The snow-line notebook

Anik pressed her pencil against the winter ledger and the lead snapped. The broken point skittered across the table toward the stove.

From the peg above it, a visitor’s wet coat dripped onto the floor. The room smelled of hot iron and damp wool. Outside, snow squeaked under boots coming up the steps.

Anik caught the pencil point before it reached the stove. She had one entry left to make: the time she closed Snow Line Hut and took its ledger down to Bell House. The valley clerk had asked for it that morning. By afternoon, the lower trail would be hard to see in the weather moving over the western peaks.

Her sister Tova had asked for something earlier. She kept Bell House, and Anik had promised to take its desk by eleven-thirty so Tova could catch the noon coach. Tova’s daughter was leaving the valley the following morning for a job at the coast. She had put two places aside for dinner, hers and her mother’s.

Last winter Anik had sent Tova an exact closing date, then changed it twice. This time Tova had asked her to say aloud that she would come. Anik had done it standing by the hut telephone, while the ledger lay open under her other hand.

The door opened. Lena came in carrying her field case, though she had left the hut only ten minutes earlier.

“I remembered where I put it,” she said.

“Good.”

“At Crown Shelter.”

Anik looked up. Crown was above the hut, beyond the little shelter called Half Door. Lena’s navy notebook held a season of observations. She had searched her bunk and every shelf in Snow Line Hut while Anik tied the ledger into its cloth wrapper.

“You said it was in your case.”

“I was wrong.”

“I have to go down.”

Lena set the case on the table. Its metal clasp struck the wood. “Then we go up first. I left the notebook in the window recess at Crown yesterday.”

Anik knew that recess. The window fitted badly, and snow collected along the sill even when it was shut. She folded the ledger’s wrapper over the cover.

“How long?” Lena asked.

“Forty-five minutes to Half Door. Another hour and twenty to Crown. The same way back.”

“You’ve written those times down somewhere, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

Lena gave a short breath that might have been a laugh. “I need the book.”

“I promised my sister I’d be at Bell House.”

“The clerk can wait an hour.”

“My sister.”

Lena looked at the wrapped ledger, then back at Anik. “Can’t someone else take it?”

Anik pulled the wrapper tight. For three days she had shown Lena where the early flowers had survived above the snow. Lena had asked her to help again next spring. Anik had begun keeping the dates on a separate page, with her own name at the top.

“I’ll go as far as Half Door,” she said. “People leave messages there. Someone coming down from Crown might have found it. Then I turn back. Crown is too far.”

“And if there’s no message?”

Anik kept her hands on the ledger. “I can’t take you farther today.”

Lena stood looking at her for a moment, then lifted the field case. Anik put both books in her pack. She left the page of flower dates on the table, where Lena could have seen it if she had turned around.

---

The lime trail stakes stood close together above Snow Line Hut. In clear weather Anik could see from one to the next several at a time. That morning the farthest stake blurred whenever the wind lifted loose snow from the slope.

Lena walked ahead until the track steepened. Her case bumped against her hip. Anik caught up where a dark rock broke through the snow, a mark she used to check her walking time. They had been out twenty-three minutes.

“What’s in it?” Anik asked.

“My notebook?”

“I know what it is. What’s in the part you need?”

“Dates. Places. Which plants were showing above the snow.”

“Are there copies?”

Lena stopped and shifted the case’s strap. “Some labels.”

Anik waited.

“I copied the early pages before I came up here,” Lena said. “I meant to copy the rest last night.”

The wind pushed a loose strand of hair against her mouth. She tucked it away with a bare hand, then put her glove back on.

At Half Door, the path split. Crown lay another hour and twenty above it, out of sight behind a long shoulder of rock. The east path crossed the slope toward Alder Shelter. Anik could see three of its lime stakes before it turned away. Snow Line Hut had disappeared below a fold in the hill, though they had left it less than an hour ago.

Half Door was scarcely larger than its name suggested. Its outer latch lifted stiffly. Anik went in first, expecting the usual empty bench and a scatter of old boot grit.

A sheet of paper lay flat beneath a cup. Its corners had been folded under to keep it from blowing away. Petra Lorne had signed it in heavy pencil. Anik recognized the name from the ledger; Petra had signed in at Snow Line Hut two nights before.

Yesterday, 4:10. I found a navy notebook at Crown and took it down. My pack split on the east path. I am at Alder Shelter. Please bring bread, dry socks, and one small stove tin if you can. I have little food left. I can walk to Bell House with company. Petra.

