Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige Page A

face, which dipped down suddenly and seemed to be looking at me. I jumped backward and swallowed a laugh. What was I afraid of? They were just lights. They looked like the northern lights I had read about in books. But that would be difficult in upstate New York. Then again, so was the Tree.
    I took a step closer to get a better look. The Tree was covered in some kind of fancy script and pictures. But the words weren’t in any language I could understand, and the pictures looked like faces I had never seen. Not even in my dreams. What was this place? Who had etched them there, and what did they mean?
    My arm stung suddenly. I pushed up my sleeves and saw a white light pulsing through the web of scars that ran along it. Ipulled my sleeve back down, even though my arm was lit up like Christmas.
    “Am I dreaming?” I thought out loud. It wouldn’t be the first time my dreams had felt this real.
    I stepped closer to the Tree and examined its surface, which was as smooth as glass. It looked totally iced over. But it also didn’t look like there was any real bark under there. Either the etchings had happened ages ago and they became so smoothed down over time or the markings had actually grown as the tree had. I reached out to run my fingers over the carvings, but as soon as my fingers made contact, there was a creaking sound and my eyes were drawn to a fissure in the center of the Tree’s trunk.
    It broke apart with a sudden crack, proving my first instinct was right. There was no bark beneath the surface.
    But I was wrong to stand so close. There was no escape. Thousands of ice shards dropped from the branches and headed in my direction all at once. Terrified, I hid my face in my elbow, protecting my skin.
    But rather than pierce me, the icicles stopped a millimeter in front of me and dropped to the ground. Lifting my head fully once again, I saw the forest suddenly before me, bright as day. Which was impossible because it was nighttime. Or it had been. But this also didn’t look like the woods I was just in. And the trees surrounding me didn’t look like normal trees … They were tall, taller than I could crane my neck to see. And they were blue. The palest of periwinkle. Despite the color change, they seemed to be made of real wood. That was my first clue that I wasn’t in New York anymore.
    “Hey, Princess …,” a strong, familiar voice behind me said. “Sorry, I was a touch late.”
    I turned around to face the boy from my dreams. Gone was the white coat. Instead he wore a long black trench and a smile.
    He raised his hand, and a tree dropped over the ice like a drawbridge. “Careful. It’s beautiful, but it cuts deep.”
    The way he looked at me when he said it, I almost thought he was talking about me, too.
    “Come on. We have to go.”
    I scrambled across his tree bridge, balancing myself a little self-consciously as he watched me, determined not to slip under his gaze. Behind me, I heard an eerie tearing sound, almost like a large canvas was being ripped apart. I glanced back and saw the Tree was there again, but this time it was blue like the others.
    “The gateway sealed back up,” was all the boy said. When I reached him, he offered his hand to help me down. I took it and felt a jolt because he was real .
    “Welcome to Algid,” he said with a smile.
    “Algid?” I repeated the word, letting it roll over my tongue. There was something familiar about it. “Is that this place?”
    He nodded.
    “And Bale is somewhere here?”
    He dipped his head again.
    I didn’t believe in coincidences. There was no way this boy had nothing to do with Bale’s disappearance.
    So I made a fist and decked him in the stomach. He jumped out of the way in time to miss the brunt of the blow, but I still got him pretty good.
    “I guess I deserved that for saving you from a mental hospital and bringing you home,” he said, not showing that my punch had affected him at all beyond an expression of surprise.
    A smile