frozen doubt

"We haven't even started the tour; are you sure you want to hike now?"

Libbie frowned at her reflection, finding that the yellow snowsuit she borrowed had clearly been made for someone much taller.

"I don't want to waste the day, Bas," she said, adjusting the waist and letting out a huff of laughter. "I need to try on the pink one."

Libbie shuffled into the room, grinning as she did a silly ballerina spin to emphasize the baggy middle of the snowsuit sitting around her hips like a tutu.

"Okay, yeah, you need to try the pink one." Bas laughed, pulling it from the closet and handing it over.

"I'm gonna look ridiculous either way."

"Mine is orange," he said with a shrug. "And Elmo doesn't think we look ridiculous."

At the sound of his name, the Australian cattle dog harrumphed and loped into the room, tail wagging.

"See, look how happy he is," Bas said, taking a seat to rifle through a basket of knitwear.

Libbie shook her head and reached over to ruffle his soft, close-buzzed hair.

Bas chirped in surprise.

"Those icy hands!" he hissed, swatting her hand and rubbing his head.

Elmo bounced between them as Bas fished a second item from the basket.

"I still can't believe you shaved off your insulation," Libbie said, laughing.

The dog made a disgruntled sound, and Libbie snorted laughter, coaxing him to her side. Bas held out a knit balaclava and a pair of light gloves.

"Wear the merino gloves under the mittens you chose. You'll be warmer," he said.

Libbie hummed. "Okay. C'mere, Elmo," she said, waving him along, "You gonna hike with us?"

"You're really not tired?" Bas asked from the main room.

"I was just sitting on my ass for hours. I wanna get outside and stretch my legs."

She kicked off the ill-fitting snowsuit and stepped into the magenta one. "You can show me your renos after, I promise."

Elmo settled in the sunlight. His reddish colouring looked more green in the shadows, reminding her of how tigers and foxes evolved their colouring. Libbie got her arms into the snowsuit and patted the pockets, adjusting her turtleneck before sliding the balaclava over her hair and tucking it under her chin.

Elmo let out a lamenting grumble.

"What a grouchy guy!" Libbie chuckled.

Slow, rolling thunder rattled the house. Bas's watch beeped an urgent alarm. He cursed and rushed from the house, letting the door slam behind him.

"Is that an earthquake?" Libbie called, hastily shoving her feet into her boots.

The rattling stopped as Libbie rushed into the bitter cold, the quiet holding like a breath, stunned into silence. A dull alarm klaxoned from the workshop across the yard. Golden light peeked through at the edges of the large barn door, which smacked and rattled against the frame with each new gust of wind.

Libbie shouldered the heavy door as she stepped inside.

"What the hell is going on?"

"It's fine! I just needed to check on something."

Bas pored over readouts between several monitors, silencing the alarms of his squawking equipment.

The workshop had once been a maze of shelves and desks and monitors, decorated with bulletin boards, maps and diagrams, and messy notes strewn over every surface. Half a dozen preserved butterfly specimens hung on the wall above the workbench, dated with the original descriptions their father had written. They were the only remains of their father's taxidermied specimens on display.

Bas had cleaned the place up enough that it was almost tidy.

"I thought you threw that stuff out."

"I kept some of it."

Bas typed, bringing up some charts to compare numbers Libbie didn't understand.

"Too much, clearly."

"Libbie—"

"What is this?" She gestured at the equipment. "You're supposed to be making this place sellable, not indulging a mad scientist!"

Bas sighed. "I have been working on it! You'd know that if you let me give you the tour!"

"Don't turn this around on me!" Libbie groaned. "How long are you going to stay here before you stop pretending you don't have a job to go back to?"

"I'm on sabbatical," Bas said calmly. "I can reclaim my position when I'm ready."

He pointed at her. "You, however, had to be strong-armed into actually taking vacation and bereavement leave, without gifting it to your colleagues."

Libbie took a heavy breath, the heat of it clouding the air.

"I had to work so hard to be taken seriously, thanks to Dad's reputation."

"You missed the funeral, Lib."

"Yeah, keep holding it against me."

"That's not—"

"Enlighten me, then!"

"Dad wasn't wrong about all of it."

"Oh, fuck you!" Libbie trudged to the door. "You're doing the same thing he did!"

"He was in over his head!" Bas shot up from his seat. "He got so focused on the animals he didn't realize the answer was in the weather data he recorded."

"This interrupted us immediately. Would we have even made it on a hike if I let you do the tour first?"

"I haven't gotten a hit in months, Lib," Bas argued. "I thought it was a dud; I wasn't even gonna bring it up."

"Oh, 'cause hiding it from me is better? Butter me up with nostalgia and then pull the rug out from under me?"

Bas held up his hands. "I'm not defending myself… You can see fo—"

"I don't want anything to do with this!" Libbie pointed at the door. "Show me you're not like Dad! Show me you can be my brother and this won't consume the entire time I'm here."

He looked pleadingly at her. "I can give you my undivided attention if you just give me an hour to review the data."

"I'm leaving."

