The Shuddering

boarders behind them to see her fall; at least the hill was completely devoid of people, all of those right-minded skiers at the base of the mountain, packing up their gear and getting out of the cold. Jake cameto a stop a few yards away, snapping his left foot into his board as he waited for her to get up and join him. She sighed, shoving her boot into her binding.
    “It’s too icy,” she called out to him. He lifted his hand to his ear, shaking his head at her. Pushing her scarf away from her mouth, she made a face at him. “It’s slick. I’m going to kill myself.”
    Jake looked away, and she hoped he was considering the steep downgrade ahead of him. The hill was an intermediate blue, interspersed with a handful of well-camouflaged moguls—ones that were virtually invisible in the shade. If it had been a green trail it wouldn’t have been so bad, but naturally he had to make their last run count.
    “We’ll take a detour,” he told her, motioning to a line of pines. “There’s a side trail just beyond those trees. It’ll be less hard-packed there.”
    “ Off the trail?” She shook her head. There was no way she was going off the trail, not when the slope was empty like this, not when there weren’t any people to help them if they got into trouble. Jake looked away again, and she could feel him rolling his eyes at her. If worse came to worst, she’d unstrap her board and use it like a sled, sliding all the way down the hill until she was safe and sound in front of the lodge. Hell, that might actually be fun .
    “It’s a trail,” he told her. “It’s on the map.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Babe, come on. I’m sure.”
    “Goddamnit,” she whispered, securing the strap of her binding before rocking onto her feet.
    The trail wasn’t a trail.
    Tara nearly screamed when she found herself knee-deep in a snowdrift. Jake was hopping in front of her, trying to dislodgehis board from an impossible depth of powder while she silently raged behind him. After a few minute of fruitless effort, she was the first to throw in the towel.
    “ This was on the map? I swear, sometimes you just…” drive me fucking nuts . She bit her tongue, trying to keep herself from boiling over. This wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t purposely led them into a snowdrift. She continued to echo his innocence inside her head, trying to keep her anger in check, but the cold was making it difficult to stay quiet. The snow, which had found its way into her boots and was now melting against her socks, was making it hard not to launch into a tirade that would end in a statement she’d been wanting to make since last season: I’m never going snowboarding again. She reached into the snow and unsnapped her bindings, struggling to step off her board without toppling over. “I’m walking,” she announced through clenched teeth, hefting her board up by its leash and tossing it onto her back.
    “Are you serious?” He looked surprised, but his little laugh of disbelief only made her angrier.
    “I’m serious,” she snapped, shoving one foot into the snow ahead of her, the knee-deep powder sucking her leg down like quicksand. Less than ten steps forward and she was already gasping for breath. She held back her tears, pressing on, determined to get off that damned mountain so she could never return.
    “Look, we’ll just get back to the main trail, okay? It’s not far.” Jake unstrapped his own board, but rather than following her downhill, he turned toward the trees. She stopped, watching him waddle toward a thick grouping of pines, their branches bent low with snow.
    “And if it’s deeper in there?” she asked. “People die in snowdrifts, you know.”
    “Well, what do you want to do? Freeze up here?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “That’s exactly what I want to do.” Sighing, she relented, begrudgingly turning to follow him into the thicket. “This is…your fault…you know,” she said between gasps for air. “We…should have just…gone…to…the…lodge.” Each word punctuated another exhausting step, but Jake continued forward, not saying anything. After a few minutes she had to stop; bending at the waist, she tried to catch her breath. “Wait,” she said, lifting a hand to signal she needed a break. “I can’t.” Her lungs were on fire. Every inhale of icy air felt as if she were swallowing fire. Her feet ached with numbness. Her fingers prickled with pain. For a second she teetered on the brink of panic. What