“What? What is it?” he asks.
“It’s snowing,” I tell him.
His eyes close. He licks his lips. “What time is it?”
“It’s six a.m.”
“Okay,” he mumbles, giving me a small smile and then relapsing into sleep again.
“Viktor!” A harder nudge.
“What, what?” he cries out, trying to look at me again. “What’s happening?”
“I said it’s snowing.”
“And?”
“I’m snowed in. We’re snowed in. I can’t even make it to the outhouse.”
“Helvete,” he swears sleepily.
“Yeah, Helvete. I need you to clear the way.”
“Right now?”
“I have to pee!”
“Can you just…pee into a bucket?”
“Viktor!”
He sits up, holding his head. “Please no yelling. My brain can’t take it.”
“It’s not my fault you overdid it last night. You know, tonight is the party night.”
“Every night is a party night with Magnus. I’ll power through.”
“Yeah, I’m sure the beer you’re going to have this morning will help.”
He shoots me a sly look. “You jealous?”
“Of your hangover? No. Now please, I need to pee.”
“I won’t look,” he says. He leans over to his side of the table and grabs a glass of water. He drinks it all and then hands it to me. “Here.”
“What?”
“Pee in there.”
“Viktor,” I warn him.
“Do you really want me to get up out of this nice and cozy bed and go outside and dig you a path to the outhouse?”
“Yes!”
“But that means you have to go outside too.”
He’s right. I’m going to not only wait for him to clear the way, but then I’ll have to pile on all my gear, my boots, then sit on a frozen toilet seat.
“What do you do when you have to shit?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Okay. Fine.” I grab the glass from him. There is no way my aim is this good. “You know what, I’ll just hold it and wait for one of the real men to do the job.”
He grumbles, sighing dramatically as he throws back the blanket. “Fine.”
I watch as he goes over to the door. He opens it, a blast of cold wind coming in. “Holy shit.”
He closes the door again and looks around. “I don’t even have a shovel, Maggie.”
Looks like I’m going to be peeing into a glass after all.
And they said the royal life was glamorous.
* * *
When nine a.m. rolls around, we finally get texts from the other cabin. It looks like they all discovered the same problem at the same time.
Thankfully, Magnus was prepared for this, probably having gone through it a few times. He and Orlando armed themselves with shovels and spent a good hour digging a tunnel through the snow to the outhouse and then over to our cabin.
Then came the fight over who got to pee first.
Luckily, by the time our path was clear, I was able to go.
Then we headed to the main cabin to make breakfast and fret about the weather.
Viktor makes a mean version of scrambled eggs, so with him cooking away, with Aurora helping, the rest of us watch the snow keep falling and falling.
“We’re snowed in,” Askel says glumly. “There’s no way we’re going to get out of here tomorrow.”
“Don’t say that,” Magnus says. “I’ve talked to Einar and Ottar and everyone else down below, they’re trying to clear the trail back up here.”
“With this constant snow falling from the sky?” Aksel says, gesturing to the window. It’s a whiteout, obscuring the view until all you see is snow.
“Look, we have enough food and drink to last a week,” Ella says. “The worst-case scenario is they can bring a helicopter and get us out.”
“Yes, but that will make the news,” Aksel points out. “And I have to make a speech tomorrow evening in front of the nation. You know, about the new year ahead. I can’t miss that. It’s tradition.”
“You know what you need, Aksel?” I tell him. “A beer.”
He gives me a sharp look. Oooh, those blue eyes can ice you to death.
“Maggie is right,” Magnus says, getting up and going to the kitchen. “This is the last day of the year, and we’re snowed in. There’s nothing we can do about it, so why don’t we all just try to make the best of it?” He brings out beer. “I think day drinking needs to commence now.”
“About bloody time!” Aurora chortles, grabbing a beer from Magnus. Then she gives me an appreciative wink for suggesting the beer in the first place.
We all watch as Magnus hands out the beer and then holds out the last one to Aksel. “You might be a king and all, but you have to learn to relax,” he says to him. “This is your one chance out of the year. Make it count.”
Aksel stares at the beer, looks up at Magnus, and then over at Aurora for the final consult. Aurora sticks up her thumb and enthusiastically nods her head.
“Fine,” Aksel says, plucking the beer from Magnus’s hand. “You win.”
Aurora silently claps behind him.
“Good,” Magnus says with an exaggerated sigh. “Finally, I win at something. Okay, so let’s all skal to the last day of the year.” He eyes me apologetically. “I guess that tea will have to do.”
I hold the mug of chamomile by the handle. “Stop worrying about me. I’m already having fun.”
“Okay. To the end of this year and to the next,” Magnus says.
We all raise our mugs and beers and cheers to that.
Then, as one might suspect, the day slips by slowly. I mean, for me. I’m sober as hell. For everyone else, it might be going really fast. All I know is that everyone is getting progressively drunker by the hour. Even Aksel is getting a little buzzed. At least his eyes are softer, and his mannerisms looser.
Sometimes being the sober one at a party is super annoying, especially when all you want to do is join in. But, because I’m used to not drinking by now, and I know I’m not about to change