Libbie made for the door, shoving it open and letting it slam.

Elmo barked, chasing after her.

"Olivia!"

"I'm taking your truck back to town, Sebastian!" Libbie yelled.

"I have the keys, dipshit!"

"Then I'll walk!"

Stalking back through the house, Libbie grabbed her suitcase, leaving the front door wide open behind her. She navigated the uneven driveway with Elmo trotting alongside her, his warm breath clouding behind him as he matched her determined pace.

Where the driveway met the road, she turned right toward town, adjusting her balaclava as the wind bit at her cheeks and sent glittering snow crystals dancing through the sunlit air.

Elmo took off into the trees at the first distant sputtering of Bas's truck engine back at the house, his barking echoing further up the mountain. As she rounded the first bend, the sound of flowing water reached her ears. It followed her as she trudged along, suitcase in tow, growing louder as she approached the second bend. A break in the trees left the wet road bathed in blinding sunshine.

Ice completely covered the road, already layers thick from a steady stream of water, flowing down from the mountain and spilling over the cliff's edge to her left. The truck's humming engine signalled Bas's approach. Libbie dragged her suitcase onto the snowy grass, near enough to the road that he'd see her, and looked up the mountain instead, shielding her eyes with one hand.

One cloud hung starkly lower in the sky than the rest.

Bas drove around the bend and stopped the truck behind her. He left it idling as he climbed out, walking up beside her with a frown knitting his dark brow.

"You can drop your work to come after me, but not to host me?" Libbie said.

He scoffed impatiently, turning his gaze to the low-hanging cloud.

"If you won't let me explain what I'm working on, stop making up stories about it that make you feel worse." He took a sip of cold air, glancing at his watch and then back at the ice. "I gotta call John at the ranger station about this— n'go up there and see what's what…"

Libbie towed her suitcase back to the truck and hefted it into the back seat. "Well, don't lose the fire in your step now. Let's go."

Bas watched the flowing, freezing water.

In the distance, Elmo's barking echoed through the woods above them.

"Before your ears fall off."

Bas rubbed his pinking ear and returned to the truck, turning them around.

"You don't have to come with me," he said, as they pulled up in front of the house.

"Bullshit. I'm not sitting around twiddling my thumbs."

"Fine, I'll be right back." Bas got out and pulled on his hat. "Put your snow-pants over your boots; you'll be warmer." He gave her a thumbs up.

Libbie rolled her eyes and fixed her snow-pants, retrieving her mittens from her pocket.

From the trees on her left, a blur of movement caught her eye. Libbie opened her door, standing on the step to peer over the truck.

"Elmo!" she called.

He barked in response but did not appear from the woods. Libbie whistled.

Bas returned with a camera in hand, wearing a utility vest over his snowsuit.

"What did John say?"

"He told me not to make it a rescue operation," he chuckled, dropping the camera in the cup holder and nodding at Libbie to do up her seatbelt.

"Is this dangerous, seriously?"

"Probably not."

Libbie gave him a look. "And the vest?"

"Oh, come on. Never go unprepared."

They drove until the path forward became impassable and resumed on foot, taking the trail to the waterfall at a pace that hurt Libbie's chest to sustain in the cold, and left her breathing hard as they made their way uphill through the woods. A steady rushing sound met them as they reached a break in the trees, beyond which the snow glared pure light from the winter's day sun.

Elmo appeared from ahead, tail wagging when he spotted them, and deposited something onto the snow, letting out two eager barks. Bas hastened forward.

"Oh my god," he muttered in disbelief.

Bas veered right, carving a path through the clearing, mindful of where he stepped. Elmo cantered after him, glancing at the ground as Bas continued into rippling fog.

"Wait!"

Libbie scrambled to catch up, stopping short as she stepped into the light.

A dead bird lay at her feet, wings spread, and beyond that, other birds, insects, and small creatures lay frozen in the snow, as if the cold had taken them by surprise.

Libbie moved to follow, misstepping as a glimmer of blue caught her eye. She fell on her rear, staring over at the delicate wings of a dozen small blue butterflies. The very same ones that adorned the wall in the workshop. Glaucopsyche Oliviae, for which she'd believed she was named. Until someone had been bold enough to inform her that no such thing existed.

Her favourite butterfly was a fiction. Her father made a far better storyteller than he did a scientist. He might've gotten away with it, if he hadn't tried to sell the lie with so many specimens.

Libbie removed her gloves and delicately picked up the nearest butterfly, cradling it in her naked palm. She recognized that many of the small things littering the snow were far too delicate to survive this cold. The butterfly twitched, and she yelped, jerking her hand back.

It took flight, wings fluttering, carrying itself a few meters before it stilled and glided back down to the snow, frozen once more.

She shoved her gloves back on, staggering over to the path Bas had made.

"Some kind of gas could've killed those—"

"Watch your step, Lib!" Bas was closer than she expected. "It's icy!"

He reached through the fog and took hold of her arm, steadying her next to him. The cold breeze cleared the air and revealed the waterfall flowing with the vigour of high summer.

