Read Online Snow by Wheeler Scott - Free Book Online Page A

the animals in the forest, of their angry smiles and sharp teeth and felt shaky inside, the fury that had driven him cooling. He looked at his hands.

    "Hey," Alec said impatiently. "You can stare at yourself later."

    David looked at him.

    "You pick the oddest times to be slow," Alec said. "Just get in the cart already, will you?"

    David did and held on as it lurched forward, racing down the street.

    ***
    "So who are you, really?" Alec said. They'd left the town behind, were crossing through another forest. The pale. David still didn't know what it was but looking around he saw that there was no snow, that the trees looked lush and full, their leaves rustling as they swayed in the dark, the ground underneath them littered with small dark spheres that dripped trembling from their branches. He felt something in the air, could taste it sharp and bitter on his tongue.

    "I'm--" he said, and thought of who he was supposed to be, knew he wanted to leave it behind.
    "I'm David. I mean, that's who I am. It's my name."

    "Is it?" Alec said quietly. "Because I've heard stories. Stories about a King and a Queen and--" he paused. "You ever heard any of those stories?"

    "No," David said hastily, too hastily. He felt like he couldn't breathe, the something in the air coiling tight around him.

    Alec was silent for a moment. "Okay," he finally said. "Thanks for whatever you did back there, David, but I don't need saving. You got that?"

    "I wasn't--"

    "What I'm looking for is 'Yes, I understand'."

    "I was--I was angry. What they said to you--"

    "I'm used to it," Alec said flatly. "And I can take care of myself. You, on the other hand--I thought you couldn't but I guess I was wrong. Did you--whatever it was that you did--the look on your face when you came outside..." His voice trailed off. "You liked it," he finally said. "What you did."

    "Yes," David said softly.

    This time, when it started to snow, Alec just reached in the back and handed him the blanket. "If we have to stop don't touch anything, okay?"

    David nodded and wrapped the blanket around himself, watched Alec pull on his coat. The wind blew some of the shining specks sprinkled across it into David's eyes. He rubbed at them and his fingers came away glowing slightly. It made him think of his father. Of his brother and sister. He rubbed at his fingers and the glow went away, faded into dark dust that stung his skin.

    "Why--" he cleared his throat, "why not? And why is this called the pale?"

    "There was a Queen once, a Queen who--" Alec paused. "I think you know this story."

    "I--I don't," David said. "I--"

    "Grew up in a castle and never heard about the people who lived in it?" Alec said lightly, but his voice was edged sharp.

    David stared at the snow swirling around them. "I only know part of the story," he said softly.
    "The part after--after she was gone."

    Alec was silent for a moment and then he said, "She was born here. When she died it changed.
    People moved here, thinking they could escape the snow but everything is--"

    "Cursed," David said dully. The wind picked up speed, blowing the falling snow back up into the air, as if trying to push it away, and the trees rustled and creaked fast, sharp cracking sounds like a scream. This was his mother's world and he knew she felt him here. That she didn't want him here.

    "Poisoned," Alec said. "The trees, the ground, everything. Some people say it's a curse. Others--"
    he shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. It's easy enough to deal with. You just ride straight through. But tonight-" he looked at David and in the dark his gaze was impossible to read,
    "tonight something else is going on."

    "I--" David said. "How do you know?"

    "It never snows here," Alec said grimly. "In all the stories I've heard, that's always been the end.
    That this is the one place where no snow falls."

    The trees they were passing under bent down, branches heavy with fruit that dropped into the cart, onto David's lap, resting there just