Below Petra’s signature, a different hand had added: Carried from Alder at 7:20 this morning. Bound for Crown.

Lena reached past Anik for the paper. She read it twice.

“She has the notebook.”

“She says she does.”

“She could have written that this morning.”

“The time says yesterday.”

“I mean someone could have told us.”

Anik pointed to the east path through the open door. “She went down that way. It takes about an hour and a half from here.”

Lena moved toward the doorway. “Then we can reach her without going back.”

“With what she asked for?”

Lena looked inside her field case. It held paper envelopes, a small tin of pencils, and a wrapped piece of bread she had brought for herself. Anik had the ledger, her route book, and lunch for two. Neither of them had dry socks or a stove tin.

“She took my notebook,” Lena said. “We should go to Alder now.”

“She asked for supplies. They’re at Snow Line.”

For a moment Lena held the note as if she meant to take it with her. Then she put it back under the cup.

“I could give her my bread,” Lena said. “And we could walk down with her.”

Anik looked out at the east path. Petra said she could walk. If they went straight to Alder, perhaps they would find her ready, and the three of them would reach Bell House before Tova had to leave. She read the request again: dry socks, one stove tin, company.

“You could take the supplies,” Anik said. “From Snow Line. I could go down to Bell House.”

Lena opened her map case. “Which branch below the firs?”

Anik reached toward the page, then stopped. The map showed the summer traverse. She would be sending Lena along a route she had never walked, with food meant for someone whose torn pack had already held her overnight. Anik had been the one to insist on bringing the supplies.

“No,” she said. “I’ll carry them.”

“You’ll miss your sister.”

Anik looked at her watch. She could make the plan fit on paper by allowing no stops. Petra had asked for company; she had not promised to keep Anik’s pace.

“She’ll miss the coach,” Anik said.

She put Petra’s note back under the cup. The pencil caught when she crossed Crown out of her route book. She closed the book on the broken lead and took the path back to Snow Line without writing a replacement arrival time.

The descent to Snow Line Hut took forty minutes. Lena said little. Once, where a stake leaned away from the path, she lifted it upright and pressed the snow around its base with her boot. Anik had stopped there to look for the next marker; now she could see it.

At the hut, Anik opened the provision cupboard. She took a loaf, a packet of oat biscuits, dry socks from the guest shelf, and one small stove tin. After a glance at Lena’s bread, she added a second loaf. She entered each item in the stores book and packed the winter ledger above them.

Lena had set her field case beside the door.

“You’re leaving it?” Anik asked.

“The envelopes will keep here until someone comes back up.” Lena took a slim packet from the case and put it inside her coat. “These are the labels I copied. I can carry bread.”

They closed the hut. Anik checked the latch, wrote the closing time in the route book, and handed Lena one of the loaves.

---

Below Snow Line Hut, the trail ran beside a row of short firs before crossing open ground. Alder Shelter stood past that crossing. Anik had made the trip in seventy minutes with an empty pack. Today the snow was softer and Lena kept looking toward the eastern slope, where Petra’s path would meet theirs out of sight.

At the last fir, Anik could see the roof of Alder. A thin thread of smoke rose from it. Lena saw it too and quickened her pace, then slowed when she reached the first bare patch of path. The snow had worn away there, leaving dark stones slick with meltwater.

They reached Alder an hour and twelve minutes after leaving the hut. Lena knocked hard. The door opened at once.

Petra was shorter than Anik remembered. She wore one wool sock and one sock cut low at the heel, and held the door with her shoulder while she pulled a boot away from it.

“You got the note,” she said.

“We brought what you asked for.” Anik lifted the pack.

“Come in. The door catches when the wind gets under it.”

The room was cold except beside the stove. A pack lay on the floor with one strap torn free and its contents stacked on the bench. On the table, under Petra’s gloves, sat a navy notebook. Its cover had bowed outward as it dried.

Lena put the bread down and opened the cover. Several pages were stiff but legible. Farther in, the paper had stuck together. A stitched group of leaves was missing altogether.

“I found those on the floor at Crown,” Petra said. “The window was open. There was snow through the room. A few leaves were under the bench, but I couldn’t find the others.”

Lena turned a page by its dry corner. She recognized her handwriting. Anik could see a date, half a place name, and a brown smear where the pencil had rubbed wet across the paper.

“How many pages?” Lena asked.

“Missing? I don’t know. I didn’t pull at the ones that stuck.”

Lena counted the gaps at the spine, then stopped. She closed the book gently.

