Chapter 48

Justine stepped away from the shore and started strolling down the river's breadth. I kept a tight eye on him, as I usually seemed to be doing. Ricky groaned behind me while he scooped up his baggage and started following. Because there's too much snow on the ground to crackle under our feet and stick to our hair, I'm certain his backpack was damp. I'm amazed there's not enough frost on the riverbank, but it presumably happened too quickly for that to develop this slightly earlier during the year. By the month of December, we'd definitely be able to simply stroll over and save ourselves a large amount of time and work. However, the last thing we needed was for one of us to stumble on the frozen ground. We went down the riverside, getting somewhere further and further away from the point where we emerged from the trees, and eventually lost sight of the concealed trail. I'm not sure how we'd locate this spot even if we did find a way over the river, since I