ice machines

James lets the girls go first before following them down the tunnel, with Gideon taking up the rear, which is even tighter than the one getting in was. He has to wriggle his shoulders to make it through more than once and, as it stretches on and he can no longer see even Marls crawling ahead of him or hear anything other than the others breathing and the sound of them bumping against the narrowing walls he has to focus almost purely on not panicking. He wouldn’t consider himself claustrophobic but this is quickly changing his mind and he has to take a moment to take a couple of deep breaths that come out feeling more like sobs.

“Keep going, we have to keep going,” hisses Gideon urgently behind him and – when James doesn’t answer beyond another panicked breath – “We’re almost there.” He has no choice but to trust the fox and push forward. Thankfully, it isn’t just a truthless platitude and they finally – finally reach an end. A tight room that forces them shoulder to shoulder but a least has a skylight – or well, just a hole really, - finally letting him see again although, as its still fully snow storming out, it’s a dim light. One look at the girls tells him they didn’t enjoy the experience any more than he did. Snow drifts down the hole to them, but they’re at least mostly sheltered here as the slant of the window keeps most of it out. He takes a deep, grateful breath and opens his mouth to ask them if they’re ok right as the howling starts. It comes from deep down the tunnel they’ve just reached the end of and by the sounds of it maybe one of the other ones that lead here too, echoing strangely before it reaches them.

“We need to get out,” says Gideon, “Now.”

“I can’t remember which way –“ Arthur looks desperately between the two tunnels branching off in front of them - “Which one is faster, I’m not sure-“

“Will they even fit?” asks Molly with a concerned look at the three of them and James does really, really not want to test it. He looks up at the skylight again as Arthur hesitates. The howling sounds louder and all three foxes ears are once more flattened to their heads. As they debate the way, he awkwardly hauls himself to his feet, bending as the walls slope and apologising as he knocks into the girls but they just huddle tighter to give him the space to stand. When he reaches up, he can reach outside through the hole.

“I can get out,” he says, “I can get out through here.” The owl swoops past his head and he ducks startled but they just fly out and back in.

“Looks safe.”

He looks to the foxes who hesitate.

“We won’t,” says Molly, “And you don’t know the way.”

“We can help,” says Lily, “And it’s better than getting stuck in a tunnel.” The thought alone is enough to push James not to wait for a response before grabbing the edges of the window and trying to haul himself up with shaking arms. The snow pelting down on his fingers freezes them almost immediately but he still manages to get pretty far before Marlene and Lily help by grabbing his legs and shoving. He scrambles to get his arms and elbows out and his head goes with them. He could be imagining it but the storm seems to lessen as he comes out. He hauls himself out bit by bit, overly aware of the echoing howls he could swear are getting louder now, and ends up elbow deep in snow. Gritting his teeth to stop them from shattering he pulls himself up the rest of the way and lets himself have one elated gasp as he stumbles to his feet, lifting his face to the sky just as the storm ends abruptly, clouds clearing away just above him. He blinks in surprise, tilting his head back to watch the dissipating clouds and appreciate the cold rays of sun on his face but doesn’t have time to question it as he crouches down over the window to look back inside.

Getting the girls out is harder. He lies down in the snow, trying his best to ignore the creeping ice cold of it to grab onto Marlene’s hands and pull her out while Lily pushes her up. He almost drops her several times but finally she’s sprawled out on the snow beside him. From there Lily picks up Molly and carries her up to them, arms shaking as she holds her up above her head, and they pick her out. She's getting ready to do the same thing to Arthur when a triumphant howl rings through, loud enough to be heard outside the tunnel and the echoing barks and howls get a lot louder. They all exchange panicked looks.

“No,” says Arthur when Lily bends down with a new urgency to pick him up, “No, you go – we’ll stay down here – take one of the tunnels each and try to confuse them – buy you more time.”

There isn’t any time to argue. Lily is the hardest to get out as both James and Marlene grab one hand each and have to rely solely on their upper body strength to pull her up but they just about manage. She rolls onto the snow beside them as the howls and barks become deafening with Arthur and Gideon splitting up and taking one passage each to flee. They all scramble away from the window as wolves come spilling out of the passage way snarling and howling. There’s a pause as they reach the split in the way and, lying on his back in the grass, heart thumping, James wishes he could at least see them before they split up and the reverberations of them running can be felt going down both corridors.

