Chapter 14
The road ended abruptly where the bluffs rose up almost vertically. It certainly looked like a dead end to me. But somewhere under that untouched snow there must be a path, because my grandmother just kept walking.
It was too strenuous a climb for talking, even if there hadn't also been all that snow and ice to deal with. I still wasn't sure if we were following a path or if my grandmother was forging her own trail. I just followed a pace or two behind her, putting my boots in the marks left by her own feet.
We climbed the slope at an angle, but the switchback I was expecting never came. I looked down to my right and I could see the roof of Tuukka's farmhouse and, beyond it, Neil's.
Then I looked up past my grandmother. When I had realized we weren't climbing in a zig-zag up
