Blackberry Winter: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

playing tricks on me.
    The fire I’d lit in the fireplace the night before had long since died out. The air felt cold. Bitter cold.
Poor Daniel, with only a thin quilt to warm him. Was he chilled last night?
I shuddered at the thought of the city’s wealthy—warm and comfortable under millions of down feathers, eating cake at midnight—while my son shivered in his bed in an apartment above a rowdy saloon, alone.
What’s wrong with this world?
I set my purse down and peeled off my snow-covered sweater, dotted with bits of ice that sparkled in the morning light. I walked to the compartment under the stairs and pried open the little door, pulling out my bracelet from its secret hiding spot. Daniel loved running his little fingers along the gold chain. I fastened the clasp, knowing how happy he’d be to see it on my wrist again.
    I suppressed a yawn as I climbed the stairs to Daniel’s room, but my exhaustion was unmatched by the excitement I felt to see my little boy. He’d be giddy about the snow, of course. We’d make snowmen, and then cuddle up together by the fire. I’d get an hour of sleep in the afternoon while he napped. A perfect day.
    I opened the door to his room. “Daniel, Mommy’s home!”
    I knelt down by his little bed and pulled back the quilt, revealing only crumpled sheets. My eyes searched the room, under the bed, behind the door.
Where is he?
“Daniel, are you hiding from Mama, love?”
    Silence.
    I ran to the washroom, and then downstairs to the kitchen. “Daniel!”I screamed. “Daniel, where are you hiding? Come out, right this minute!”
    My heart pounded in my chest with such intensity it muted the sound of the men engaged in a fistfight on the floor below. My eyes scoured every inch of the apartment, and I prayed it was only one of his little jokes. Surely, in a moment, he’d pop out from behind the pantry door and say, “Surprise!” the way he did when we played games together?
    “Daniel?” I called once more, but only my voice echoed back to me in the cold, lonely air.
    I pushed through the apartment door and ran down the stairs. I hadn’t stopped to put on a wrap, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t feel the cold; only terror.
He has to be close by. Maybe he woke and saw the snow and decided to go out to play.
    I ran past the men loitering around the saloon, and out to the street. “Daniel!” I screamed into the cold air, my voice immediately muffled into a hush by the thick layer of snow. “Daniel!” I called out again, this time louder. I might as well have been screaming through a muzzle of cotton balls. A suffocating silence hovered. I looked right, then left.
    “Have you seen my son?” I pleaded with a businessman in an overcoat and top hat. “He’s three, about this tall.” I held my hand to the place on my leg where Daniel’s head hit. “He was wearing blue plaid pajamas. He has a teddy bear with a—”
    The man frowned and pushed past me. “Some mother you are, letting a three-year-old out in
this
weather,” he muttered as he walked away.
    His words stung, but I kept on, running toward another person on the sidewalk. “Ma’am!” I cried to a woman shepherding her young daughter along the sidewalk. Both wore matching wool coatswith smart gray hats. My heart sank.
Daniel doesn’t even have a warm coat. If he’s out in this weather
…I looked directly at the woman, my eyes pleading, mother to mother. “Have you seen a little boy wandering around here, by chance? His name is Daniel.” I barely recognized my own voice. Desperate. High-pitched.
    She eyed me suspiciously. “No,” she said without emotion. “I haven’t.” She pulled her daughter closer as they walked away.
    “Daniel!” I screamed again, this time down an alley, where I sometimes let him play hopscotch or jacks with the other children while I knitted in the afternoon.
No answer.
Then it occurred to me to look for footprints in the snow. His feet were small enough that I could distinguish