“You’ll have to leave them!” Sophie yelled back. “We’ll find them later!”
Delphine shook her head, refusing to give up.
“I can’t see!” Marianne wailed. Her glasses and hair were completely coated in white.
“Don’t take your glasses off!” Sophie grabbed Marianne’s arm to stop her. “If you drop them, you’ll never find them!”
“But what are we going to do?” sobbed Marianne.
Sophie turned her back to the wind, and peered into the night. There! A black square behind the furious snowflakes. A waiting room? A hut?
“I think there’s shelter over there!” she shouted. “Hold hands. We mustn’t fall onto the tracks!”
She wasn’t sure they had heard, but then felt Marianne grasp her frozen hand. She grabbed Delphine, pulling her up, and this time met with no resistance.
The three girls shuffled through the blizzard to the hut. The wind screamed. Sophie could feel her teeth knocking about in her mouth. Finally, they reached a door of split and weathered wood. Sophie attempted to turn the handle, but cried out when she touched the metal: It was so cold it had burned her fingers. She pulled her sleeve down over her hand, tried again. After a shove and a kick, the door gave.
Bringing swirling capes of snow with them, the girls fell out of the storm and into the hut, closing the door with their shoulders. The sound of the wind — a sound as wild and distressing as a wounded animal — was instantly muted. They leaned against the door, getting their breath back. Sophie felt snow melting on the back of her neck and dripping slowly underneath her collar. She turned to look at her surroundings.
It wasn’t what she had expected to find. It was as if her father had opened the pages of a book and pointed to the illustration. A line drawing of a log cabin, just waiting for the woodcutter to return.
There was a small black stove, which, judging by the warmth of the room, had been burning for some time. In front of it were a stack of logs, three wooden chairs, and a small table. The thick white cloth had been ironed with so much starch it was as stiff as cardboard, with sharp creases where it had been folded. On this a loaf of dark bread, a bread knife with a bone handle, and white butter had been laid out on a battered metal tray. There was also a plain white jug, and three small horn cups. Through a small window they could see furious swirls of snow. The contrast between the scene in front of them and the savagery of the storm outside was such a surprise that none of the girls seemed able to move.
“What are we going to do?” Marianne shook her head as if a fly were annoying her. “I think and think, but I can’t think what to do!”
Sophie squeezed her arm reassuringly. “We’re going to wait for the next train back to Saint Petersburg.”
“But what if it doesn’t stop?” Marianne cried.
Delphine took out her phone. She pulled off wet gloves with her teeth and turned it on to check for a signal. “Nothing!” She threw the phone on the floor.
Sophie took a deep breath, and then bent down and picked it up. “Come on, Delphine,” she said. “We have to stay calm.”
“Calm? Are you mad? No, don’t answer that. We already know you’re insane. Telling us that Russia would be exciting. And we believed you!”
Sophie handed Delphine her phone.
“Oh, what’s the use!” Delphine turned away. “The whole trip is stupid!”
“Not stupid, Delphine,” Sophie said quietly. “Just different from what we expected.”
She calmly took her friends’ hands and led them toward the table. She felt that she must speak slowly to them, as if they were wild animals that would startle easily. She mustn’t make too much of anything. Keep it normal. “Come on, Delphine.” She tried to smile. “We can rest here for a short while and sort everything out. Let’s eat.”
Sophie took off her soaked coat, and the others followed suit.
“Well, Iamhungry!” said Marianne. The snowflakes had melted into little diamonds of water on her glasses. She took them off and wiped them on her sleeve, then put them back on, picked up the bread knife, and started sawing into the loaf.
Delphine said, “But it isn’t for us. What if the owner comes back?”
Marianne spread the bread with thick waves of butter. “Well, we’re in the middle of nowhere in Russia in a blizzard. I’m sure whoever itisfor won’t mind.”
Sophie cut and buttered a thick slice. “I’m hungry, too,” she said, and realized she really was.
“Perhaps this is like one of those mountain refuges,” Delphine reasoned. “Things are left for people who get stuck on the mountain at night.”
Marianne nodded, her mouth full of bread.
“But we’re not on a mountain,” Sophie said, biting into her bread. It was delicious: soft but with a smoky taste, as if it had been cooked in a wood-fired oven. “We’re in Russia — somewhere.” And she shivered, but not with cold. She thought she should feel anxious about their situation, but somehow she wasn’t. Surely this was an adventure? Wasn’t this what she had hoped for in her beige boarding-school room?
