walking poles. He plants his feet and waits for the shaking to subside. A little further up he spots his backpack on the ground and picks up his pace. He is almost there.
‘Felicity, I’m back. I’ve got rope. Not much longer now.’
There is no answer. He carries on, drops his equipment and falls flat so that he can look over the edge of the moulin. He sees boulders of ice, gleaming silver, white and blue. He sees heaps of snow. He sees the milky turquoise stream of meltwater, so much wider and faster than when he left an hour ago, but no sign of his daughter.
And then he spots something, a fragment of black cloth. She is still there, twenty feet below him, curled into a ball and almost covered in snow. She doesn’t move. Struck with fear that she has frozen to death, he yells down.
‘Felicity!’
86
Felicity
Even as the walls of the moulin have taken on a soft gold sheen with the rising sun, the cold has become a living thing in Felicity’s mind. It has seeped out of the ice and stretched its long, thin fingers towards her. It has laughed and chattered at her as it raced past in the ever-growing stream of meltwater. It has tickled and kissed and teased her in the flurries of snow. Most of all, it has pressed up into her bones from the boulder she is sitting on. Last time she tried to shift her position, she had to prise the seat of her trousers away. She hasn’t moved since.
For the first half-hour, she tried to eat but after a while even the chocolate became so cold and hard that biting it made things worse. She cannot bear to drink because the thought of putting cold liquid inside her fills her with dread. She thinks she might freeze from the inside out, that her throat will fill with ice. For a while her wet feet burned but it is some time since she has felt them.
The voices, that were so loud in their panic at first have fallen silent. She’s sensed them slipping away. Even Bamber hasn’t spoken for some time. At last, Felicity is alone.
She wraps her arms around her body and lets her head fall. She feels a deep sense of peace and knows that to fall asleep will be very easy. Somewhere, at the back of her head, one of the voices whispers that this is the very worst thing that she can do.
‘Shush,’ Felicity mumbles, and closes her eyes.
* * *
‘Felicity! Felicity, wake up. I’m back. I need to get you out of there. Felicity, wake the fuck up.’
The voice penetrates her dreams and she knows that somewhere in the world that she gladly left behind, someone wants to pull her back. She can’t though. Her eyelids are frozen shut and she really, really needs to sleep. These voices have to stop telling her what to do. Only she decides what she is going to do and right now she needs to sleep.
‘Felicity! For God’s sake, you have to wake up. You’re sitting in freezing water.’
The voice is right. The cold around her legs is different. It has become cold that moves. It’s wetter. She feels herself stirring but, oh no, it’s too hard. Better to stay down here, where it’s peaceful. Better to drift away completely. She feels a sense of rightness. This is how it is supposed to be. She is a woman of ice. Truly now. Forever.
‘Felicity, I’m coming down. Hold on.’
These voices will not leave her alone. She can hear hammering. The sound is rough, grating on her ears. How can she sleep with this racket? And now she becomes aware of the sound of running water. It is musical and pleasant but maybe a bit too loud. Irritation grows as she realises the lovely calm sleepiness is drifting away. She might, actually, be waking up.
The hammering stops, but a second later she hears a loud clatter and feels the ice tremble as something heavy lands close by. Then there is a sliding sound, followed by several loud bumps. Something is pulling at her. There are hands on her shoulders, then under her arms and she is being lifted. Gloved hands are wiping the snow from her face and her cheeks are being slapped.
‘Felicity, wake up. Come on, wake up, we have to get you out of here.’
She knows that voice. Freddie is here. She is afraid of Freddie, isn’t she? And yet leaning