The Rope Flags

The spare fuel can thumped against Nika’s knee as she stood beside her snapping tent on the sea ice. Across the white flat, Sila’s tent sat dark, and that was wrong. Nika and Jonah were supposed to finish the day’s survey along the groaning pressure ridges, the walls of broken ice that rose like frozen waves. But without fuel, Sila could not relight her stove before night, and the wind was already sharpening its teeth.

Nika tightened her mitten around the fuel can. “We can bring this over and still check the last flag,” she said, though the words blew sideways. Jonah squinted into the blowing snow. The safe route markers, little orange flags poked into the ice, appeared and vanished like shy fish. “If the flags disappear, we turn back,” he said. Nika nodded, but her eyes stayed on Sila’s dark tent.

They lashed the can to the sled and dragged it toward the last clear flag. Nika’s boots crunched frost, and the sled hissed behind her. Then the ice gave a long, low pop. Ahead, a fresh crack split open, thin at first, then wider, showing black water that slapped and gulped. Jonah grabbed Nika’s sleeve. “That was not on our map this morning.”

The crack spread between their camp and Sila’s. Nika’s stomach dipped as if she had stepped onto an empty stair. If they went back, Sila would sit in the cold. If they guessed the route, all three camps could be cut off in the dark. Snow swept over the flags until only one orange tip showed, trembling. “There has to be another marker near the ridge,” Nika said.

They moved along the pressure ridge, where blue blocks of ice leaned and groaned. Nika searched the snow for anything human: a boot dent, a flag stick, a scrap of cord. Twice she found only fox tracks, neat as commas. Then Jonah pointed. “Bootprints!” Faint marks curved beside the ridge, half-filled by snow. They followed them carefully, pulling the sled in tiny bumps so the fuel can would not tumble loose.

A red shape flapped from a lump in the snow. Nika dropped to one knee and brushed it free. It was Sila’s lost mitten, tied to a short pole buried almost flat. Under it, a thin cord ran away beneath the snow. “She marked the old route,” Nika said, relief puffing out with her breath. Jonah grinned. “Sila loses a mitten and saves the day. Very stylish.”

The cord led toward firmer ice, but it passed close to the crack. Nika clipped their rope around her waist and gave the other end to Jonah. “Anchor me,” she said. Jonah planted his boots wide and wrapped the rope around the sled handle. Nika lay on her belly, spreading her weight like Jonah had taught her during the survey. Inch by cautious inch, she crawled along the buried marker line, hauling the fuel can behind her on a loop of rope.

The wind shoved snow into her hood. The crack gurgled on her left, dark and busy, but the ice under her chest stayed solid. When the fuel can snagged, Nika reached back and freed it from a crust of frost. “Keep talking!” Jonah called. “I am talking!” Nika yelled. “I am telling this can it is a very stubborn walrus!” At last her mitten hit a flag pole on Sila’s side of the crack.

Sila burst from the dark tent, cheeks pale above her scarf. “Nika? Jonah?” she cried. Nika pushed the can into her arms. Inside, Sila worked fast, and soon the stove caught with a deep whoomp. Orange light filled the tent walls. Heat brushed Nika’s face, and Sila closed her eyes for one quiet second before saying, “You came all this way.”

Outside, the sky had turned the color of a tin cup. Jonah waved from across the crack, still holding the rope. Nika looked at the line stretching back to him. She could pull it all in and hurry home, but the crack would be invisible under new snow. She cut short lengths from their spare rope and tied bright flags to the marker poles, leaving enough line along the dangerous edge for everyone to see. “We’ll travel slower,” she called, “but we’ll know where not to step.”

Sila packed quickly, and the three of them followed the marked path back before night closed in. Jonah walked first, testing the ice. Nika came last, watching the rope flags snap and flutter above the crack like tiny brave hands. Behind them, Sila’s stove glow faded into the snowfall, but not because it had gone out. Ahead, their own tent shone warm and yellow, exactly where the flags led.