“Is,” Kane corrected. “In this frozen moment.”
“Why am I here?”
He stepped around her, but left no mark, no print, in the snow. The hem of his black robe seemed to float just an inch above that white surface.
He wore a ruby, a large round cabochon on a chain that fell nearly to his waist. In the black-andwhite world it shone there like a fat drop of fresh blood.
“I give you the courtesy of allowing you to know this is memory, of letting you stand with me and observe. Do you understand this?”
“I understand this is memory.”
“With the first of you, I showed her what could be. So I showed you. But I realize you are a more… earthbound creation. One who prefers reality. But are you brave enough to see what is real?”
“To see what?” But she already knew.
Color seeped into the world. The deep green of pines beneath the draping snow, the bright blue mailbox on the cor
ner, the blues and greens and reds of the coats the children wore as they built snowmen and forts in the yards.
And with the color came the movement. The snow fell again, and the shovelful from the walk on the corner landed with a thump, even as the man bent to scoop up another. She heard the shouts, high and pure in the air, from the children playing, and the unmistakable thwack of snowballs striking their targets.
She saw herself, bundled in a quilted jacket the color of blueberries. What had she been thinking? She looked like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
A knit cap was pulled over her head, a knit scarf wrapped around her throat. She moved quickly, but stopped long enough for a brief and energetic snow battle with the little Dobson boys and their friends.
Her own laughter drifted out to her, and she knew what shed been thinking, what shed been feeling.
She was going to see Jordan, to convince him to come out and play. He was spending much too much time closed up in that house since his mother died. He needed to be with someone who loved him.
The past few months had been a nightmare of hospitals and doctors, suffering and grief. He needed comfort, and a gentle, gentle push back into life. He needed her.
She trooped up theunshoveled walk, stomped her feet. She didnt knock. Shed never needed to knock on this door.
“Jordan!” She pulled off her cap, raked her fingers through her hair. Shed worn it shorter then, a chopped-off experiment she hated, and willed, daily, to grow back.
She called him again as she unzipped her coat.
The house still smelled of Mrs. Hawke, she noted. Not of the lemon wax shed always used on the furniture, or the coffee shed habitually had on the stove. But of her sickness. Dana wished she could fling open the windows and whisk the worst of the sorrow and grief away.
He came to the top of the stairs. Her heart did a tumble in her chest, as it always did when she saw him. He was so handsome, so tall and straight, and just a little dangerous around the eyes and mouth.
“I thought youd be at the garage, but when I called Pete said you werent coming in today.”
“No, Im not going in.”
His voice sounded rusty, as if hed just gotten up. But it was already two in the afternoon. There were shadows in his eyes, shadows under them, and they broke her heart.
She came to the foot of the stairs, shot him a quick smile. “Why dont you put on a coat? The Dobson kids tried to ambush me on the way over. We can kick their little asses.”
“Ive got stuff to do, Dana.”
“More important than burying theDobsons in a hail of snowballs?”
“Yeah. I have to finish packing.” “Packing?” She didnt feel alarm, not then, only confusion. “Youre going somewhere?”
“New York.” He turned and walked away. “New York?” Still there was no alarm. Now there was a thrill, and she bounded up the stairs after him with excitement at her heels. “Is it about your book? Did you hear from that agent?”
She rushed into his bedroom, threw herself on his back. “You heard from the agent, and you didnt tell me? We have to celebrate. We have to do something insane. What did he say?”