Kiss of Frost

then- strange dreams about all sorts of things. Well, they weren't reallydreams so much as disjointed images and old memories, not all of which were my own.

I'd had these sorts of dreams before. Thanks to my Gypsy gift, I never forgot anything that I saw or felt when I touched an object and got a vibe off it. Sometimes, when I went to sleep, my mind randomly surfed through other people's memories, other people's feelings. Usually I saw things that I'd already experienced, thanks to my magic. Other times the images were completely new. I didn't always notice every little thing when I touched an object and flashed on it. But all the information was floating around in my mind, and sometimes my subconscious kicked in and showed me what I'd missed.

Either way, it was like watching a movie in my head, and more often than not, I felt like Alice roaming through Wonderland and staring at all the curious things around her.

This time was no different. One after another, various flickers, flashes, and flares of memory filled my mind. The arrow quivering in the bookcase beside my head at the Library of Antiquities. The shriek of the calliope music from the Winter Carnival turning into the roar of the avalanche. The Fenrir wolf sitting in the snow staring at me with its red, red eyes. Even my mom, climbing into her car.

Somehow I knew this last memory was from the night my mom had been killed by a drunk driver-and I was watching her get into her car for the very last time before the accident. But the really bizarre thing was that it was a memory I shouldn't even have. I hadn't been there the night my mom had left the police station-or touched anything that would give me a vibe about the accident. At least, not that I knew of, and I think I would have rememberedthat, even in my weird, twisted dreams.

'Mom?' I mumbled.

My mom opened her car door and slid inside. Cold, sweaty panic filled me, and I suddenly couldn't breathe. I had to stop her. I had to tell her to stay at the police station and not drive home tonight. If only she would stay put, she wouldn't be T-boned by that damn drunk driver. She wouldn't die and leave me and Grandma Frost by ourselves.

I raced toward my mom, my sneakers smacking against the cracked pavement, but the closer I got to her car, the fuzzier the image got, until the vehicle just faded away completely-with my mom still inside it. I stopped, gasping for air, and my heart throbbed with a dull, familiar, bitter ache. I whirled around and around, but there was no one else in the parking lot-and nothing but blackness all around me. Why did my mom always keep leaving me? Why couldn't she stay with me for just a little while? Why was I always the one who was left behind?

'I think she's finally coming out of it.' A soft voice interrupted my dream.

The blackness vanished, and my eyes fluttered open.

I was lying on a hard, lumpy hospital bed. To my left, a complicated-looking machine chirped out a steady tune in time to the green, squiggly lines that skipped up and down on a monitor. My heart rate, I supposed. Blankets covered me from neck to ankle, and I felt several heating pads trapped between my back and the bed. I tried to move and found that I was wrapped up tighter than a mummy. It took me several seconds to wiggle my hands out of the tight cocoon and sit up.

Everything in the room was white-white walls, white floors, white ceiling, even the blankets piled on top of me were white. The lack of color worried me, and for a second I thought I was still stuck in the snowbank before I was able to shake off my confusion.

My eyes skipped around the rest of the room, but there wasn't much to see-except for the statue. The stone figure perched on a long table directly across from my bed, turned so its eyes stared straight into mine. It was the same statue of Skadi that I'd noticed in the lobby and then earlier today at the outdoor carnival. Only this time, the Norse winter goddess's lips curved down, as though she was disappointed I'd survived the avalanche and was here in the infirmary, instead of buried in a cold, snowy grave. I pulled the blankets back up to my chin and looked away.

Footsteps scuffed on the floor, and Professor Metis stepped into the room. Faint lines grooved into her forehead, and weary worry darkened her green eyes. The professor looked all tired and used up, like she'd been the one out in the avalanche instead of me.

'How are you feeling, Gwen?' Metis asked in a soft voice.

'Fine,' I said. 'I feel fine.'

The weird thing was that I really did feel fine. All the aches, pains, bruises, and scratches I'd gotten during the avalanche had vanished. In fact, I felt like I could hop out of bed right now and do a round of weapons training with the Spartans-and win. Which totally wasn't like me at all.

'Of course you feel fine, Gwendolyn,' Nickamedes said in a snide tone, entering the room behind the professor. 'Since Aurora just spent the better part of an hour healing you.'

Aurora? It took me a second to realize that he meant Professor Metis. Aurora, so that was her first name. Pretty. I liked it.

'Did you-did you touch me?' I asked her. 'When you healed me?'

If she had, it might help explain all the crazy dreams I'd had. Although I still wasn't sure where that memory of my mom had come from. Could it have been from Metis? She and my mom had been best friends when they were kids, so she had to have tons of memories of my mom. But the images I'd seen had been from the night my mom had died, when her car had been hit by a drunk driver. Surely, Metis would have told me if she'd been there that night. What reason would she have to keep it a secret? My head started to ache from trying to figure everything out.

Metis shook her head. 'I didn't know if you'd want that or not, Gwen, given your psychometry, so I didn't actually touch you. It's more difficult, but I can heal people just by being in close proximity to them, sort of by pushing my aura into theirs and feeding them my energy until they're well again.'

The way she described it made me think of Daphne and the pink sparks that always flashed around her fingertips. The Valkyrie had once told me that the color of her magic was tied to her aura and personality. I wondered if Daphne would have the same healing power that Metis did when the Valkyrie's magic finally quickened.

'So what happened?' I asked. 'Up on the mountain?'

'What do you remember?' Metis asked, her voice much softer and kinder than Nickamedes's was.

I thought back. 'Well, the chair lift was on the fritz, and I was slogging down the slope to the hotel when I heard some kind of explosion. I looked up, and there were flames dancing all over the top of the mountain. Then, a few seconds later, the avalanche started, and all the snow began sliding down the mountain, coming right at me.'

I shuddered and hugged my arms around myself, as if that would somehow banish the horrible memory from my mind. I wouldn't need my Gypsy gift to recall the avalanche. No matter how many other bad things happened to me, I'd remember the roar of the snow for the rest of my life. The shadow of it blocking out everything else, and the cold, cruel force of it trying to pull me under and bury me- forever.

Across from me, I noticed the statue of Skadi was now smiling, as if the stone figure could somehow hear