She fell, tumbling in a long disused runnel. Ivan helped her up, wind whipping the flaps of his coat. “I can’t feel my feet anymore,” she said, teeth chattering. He pulled her close. Shouted above the wind: “There are some trees. It is not far. Look. Under the hill. We will stop in there.” He helped her through the drifts and grabbed at branches in the hedgerow on the other side of the track, pulling her across a shallow-ditched verge. A dark woodland spiked far off against the white. On they crept, strength fading, cheeks stinging with cold. The hard boots of the boy from the park rubbed at her frozen, blistered feet. Would Ivan never let her rest? They stopped at last in the fringes of the wood, floundered under the lee of the trees, branches whipping ominously above. Magda pulled the matches from her pocket, barely able to feel her fingers. “We must light a fire. I don’t care who sees it.” “Not yet,” he said, taking the matches gently from her hand. “Please. I can’t go any further.”
