Page 7 of Jack Frost
I give him a halting description of the location.
It seems to do the trick, because he nods. "Got it. Hold on tight now."
There's a blinding whirl of snow and wind, a sucking sensation, and a sickening feeling of disembodiment. I'm frantically clawing at the pieces of myself, willing them all to come back together—and then I'm me again, solid and whole.
The pale-haired man and I stand in a sphere of clear space, while the ongoing blizzard buffets the invisible walls of our bubble. I step back from him.
"Your camp is that way," he says, pointing. "I'll stick around to make sure you don't get lost again. Remember to wear your coat and gear during the rest of the trip, even if you can't feel the cold. Otherwise your team will get suspicious."
"Will I still be able to feel heat?"
"Sure."
"Good. I like hot baths."
"Ugh. I can't stand hot water. Even lukewarm is—yuck." A shudder runs through him.
Now that I'm out of the cavern, so close to getting my life back, I can't help a throb of curiosity. Would it be so terrible to know just one thing about this guy? Just his name?
"I'm Emery Caulfield," I venture.
"Nice to meet you, Emery. I'm Jack." He takes another step back, lifting his arms, and the blizzard responds, kicking up in snowy swirls behind him, like phantom wings. "Don't tell anyone you met me."
"I'm not stupid," I snap. "Just reckless."
"Reckless." He hisses the word with a kind of savage relish.
"I can be a little too passionate about my work, and it makes me careless," I reply. "It won't happen again."
"Oh, but it will. Reckless people simply can't help themselves. It's been a pleasure, Emery. Now I have to go and see what damage has been done while I slept. One question—any big forest fires in the world lately?"
"Are you kidding? California has been burning itself to a crisp."
"I'll head there then. Thank you!"
And he whirls away into the storm. The bubble of protection breaks, and I'm inundated with blistering ice and snow again. Even though I can't feel the cold, the wind's force is almost too much for me in my weakened state.
I stagger in the direction Jack pointed out. Within several steps, a dark shadow rises before me, its form shifting in the wind.
A tent.
Our expedition leader Luc Garnier chews me out the next day, after I've rested and eaten. He tells me, in fierce phrases punctuated with French swears, how lucky I am that I managed to find my way back to camp.
"I do not know how you did it but I am glad, because if you died, there would be the paperwork,tu comprends? So much of the paperwork. I do not like the paperwork, Emery. It is not fun for me. You stay alive, and I keep my job,oui? We have this agreement. It is not difficult. Follow the rules, because the rules are there for a reason. You think you are what, some free spirit? I saynon, because you are not free when you are on my team. It is my job to keep you alive. From now on you walk when I say walk, and you set up the camera when I say you set up the camera, and if I say, 'Emery, we go now,' then you sayoui, monsieur. You say, 'Yes, Luc, I will listen because you are the boss.'Tu comprends, la?"
"Yes, I understand." I exchange sidelong glances with my tentmate Dana, who turns away quickly and pretends to be very interested in her bland breakfast oatmeal. "I'm sorry, Luc."
"Bien sur, of course you are sorry. You have learned an important lesson, one that you will not forget.Mon Dieu.Tu te tuerais pour les pingouins? Les pingouins? C'est des conneries, ça!"
"You're absolutely right, Luc," Dana interjects. "Dying for penguins would be bullshit. I'll keep a close eye on Emery for the rest of the trip, okay?"
"D'accord. You watch her." He shoves his way out of the tent, then ducks back in to say, "Blue sky today. We will be filming. Get ready."
For the rest of the trip, we have good weather. I have a suspicion it's not entirely a natural phenomenon, but even though I have an interest in climate change, I'm no weather expert, so I can't say for sure that Jack is involved. After all, he said he was off to California where all the forest fires are. What on earth does he plan to do there? Can he actually help out? Use some of his magical snowy mojo to push back the fires?
That is something I'd like to see. But I'm fairly sure I'll never encounter him again.
On the last day before Dana and I fly out for the long trip home, I convince Luc to let me take a walk alone, as long as I stay within view of base camp. The sheer variety of textures in the Antarctic landscape still amazes me. There's the snow-infused ice that creaks faintly under my boots, the slick-as-glass ice I'd love to carve with a pair of skates, and the slopes that look like gleaming snow but are actually frozen hard and slippery as hell. There's the deep snow that yields in soft crevices to my steps, leaving pockets of blue shadow in my wake. There's the snow that skims, light and powdery, across the surface of the continent, shifting and eddying as if it has a mind of its own.
