to make sure I can live.”

“And that’s exactly why we have to keep this hushed. A first step to chaos, is paranoia. One rash decision can lead to pandemonium. As head of our town, I have to be careful with what I do and don’t do. It’s my duty to protect them from these fears.”

“And here I thought that you were chosen to be fair. Well it isn’t exactly fair to keep everyone in the dark like this, is it?”

“If you were in my position, you’d understand.”

“Don’t worry, I already do. See ya later Doc.”

Without another word, Ritchie did an about-face and padded back into the crowd, leaving Doc to think about the things he had said. The St. Bernard exhaled heavily and looked over the partygoers.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

“No, I can’t believe you.”

“But it’s true! I heard it straight from Grams, and I told Mom too.”

“How could it have happened, Saba? I mean, there had to be someone there that could have stopped it.”

“Dingo, for the last time, I’m telling you exactly what I heard! It chills me to the bone,” Saba countered.

Denali, another sibling pushed into the conversation, “Guys, guys, there’s no point in arguing.”

“Yeah. You two can destroy each other on your own time,” smirked Haida, their brother.

Kodi glared at Haida “Now is no time for joking, and you know that.”

Haida looked at him sheepishly, and everyone turned to Kodi.

“So, what did you want to tell us again?” asked Denali.

Kodi looked around to his siblings and cleared his throat, “Does it seem like anyone’s missing to any of you?”

They all shook their heads after looking around the room.

“Well, if you look carefully, you’ll notice that a certain little purple dog isn’t here.”

“You mean Star? ..Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him at all,” Dingo stated.

“Exactly. He went missing while we were trapped in White Mountain, and we couldn’t stay long enough to find out why. I’m suspecting fowl play.”

Denali scratched under his chin. “Is there anything that seemed suspicious. It’s possible that he went out and lost track of time, but you can never shoot down any possibilities until they are proven true or false.”

“Good point, but there has to be some way to find out.”

“Well Kodi, in all honestly, you aren’t getting anywhere until you get back there,” Saba pointed out.

“There is one thing I noticed though. Our replacement dog, Lilith, seems a little off. I tried asking her about it, but she ignored me. I know it’s not right for me to invade her privacy, but something just doesn’t set right with her.”

“Well maybe she’s nervous that there are people like you that are snooping around. I mean, if you were trying to go through my dirty laundry, I certainly wouldn’t take kindly to that. Maybe even knock you one or two,” Haida smirked and shrugged, “hey, don’t blame me. I gotta try everything at least once.”

“But you could be a little bit pickier in your timing.”

“I could. But I’m not you Denali.”

Saba giggled as she saw her brother roll his eyes from Haida’s comment. She cleared her throat and fell quiet when she realized that no one else was laughing.

“C’mon you guys? Where’s your sense of humor?”

“Out having a party, and I wasn’t invited,” Denali spoke in a monotone voice.

Saba couldn’t help but laugh quietly, “But we have our own party right here, and we should be having a good time.”

“I’m with crazy,” Haida chuckled as he nodded towards Saba.

“You always are,” smiled Dingo.

The siblings started to laugh as they heard a shrill bark. Doc lifted his ear and listened. He stood up in front so everyone could see him and he spoke ecstatically.

“Alright everyone! One minute to go before we can say goodbye to 1927!”

Everyone started to cheer as they anxiously awaited the arrival of the new year. Even the townspeople couldn’t wait. They had all gone through the painstaking trouble of setting their clocks as close as they could to each other’s so they could all exalt in unison.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

A black and white husky with a red ribbon attached to one of her paws wandered around Nome. She hadn’t seen this place in years, and so much had changed. As her paws crunched through the delicate drifts of snow, she suddenly stopped and perked her ears up. She listened intently as she felt her heartbeat increase its rhythm, her breathing quickly following suit. She slowly looked over her shoulder and then righted herself.

“Who’s there?” she called warily.

She was only answered by the ruffling of a flag as a small burst of wind hit it. This silence only furthered her nervousness.

“I’m serious. Tell me who’s there, or I’ll come in after you.”

She crept forward until she was at the open mouth of an alleyway. She scanned her surroundings before bolting down the alley. She stopped halfway down and sidled along a wall, immersing herself in the shadows.

