We sprang into action. Mom hurried to grab the sled and some shovels, and we all bundled up against the cold. With our snowshoes strapped to our feet, we rushed outside to help any way we could.

With the snow as deep as our porch is high, it wasn't so much jumping down from the porch as it was running out from the porch as we hurried up to where the road should be, then across the clearing to the small collection of houses nearby. At first, I could find nothing wrong. The Jackson house looked fine…

Then I saw the Stephens' house—or, at least where it used to be. All that remained of their house was a pile of rubble. Towards the back, I saw one room still standing, probably the bedroom the previous owners had added before selling the house to the Stephens'. Next to the house was a downed light pole, which explained the power outage. The collapsing house had probably knocked it over.

"Susan! Where are you? John!" Mom called out.

"Mrs. Stephens! Cindy! Are you guys alright?" I paused a second, waiting for a reply. Nothing.

"They probably had gathered in the living room like we are," Mom said. "That's around back." We followed her around to the rear of the house, opposite the still-standing bedroom.

"Here," Mom pointed.

"Alright," Machaela decided. "Let's split up. Jesse, you and Mom take that side. We'll take this side and meet in the middle. It looks like we may be the only ones able to look. Everyone else is snowed in."

I glanced around while making my way to the other side of the living area. Machaela was right. Everyone else was snowed into their house. Their front door couldn't open due to snow, and crawling out the window would be pretty dangerous. We had different priorities for now, though.

Reaching the edge of the living area, I started picking my way through the debris looking for any sign. Lifting wood, moving shingles, digging through drywall, I could find no sign of our neighbors and, with the storm still raging, I couldn't even listen to try to hear them.

"I found something!"

I hurried over to where Machaela was holding up a chunk of roof. Beneath the roof was an air pocket clear of debris. I helped her lift the materials higher and looked deeper into the pocket. Finally, I saw what she'd seen. Jesse came over and helped Machaela hold up the heavy debris, and I crawled under it.

I quickly noticed how much quieter it was under the debris. The storm couldn't penetrate this deep, but below the level of the snow, it quickly got too dark to see. I called up a tyet for light and continued deeper into what used to be a house. A couple yards back, I found a shoe. Making my way further, the shoe connected to Mrs. Stephens. At first, I thought she was unconscious, but she responded to my light. I pushed off the debris covering her and helped her turn around to crawl out.

"Are you injured?" I asked her.

"I don't think so. I just couldn't find my way out."

"Good," I replied. "Was your husband and daughter with you?"

Her eyes got big, realizing we hadn't found them yet. "John was next to me. He should be close by, but Cindy had gone to the bathroom. She could be anywhere." She started getting anxious, especially for her twelve-year-old daughter, which was understandable, but I reassured her and sent her the way I came.

"When you get out there, tell them I'm going deeper." She nodded and started picking her way toward the outside light while I went deeper.

The pocket I'd found Mrs. Stephens in only went a few more feet before a large support beam blocked my path. Disappointed, I turned to go back, but noticed a small gap over the beam. I could at least look past.

I crawled up to it and held my glowing tyet next to the gap. "Mr. Stephens!" I called when I didn't see anyone. "Are you in there?" I listened a moment. Hearing nothing, I tried again. "Mr. Stephens, can you hear me?"

Still hearing nothing, I turned to leave but froze when I thought I heard something. It came again, faintly. "Here!"

I hurried back to the gap above the beam. "Call out again! Lead me to you!"

"Here!" I heard again, louder this time. I managed to trace it to a pile of rubble about ten feet past the beam. "We're coming!" I promised.

Unable to get over or under the large beam, I backed up a bit, then started looking for thin places in the pile above me. It took several minutes, but, after turning off my "light," I finally found a spot where the debris was thinnest.

I stuck my arm through the hole, trying to catch everyone's attention, but my arm wouldn't reach far enough. Looking around, I attempted to find something to shove up through the small hole, but the hole was too small. I resorted to magic, casting an easy spell that simply shot up a flare.

A second later, I felt the rubble shift as Machaela and Jesse dropped the piece of roof, then shake as they ran toward me.

