Cold Girl

Prologue

Fall Fair

SHE WAS THE ONLY PATCH of stillness on the planet, to Dion, the dark-haired girl sitting on the far wing of the bleachers, second to lowest tier, watching the band play.

She wasn't alone, surrounded by people on all sides, but she was a break in the pattern that had caught his eye, her solidity and forward gaze, while all around her the crowd pitched and bobbed in response to the music, volume up so high it vibrated the blood in his veins. Clouds drove across the dimming skies and the lights from the fairground beyond flickered and twirled. People danced on the grassy patch in front of the stage, and above them the Rockabilly Princess leaned into the mic to sing the bouncy refrain. Something about small change and love letters. Much of the crowd sang along.

Seated next to Dion, high up on the bleachers, Penny sang along too, loudly and not so well, arms lifted high to clap. Dion didn't sing or cheer but tried to clap his hands to the beat now and then, following procedure. Proof that he was as present as anyone. He'd come out tonight determined not to brood or drift . He worked on listening to the music, and it was lively and noisy, but it really wasn't great, and he couldn't stay with it. First his ears went out of sync, then his eyes. He checked Penny's profile, saw that she looked happy, then surveyed the crowd and saw more than heard the chaos and motion, all but the dark-haired girl down there who sat perfectly still, her attention fixed on the band, the singer, the guitar player. Unlike Dion, she was completely in sync. Just another fan, he decided. But one of the silent ones.

He looked down and sideways at the pink denim of Penny's skinny, pumping knees, but the thoughts kept ticking, not in words but little kicks of anxiety. It was all part of the healing process, this constant kicking, ticking, and going in circles, and now he was at it again, watching the girl down there. She was native, he was sure of it, while most of the fairgoers were white. And there was something else that set her apart: baggage. Next to her he could just see the hump of some kind of bag, a large backpack or duff el, which said that maybe she was just passing through, a drifter. From his position seven tiers up he could see little of her face, only the full curve of her cheek. Her long hair was loose and whipping in the breeze. Nothing special about her, a woman in her twenties, probably, on the heavy side, in faded jeans, and in spite of the chill just an ice-blue T-shirt.

He told himself he wasn't obsessing, just whiling away the time as he sat through a long stretch of rockabilly noise he couldn't tune in on. Maybe it was a good thing, a throwback to better days, when it had been his job to analyze situations, pull out the anomalies and turn them over till he had it figured out. He frowned down at the dark-haired girl. When she turned and glanced up his way, he felt caught out and flicked his gaze away, back to Fling.

The pop and boom of the monster speakers frayed his nerves, along with Penny's pumping knees and the sea-like motion of the crowd. The song came to an abrupt end, there was another round of applause, and in the lull he could breathe easier, like coming up for air. As the band fussed with their instruments, gearing up for the next assault, Penny touched his arm, got his attention, and pointed at the heavy bank of clouds moving in over the mountains. "Snow's coming, I can smell it in the air."

She said it like it was a good thing. He glanced at the heavens and saw them hung with some kind of floating debris catching the last of the sunlight. The only smells he could pick out from the general fairground pong were cow dung and candyfloss, and the occasional whiff of suntan lotion and sweat.

What did snow smell like? What did it feel like? How would he survive it?

A new hailstorm of notes from an electric guitar made him wince and stare back at the stage, at the guitar man working the strings again, hard.