I walk down to where Cordelia stands by the railing, the snow not crunching but giving way under my feet like cotton wool packing. It sounds like a cavity being filled, in a tooth, inside my head. Usually I’m afraid to go so near the edge of the bridge, but this time I’m not. I don’t feel anything as positive as fear.
“There’s your stupid hat,” says Cordelia; and there it is, far down, still blue against the white snow, even in the dimming light. “Why don’t you go down and get it?”
I look at her. She wants me to go down into the ravine where the bad men are, where we’re never supposed to go. It occurs to me that I may not. What will she do then?
I can see this idea gathering in Cordelia as well. Maybe she’s gone too far, hit, finally, some core of resistance in me. If I refuse to do what she says this time, who knows where my defiance will end? The two others have come down the hill and are watching, safely in the middle of the bridge.
“Go on then,” she says, more gently, as if she’s encouraging me, not ordering. “Then you’ll be forgiven.”
I don’t want to go down there. It’s forbidden and dangerous; also it’s dark and the hillside will be slippery, I might have trouble climbing up again. But there is my hat. If I go home without it, I’ll have to explain, I’ll have to tell. And if I refuse to go, what will Cordelia do next? She might get angry, she might never speak to me again. She might push me off the bridge. She’s never done anything like that before, never hit or pinched, but now that she’s thrown my hat over there’s no telling what she might do. I walk along to the end of the bridge. “When you’ve got it, count to a hundred,” says Cordelia. “Before coming up.” She doesn’t sound angry any more. She sounds like someone giving instructions for a game. I start down the steep hillside, holding on to branches and tree trunks. The path isn’t even a real path, it’s just a place worn by whoever goes up and down here: boys, men. Not girls. When I’m among the bare trees at the bottom I look up. The bridge railings are silhouetted against the sky. I can see the dark outlines of three heads, watching me.
My blue hat is out on the ice of the creek. I stand in the snow, looking at it. Cordelia is right, it’s a stupid hat. I look at it and feel resentment, because this stupid-looking hat is mine, and deserving of ridicule. I don’t want to wear it ever again.
I can hear water running somewhere, down under the ice. I step out onto the creek, reach for the hat, pick it up, go through. I’m up to my waist in the creek, slabs of broken ice upended around me. Cold shoots through me. My overshoes are filling, and the shoes inside them; water drenches my snowpants. Probably I’ve screamed, or some noise has come out of me, but I can’t remember hearing anything. I clutch the hat and look up at the bridge. Nobody is there. They must have walked away, run away. That’s why the counting to a hundred: so they could run away.
I try to move my feet. They’re very heavy, because of the water inside my boots. If I wanted to I could just keep standing here. It’s true dusk now and the snow on the ground is bluish-white. The old tires and pieces of rusted junk in the creek are covered over; all around me are blue arches, blue caves, pure and silent. The water of the creek is cold and peaceful, it comes straight from the cemetery, from the graves and their bones. It’s water made from the dead people, dissolved and clear, and I am standing in it. If I don’t move soon I will be frozen in the creek. I will be a dead person, peaceful and clear, like them. I flounder through the water, the edges of the ice breaking off as I step. Walking with waterlogged overshoes is hard; I could slip, and fall all the way in. I grab a tree branch and haul myself up onto the bank and sit down in the blue snow and take off my overshoes and pour out the water. The arms of my jacket are wet to the elbows, my mittens are soaked. Now there are knives going through my legs and hands, and tears running down my face from the pain.
I can see lights along the edges of the ravine, from the houses there, impossibly high up. I don’t know how I’m going to up the hill with my hands and feet hurting like this; I don’t know how I’m going to get home.