Wintermoon Ice (2010) by Suzanne Francis Page A

room. Tessa had gone out the window.
    She tore through the night, holding the long gown around her knees, wondering how long it would be before they caught up to her. She passed Joe Romine's house, dark and shuttered. The Captain had told her last week about a three-day fishing trip. She passed Ellie Rayne's snug little cottage, with its hanging geranium pots, thinking she could not involve an eighty-year-old woman in this unreasoning terror.
    There was only one person who could help her now.
    A dark menacing shape stepped on to the path ahead of her. Perhaps they had also known that she would run straight to Jakob Faircrow.
    She swerved onto a side path, covered in loose shingle that bruised her bare feet. The Poly behind her picked up speed, gaining ground with every step. Tessa tried to remember the lay of the land before her. The path led to a rickety jetty, hardly strong enough to take her weight. Once she stepped upon it, she would be at their mercy, with nowhere else to run.
    She wondered, desperately, how much a Poly weighed.
    By the time she reached the jetty, both of them were right behind her. She backed onto the rotten boards. "No! Leave me alone. Go back to wherever you came from. Please."
    They stepped onto the planks with their arms outstretched, like smartly dressed zombies. Tessa breathed an encouragement. "Come on..."
    When the first board broke, one of the Polys dropped straight down, landing in the water below. Its head and shoulders stuck incongruously out of the splintered hole. The second did not falter -- did not even look at its companion. The rotten boards gave way under it just as Tessa dived off the end of the pier. The cold hit her hard, like a slap in the face.
    She swam and swam under water, until her lungs screamed for air, trying to put whatever distance she could between her and them. The darkness under the surface was impenetrable, so Tessa surfaced, treading water until she got her bearings. She had swum a fair way into the bay, but she could see two dark figures on the shore, standing still, standing silent. They had only to wait -- the coldness of the water would freeze her bones and bring her back to them.
    Already her teeth chattered madly.
    She dog-paddled, parallel to the shore, and they strolled along beside her on the beach, just as if it were a Sunday afternoon outing. The boathouse loomed ahead of them, the ramp a dark angle in the water.
    "Jakob!" Tessa screamed and waved her arms madly. "Jakob, help me!"
    She waited breathlessly in the water for a light to come on -- for the door to open -- for him to come charging to her rescue -- but nothing like that happened. Nothing happened at all.
    Tessa took several loading breaths and dived again. She swam underwater, trying to make a beeline for the boat ramp, thinking she might be able to hide beneath it. When a dark shape filled her vision she thought at first one of the Polys had come into the water. She swerved violently, but it was only one of the barnacled piers of the boathouse. Tessa dragged herself underneath, hoping there would be some headspace when she broke the surface.
    There was something even better. A ladder.
    She clambered up the slick and rusty rungs, praying the trapdoor above would open for her. Once she reached the door she pushed hard, but it did not move. Something ice cold brushed against her leg, brushed and then caught hold -- a hand, as white as marble and just as hard. It had her ankle, and slowly, inexorably, it began to drag her back into the water.
    Tessa could not even scream.
    She wrapped her elbow around the ladder and held on to her wrist with her other hand. The downwards pressure grew, until it felt as though her elbow or hip must dislocate. She gritted her teeth, threw all her strength into holding on, but slowly, so slowly, her numbed fingers began to slip.
    The trapdoor above her head flew open, and she just knew the other Poly would be behind it. He would grab her head, and they would pull her