Winter Door by Isobelle Carmody Read Free Book Online Page A

of astonishment, Logan was laughing, too. Logan Ryder and me are laughing together, she thought incredulously, which made her laugh even more. They were both hanging on to the cistern, leaning over the pee-smelling toilet, and this seemed the funniest thing of all.
    When they managed to gain some measure of control, Logan gasped, “Well, if anything was out there, that would have convinced them a couple of maniacs were in here, and they would’ve taken off.”
    That broke them both up again, but after a bit, Rage’s stomach hurt so much from laughing that she had to make herself stop. And suddenly she was quite certain that they were safe. She reached for the door and then hesitated and looked at Logan. He sobered and nodded, and they left the bathroom.
    Rage’s heart sped up again at the sight of drifts of snow in the shed and great, jagged pieces of shattered Perspex. The skylight had broken but there were no beasts. The Perspex must have collapsed under a load of snow. Most likely the thump they had heard hadn’t been a wolf landing on the roof but the roof buckling a little under its weight of snow. She went to the door and rested her hands on the crossbar. The feel of the chill metal under her fingers was like an icy burn, reminding her of the sheer black malevolence she had felt when she had put her face against the jamb earlier. All her fear flowed back. She might have drawn away, but Logan reached out and put his hands on the bar beside hers. “Okay, let’s do it, then,” he rasped. They lifted the bar smoothly, hooked it back in place, and heaved open the door.
    A blast of icy wind clawed at their faces, snatching Rage’s breath away, but there were no growls. No giant wolves leaping at them.
    “Gone,” Rage said shakily, pulling her coat around her, half convinced that she had imagined the wolves. Maybe they hadn’t even been anything more than a pack of feral dogs turned vicious by the weather. The door jerked violently and Logan caught hold of it. “We better shut it or the wind will break it right off.”
    Rage nodded and they fought to close it. Then they leaned into the wind and went along the track to the outer fence. At the fence gate, Logan pointed to an enormous, smudged footprint. They stared at it in horror for a full three minutes, Rage thinking it looked more like a bear track than a wolf print.
    “We better get to the school in case they come back,” she said shakily.
    On the other side of the gate, her books and notes lay scattered in a pile, pages fluttering in the wind where the snow had not buried them. Several loose sheets had blown against the fence. Rage stared at them in wonder, feeling as if the tug-of-war with her bag had happened in another life. She noticed absently that Logan’s battered backpack lay beside the fence, where he must have put it to free his hands.
    “Blast!” Logan muttered, his voice slurred with cold. He knelt down and began shoveling everything back into her schoolbag.
    “Forget them,” Rage said, glancing around.
    “You go ahead and I’ll catch up,” he said determinedly.
    “You’re mad!” Rage said, falling onto her knees and helping him.
    The job was done quickly. Logan zipped the bag and handed it to Rage. He threw his backpack over his shoulder and, side by side, they hurried along the footpath toward the oasis of light ahead that was the school. They did not speak until the doors had hissed shut. Rage turned to see them both reflected in the sheets of glass. Beyond was only the darkness and the flying snow.
    “Those things could be through that glass in about a second,” Logan murmured, voicing her own thought.
    “We ought to call someone,” Rage said.
    “Look,” Logan said in a peculiar voice. She looked at him. “I’m sorry about the books,” he went on. “I’ll tell the library I did it and pay for the ones that are wrecked.”
    She shrugged, and her mind stuttered sideways to the call he had made. “I don’t think I’m