There’s a moment of silence in their group, Molly’s eyes wide with grief and worry, before she jumps to her feet and motions with her head.

“Come on, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go now. Now, now, now. It won’t be long before they realize they’ve been tricked, come on now.” They all scramble to their feet and follow her as she runs.

Thank God, James realizes as they run, that it finished snowing because stumbling over the deep fresh snow and trying to run in it is difficult enough as it is. They run after Molly through the trees until his breath is coming in sharp gasps and Lily is faltering behind him. The owl glides above them on the lookout.

“We have to stop,” he just about gasps out and Molly pauses to look back at where they are all hunched over and gasping for breath

“We don’t have ti-“ she starts just as a loud howl echoes through the trees, straightening them all in fear. “Time, we don’t have time, they’re after us – we just need to get past the river. I know somewhere we’ll be safe for a bit.” The sun beats down at them through the trees as they stumble onwards. James is going to be so sick by the end of this, he can already feel a cold threatening. The howls get louder and louder.

“How far is the river?” Lily groans and Molly, now also panting, shakes her head.

“Not far now,” she turns upwards to their left  and James groans as they now have to scramble uphill over ice, gratefully grabbing Lily’s hand when he slips. She lets go as soon as they reach solid ground. The howls get louder.

“They’re close,” says Lily and Molly nods

“Almost there.”

‘Almost’ is not as almost as James would like. It’s so hot somehow, sun beating down, making him both too hot from its shine yet still too cold from the snow soaking through his shoes and skin. He wishes he wasn’t wearing shorts. He wishes dumping his coat wasn’t one of the stupidest things he could do right now. He’s going to be more tan than he’s been since moving to England. They scramble onwards, no one complaining now as howls fill the woods, closer and closer.

They burst out of the woods at last and James, too busy looking behind in fear, yelps as he goes sliding and falls to his knees on a thick sheet of ice coating the massive flat rocks beside the river. He tries to stand and only succeeds in sliding further.

“Ow,” he mutters to himself, yanking his hands back when they automatically go the ice beneath him to stabilise him, “Cold.”

“Are you ok?” asks Marls, sliding up to him wobbly but still standing and holding a hand out to help him up, Molly and Lily beside her.

“Yeah I just –“ he replies letting himself be helped up but he loses track of what he was saying when he actually looks up and sees the waterfall. They’re right beside the river now, although with the thick layer of ice covering it, it melds into the rocks beside it with little difference between them but the waterfall – the waterfall. Its massive for one, looming over them, its peak a far off thing, and its beautiful. And completely frozen over. Water frozen as it fell in beautiful swirls and patterns, suspended above them, running in dozens of little and big paths over and around its rocks. He feels breathless just looking at it.

“Careful!” hoots the owl – James wishes he knew their name – “They’re catching up!”

“C’mon,” says Marlene, tugging his hand just as the howls catch up to them and the wolves come bursting out of the trees. They are, James thinks, unfairly large wolves and nearly comically scary. Very typical bad guys. Full of snarling mouths lined with sharp pointed teeth and bristled grey fur and gleaming claws.

“Run!”

He doesn’t know which of the girls shouts it but he doesn’t question it. The iced over river is even more difficult to walk on than the rocks, with bumps and swirls where the water had flowed and he stumbles immediately but manages to stay upright.

“Are you sure this is safe?!” Lily yells sliding past him and grabbing onto his arm to stay upright.

“It’s been frozen for decades, it-“ Molly replies just as Marlene joins them on the river ice and it gives a concerning groan. There’s no turning around though, and they stumble onwards as the wolves quickly catch up to them, leaping far more easily onto the ice.

We’re all going to die, thinks James miserably, halfway across the river and turning around to see a wolf almost at his heals. The thought barely passes his mind when a very loud, very terrifying, groan echoes from the waterfall. Even the wolves freeze, their heads lifted in disbelief as James keeps on, trying to but some distance between them, but he pauses when a crackkkkk rings out and a jet of water spurts out from the waterfall. And then another.

