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

Even in the deepening shadows of the dimming day, even through
the veil of falling snow, she recognized Daisuke immediately. For just a
moment, her mind distracted by so many other things, she forgot that he was
dead and her smile began to widen.
    Then she felt it vanish and she
took a step back, heart filling up with fear.
    "Wakana!" Mai asked,
grabbing her arm, helping her rise the rest of the way to her feet.
    She blinked and looked at Mai,
at that thin white scar, their mutual reminder of what they'd seen, and
learned, and lost.
    "I asked if you were okay,"
Mai said.
    Wakana looked back, but the
ghost was gone. A light gust blew snowflakes into her eyes and she wiped them
away, the chill biting into her skin.
    She told herself she had
imagined him there. What else could it have been?
    "I'm fine. Let's go,"
she said. "I won't be happy until I'm off of this mountain. I need a
gallon of hot tea and some chocolate."
    Mai smiled. "I like the
sound of that."
    They hurried yet again to catch
up to the others, Wakana quietly wondering if even a gallon of tea would be
enough to make her warm again.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Kara scraped snow off the ground
and packed it in her hands, giddy with mischief. Hachiro and Ren were busy
hurling snowballs at Sora, so her boyfriend did not see her approaching. She
threw it straight and true, pegging Hachiro in the back of the head.
    He spun around, eyes wide with
surprise, ready to retaliate. But when he saw that she had been his attacker,
he grinned and gave chase, pursuing her through the snowy clearing while she
tried to stop laughing long enough to plead for mercy. Hachiro grabbed her by
the hood of her new jacket, stopping her short, and threw a handful of snow
down the back of her shirt.
    Kara went rigid and cried out as
the freezing snow slipped down her back, melting against her skin.
    "Oh, you're dead!" she
said, untucking her shirttail to let the snow fall to the ground. She stalked
toward Hachiro and he backed away, hands raised, grin growing wider.
    "You started it," he
said. "Good aim by the way. You should play baseball."
    "Flattery will not save
you," she said.
    Hachiro stood his ground,
surrendering. "Do what you will."
    Kara smiled. If her father weren't
wandering around amongst the students and teachers, she would have kissed him. Instead,
she just shook her head.
    "Sorry, Hachiro. It isn't
me you have to worry about."
    He frowned, confused, but only
for a moment. Sora and Ren bombarded him with multiple snowballs. Kara had seen
them sneaking up on him and had maintained his attention to give them the
chance to make extra snowballs.
    Miho and Sakura walked over,
applauding lightly.
    "I love this," Kara
told them. "It feels like home."
    "How much does it snow in
Massachusetts?" Miho asked.
    "It depends on the year,
like anywhere else," Kara said. "But some winters there's snow from
late November until the beginning of April. A few years ago we had so many
storms in a row that in my front yard it was above my waist."
    "It must seem like another
world, like something magical," Miho said, with a dreamy look on her face.
    Sakura scoffed. "It sounds
like torture. I'd throw myself in front of a bus."
    Kara laughed and looked around. The
boys were tiring of snowball fights, but other students were not ready to give
up yet. In the gently falling snow they raced around, chasing one another. Some
made snow angels and others were building tiny snowmen out of the inch or so
that had already fallen. Miss Kaneda and Mr. Yamato had paused the group here
so that they could take a short rest before hiking back to the observatory and
then down to the buses waiting in Takigami Park, but nobody seemed inclined to
rest. The falling snow made them want to play, as if they were still much
younger children. Only a handful had taken snacks out of their backpacks,
probably because with the fresh snow on the ground there was nowhere to sit
down.
    Kara glanced around in search of
her father and Miss