North Child (44 page)

It was an enormous relief to be out of Niflheim, away from that unceasing wind. The sun shone in an icy-blue cloudless sky. The survivors of troll servitude were coming out of their stupor with a dazed sense of wonder; they had the blurry, blank-eyed look of newborn calves. Most had little or no memory of their life in the ice palace and were completely bewildered as to why they were in sleighs travelling through a frozen land.

At night we would upend the sleighs and huddle under them, kindling a small fire for warmth. Because we drove separate sleighs, the white bear and I were never together during the journey. Except once.

One night, after all the people in my sleigh were asleep, I crawled over to the white bear's sleigh. I found him awake, tending the fire.

“What is your name?” I asked abruptly. It didn't seem right to go on calling him white bear.

“I do not know,” he replied with a small twisted smile that did not reach his eyes.

I nodded, not certain what to say. I looked sideways at him, then away. His face was pale and haggard, but it was a good face, a kind face, and I realized I knew nothing about what lay beneath the strained smile.

He had saved my life back in the ice palace. I knew I should thank him, but I couldn't speak. I was overwhelmed by the thought that this man before me – this stranger, really – had no name, no home, no life to return to. He'd told me the last time he had been a person was when he was a boy. He was going to need a world of time to discover his place in the world, I thought. I could not assume, should not assume, that that place would be with me. But I would be lost if it was not.

She looked stricken, almost frightened. Of me? Did she see me as a burden, a great weight on her? I wanted to ask, to say something reassuring, but words were still difficult to find; they formed so slowly in my head.

She had journeyed all this way to find me. Surely…

But she held herself away. And she stared into the glowing embers of the fire, not at me.

Perhaps I would need to find my own way. Perhaps I should. I remembered so little of who I was. Only a boy, unformed.

But I was eager, hungry to live a normal life. To walk on two legs, to play the flauto, to eat with a spoon. Crack an egg with my fingers and cook it in a pan, an omelette with fresh herbs, brown at the edges… Drink a mug of good ale. I was free, after a very, very long time.

And to do these things with her, with Rose.

But, I told myself, I must be prepared to do them alone.

I turned to speak to her, but she was gone, returned to her sleigh.

Once we were out of Niflheim, I thought everything would be all right. But I was wrong.

There was no Malmo to guide us. And spring had come. Which didn't mean green grass and flowers and birdcall, as it did in Njord. It meant meltwater and thin ice and the surface under our sleighs breaking apart.

That didn't happen right away, though, and I was able to lead us back to the frozen sea Malmo and I had crossed. At the edge of the sea was the ice forest in all its deadly beauty, the ice forest where I had faced the other white bear. The cracks in the surface of the ice I had seen before were larger and wider, and the groaning, creaking sounds were louder and more frequent. The sleighs were too heavy and we had to abandon them. The reindeer were eager to go their own way when we set them loose but three, including Vaettur, stayed with us.

As we made our way on foot through the maze of ice towers, fissures would narrow and widen unexpectedly, inches from our feet. It became a nightmarish dance as we darted and swerved and leaped to avoid the freezing water below. No one fell in, but by the time we got through the ice forest, we were all exhausted and wrung out. We encountered no white bears.

Crossing the flat expanse of frozen sea, I tried to remember what Malmo had taught me about melting – that you should pay attention to the puddles on the surface of the ice. Light blue water meant the underlying ice was thick enough to walk on; dark blue meant it was too thin. There were many dark blue pools of water.

But the man who had been a white bear knew how to live in a frozen world, in all its seasons, and he helped us to survive. He showed us how to walk like a white bear – legs spread out wide, sliding our feet quickly, never stopping.

When we reached the other side of the sea, we again came upon ice that was breaking apart. But the white bear led us across the ice floes and we made it safely to shore.

We had been travelling on land for a few days when an ice fog settled around us. At first it was beautiful. The sun was shining, and the sunlight reflected by the ice crystals created a shimmering golden curtain that enfolded us in its brilliance. It reminded me of the golden dress I had made in the castle in the mountain. But then the sun disappeared under clouds, and the golden curtain faded into a dense white fog. We could not see an inch in front of our faces.

We huddled together, thinking to wait it out, but the time stretched on and some grew restless. So we set out, moving slowly, feeling our way forwards. This went on for what seemed days, until I thought I would go mad.

The fog finally lifted, but the sky was still overcast. I had no idea what direction we were heading. One of the women we had taken out of Niflheim slipped and fell, and she did not get up. We did all we could for her, but by the next morning she was dead. We slid her corpse into an ice crevasse and watched silently as it disappeared from sight. Then we resumed our journey, though there was still no sun to guide us. I began to picture us wandering endlessly through a frozen landscape, dying off one by one. The white bear came up beside me.

“We are lost,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I wish I still had the senses of a white bear,” he said. “Then I could lead us.”

I nodded dully. Suddenly I remembered Thor's
leidarstein.
I fumbled in my pack and found the dull brown stone. Scooping up some meltwater in a cup, I rubbed one end of a needle with the
leidarstein
and floated it in the water. Lazily the needle swung back and forth, finally stopping.

“South,” I said, pointing. The white bear nodded, relief in his eyes.

We had been heading due west, so we changed course. Knowing the direction helped, but I had no idea how far off course we had gotten. The slank was long gone and we were all starved and exhausted. There were several among us who were near death, and I didn't know how much longer any of us could keep going.

But we kept struggling on, and then one afternoon, as we crested an icy peak, I looked down and there was the impossible, unforgettable sight of Tatke Fjord. And anchored at the end of it was a ship.

I shall never forget as long as I live the sight of those huddled figures silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky. One of the sailors spotted them at the top of an icy cliff and called out to us below decks. We had just dropped anchor not an hour earlier and were organizing an expedition to go overland in search of Rose.

And there she was.

A party of us went ahead to meet her group as they descended. There looked to be about twenty, as well as three white reindeer, and even at a distance I could see that most of the people were barely able to set one foot in front of the other.

When I got to her I took Rose in my arms and did not want to let go. But then Father came up to us and I finally unloosed my grasp. Tears in his eyes, Father enfolded Rose, saying her name over and over.

When Rose introduced me to her father and brother, she stumbled over the words, for she had no name to use. And I did not remind her that I had already met them before, under very different circumstances.

The ship was a fine one, and I saw how happy Rose's father and brother were to be reunited with her. I did not want to remember that it was I who had taken her away from them.

But it felt good to be warm again; I can't remember the last time I had been truly warm. And the food – good human food that I ate with human fingers and lips and teeth.

I should have been relieved that the journey was done, but I was not. For I did not know what was to become of me.

I have nothing to offer her. I do not even have a name.