Just ahead of him, Lily gives up on trying to skate over the ice and just runs desperately, slipping and sliding as she does, the movement shocking him out of his state of shock. He stumbles desperately after her, the waterfall now groaning and creaking, a rumble starting underneath his feet. A panicked yelp rings out behind him as a section of ice collapses on top of a wolf and with a thunderous crash breaks the river ice, dragging the animal into the current.

The whole thing is coming down, he realizes. Right now.

A crack cuts into the ice in front of him and he gasps, stumbling back a step before throwing himself over it instead.

“James!” he turns to Marlene just behind him on the other side of the widening crack, eyes wide and reaches out a hand she grabs onto before throwing herself over to him, grabbing onto her and pulling when she doesn’t quite make the jump. He clings to her hand as they run onwards, a wolf beside them, who, he realizes, is no longer chasing them but instead trying to make it the same as them.

A section of ice falls in front of them and he’s forced to let go of Marlene. The piece of ice he’s on groans and cracks apart from the rest, tilting dangerously to one side. He scrambles onto the other side to stop it from capsizing and jumps when it crashes into another piece, falling as he does so. Ahead of him Lily has made it to shore and is screaming, just about held back by Molly while the owl flees into the woods and disappears. He scrambles back to his feet. Runs. Arms over his head as snow and ice fall, leaping to shore.

He turns around just in time to see Marlene scrambling to stay on a piece of ice. Just in time to see a wolf frantically bite into her to try and pull itself up as well. Just in time to see her yell out and slip into the water. Just in time to see the rest of the waterfall come crashing down.

The “NOOO,” that escapes doesn’t sound like him, doesn’t feel like him, awful and desperate and strangled and terrible.

The river sweeps mercilessly by.

It’s a shocked quiet after that. Just them standing and the river at their feet, the wolves still left on the other side. Even the roar of the water sounds muffled and small.

He cant see Marlene.

But she can swim. Can swim better than him. Loves it, even. The first to jump into the freezing ocean even in the dead of winter with the same cocky grin. She should be out by now. Where is she?

Lily stumbles to the very edge of the water.

“Dear-“ says Molly quietly but she’s interrupted by howling on the other side of the river. James turns when an answering calls sounds out from behind them. One wolf made it over the river. It snarls at them from the trees, ugly and angry. James blinks at it. He gets no other reaction before it throws itself at Lily. And he just-

He- well there’s a stick – a big stick – it’s just there – basically at him feet – and he – he – it was attacking Lily – so he – it doesn’t even feel like its him picking up the stick, he can’t really feel anything, isn’t making any decisions he just – he hits it. Hard. It barely gets the chance to look at him before he’s screaming and hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and he – it tries to jump at him – and he just – just shoves the stick down its throat and shoves.

The wolf and the stick fall into the river and they’re gone.

Swept away.

 Just like-

He stares as the river. At his hands. At the river.

“James,” Lily sobs and she throws herself at him, arms curling around his back as – for the first time ever since he’s met her – she tries to make herself smaller to fit into the space between his shoulders and under his jaw. She’s warm and solid and shaking. His arms fall around her automatically.

And he stares at the river.  

MARLENE

The water hurts, pain hitting from all sides as she falls under and feels herself be dragged immediately by the current. Worse, she isn’t the only thing being dragged along, ducking out of the way of massive slabs of ice and snow crashing around her and sending her rocketing in different confusing directions. She’s not sure where up or down or left or right or – oh! Air! She gasps out a breath before being dragged back under. Marlene kicks, instinct kicking in, and kicks. Gasps in a another breath when her head goes above the water before she’s pulled back under again. Kicks and kicks and – that fucking wolf. She kicks it when it tries to keep clinging onto her and it lets go and immediately disappears. She’s never felt a current this strong. She – there’s just water everywhere and it’s so cold and – she kicks and thrashes and – calm down, you have to calm down. She forces herself to swim.

Her head and hands hit solid ice when she reaches the top.

Fuck.

She slams her hands into the ice. They’re numb anyways. And again. And it cracks! She does it again and it cracks again, but she’s being dragged away. No, no, no. crack. Slam. Crack. She’s kicking her legs as hard as she can but she’s no match for the river.

“Who are you?”

Marlene startles. There’s someone else, under the ice. Someone watching her struggle. Distracted for a second from the plight she looks around and there she is. Another girl, one who doesn’t seem bothered by the current or the lack of air or the cold. She’s watching Marlene with sharp curiosity.

