Toma had only meant to make one more quiet round of Driftwhistle Harbor before dark. He walked the snowy lane with his brass key ring clicking softly at his belt, his blue wool coat buttoned tight against the wind. From the breakwater came the low, hollow boom of the sea breathing under the ice, and from the bay came another sound that made him stop in the snow.
A sheet of pack ice, fast and hard as a moving floor, was pressing into the harbor mouth.
The first fishing boat Toma checked sat wedged against its ropes, bobbing only a finger’s width. The second had turned sideways, its hull held snug by white ridges of ice. No one was sinking. That was the trouble. The boats were not free enough to move, and not loose enough to escape. The ice was already holding them in place, pushing them closer to the breakwater with every slow shiver of the water.
Toma gripped the rope rail and looked down the harbor lane toward the little schoolhouse and the lantern room on the point. He could keep walking alone and see how bad it was at each dock. Or he could turn back now and call Mira and Bram before the ice squeezed any tighter. The harbor was already tighter than it had looked from shore.
What happens next?
Sign in to rate
