Winter's Shadow (46 page)

As the second week rolled around she found the strength to return to school. There were some curious looks from her classmates as she passed through the halls, but for the most part nobody seemed too interested in why she’d been missing for a week. Except for Jasmine, of course, who kept her distance from Winter as though worried she might upset her. Eventually, as the day drew to a close, Winter saw Jasmine packing her books away in her locker and decided it was time to talk.

‘Hey, Jas.’

Jasmine jumped at the sound of Winter’s voice. She whipped around, her face flustered. ‘Win, you’re back!’

Winter smiled at her friend reassuringly. ‘It’s okay, Jas. I’m doing better.’

Jasmine’s bottom lip began to tremble and then she was hugging Winter, burying her tears in Winter’s shoulder. ‘I was so worried about you, Winnie! I still don’t know what it was exactly that happened up there, but I feel like it was my fault somehow.’

‘It’s not your fault. It had to happen that way,’ Winter whispered, as she gently stroked the back of Jasmine’s head. She couldn’t make Jasmine understand that Blake had brought that fate upon himself. That it had been part of the ugly bargain he’d made in exchange for Winter’s safety.

Tears wet her own cheeks, running down her face, becoming lost in Jasmine’s hair. It felt good to cry, as if
she was purging some of her grief with the tears. The pain inside her was still there, would always be there, but this comfort from her friend made it bearable.

After they’d stood holding each other for some time, Jasmine withdrew from their tearful embrace and wiped her nose and face. ‘I’m sorry, I ruined your sweater,’ she said, nodding towards the damp patch on Winter’s shoulder.

‘I think we’re even,’ Winter said, laughing a little through her tears and pointing out the stains she’d left on Jasmine.

Jasmine closed her locker and they headed down the hallway towards the parking lot. ‘There’s still so much I don’t understand. Will you tell me now?’ Jasmine asked Winter hesitantly, as they stepped out into the warm afternoon light.

‘Yes. I think I can.’ It was such a beautiful day, and Winter had been cooped up for so long that she didn’t want to go home just yet. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

‘Where?’

Winter thought for a moment, before answering. ‘The beach.’

Winter held off beginning her strange tale until Jasmine had driven them to Lighthouse Beach, and they’d parked and walked down to the shore.

Apart from a fisherman standing by the water’s edge, the two girls had the long stretch of beach to themselves. They left a twin trail of footprints behind them as they made their way along the sand, stopping once in a while to pick up a coloured shell or skip a stone. At first it was difficult for Winter to talk about Blake, but once she started the words came to her more easily, and soon the story was tumbling out of her as though eager to finally be released.

When the events of her tale took a turn towards the supernatural, she was worried that Jasmine might interrupt her with questions she might not have answers to.
But her friend simply listened quietly, nodding from time to time and rubbing Winter’s back sympathetically when her voice cracked recounting Blake’s final moments.

Eventually, as the light in the sky began to turn golden and the tide had begun to steal their footprints, Winter realised she had nothing left to say. She sat down in the sand and saw that they weren’t far from that magical spot where she’d first kissed Blake. Jasmine sat next to her and the two girls watched the waves roll in.

‘Wow,’ Jasmine said, looking thoughtfully out at the ocean.

‘I don’t expect you to believe it.’

Jasmine took a deep breath, her brow knitting as she came to some kind of conclusion. ‘I do believe it, Win. It’s an amazing story, but . . . I believe it.’

Winter smiled at Jasmine and squeezed her hand in gratitude. She didn’t need Jasmine to believe her, but it made her feel better to know that she did. She didn’t have to carry the burden of Blake’s story alone any more.

‘What do you think happened to Sam?’ Jasmine asked after a few minutes of contemplative silence.

Winter shrugged. ‘I don’t know. His father had done a pretty good job of screwing him up.’

‘He really cared about you, you know.’

‘Sam did?’ Winter frowned at Jasmine in confusion.