A shadow fell over the small hole above me. "Are you alright?" Mom asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I called back. "I found Mr. Stephens, but I can't get to him. There's a large support beam in the way. If my sense of direction is right, he's a few steps east of my position." Footsteps moved toward Mr. Stephens. "Yes! That way."

The footsteps faded into the storm towards Mr. Stephens, while above me, pieces of debris started moving around. Soon enough, there was room enough for me to crawl out. Above, I found Jesse waiting for me. Susan Stephens, Mom, and Machaela were several steps to my left moving debris around.

Closing my eyes, I pulled up a mental picture of the area past the beam, then I started moving, voicing my thoughts aloud as I went. "Let's see, the beam should be about here, and he was…this way about…10 steps." I walked to my best guess of where his voice had been. "Over here, guys!"

At my call, they moved over a bit and we all started moving rubble around. Finally, we found him and helped him limp out of the remains of his home.

His wife, who had been searching a few feet away, rushed over to tackle him in a hug. She quickly had to help him stay upright, though, as he had a growing knot on the back of his head. Machaela ran over to help, but he wasn't focused on his pounding head.

"Where's Cindy?"

"Are you hurt anywhere besides your head?" Machaela asked, trying to start treating him, but he would none of it.

"Don't worry about me!" He planted his feet firmly and stopped leaning on his wife. "We have to find my daughter."

Machaela looked over at Jesse and me, hoping we'd help. I studied Mr. Stephens a moment, then shrugged my shoulders at my sister. If he was able to stand and walk without hurting himself further, I saw no reason to focus on him immediately.

Seeing no help from us, Machaela gave in. "Ok, but if you start feeling lightheaded, go sit down. Deal?"

He gave a hesitant nod, and I changed the subject. "Assuming we're at the living room, where's the bathroom and how would Cindy have gotten there?"

Both of them looked around a moment, getting their bearings in the house, then started moving, however slowly. "The entrance to the hallway would have been about here," Mrs. Stephens gestured to a spot about twenty feet from where we'd found Mr. Stephens, "and the bathroom was the first door on the left. She could be anywhere from here to that large beam sticking up." She pointed to an enormous support beam that protruded from the rubble about fifteen feet away. "The bathroom was about eight feet square."

"Ok," I said, trying to picture what it would have looked like still standing. "How long was she gone? Is she more likely to be in the bathroom or the hallway?"

"She was gone several minutes. She could have been on her way back."

I nodded, doing mental calculations. A quick glance at Jesse showed he'd come to the same conclusion and I spoke up. "Jesse, you and I will search the bathroom. Everyone else, start on each end of the hallway and meet in the middle. We'll cover the ground quickest that way."

Mr. and Mrs. Stephens stayed on the living room side of the hallway, while Mom and Machaela followed Jesse and me to the opposite side. As we came to the other side, Machaela noted something that made me pray Cindy had been in the bathroom. "I'm not feeling any air pockets," she muttered. "If she's in the hallway, she's going to be well buried."

Knowing she maybe be injured, plus the extreme cold, we quickly started digging, but without knowing where she was in the house we had no idea exactly where to look. For a child of Athena who likes to plan, this made the search extremely taxing. I had to keep reminding myself to quit analyzing and just keep searching.

When the house had collapsed, many of the pipes had burst, of course, but those same pipes were now visible, giving us an outline of where the bathroom had been. Thinking she might have tried to take shelter, Jesse started uncovering the bathtub, while I searched the other side of the room. Occasionally we called to the others asking if they'd found anything, but the answer was always negative.

This part of the house had quite a bit more debris than the living room, as here there was an upstairs above it, and we had to dig down to the first floor's rubble, at the bottom. Finally, I started finding pieces of tile, and knew I was getting close.

Underneath the rubble, I found a hard, slightly cracked surface. Bummed and thinking I'd simply found an empty floor, I turned to search elsewhere. Then I happened to glanced at the supposed "floor" again. No floor is slightly concave with a hole in the middle!

