he understood. The cry he had heard might have belonged to
an animal. He'd been unable to make out any words, only a voice, calling out.
    He stepped off the trail,
glancing back at Ren, who swore and set off after him. The two boys crashed
through the trees, snapping branches and tramping in snow that seemed somehow
deeper. The pines brushed against them as though attempting to hold them back
and Hachiro tore his coat on the sharp hook of a thin, bare branch, but they
rushed onward, shouting Sora's name.
    That cry came twice more, still
wordless, and Hachiro faltered slightly at the realization that it sounded more
like pain than panic. But further shouts received no reply and soon they began
to slow and finally came to a halt.
    "Sora!" Hachiro roared
one last time in frustration.
    Regret filled him, weighing him
down, and he turned to Ren, whose eyes revealed that he had come to the same
decision that Hachiro had.
    "We have to go back,"
Hachiro said.
    Ren nodded. "I agree. That
might've been him, or it could've been a bird. Sora might have gone back to
that cliff and used the right path. He might already be with the others in the
clearing. We have no way of knowing."
    Hachiro felt sick, but he knew
it was the truth. Sora might have made it back to the group already, but if
not, Mr. Yamato would tell the authorities and they would get a search party
onto the mountain. He and Ren had done all they could do.
    "Sora!" he shouted
one, final time. Then, hating the feeling of helplessness that filled him, he
turned to Ren. "Let's go."
    Together they made their way
back the way they had come, retracing their steps in the snow, snapping off
more branches, the storm raging even there amongst the trees. Hachiro had taken
half a dozen steps when he looked up and saw a figure standing between twin
pines off to his left.
    "Ren, look."
    "Sora?" Ren said,
quietly at first, and then louder. "Sora!"
    The boys barreled through the
snow, running toward those twin black pines, but when they reached the
snow-dusted figure they were brought up short. Hachiro tried to halt but his
left boot slid out from under him and he fell, tumbling in several inches of
fresh snow.
    Ren had started to pray.
    Hachiro rolled to his knees,
staring up in disbelief at the statue, there in the midst of the woods and the
storm. Only it wasn't a statue. Somehow, in the short span of time since they
had seen him last, Sora had frozen to