Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige

Lights were going out. A storm bird’s call rang out again, followed by another whistle. Another wave was coming. But after my talk with Kai, I felt like I’d already been knocked down by one.
    I looked out the window and wondered how the strange, private boy downstairs had possibly done all this on his own. I’d never climbed a tree before, and from this vantage point it felt like I was standing on the tree’s top branches.
    I turned back to my little borrowed room. The last few days suddenly weighed heavily upon me.
    What Kai and the River Witch had said was in my mind now, whether or not I wanted it to be. I did not think I brought on the Snow Waves. But could I really be the child of two enchanted beings? Could I really have magic?
    There was only one way to find out.
    I decided to see if I really had powers. I did all the things I’d seen witches do on TV. I wiggled my nose. I waved my arms around. I concentrated on lighting a candle with my mind. I tried to move a little deer statue on the bedside table without touching it. I tried to freeze something. But all that happened was I ended up frowning at the wall.
    Feeling silly and frustrated, I picked up the little figurine, ready to throw it at the wall, but recalled at the last second that it did not belong to me. Dr. Harris would be proud. I put it back down on the bedside table and listened to the sound of the wind against the house. Vern said once that I was just a bull in a china shop, that one day I’d be fine in the open air. I felt suddenly aware of how far from home I really was. I knew the schedule at Whittaker: the sound of the doors locking and unlocking, the scuff of the orderlies’ rubber soles coming down the hall. Here, I didn’t know anything.
    I was so very tired. But I couldn’t sleep in Kai and Gerde’s guest bed. It was pretty. It was soft. It just wasn’t mine.
    Eventually, I settled for underneath it. I took the blanket and pillow and curled up there.

12
    When I awoke the next day, I opened my eyes to a gray metal wall. I stifled a scream before remembering that I was under the bed. The tree house … Gerde and Kai … It all came rushing back to me. I was staring at one of the brackets that connected the house to the tree.
    I climbed out from under the little bed. My body ached from the cold, hard floor. Random thoughts scattered through my brain. Did Kai see me sleeping there? Would he say something if he had?
    What did I care? He was a jerk. A talented jerk, but a jerk all the same. I heard the roaring sound again somewhere behind the tree house. Another Snow Wave? I wondered. But the sound was guttural. Alive somehow. I got dressed and went to investigate.
    Following the sound, I showed myself into the greenhouse, which rivaled the house in its splendor. The flowers weren’t like anything I’d ever seen. The pretty little tulips sprinkled acrossthe grounds of Whittaker didn’t hold a candle to these plants. The buds were enormous. And the color was an iridescent lavender. I had never seen a flower shimmer before.
    There was a ton of food growing in the greenhouse, too. Neat rows of leafy greens and carrots and weird periwinkle fruit were ready to be picked.
    I hoisted myself against a gate made of ice.
    Continuing on to a clearing in the wood, I heard the sound again. There was another dome that looked identical to the greenhouse.
    I could hear the animals before I could see them. There were two of everything. It was an underground menagerie.
    The first creature I saw was a penguin with pale-pink wings. It wobbled around in its pastel tuxedo until it bumped into another one dressed in ecru. Another with blue wings joined in, making it a trio.
    There were animals I was familiar with and animals I’d never seen before. There were sheep and cows and goats alongside penguins and polar bears separated by partitions made of ice. And at the very back of the menagerie, there was a pale-gray lion, the source of the roaring that had lured