I started clearing the rubble around the smooth surface, which I figured must be the sink. Soon enough, I could get a hand under it. I squeezed my hand underneath the lip of the sink, trying to pry it up. I got more than I bargained for, though. I nearly jumped out of my skin when another hand grabbed mine!

Getting over the unexpected contact, I called out for help. Jesse ran over at my call and helped me clear all the way around the sink. The others, having heard me call out, came running as well. They had quite a bit of rubble to cover, and Jesse and I had cleared the area well before they got there. We lifted up the heavy sink, and Mr. and Mrs. Stephens about tackled their daughter in the joy of finding her.

"Can't breathe!" she protested right after letting out a pained yelp. Her parents quickly loosened their grip, and Machaela stepped up to see if she was hurt.

Cindy was holding her arm, which I could see through her sweater was starting to swell a bit.

While Machaela checked her to see what was wrong, I surveyed what remained of their house. Making my way over to the one standing room, I pushed the door open to find a small bedroom, not much bigger than a large walk-in closet. They wouldn't be able to live there. For one thing, there's no way it would stay warm.

I looked over to find Mom watching me, knowing what I'm doing. I shook my head. The Stephens couldn't live here. She looked to her feet, thinking a moment, before making up her mind.

She looked back to the little family to find them studying their house as well, and starting to shiver from the cold. Machaela was using a compression bandage to soft-splint Cindy's arm until we could get to a first-aid kit. "Come on," Mom told them. "Let's get you warmed up."

We started picking our way back to the house. They'd be staying with us for a while.

I stayed near the back, keeping watch, and Cindy ended up stumbling along next to me. Small for her age and without snowshoes, she was having a difficult time walking through the snow, especially as she was holding her bad arm close to her body, trying to avoid jarring it.

We still had quite a ways through deep snow to get back, so I led her a bit off the path to where a large rock should be under the snow.

"Step up," I told her. "There should be a large rock here." She found it easily enough and crawled on, wondering what I was doing, but grateful for the short reprieve from the deep snow.

As she climbed up, I pulled off my outer coat and put it on her.

"Thank you." She pulled the coat tightly around her, glad for the warmth.

Standing on the rock put her just under the height of the snow, about four feet off the ground. Knowing she'd just get cold again trudging her way through the snow, I turned around.

"Climb on. I think my shoes can handle both our weights."

I was itching to know what had happened inside that house and how she'd gotten hurt when she was under the sink, but knew she wouldn't want to open up to me quite yet. The five-year age gap meant I really only knew her as a neighbor, daughter of my mom's friend, plus it had to have been scary. I might ask her later if she was willing to talk about it.

She crawled onto my back for a piggyback ride, and I started walking to catch up with the others. After experimenting a bit to make sure I could trust my shoes, I spoke up.

"Hey, Cindy?"

"Yeah?"

"Hang on tighter."

She shifted a little to grab tighter as she asked, "Why?"

Instead of answering, I took off trotting across the snow, slow at first, then faster when I knew she was enjoying it.

We passed the others with a whoop and a cloud of snow as both her parent jerked to look, then smiled when they saw us.

I galloped down the driveway, dropping her onto the porch and turning around to find a large smile on her face.

"That was awesome!"

I chuckled, "Good," I replied, still smiling. "How about we finish wrapping your arm, then make some hot chocolate for everyone?"

She nodded, and I led her inside.

I sat her down on the table then grabbed our first aid kit from the closet. Running out to the back porch, I grabbed two twigs from the tree next to the house, then went back inside. I used the twigs as a splint, and wrapped another layer of bandages around her arm. The first layer would keep her from getting splinters; the second would hold the sticks in place, keeping her arm straight. I didn't know for sure it was broken, but with how painful it was for her, better safe than sorry.

Once I'd wrapped her arm and make shifted a sling, I banked the fire and started heating water atop the metal fireplace. The others made it just as the water was starting to boil. We all grabbed a cup and some chocolate mix, then gathered around the fire as the sun set outside.

Is anyone still reading this? nobody reviewed the last chapter. anyway, let me know what you think :D