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

those girls — though they had turned out to be nicer than
she'd expected — but Mai had asked her. There had been no pressure, but
Wakana had been happy to be asked, and she knew it would make Mai happy to have
her in the club. They had become inseparable now, almost like sisters. They had
come close to death together and they shared secrets they could never tell the
other girls.
    If Mai wanted to lead, Wakana
would gladly follow.
    "You two are going to end
up off the path and lost in the woods!" Aka said.
    "Don't worry so much. We're
fine," Mai told her.
    Wakana smiled. They both liked
Aka, but the girl had a tendency to get bossy. Mai wouldn't let her get away
with it.
    "Hey, look," Mai said,
tapping Wakana's arm.
    The whole group began to slow
down a little, whispers and mutterings rippling through the class. Fat white
snowflakes had begun to drift lazily from the sky. A light gust of wind sent
them dancing and swirling, but then the breeze died down and the snow eddied
and fell.
    "Come along!" their
teacher, Mr. Gushiken, called. "You have all seen snow before. Let's stay
on schedule so that we can return to the buses before dark. We will be stopping
for a break at a clearing ahead with the rest of the school. Ten minutes only."
    "Ten minutes," Mai
said. "Mr. Yamato said fifteen."
    "It's snowing now,"
Aka replied. "They want to get us back."
    "I don't see why we need to
stop at all. We should never even have come onto the trail," Wakana said.
"We saw the view. That should have been enough."
    "Oh, it's not that bad,"
Mai said. "It's only a little snow. And the weather center said it would
pass quickly. I want to enjoy it while I can. It's very pretty."
    Wakana rolled her eyes. "Okay,
it's pretty. But I'd rather see it out a window."
    Mai laughed and shook her head.
"If you never bother to explore it, the world outside the window might as
well be a painting."
    "Who said that?" Aka
asked.
    Mai gave her a hard look. "I
did. Didn't you just hear me?"
    "I thought you were quoting
someone. It was a great observation."
    "Do you think I'm not smart
enough to make such an observation?" Mai demanded.
    Wakana dropped back a step,
letting the two girls argue. Normally it amused her. She liked to listen to
them spar. But right now her nose hurt from the bite of the cold and her feet
hurt. So far there was only a little snow, but if it fell harder and much of it
accumulated, she worried that it might ruin her shoes. They were really not
meant for winter hiking, mostly because she would never have been here if she'd
had a choice, so she had never had any reason to buy shoes that would be good
in the snow.
    Listen to yourself , she
thought, upset by how shallow her concerns seemed. This trip had put her in a
bad mood from the second it had been announced. Tomorrow would be better. She
would be back to normal, sitting in a nicely heated classroom, and then a warm
dormitory.
    The snow began to fall a bit
harder and the gusts of wind seemed to come more frequently, and blow a bit
harder. If she was not mistaken, the sky had darkened somewhat since the snow
had started. She wondered how recently Mr. Yamato had checked with the weather
center.
    Mai and Aka seemed to have
finished their argument, so she quickened her pace and fell into beside them. With
a glance over her shoulder, she saw that the next group — led by Miss
Aritomo — was only fifty yards or so behind them, many of them out of
sight around a bend in the forest trail.
    Through the falling snow, they
seemed almost unearthly.
    With her head turned, she wasn't
paying attention to the path underfoot, and her shoe caught on a raised root. Wakana
stumbled and fell to her knees on the snow-flecked trail. Frustration and anger
lasted only a moment, replaced by amusement at the absurdity of her situation. If
someone was going to fall, of course it would be the one who most wished she
were anywhere but here.
    Smiling, Wakana started to rise.
    Off in the trees, a boy stood
watching her.