“Or tails,” suggested Allie.

“What are you talking about?” said Lief.

“Life and death.” Nick flipped the coin, and slapped it down on the back of his palm, keeping it covered with his other hand, so none of them could see how it had landed. “Maybe—just maybe—we can find a way out of here. A way into the light at the end of the tunnel … or maybe even a path back to life.”

It seemed the trees themselves held the thought, sifting it through their boughs, giving it resonance.

“Could that be possible?” Allie asked, and looked to Lief.

“I don’t know,” he told them.

“So the question is,” said Nick, “where do we go to find out?”

“There’s only one place I want to go,” said Allie. “Home.”

Nick instinctively sensed that going home wouldn’t be a good idea—but just like Allie, he wanted to go home. He had to find out if his family had survived, or if they “got where they were going.” They were in Upstate New York, though; it was far from home.

“I’m from Baltimore,” Nick said. “How about you?”

“New Jersey,” Allie said. “The southern tip.”

“Okay. Then we head south from here, and keep an eye out for others who can help us. Someone has got to know how to get out of this place … one way, or another.”

Nick put his coin away, and they all began to talk about life, death, and a way out of this place in-between. None of them had noticed on which side the coin had landed.

Allie had always been a goal-oriented girl. It was both her strength and her weakness. She had a drive to completion that always got things done, but it also made her inflexible, and stubborn. Even though she adamantly denied being stubborn, she knew deep down it was true.

The coin-on-its-edge business might have been fine for Nick, but Allie was not at ease with all this metaphysical talk. Going home, however—that was a goal she could buy into. Whether she was dead or half-dead, whether she was spirit or wraith, didn’t matter. It was too unpleasant to think about. Better to put on the blinders, and keep her thoughts fully focused on the house where she had spent her life. She would go back there. And once she was there, all things would sort themselves out. She had to believe that, or she would lose her mind.

Lief had his own unique way of seeing things, too—and his vision began and ended with the forest. He wouldn’t be going with them, because for Lief, being alone in his safe haven was better than having company in the big bad world of the living.

As for the snowshoes, they were Nick’s idea, although Allie was the one who figured out how to make them, and Lief was the one with the practical know-how to actually do it with twigs and strips of bark. Allie thought they looked kind of goofy, but after all it wasn’t like they’d be posing for a fashion show any time soon.