Petra watched her. “I put it in my pack, and the strap went on the east path. Everything fell out. The book stayed under my coat. I’m sorry it got wet.”

“It was wet before you found it,” Lena said. “I left it by that window.”

Petra took the supplies from Anik and sat to pull on the dry socks. She ate half a loaf while Anik checked the time. There was enough of the day left to reach Bell House if they went soon, though the far peaks had disappeared behind a level gray cloud.

“I can walk,” Petra said around the last mouthful. “The pack won’t carry.”

“We can leave it here,” Anik said. “Take what you need in ours.”

Petra sorted her things quickly. She kept a small purse, a wool cap, and a folded letter. The rest went on the shelf, with her name and the date written on a scrap of paper. Lena put the navy notebook inside her coat beside the labels.

As they prepared to leave, Anik took out the route book. She entered their arrival time, the supplies delivered, and what Petra had left at Alder. The pencil point held.

Petra watched her write. “Will someone know to look for my pack?”

“Yes. I’ll tell them at Bell House too.”

“Put down that the red cup is mine. The other one was here.”

Anik added the red cup.

Lena stood by the door with the notebook against her ribs. “I told my department I had copied everything through the end of last week,” she said. “I hadn’t.”

Anik shut the route book. She did not know what Lena wanted her to say, and the cloud had reached the firs above the shelter.

“Put the book inside your coat properly,” she said. “The cover’s showing.”

Lena tucked it deeper and fastened the button.

---

Petra walked steadily on the lower trail. At first she talked about the east path, where her broken pack had sent a spoon sliding into the snow and made her late to Alder. Then she saved her breath. Lena stayed near her. Anik went ahead where the trail turned, stopping at each clear sightline until both women came into view.

The lime stakes ended near a stone wall. Beyond it, the route followed a track between fields to Bell House. Snow began to fall as they reached the wall, fine enough that Anik could still see the building’s square windows below.

Tova opened Bell House’s door before they knocked. She had seen them come off the track. Her traveling coat was still on, though the scarf had been folded back into the bag by the desk.

Petra named the bunk she wanted before anyone asked, then sat down to take off her boots. Lena laid the navy notebook on a dry shelf and told Tova about the note at Half Door.

“There’s bread in the kitchen,” Tova told Petra. She took off her coat and hung it on the peg beside the guest wool.

Anik set down her pack. “I can take over now.”

“The coach went at twelve.”

“I know.”

Tova took the keys from her coat pocket and put them on the desk. “I waited at the window until it passed the stone wall.”

Anik gave the winter ledger to the valley clerk, who was waiting at the long table. Its cloth wrapper was damp on one side. The pages inside were dry.

The clerk opened the ledger to its last page. Anik entered the revised route and the provisions taken to Alder, Petra’s arrival, and the recovery of Lena’s notebook with pages missing. She checked the clock above the stove and wrote 12:46. The clerk asked whether she could copy the entries into his winter register.

“After I’ve spoken to Tova,” Anik said. She handed him the pencil.

Lena opened the navy book with her labels beside it. She started a list of the dates she could still account for, leaving space where the missing leaves should have been. When she reached toward Anik to ask about one date, Anik shook her head.

“Later.”

In the kitchen Tova had cut more bread for Petra. One slice lay on the board beside the traveling bag she had brought in from the desk.

“I chose to go back for the supplies,” Anik said. “I thought about sending Lena with them. She didn’t know the lower route.”

“I’m glad Petra’s here.” Tova put the loaf away. “I still wanted you at eleven-thirty.”

Anik moved the ledger from the chair where she had set it. “I can stay at the desk through the week. You could go tomorrow.”

“She leaves tomorrow. I can’t catch her by starting then.”

Anik sat down. Tova stayed by the bread board. Outside, snow settled along the window ledge. Anik could hear the clerk turning pages in the other room.

“Have you spoken to her?” she asked.

“I rang while I was waiting. She was setting the table.”

Anik looked at the bag. Last night she had been thinking about how little time she would need to hand over the ledger. She had left Tova to count the hours between a coach and a dinner.

“Will you ring her again?”

“When I know what to say.”

Anik moved the bread board to make room at the table. Tova sat, though she kept the bag by her feet. She began telling Anik what her daughter had said about the room at the coast, including the little window that would not open. Anik had not known she had already found a room.

In the other room Lena called her name. Anik told her to leave the date blank for now. Tova paused until she had answered, then went on. Anik kept both hands on the table while her sister spoke.