Outside, the sky cracked open with a flicker of sheet lightning far out on the open sea. The rumble came seconds later, low and slow, like the earth exhaling. Snow began to fall—not heavily, but in dry, sharp flakes that danced across the deck and melted on impact.
Then the bear stopped. She circled a pressure ridge at the edge of a cluster of broken ice. Her movements became frantic—she dove, surfaced, swam in a tight loop, then climbed awkwardly onto the jagged edge of a floating slab.