‘I know someone’s following me. I heard there footsteps right behind me. What do they want with me? … Are they going to try and-’ Lilith gulped as she thought about this.

She edged farther and realized that two trashcans were right near her. Her tail stood out straight as an arrow as she thought. Did she dare check the cans for this unknown stranger? She dared. She pushed one of the lids off and flinched when it banged loudly into the other can. Lilith peaked into the can and gave a sigh of relief when she found it empty. But something still didn’t feel right. Her ears and mind did love to play tricks on her after all, so they once more made the sound of a footstep ring in her head. She bit her lip and checked the area, and she still saw no one. She was starting to get agitated by this silent treatment, and she couldn’t take it much longer.

She gritted her teeth and barked. “If you don’t show yourself I’ll just rip you limb from limb!”

Normally by now she would have passed out. But the thing she lacked now was her medicine. Her owners had a bottle of pills that would cause her to become extremely drowsy if she ever fell to one of these episodes. But her owners had been incompetent and had forgotten to transfer these pills to Mr. Simpson, so now her paranoia could reign supreme.

Suddenly, something occurred to her. There was a very, very faint smell. It seemed to emanate from right beneath her, and with her curiosity aroused, she started to carefully dig through the layers of snow. She felt one of her claws catch on something, and brushed away more snow as a familiar face became visible. She gasped and quietly whispered the name of her sister Lucy.

“What happened to you?” she murmured as she looked over her face that had been stained with red.

At first she felt remorse and sadness, but that quickly changed. She gripped the scruff of the dogs neck and growled.

“I can never forgive you for what you did! You betrayed us. You ripped our family to shreds…”

Lilith dropped the body of Lucy back into the snow and covered her up with more snow than had been there previously, maybe leaving a paw or two uncovered, but she really didn’t care anymore.

“Serves you right.”

Her lip curled as she surveyed the site. She was suddenly taken out of her thoughts as shouts were heard and her body froze up.

“Three…”

“Two!”

“ONE! Happy New Year!”

She fled away from the alleyway as noisemakers and other loud sounds echoed around her.

Chapter Five:

Two dogs sat staring up at a piece of paper that was nailed to a telegraph post. The smaller of the two was a light purple and white. She looked very prissy and had a gleaming new collar, and she was less than half the size of her friend. Her friend was a blond color and she had long droopy ears which were tipped with brown. Her name was Sylvia, and the smaller was named Dixie.

“Now this is news to me.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” replied Dixie, “who would have guessed?”

What they were discussing was a poster. It was the third in a succession of posters. The first two had two different huskies. One named Lucy, the other Bruno. But the new addition was a little shocking to them. It was a brown, stocky chow. It was one of the sled dogs. Sylvia read the words under the picture aloud to Dixie.

“Can you find me? Name: Nikki. Breed: Chow. Gender: Male. If found, please contact Jefferson family. He went missing a few days before New Year’s Eve, and we miss him very much. January 8th, 1928.”

“But Sylvia, it’s been a week since the new year.”

Sylvia nodded, “I know, but I wonder how long he’s really been missing. I say we spread the word. But why would they have waited so long to get something this juicy out?”

“What can you expect? They are humans after all,” she smiled.

“True, I almost forgot.”

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Jenna barked excitedly as she tugged on Rosie’s coat. Rosie staggered behind her giggling as she slipped her arm through the other sleeve of her coat and swung around the whicker basket in her little hands.

“I’m coming Jenna, I’m coming!” she said gleefully.

Tom and Nancy watched their daughter open the door and disappear as they smiled after her. Tom sidled up to Nancy and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Well, the dog and kid are out. Is there anything, specific, you’d like to do?” he asked.

She smirked and rested her head on his shoulder. “You bet.” She then spun around. “I’ll get the deck of cards!”

Tom paused for a moment. “.. And I call the chess board!” he said excitedly.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Rosie sang merrily as Jenna triumphantly led her to the outskirts of town. Jenna started to quicken her pace as the familiar derelict boat appeared in the distance, and Rosie found it harder to keep up with her. She looked up into the clear blue sky and saw the sun shining down on them in a brilliant glory, making every drift of snow they passed look like small mountains of sparkling diamonds. By the time she walked up the plank to the deck of the boat, she was already

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