An avalanche is guaranteed to make the news only if someone dies. Here’s the real question: Is the town of High Water also cut off?

There’s a pop and a twinge at her left knee and Maeve pulls up quickly. Careful, now. She sighs out again, loud, and shakes out her legs. Frustrated with herself.

Okay.

New plan: Purposely focus on the kids. She steps to the barre and works her left side, pointing and lifting in time with the increasing speed of her own thoughts.

Let’s say it’s been on the news. There are two options: either her mother has told Talia and Rudy that Maeve is in an avalanche zone, or she has not. This is hard to guess. Maeve’s mother is not predictable. And Maeve herself is not sure what she would prefer—

Terrify them—two small children—with the idea that their mom might be in danger? Or shield them from the news and let them think she’s simply not calling, that Maeve has forgotten them altogether?

With this, she pushes from a deep squat to a lunge and a sudden, stabbing pain tears through her hamstring.

“Fuck!”

Maeve yells this out loud. It echoes around the room.

“And fuck this fucking snow!”

She crouches, rubbing the underside of her thigh and cursing fiercely. A hamstring pull, a bad one, can really limit your range of movement. It messes things up, easily leads to more injury if you’re not careful.

Maeve is not feeling particularly careful, although the irony of having to go outside and fashion a kind of snowpack to ice the muscle under her snow-soaked tights does not escape her. She opens the door, and a burst of white blows in at her.

Oh, good, more snow.

She’s standing there in the doorway, freezing in her bare feet, when she catches something—a flash—from the corner of her eye.

Then it’s there again: a light in the forest.

A light? Any kind of electric light would be remarkable, considering there’s no power, but this one swims back and forth before it finally settles, then stills. Muted. Some kind of heavy-duty utility beam. A flashlight. Maeve shoves her cold feet into her boots and takes a step out from the door, straining to get a better idea of it.

It’s not coming from the main building, but from the deeper woods to the south. Not within the trees proper; instead of spreading and thinning over the snow, it seems contained. A glow. A candle? She takes another step, curious.

The light blinks out.

If Karo and Dan are down near the front gate trying to fire up a generator, they can’t also be wandering around here.