‘No. Blake.’ Jasmine drew a small circle in the sand as she spoke. ‘The first time I saw you two together I could
feel it. It was in the way he looked at you. Sometimes you can just tell.’

‘We only knew each other a short time,’ Winter said distantly. It had been
such
a short time.

Jasmine shrugged. ‘I don’t think time matters. You might have known each other for a hundred years or a minute and it wouldn’t have changed a thing about the way he felt about you. People go their whole life without finding something that special.’

Jasmine’s words resonated with Winter. Somehow hearing her friend talk about her love for Blake in such a simple and honest way made Winter all the more grateful for having had a chance to experience it. Blake had sacrificed so much for her; the least she could do was endure this heartache for him.

Jasmine stood up, brushing the sand off her legs. ‘Are you ready to go home?’

Winter shook her head. ‘I think I’m going to stay here and watch the sunset. I can walk home. Thanks for listening, Jas.’

‘Anytime.’ Jasmine smiled at her, then started walking back along the beach towards the parking lot.

Winter watched the crimson band on the horizon darken as twilight stole over the sky. When the light had all but gone, she undid the top button of her shirt and withdrew the lodestone. She hadn’t taken it off for a single moment since she’d returned from Owl Mountain. As Winter held the tiny emerald shard up to the dying sunlight, a thought occurred to her.

Could it work?

Winter felt her heart starting to race with the thrill of the remote possibility. She rolled the lodestone between her thumb and forefinger, feeling for its power – a power she didn’t know whether it possessed any more.

She had to try!

The name rose to Winter’s lips, the name that had haunted her ever since she’d woken up to those beautiful green eyes in the church clearing. She began to whisper it over and over again, willing him to return, hoping there was still some magic left in the world now that he was gone.

‘Blake?’ Winter called out to the gathering darkness. The tide crept in, the air grew cold and still she waited. Waited for him to come.

When I first set out to write
Winter’s Shadow
(then called
Shade
) I had no expectations of being published. All the material I’d ever read on the subject suggested there was very little chance of getting your first novel on an editor’s desk, and even less chance of selling it. But I wrote anyway. Because that’s what writers do, and also because the story demanded to be told. It wasn’t satisfied rattling around in the back of my imagination with all the other half-finished and abandoned projects. It wanted to live on the page, even if those pages would only exist in the bottom of my desk drawer.

Three-quarters of the way through that initial draft I decided to call a few literary agents. Just to see whether or not my little paranormal romance sounded like something they might be interested in. Predictably they all said it wasn’t . . . except for one.

After listening to my nervous pitch, Lyn Tranter told me to send her the first fifty pages. When she finished with those she asked to read the rest. Evidently my manuscript wasn’t quite good enough to go out (a massive
understatement in my opinion), but she saw enough potential to take me on. Four or five drafts later we had something she thought she might be able to sell. Turns out she was right.

So my first thankyou goes out to Lyn, for taking a chance on a guy with no previous writing credits and helping me whip
Winter’s Shadow
into a presentable condition.

My second big thankyou goes to the team at Pan Macmillan, especially Alexandra Nahlous and Joel Naoum for their brilliant editing suggestions and tireless enthusiasm. The book you’re holding in your hands is infinitely better because of their contributions.

It would be remiss of me to overlook the input my various family members had in creating
Winter’s Shadow
, so please indulge me while I get a little maudlin. Both my parents read the first few drafts and gave useful story advice, as well as picking up my numerous grammatical errors. Dad especially was responsible for helping me iron out some tricky narrative kinks, and did his best to proofread every single word of every single draft – a Herculean task if ever there was one. I wrote the words and even I could barely bring myself to re-read every draft.

Finally, I’d like to thank my beautiful girl, Greta. Not only are you the love of my life but the excitement I saw in your eyes when you finished those initial clumsy pages I managed to churn out gave me the strength I needed to finish the story.