I must be hallucinating due to the lack of air. People that beautiful don’t exist anyway. Marlene goes back to slamming her fist into the ice.

“Who are you?” Someone who needs to breath, she thinks and at last the ice cracks. She doesn’t waste a second, grabbing onto the edge of the ice to haul herself half out of the water, gasping for breath. It won’t be long until she goes into shock from the cold, she knows, and then she’s really dead. The girl appears on the other side of the ice slab Marlene is half lying on.

She’s black, although her dark eyes look more of a dark blue – nearly black – than brown, and her braided hair looks stiff with a rapidly melting frost loosening the further down it is till the hair around her waist mixes with the water in a way that makes it hard to separate the two. She looks fierce and straight out of the old Celtic tales about faeries and the Tuatha De Danann that Marlene’s parents used to tell her as a child. A dangerous kind of beauty. An impossible kind. That promised consequences. Everyone knows not to give a faeirie your name.

“You’re melting the river,” she says and Marlene shakes her head.

“I’m not,” she can barely make it out through her shattering teeth but the piece of ice she’s clinging onto is rapidly melting into the water. She has to make it to shore. “Can you help me?” Fuck consequences. Her parents would likely despair if they saw her asking a faerie for help, better to drown. But Marlene doesn’t want to drown.

“You are.” An amused quirk of lips. “And yes, I can. Let go.” Marlene hesitates, but she’s shaking violently now. She lets go. And plunges immediately back under the water. She kicks out desperately but the current feels even stronger now, dragging her down. Fuck the faeires. Until a she feels the direction change and a smaller current drags her in the direction of the shore. Never mind. She swims with it, hitting the edge of a rock and hauling herself to shore just as her lungs feels like they’re about to burst.

“Fuck.”

She twists around but the girl is gone.

JAMES

“Marlene!”

“Marlene!”

They jog down the riverside, earlier tiredness completely forgotten, eyes scanning for her. The previously still river has burst into life, ice cracking and being swallowed by the furious tide as they go, the roaring loud in their ears. He can’t help but scan the opposite riverbed nervously but the woods across the river are still one more.

“The river won’t be crossable for another few miles,” Molly had assured them and they’d taken off in their search for Marlene but he couldn’t help but be wary. The fox had been right however, or so it seemed, because after some frustrated growling the wolves hadn’t even attempted to swim through the frothing angry water and had disappeared into the trees. They’re alone once again. He keeps an eye on the opposite bank anyway, in case Marlene has washed up there but sees nothing.

“Marlene!” His shout echoes emptily back at him.

“Marlene,” Lily gasps behind him before sprinting towards the water. It takes him a moment to see her and then he’s chasing after Lily. She’s lying barely out of the water, clinging to the rock below her – he might be going insane but it looks like the ice there is melting too – and gasping for breath.

“Oh thank god,” Lily is saying as she kneels down beside her, “Oh thank god.” She's alive. She’s alive and breathing and ok. James joins Lily in kneeling beside her.

“Marls?”

A choked gasp then –

“The girl in the river-“ Marls groans and spits out some water with a cough that shakes her already trembling body.

“Girl-?” James looks behind them but he can see nothing but foaming water and ice. Marlene coughs again.

“There was a girl in the water and she saved me – fuck, she was a faeirie, I’m so fucked Jamie.”

“Oh,” says Molly gently nudging her shoulder with her snout, “That was probably one of the river nymphs.” She sends a worried look to the water. “We better get going-“

“Look at her,” says Lily furiously, “She almost drowned, surely-“

“She needs to get somewhere warm and dry,” interrupts Molly firmly, “She’s going to catch something worse than a cold if we stay out here.”

James helps drag Marlene to her feet and slings on of her arms around his shoulder while she unconvincingly argues that she’s fine and doesn’t need help, her words barely distinguishable between her shattering teeth and slight slur. His entire right side gets soaked barely seconds after as she slumps against him. He clumsily tugs his coat off to drape it over her instead while doing his best not to drop her and grits his teeth against the cold before he half carries her onwards.

“We aren’t far,” Molly promises and he can only hope she’s right. With the way Marlene is shaking violently now, he doubts she can make it further. But she will, she will, he’s going to make sure of it. She’s going to be alright.