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

death, his entire body covered in a coat
of glistening ice and frosted with snow.
    "How is this possible?"
Hachiro whispered, though the wind stole his voice so that even he could not
hear his own words.
    And yet he received an answer.
    "All things," said a voice in his ear, a cold breeze that carried words, as though the wind
itself were speaking to him. "All things are possible."
    Ren spun around in terror, back
to one of the pine trees, gazing about wide-eyed for the source of the whispery,
insinuating voice. Hachiro watched him with a fresh jolt of fear. Ren had heard
it, too. It had not been his imagination, nor was it the voice of some ghost. Something
was here with them.
    "Show yourself!" he
cried.
    And it did. Gusts of wind came
together, spinning the snow into a white, swirling vortex. Hachiro and Ren
stared as the snow began to sculpt itself into a figure, and when at last the
wind subsided for a moment, the snow drifting lazily in the lull, neither of
them could speak.
    She floated atop the snow,
leaving no impression. Hachiro could barely breathe. In all of his life he had
never seen a woman so beautiful. She wore a white kimono, her long hair
matching its color, as though both were made of the snow itself.
    "I know this story,"
Ren whispered, stepping up beside him. "Hachiro, run!"
    They turned to bolt but the wind
blew up so hard that it knocked them both off of their feet, tossing them into
the snow. Hachiro struck the trunk of a bare, skeletal tree. He started to
rise, saw Ren doing the same, and then they both glanced up at the Woman in
White.
    Hachiro stared into her eyes,
inhumanly black and bottomless, like holes torn in the fabric of the world. His
heart filled with such terror that he could not move. Her gaze alone had frozen
him with fear.
    And then she smiled, her teeth
sharpened pearls.
     

Chapter Five
     
    By the time they had reached the
observatory and started down the long trail to where the bus waited in Takigami
Park below, the intensity of the storm had begun to wane. The snow slowed and
the wind began to relent at last. By the time they were halfway down, the
mountainside and the park below had been transformed into an idyllic winter
scene. Any other day it would have been beautiful. The heart of the storm had
come and gone, and the aftermath was white silence. But until she knew Hachiro
and the others were safe, Kara could see only menace in the snow.
    Her father walked beside her,
grabbing her arm when she stumbled but otherwise not trying to hard to protect
her. He didn't baby her, and Kara felt grateful for that. She wondered about
frostbite, but until they reached the heated bus there was nothing any of them
could do for themselves or for each other. They were in this together and her
father knew that.
    Miho and Sakura walked ahead of
them, accompanied by Miss Aritomo and two other teachers who had been
chaperoning the ensoku. The roommates huddled together, trying to share a
modicum of body heat as they hurried down the mountain. From time to time Miss
Aritomo glanced back at Kara and her father, worry etched into her face.
    They talked very little, focused
on their descent and conserving energy. Kara's legs had started to feel like
lead weights. She felt strangely sleepy, and soon the white silence around her
became a kind of dreamlike blur.
    She trudged downward, one foot
in front of the other, and the veil of snow thinned even more, so that soon she
could make out the bus waiting below. The others had already departed, heading
back to Monju-no-Chie school. Yet now she slowed a little, staggering to a
stop, seeing the bus as the enemy.
    "Kara, what's wrong?"
her father asked.
    In his eyes she saw all of the
fear for her that he had been keeping bottled up during their trek. He must
have been half-frozen himself, but he took her arm to steady her and seemed
about to pick her up into his arms, as though to carry her the rest of the way
down the mountain. Love for him filled her up, but