Inside, she can see her breath. She strips off her soaked jeans to reveal the damp dance tights underneath; she’s sorry now that she didn’t think to bring an extra pair. It’s cold and she’s wet and the whole thing feels like misery. The only light is what filters in from the skylight above, a dingy gray. There is no possibility of music: the stereo won’t work and she doesn’t want to waste her phone battery. Maeve turns the phone on briefly but there’s still no signal, and she switches it off again to start her warm-up.

She tries repeating a silent mantra: This is not an emergency, just a short-term situation.

Her muscles are stiff and uncooperative at first. In her hips especially, a tightness from the constant work of pushing through deep snow. When she’s warm enough, she gets down on the floor, crosses one knee over the other, and reaches forward in an effort to relieve some of the tension. The stretch makes her wince.

In the stillness of the posture, she can’t concentrate; her mind immediately flies back to Rudy and Talia. She hates that they’re not safe at home the way she planned. She hates that they’re at the cabin, the woods and their hidden dangers rising up dark on all sides.

More than that, Maeve knows how demanding her mother can be. Unforgiving, even. Her own childhood a blur of early-morning rehearsals and evening classes and her mother drilling her over her homework late into every night. No one could have higher expectations of a child.

Talia’s voice, shaking, on the phone.

Maeve squeezes her eyes shut and counts to fifteen, breathing, then switches legs and tries it again, with the same result. What do they think has happened to her? How much do they know? Assuming the avalanche has been on the news—

But this, of course, is the question. Can she assume that? Would it make the news back east? Certainly, the record snowfall in this part of the country would be broadcast—and maybe the avalanche where the center has lost contact?

Except they’re between terms here. It’s the off-season. Maybe no one has tried contacting them at all.

Maeve sticks out her tongue to release the tightness in her jaw, sighs out a big breath. Come on. Get back on track, girl.

A short-term situation. That’s all.

If she keeps moving, she’ll think less. The children are fine. Probably.

Maeve is probably fine too.

She breaks out of the stretch, stands, and rounds over, her head to her knees—then comes up clean, flat back, watching herself in the mirror all the time. She pulls in at her core and tries some isolated movement, hips, ribs, shoulders, but it takes a different kind of focus, a new effort.

A moment later, she’s back in the same anxious spin—