Libbie gasped, feeling the warmth from the water on her face, tingling with the biting midwinter breeze. Elmo lapped at the water, which quickly chilled into snowy whiskers on his muzzle.

"It's minus twenty with the wind chill!" she exclaimed.

The pool beneath the waterfall was entirely thawed, its usual course diverted over the edge of the cliff on the far side. How much more ice had built up on the road while they'd hiked up here?

Bas laughed, patting the pockets of his utility vest. "I need to take samples."

"What? We need to document this and update John. Where is the camera?"

"You can't believe in Dad, even when the evidence is right in front of you?" He patted his pockets. "Those were his animals back there! A juvenile cardinal, at this time of year?"

"That could've been a female!"

"Its wings were underdeveloped!"

"And some geothermal river could've opened up and steamed the shit out of those animals! There is absolutely a real explanation for this, Bas!"

"Then help me prove it!" He nodded back the way they came, pulling out his sampling kit and kneeling at the water's edge. "I left the camera in the car. Please go get it. I'll take as many samples as I can while you're gone, and then we'll go back to update John together."

"Oh my fucking god. You are so stubborn."

"And for someone with a career in speculative fiction, you're the biggest skeptic I know! Go on!" He pulled the keys from his belt and handed them to her.

"If only Dad had chosen to be a writer." Libbie shoved the keys into her pocket.

"It's slippery over the—"

"I remember."

Bracing against a small tree for balance, Libbie shuffled back into the perimeter of fog.

"Be careful," she called back over her shoulder.

"Hurry back," Bas replied.

Elmo caught up with Libbie as she trudged past the dead animals, taking the lead at a canter.

He got to the truck first, sniffing the ground in front of it before he began to whine and pace.

The snowy ground was streaked with brown scars, the truck itself dented on the driver's side with a clear impact point on the windshield.

"What the—?" Libbie whispered.

The truck door groaned in protest as she opened it, grabbing the camera from the center console.

A heavy thump sent Elmo zipping into the woods, barking exuberantly, the sound echoing through the trees and scattering the birds.

"Elmo!"

He whined and barked.

"Come here!" Libbie commanded, shoving the camera into her pocket and wading into the treeline.

Something bellowed in panicked response.

A crumpled, dying deer took laboured, shuddering breaths as Libbie stumbled into view, finding signs of broken bones and blunt force injuries as she slowly circled it. One antler was cracked in half, dripping blood that was actively freezing strips of hanging velvet to its face.

"Olivia?" Bas's voice carried through the woods, sharp and urgent.

"I'm here!" she replied, without taking her eyes off the buck and its velvet-tipped antlers.

Elmo whined, facing Bas as he approached from Libbie's left. She followed the dog's gaze and froze in place.

Her brother stood before her in an orange T-shirt and cargo shorts, tanned like he always was in their early twenties, with shaggy hair he'd let lighten in the sun and a thick beard to match. Against a backdrop of white, he looked entirely out of place.

"Olly—" he choked out, stepping closer.

Libbie recoiled.

"Why would you call me that?"

Understanding dawned on them both at the same time. His dismayed expression betrayed just how much this man— this Sebastian — had been exposed to the elements, bruised and battered, and further still, that the hand he held over his chest was connected to the buck's broken antler.

"You're bleeding!"

He sank to his knees in the snow, lashes freezing as his eyes welled with tears.

"Let me see your face, please. It's been so long."

Libbie tugged up her balaclava, hair tousled and damp, baring her face to the cold.

"The truck is right there— I can help you!"

"It's too late," said Sebastian, the same way their father had when he'd brushed off the treatment that might've saved his life. Just when she thought they'd found common ground again.

"Wh—"

"I missed you so much. I'm sorry for being so selfish." He shook his head and began to cry. "If you go now, you might make it back to the waterfall in time."

Libbie hesitated.

"GO!" he roared, and collapsed.

Libbie took off, booking it back up the road with Elmo sprinting at her heels.

"Sebastian!" she screamed. "Bas!"

Elmo barked along with her as she neared the clearing, with its curtain of fog at the far end, the thundering of her heart in her ears drowning out the rumble of the waterfall beyond.

Libbie dashed into the fog. Two steps later, her foot slipped out from under her. She braced herself to hit the water and instead landed hard, getting the wind knocked out of her.

She slid to the middle of the waterfall's solid, frozen pool.

Libbie gasped, staring dazedly up at the wall of ice cascading over the rock face before her. Elmo yipped, sliding awkwardly into her side, grumbling as he struggled to regain his balance. A gust of wind howled through the space and cleared away the remaining fog, leaving the bright winter day in its place.

"Bas!" She yelled, voice echoing off the ice.

The dog nuzzled under Libbie's arm. Elmo whined behind her. Libbie turned around.

Elmo stared back at her apprehensively. The other dog shivered at her side.

They were nearly identical, save for the grey standing out more starkly against the other one's red fur, making him appear almost green, even in the sunlight. He grumbled and shivered again, coming right in when Libbie held out her hand to him. She got hold of his collar and found the tag.

"Oscar?" she breathed.

The dog sat.